Migration of Indigenous Mexicans to California 5,200 Years Ago Could Be the Origin of a Mystery Language, DNA Analysis Reveals

Before the colonial era, California harbored more language diversity than all of Europe. Archeological and linguistic analyses have led to different hypotheses to explain these variations. In the study "Genetic continuity and change among the Indigenous peoples of California", it is suggested that migrants from ancient Mexico spread unique languages from the south about 1,000 years earlier than previously thought.

Northward Migration

Population geneticist Nathan Nakatsuka led a team of researchers who studied ancient remains from central and southern California. They investigated the DNA samples extracted from the teeth and bones of 79 ancient people discovered at archeological sites which dated to between 7,400 and 200 years ago.

The study also includes the remains of 40 from sites in northwestern and central northern Mexico which dated to between 2,900 and 500 years ago. After comparing the ancient genomes, the experts found evidence for increased migration from north Mexico into south and central California 5,200 years ago.

The timing of this migration disproves the claim that the spread of maize farming led to the spread of Uto-Aztecan languages. It had been previously thought that these languages, including Shoshoni, Hopi, Nahuatl, spread northward with early farmers some 4,300 years ago. This is related to the assumption that migrant farmers prospered more than the hunter-gatherers who lived in the region before them.

The research team acknowledged the possibility that the later spread of maize farming into California could be the result of the earlier migration, when the first set of migrants were joined by related people who farmed maize by that time.

Ancient California

The earliest wave of migrants to reach the Americas arrived tens of thousands of years ago, according to the analysis of evidence found at different archeological sites. These include the 23,000-year-old human footprints in White Sands National Park in New Mexico; the 14,500-year-old human excrement from Paisley Caves in Oregon; and the 14,550-year-old artifacts from Monte Verde, Chile.

Once the first humans have arrived, they spread within the continent, and this latest study suggests a previously unknown regional migration. Nakatsuka and his colleagues also discovered shared genetics between the ancient peoples of California's northern Channel Islands and the adjacent coast, and the Indigenous Chumash people.

The result of this study further supports the theory that people who spoke languages from an earlier linguistic substrate were once spread out across large parts of California. It also suggests that the populations of the region were transformed by new migrants who changed both the genetic and linguistic landscapes.

There was also no evidence of Polynesian or Australasian genetic contributions in ancient California and Northwest Mexican individuals. This dismisses the previous attempts to connect the Chumash people with those in Hawaii based on shared similarities in the elements of the tomolo canoe construction.

The study covers a time frame long before Europeans developed a language with which to later name locations in what are referred to as the "New World". This is a useful concept, considering the Americas were frequently mentioned in geographic and scientific literature as the "New World", despite having pyramids older than those in Egypt and civilizations that predate ancient China and Greece.