title: Two ancient human genomes reveal Polynesian ancestry among the indigenous Botocudos of Brazil.
abstract: Understanding the peopling of the Americas remains an important and challenging question. Here, we present (14)C dates, and morphological, isotopic and genomic sequence data from two human skulls from the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, part of one of the indigenous groups known as 'Botocudos'. We find that their genomic ancestry is Polynesian, with no detectable Native American component. Radiocarbon analysis of the skulls shows that the individuals had died prior to the beginning of the 19th century. Our findings could either represent genomic evidence of Polynesians reaching South America during their Pacific expansion, or European-mediated transport.
authors.affiliation: Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, Øster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark.
authors.forename: Anna-Sapfo
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Malaspinas
authors.affiliation: Department of Forensic Molecular Biology, Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam, PO Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Oscar
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Lao
authors.affiliation: Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, Øster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark; Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, PO Box 9515, 2300 Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Hannes
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Schroeder
authors.affiliation: Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, Øster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark; Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.
authors.forename: Morten
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rasmussen
authors.affiliation: Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, Øster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark.
authors.forename: Maanasa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Raghavan
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Genetics, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA; The Bioinformatics Centre, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Ole Maaløesvej 5, Copenhagen 2200, Denmark.
authors.forename: Ida
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Moltke
authors.affiliation: Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, Øster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark.
authors.forename: Paula F
authors.initials: PF
authors.lastname: Campos
authors.affiliation: Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, South Parks Road, Dyson Perrins Building, Oxford University, OX1 3QY, UK.
authors.forename: Francisca Santana
authors.initials: FS
authors.lastname: Sagredo
authors.affiliation: Center for Biological Sequence Analysis, Department of Systems Biology, Technical University of Denmark, Kemitorvet 208, Kgs. Lyngby, DK-2800, Denmark.
authors.forename: Simon
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rasmussen
authors.affiliation: Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Canada, Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
authors.forename: Vanessa F
authors.initials: VF
authors.lastname: Gonçalves
authors.affiliation: The Bioinformatics Centre, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Ole Maaløesvej 5, Copenhagen 2200, Denmark.
authors.forename: Anders
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Albrechtsen
authors.affiliation: Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, Øster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark.
authors.forename: Morten E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Allentoft
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Emory University, 1510 Clifton Rd NE, Rm 2006, Atlanta, GA 30322.
authors.forename: Philip L F
authors.initials: PL
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Mingkun
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Setor de Antropologia Biológica, Museu Nacional, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Reis
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Ciências Humanas e da Informação - ICHI, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande, Rio Grande, RS, Brazil.
authors.forename: Danilo V
authors.initials: DV
authors.lastname: Bernardo
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Pennsylvania State University, 502 Wartik Laboratory, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA.
authors.forename: Michael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: DeGiorgio
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany.
authors.forename: Ana T
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Duggan
authors.affiliation: Setor de Antropologia Biológica, Museu Nacional, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
authors.forename: Murilo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bastos
authors.affiliation: Centre for Theoretical Evolutionary Genomics, Departments of Integrative Biology and Statistics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3140; Ancestry.com DNA LLC, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA.
authors.forename: Yong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, Øster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark.
authors.forename: Jesper
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Stenderup
authors.affiliation: Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, Øster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark.
authors.forename: J Victor
authors.initials: JV
authors.lastname: Moreno-Mayar
authors.affiliation: Center for Biological Sequence Analysis, Department of Systems Biology, Technical University of Denmark, Kemitorvet 208, Kgs. Lyngby, DK-2800, Denmark.
authors.forename: Søren
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Brunak
authors.affiliation: Center for Biological Sequence Analysis, Department of Systems Biology, Technical University of Denmark, Kemitorvet 208, Kgs. Lyngby, DK-2800, Denmark.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sicheritz-Ponten
authors.affiliation: Watson School of Biological Sciences, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1 Bungtown Road, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724, USA, Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
authors.forename: Emily
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hodges
authors.affiliation: Watson School of Biological Sciences, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1 Bungtown Road, Cold Spring Harbor, NY 11724, USA, Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
authors.forename: Gregory J
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Hannon
authors.affiliation: Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, Øster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark.
authors.forename: Ludovic
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Orlando
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology 5240 W.H. Sewell Social Science Building 1180 Observatory Dr. University of Wisconsin Madison, WI 53706, USA.
authors.forename: T Douglas
authors.initials: TD
authors.lastname: Price
authors.affiliation: Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), School of Life Sciences, Station 15, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Jeffrey D
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Jensen
authors.affiliation: Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, Øster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark; Centre for Theoretical Evolutionary Genomics, Departments of Integrative Biology and Statistics, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3140.
authors.forename: Rasmus
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Nielsen
authors.affiliation: AMS 14C Dating Centre, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
authors.forename: Jan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Heinemeier
authors.affiliation: AMS 14C Dating Centre, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, Ny Munkegade 120, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
authors.forename: Jesper
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Olsen
authors.affiliation: Setor de Antropologia Biológica, Museu Nacional, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rodrigues-Carvalho
authors.affiliation: LCHES, Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, Fitzwilliam St, Cambridge CB2 1QH, UK.
authors.forename: Marta Mirazón
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Lahr
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Human Evolutionary Studies, Department of Genetics and Evolutionary Biology, Institute of Bioscience, University of São Paulo, Brazil.
authors.forename: Walter A
authors.initials: WA
authors.lastname: Neves
authors.affiliation: Department of Forensic Molecular Biology, Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam, PO Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Manfred
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kayser
authors.affiliation: Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, South Parks Road, Dyson Perrins Building, Oxford University, OX1 3QY, UK.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Higham
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany. Electronic address: stonekg@eva.mpg.de.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stoneking
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Bioquímica e Imunologia, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte 31270-901, Brazil. Electronic address: spena@dcc.ufmg.br.
authors.forename: Sergio D J
authors.initials: SD
authors.lastname: Pena
authors.affiliation: Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, Øster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen K, Denmark. Electronic address: ewillerslev@snm.ku.dk.
authors.forename: Eske
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Willerslev
mesh_terms: D001938:Brazil; D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics; D015894:Genome, Human; D006801:Humans; D007199:Indians, South American / Q000235:genetics*; D055110:Radiometric Dating
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial