Mitochondrial Dna Analysis

Mitochondrial DNA analysis reveals substanial Native American ancestry in Puerto Rico
Martinez-Cruzado, J C
Abstract To estimate the maternal contribution of Native Americans to the human gene pool of Puerto Ricans-a population of mixed African, European, and Amerindian ancestry-the mtDNAs of two sample sets were screened for restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs) defining the fourmajor Native American haplogroups. The sample set collected from people who claimed to have a maternal ancestor with Native American physiognomic traits had a statistically significant higher frequency of Native American mtDNAs (69.6%) than did the unbiased sample set (52.6%). This higher frequency suggests that, despite the fact that the native Taino culture has been extinct for centuries, theTaino contribution to the current population is considerable and some of the Taino physiognomic traits are still present. Native American haplogroup frequency analysis shows a highly structured distribution, suggesting that the contribution of Native Americans foreign to Puerto Rico is minimal. Haplogroups A and C cover 56.0% and 35.6% of the Native American mtDNAs, respectively. No haplogroup DmtDNAs were found. Most of the linguistic, biological, and cultural evidence suggests that the Ceramic culture of the Tainos originated in or close to the Yanomama territory in the Amazon. However, the absence of haplogroup A in the Yanomami suggests that the Yanomami are not the only Taino ancestors.
KEY WORDS: NATIVE AMERICAN MTDNA HAPLOGROUPS, TAINOS, HISTORICAL NIGRA_ TION
This study seeks tocontribute to our knowledge about the maternal contribution of Native Americans to the gene pool of Puerto Ricans, a people of mixed African, European, and Amerindian ancestry, and to investigate the migration history of the extinct Tainos, the native people of Puerto Rico that were subjugated by the Spaniards.
Archaeological evidence shows that the Greater Antilles were already inhabited 8000years ago by the Archaic culture, nomads who relied on shellfish, fish, and game for their subsistence (Rouse 1992). It is not known whether they migrated to the Antilles from Venezuela or from the peninsulas of Yucatan or Florida. However, from most of the linguistic, biological, and cultural evidence, it is apparent that the Ceramic culture that arrived in Puerto Rico 2200 years before the present(YBP) originated in South America, in or close to the territory occupied today by the Yanomami. The Taino language belongs to the Arawakan family of languages. From the distribution of the Arawakan family of languages, Arawakan speakers have been inferred to have originated in the South American lowlands of the Amazon Basin (Noble 1965). More recently, linguists have proposed that theProto-Arawakan speakers moved along north of the Negro River, passed through the Casiquiare Canal, and descended the Orinoco River, along the way producing the Proto-Maipuran language, which gave rise to the ProtoMaipuran subfamily of languages to which the Arawak (Lokono) and Taino languages belong (Rouse 1992).
Similarly, using biological traits, Imbelloni (1938) traced the origin of the Taino people fromthe Guyana lowlands and the Orinoco Valley into Amazonia. In addition, the cultural ancestry of the Taino Indians may be traced back at least to the Ronquinan Saladoid people along the Orinoco River up to its junction with the Apure River. From there, however, they could have come from the west via the Apure and Meta Rivers or from the Amazon by the Negro River (Rouse 1992). Hence, the region inVenezuela occupied by the Yanomami, bordered by the Orinoco to the north and the Casiquiare to the west, is located within the path probably taken by the Taino ancestors in their migration to the Orinoco lowlands.
Little is known about the genetic contribution to Puerto Ricans of the Tainos or Native Americans in general. The native population of Puerto Rico was decimated in the 16th century as a...