Abstract
The Altiplano region of the South American Andes is marked by an inhospitable climate to which the autochthonous human populations adapted and then developed great ancient civilizations, such as the Tiwanaku culture and the Inca Empire. Since pre-Columbian times, different rulers established themselves around the Titicaca and Poopo Lakes. By the time of the arrival of Spaniards, Aymara and Quechua languages were predominant on the Altiplano under the rule of the Incas, although the occurrence of other spoken languages, such as Puquina and Uruquilla, suggests the existence of different ethnic groups in this region. In this study, we focused on the pre-Columbian history of the autochthonous Altiplano populations, particularly the Uros ethnic group, which claims to directly descend from the first settlers of the Andes, and some linguists suggest they might otherwise be related to Arawak speaking groups from the Amazon. Using phylogeographic, population structure and spatial genetic analyses of Y-chromosome and mtDNA data, we inferred the genetic relationships among Uros populations (Los Uros from Peru, Uru-Chipaya and Uru-Poopo from Bolivia), and compared their haplotype profiles with eight Aymara, nine Quechua and two Arawak (Machiguenga and Yanesha) speaking populations from Peru and Bolivia. Our results indicated that Uros populations stand out among the Altiplano populations, while appearing more closely related to the Aymara and Quechua from Lake Titicaca and surrounding regions than to the Amazon Arawaks. Moreover, the Uros populations from Peru and Bolivia are genetically differentiated from each other, indicating a high heterogeneity in this ethnic group. Finally, our results support the distinctive ancestry for the Uros populations of Peru and Bolivia, which are likely derived from ancient Andean lineages that were partially replaced during more recent farming expansion events and the establishment of complex civilizations in the Andes.
Highlights
Since pre-Columbian times, the inhabitants of the Altiplano region in the South American Andes have been engaged in agriculture, raising livestock and fishing
We investigated three major questions: (i) Do the Uros from Bolivia and Peru share a recent common ancestry, or do they descend from distinct ancestors? (ii) How do the Uros relate to the neighboring Aymara and Quechua, and other populations from the Altiplano? and (iii) Do the Uros present any evidence of having close genetic kinship to Amazonian native communities of the Arawak family?
Other haplotypes appearing in this cluster were H3 and H4, which are closely related to the Uros haplotypes (H1, H2), and occurred in individuals from Santa Ana (StA), an Aymara community at the shores of Titicaca Lake, near the floating islands of Los Uros
Summary
Since pre-Columbian times, the inhabitants of the Altiplano region in the South American Andes (between southern Peru, western Bolivia, and northern Chile and Argentina) have been engaged in agriculture, raising livestock and fishing. Other ethnic groups speaking unrelated languages such as Puquina and Uruquilla were living around the Titicaca, Coipasa, and Poopo lake basins [6,7,8,9,10]. These languages gradually vanished during Spanish colonization, when Quechua and Aymara were imposed to facilitate administrative and evangelizing activities [3,5]. Most residents of the Altiplano speak Aymara (Jaqi-aru) and Quechua (Runa simi), ‘‘sister’’ languages of the Andean family that share about 20% of their vocabulary [5]
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