Geneticists and linguists trace the ancestors of the Mapuche people

A study traced the origins of the Mapuche people to other areas of the continent, especially linked to the central Andes and the extreme south of the country.

Although much of their history has been spent in isolation from other indigenous peoples, the analysis allows shed light on their ancestors and how they came to be formed as a culture, according to the study published in the journal Current Biology.

All this is part of the conclusions of an international team -led by the University of Zurich (UZH), in collaboration with the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology- that studied the genetic ancestry of the Mapuches in concert with linguistic, archaeological and historical data.

South America was the last continent to be colonized by humans. The first migrants moved rapidly from North America to South America at the end of the Pleistocene, about 15,000 years ago, as attested by the first traces of human presence in what is now the south-central part of the country.

Human migrations brought multiple ancestry streams, but how they interacted and the exact routes they took are not well resolved. A new international study sheds light on those missing links, beginning by contextualizing current indigenous ancestries and highlighting the depth of their pre-Hispanic roots in the Americas.

“We compared the genetic profile of the participants of Mapuche ancestry with data from many other populations in the Americas, including ancient DNA from archaeological excavations,” says Epifanía Arango-Isaza, a UZH doctoral student who conducted the study.

The genetic ancestry of the Mapuche people is typical of the Southern Cone, which until now has been underrepresented in genetic and historical studies. Other important genetic ancestries in South America include one found mainly in the central Andes and another mainly in the Amazon.

“The ancestors of the Mapuche separated from the inhabitants of the extreme south more than 4,000 years ago and did not encounter later migratory streams from the north that reached the central Andes and parts of the Amazon,” says the first author.

The Andes form the longest mountain range in the world. European ethnographers once tended to conceive of the Andes as a homogeneous and interrelated cultural unit. However, past relationships between populations in the Andes now appear more nuanced.

Chiara Barbieri, lead author of the study at UZH, explains that “we see that the distinctive Mapuche lineages originated locally and have remained in relative isolation. This general isolation is interrupted by episodes of contact with other South American populations during the last millennium or so.

Paul Heggarty, a linguist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology during this study, adds: "The main genetic link is to the central Andes, reflecting how domesticated crops like the potato also spread south, just like a handful of borrowings from Quechua to Mapudungun, the language of the Mapuche”. This contact may date back to before contact with the Inca Empire.

Other specific connections point south, to the southern tip of the Andes.

“We found that different Mapuche territorial identities - Pehuenche from the Andes, Lafkenche from the coast, and Huilliche from the island of Chiloé - are related to each other, but the Huilliche still have traces of genetic contact with the extreme south. This may be a genetic structure signature originating from other groups known as the Chono, who once inhabited Chiloé," explains Kentaro Shimizu, professor of genetics and director of the "Priority Program for University Research in Evolution in Action" at UZH.

The study was developed through direct exchange with the participants. “Traditional stories and tales relate a deep legacy of the Mapuche culture in the region. Our work has value for the participants in how they feel represented”, says María José Aninao, Mapuche linguist and co-author of the study.