The Genetic History of Indigenous Populations of the Peruvian and Bolivian Altiplano: The Legacy of the Uros

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.

Genetic Diversity of a Late Prehispanic Group of the Quebrada de Humahuaca, Northwestern Argentina

“…Haplotype 3 has been observed in an individual from the Bolivian Andean foothills, in the Beni province (Tirado et al, 2009). Haplotype 4 has been observed in one Toba from the Argentinean Chaco (Toscanini et al, 2008), one Andean Kichwa from Ecuador (GonzalezAndrade et al, 2009), and four Andean Uros from Peru (Sandoval et al, 2013). Finally, haplotype 9 was identical to Table 2 MtDNA haplotypes and haplogroups inferred for each sample.…”

“…This mutation is widely distributed within Andean populations like the Aymara and the communities of the Atacama region (Fuselli et al, 2003;Bert et al, 2004;Alvarez-Iglesias et al, 2007;Afonso Costa et al, 2010;Barbieri et al, 2011;de Saint Pierre et al, 2012). Moreover, considering the Ychromosomal data, the ancient group of Humahuaca and the extant Andean Uros (Sandoval et al, 2013) are genetically highly related. While affinities are detected with current Andean groups, the mitochondrial DNA results suggest that the ancient group studied is genetically differentiated from all ancient Andean groups (Shimada et al, 2004;Moraga et al, 2005;Shinoda et al, 2006;Kemp et al, 2009;Carnese et al, 2010;Fehren-Schmitz et al, 2010a, 2010bCasas-Vargas et al, 2011).…”

Mitochondrial variation among the aymara and the signatures of population expansion in the central Andes

“…Five out of 16 (31.3%) intensive agricultural-ists rejected the spatial expansion model, but only two (11.8%), the Aymara Puno 2 and lowland Bolivia Quechua samples, rejected the demographic expansion model. Today, the Aymara Puno 2 are Aymara speakers, but were speakers of the now extinct Uro language and are a genetically distinct group from surrounding Aymara and Quechua speakers (Barbieri et al, 2011; Sandoval et al, 2013). …”

Genetic ancestry of families of putative Inka descent

“…Sequencing was performed as described (Sandoval et al 2013b) using ABI 3130XL Genetic Analyzer (ABI) and Big Dye Terminator v.3.1. DNA sequences were aligned using SeqScape 2.6 (Applied Biosystems), and major haplogroups were assigned using MitoTool (Fan and Yao 2011) or haplogroup prediction tool from the Genographic Project (Behar et al 2007).…”