Pre- and Post-Columbian Gene and Cultural Continuity: The Case of the <i>Gaucho</i> from Southern Brazil

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the evolutionary and demographic history of the Gaucho, a distinct population of southern Brazil, relating it to their culture, to assess possible parallel continuity. Methods: Six binary polymorphisms, an Alu insertion polymorphism (YAP) and 12 short tandem repeat loci in the non-recombining region of the Y-chromosome, as well as the sequence of the first hypervariable segment (HVS-I) of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region were studied in 150 unrelated males born in the Pampa region of Rio Grande do Sul. Results: Comparison of the results with the other Brazilian and Uruguayan populations, as well as with their putative ancestors, indicated a stronger male Spanish influence than that observed elsewhere in Brazil, a former Portuguese colony. Extensive mtDNA analyses of their Amerindian component gave clear indications of the presence there of material from extinct (Charrua), as well as extant (Guarani) tribes. Conclusions: The genetic analyses contributed in a significant way to reveal that the known cultural continuity between pre- and post-Columbian Pampa populations was also accompanied by an extraordinary genetic continuity.

How Genes Have Illuminated the History of Early Americans and Latino Americans

“…Similar observations have now been made in many Latin American countries (Alves-Silva et al 2000;Green et al 2000;Carvalho-Silva et al 2001;Marrero et al 2007), although with a considerable variation in ancestry proportions between them (Fig. 5).…”

Assessing interethnic admixture using an X‐linked insertion‐deletion multiplex

“…This is in accordance with a sex-biased matting pattern reported for Latin American admixed populations (e.g., Marrero et al, 2007;Price et al, 2007). Our results are in agreement with those obtained by Wang et al (2008), in populations from Latin America, where Native American and African contributions were always higher for X-chromosome than for autosomes.…”

The Genetic Diversity of the Americas

“…A dramatic early example of this approach was provided by the population of Antioquia in Colombia, where ~90% of Y chromosome lineages are of European origin, whereas ~90% of mtDNA lineages are Native American, indicating that the foundation of the population from this province overwhelmingly involved European men and native women, although this is not specifically recorded in historical documents (12,25,26). Similar analyses of other Ibero-American populations have often documented paternal lineages as mainly European, whereas maternal lineages are predominantly Native American or African (3,7,28,41,55,60,88). Y chromosome and mtDNA analyses have more recently been enriched by the use of X chromosome and autosomal data showing that the proportion of European ancestry estimated for the X chromosome is lower than that for the autosomes, as expected from the fact that women contribute two X chromosomes to the next generation, whereas men only contribute one (12,108).…”