Ancient remains in Colombia have DNA hashem.alghaili unlike any modern or ancient population…
It’s a lost human lineage.
A newly published genetic study has uncovered a long-lost human population in Colombia that seemingly vanished from the genetic record.
The remains, dating back 6,000 years, were analyzed by an international team of researchers who found that these individuals shared no direct DNA links with either ancient or modern Indigenous South American populations.
Despite settling in the Bogotá Altiplano and transitioning from hunting to farming over millennia, their lineage doesn’t appear in any known genetic pathways. Instead, the closest connection was with modern speakers of Chibchan languages from Central America, such as Panama and Honduras-hinting at a possible cultural or migratory link that has since been obscured by time.
Published in Science Advances, the study highlights how little is still known about the early peopling of the Americas, especially in the critical land-bridge region between North and South America.
Researchers studied mitochondrial and genome-wide DNA from 21 ancient individuals and found clear signs that while these people may have influenced later populations, they left behind no genetically continuous line. Whether their genes were eventually diluted through intermixing or they simply died out remains unknown. The team calls for more genomic studies across neighboring regions like Ecuador, Venezuela, and western Colombia to fill in the massive gaps surrounding who these people were-and why no one today carries their DNA.
paper
Science Advances (2025), “Genomic Insights Into Early Human Populations in the Isthmo-Colombian Region” by researchers from institutions in Europe and South America.