A team of Italian and Peruvian researchers, coordinated by the Department of Environmental Biology, analysed the dental morphology of a sample of 1591 individuals from 66 sites in Bolivia, Chile and Peru, dating back to the Archaic and Late Intermediate period (between 1000 AD and 1450 AD) to try to understand the complex history of the populations that lived in these areas before the arrival of Christopher Columbus.

The results of the study, published in the journal PLoS One, identified the dynamics and biological links between different human groups and suggested that the population of the geographic area analysed was influenced by two important factors: the stable presence of a population and cultural change due to population movements.

"What has been observed is in line with information obtained from other studies," says Alfredo Coppa of the Department of Environmental Biology, "namely that geographic proximity, as well as geographic barriers, can shape people and their genetic characteristics, especially if we examine the moments before the emergence of large-scale population movements and the rise of political forces or states able to exert control over large areas. However, the need for an analysis that takes into account not only the area in its entirety but also the different micro-regional realities also becomes evident."

The study was funded under the PRIN 2017 project of the Ministry of Education of University and Research "A multi-species genomic approach to assess pre- and post-Columbian population dynamics in South America" and the Horizon 2020 ARIADNE plus project.

References:

Population dynamics in pre-Inca human groups from the Osmore Valley, the Azapa Valley and the coast of the South Central Andes – Alfredo Coppa, Francesca Candilio, Claudia Arganini, Edmundo de la Vega Machicao, Edmundo G. Moreno Terrazas, Michaela Lucci, Andrea Cucina – PLoS One, 2020. DOI https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0229370

Further Information

Alfredo Coppa
Department of Environmental Biology 
alfredo.coppa@uniroma1.it