Origin: A Genetic History of the Americas

fine ceramics; they also crafted portable art and sacred objects from
minerals such as amethyst and jadeite. They manufactured stone tools and
cultivated many plants, some of which they imported from South America,
including potatoes, maize, peanuts, chili peppers, and the hallucinogenic
beans from the yopo plant Anadenanthera peregrina. They likewise relied
heavily on marine resources, including fish, crabs, and birds.
Archaeological evidence and early genetics studies connected these
peoples to South America, and there have been two major archaeological
models for their arrival. In one scenario, they gradually moved northward
from the Orinoco River basin of Venezuela, through the Lesser Antilles to
Puerto Rico, and eventually expanded westward into Hispaniola and Cuba.
The second scenario suggests that they first moved into Puerto Rico, and
then expanded southward (16).
Over the last few decades, a number of genetics studies provided us with
broad outlines of population history and how the genetic variation in
contemporary Caribbean populations was shaped. Then in 2020 and 2021,
two large-scale ancient genomic papers offered a sharper, highly detailed
picture of the peopling history (17).
Collectively, genetics research shows that in the history of the
Caribbean, two major population migrations occurred. The first was an
early Archaic Age migration, possibly originating from South or Central
America. But far more work needs to be done in order to better understand
this migration.
“To be perfectly frank, we have no idea where precisely the first peoples
of the Caribbean come from,” Maria A. Nieves-Colón, a Puerto Rican
anthropological geneticist specializing in precontact history, told me. “The
archaeological data suggest connections with both South and Central
America, and the genetic data available to date points to ancestries outside
of present-day Indigenous American variation. We think it could have been
either of these two areas (or perhaps both?), but where within this broad
region is a mystery. North America cannot be entirely ruled out either, but
there is no archaeological evidence to suggest it as a likely source area, so
it’s not seriously considered anymore.”
A later Ceramic Age migration likely originated from northeastern
South America. Genetic affinities between ancient Ceramic Age individuals
in Curaçao and those from the Lesser Antilles support the archaeological