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Item type:Publication, The Genetic History of the Southern Andes from Present-Day Mapuche Ancestry(Cell Press, 2023-07-10)The southernmost regions of South America harbor some of the earliest evidence of human presence in the Americas. However, connections with the rest of the continent and the contextualization of present-day indigenous ancestries remain poorly resolved. In this study, we analyze the genetic ancestry of one of the largest indigenous groups in South America: the Mapuche. We generate genome-wide data from 64 participants from three Mapuche populations in Southern Chile: Pehuenche, Lafkenche, and Huilliche. Broadly, we describe three main ancestry blocks with a common origin, which characterize the Southern Cone, the Central Andes, and Amazonia. Within the Southern Cone, ancestors of the Mapuche lineages differentiated from those of the Far South during the Middle Holocene and did not experience further migration waves from the north. We find that the deep genetic split between the Central and Southern Andes is followed by instances of gene flow, which may have accompanied the southward spread of cultural traits from the Central Andes, including crops and loanwords from Quechua into Mapudungun (the language of the Mapuche). Finally, we report close genetic relatedness between the three populations analyzed, with the Huilliche characterized additionally by intense recent exchanges with the Far South. Our findings add new perspectives on the genetic (pre)history of South America, from the first settlement through to the present-day indigenous presence. Follow-up fieldwork took these results back to the indigenous communities to contextualize the genetic narrative alongside indigenous knowledge and perspectives. Video abstract: [Video presented] - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Language Trees with Sampled Ancestors Support a Hybrid Model for the Origin of Indo-European Languages(American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2023-07-28)The origins of the Indo-European language family are hotly disputed. Bayesian phylogenetic analyses of core vocabulary have produced conflicting results, with some supporting a farming expansion out of Anatolia ~9000 years before present (yr B.P.), while others support a spread with horse-based pastoralism out of the Pontic-Caspian Steppe ~6000 yr B.P. Here we present an extensive database of Indo-European core vocabulary that eliminates past inconsistencies in cognate coding. Ancestry-enabled phylogenetic analysis of this dataset indicates that few ancient languages are direct ancestors of modern clades and produces a root age of ~8120 yr B.P. for the family. Although this date is not consistent with the Steppe hypothesis, it does not rule out an initial homeland south of the Caucasus, with a subsequent branch northward onto the steppe and then across Europe. We reconcile this hybrid hypothesis with recently published ancient DNA evidence from the steppe and the northern Fertile Crescent. - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Language, ecology and climate change: First principles and worldwide perspectives(Elsevier BV, 2026-03-01)The acceleration of climate change over recent decades threatens consequences so wide-ranging that they extend across the human sciences, and call for perspectives from all disciplines. Notwithstanding various attempts to integrate the humanities into climate research, linguistics has been slow to engage with the topic. This special issue aspires to remedy this, by setting out basic principles for exploring how language dynamics have related to ecology, and in particular to climate change , over the last 10,000 years, drawing examples from various language families worldwide. We investigate how language distributions can pattern by ecology, how climate change can thus drive language mobility, and look into cases where languages have even been argued to show certain characteristics associated with the ecologies in which they are (or were) spoken. We summarize quantitative, qualitative and multi-disciplinary methodology that can help us explore this ecology-language interface, and introduce various overarching models that have been proposed for ecology-language relationships at the global scale. What emerges from these analyses and worldwide case-studies is that relationships between climate/ecology and language are essentially indirect, but nonetheless far-reaching, mediated as they are through crucial aspects of human culture and social structures, not least subsistence modes. And through time, over the human trajectory from Holocene into the emerging Anthropocene, the relationship largely inverts, shifting from environmental determinism upon humans and their languages towards increasing anthropogenic impacts on ecology and language dynamics.1 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, Language Lessons on the Prehistory of South America(Oxford University Press, 2026-05-21)Linguistics holds rich potential to inform our understanding of South American prehistory. We set out the various dimensions of the linguistic panorama: patterns in language diversity, the expansions and divergence of great language families, and contact and convergence between languages of independent origins. We survey the methodological toolkit by which language comparisons on each level can shed light on their speakers' pasts. We assess also how best to link up this linguistic record with archaeology and genetics, through correlations in the where, when, and why of prehistory. We look at geographical distributions and seek the homelands out of which each major language family began its expansion. We look at chronology and the different time-depths of those families. And we look at what causation might best explain how each great family came to exist at all, and spread so spectacularly, while other regions harbor acute language diversity. We assess big-picture patterns and contrasts between the Andean highlands and the eastern lowlands, particularly Amazonia. Amid a host of smaller families and unique language isolates, we briefly survey the origins and prehistories of the main individual language families within each macroregion: Quechua, Aymara, Chibchan, and Mapudungun; Arawak, Tupí, Carib, and Jê. Separately, we consider the various forms, intensities, and outcomes of contact and convergence among the speakers of these languages over time. Throughout, we assess what all this means for prehistory: how to read these linguistic signals in concert with archaeology and genetics for a more holistic prehistory of Indigenous South America.1 - Some of the metrics are blocked by yourconsent settings
Item type:Publication, BAYESIAN PHYLOGENETICS FOR LANGUAGE PREHISTORY-AND ARCHAEOLOGY(Oxford University Press, 2025-07-22)Among various approaches to correlating archaeology and language(s), Bayesian language phylogenetics is highly promising in principle—yet controversial in practice. It can provide a framework of a language family's divergence phases, and aspires to estimate their chronology, to help identify which processes in the archaeological record best correspond. Results have been dogged by inconsistency and artefacts, however, so some cautionary tales here first identify past failings, and new solutions. We review the whole pipeline from raw language data through encoding to Bayesian phylogenetic analysis and results. We then focus on how to interpret those results specifically against archaeology. We assess what splits in the trees actually mean; the pros and cons of ancient and proto-languages; and signal on deep prehistory. Throughout, we frankly assess the state of the art, and explore how Bayesian phylogenetic models might be more closely tailored to how descent with modification applies specifically to language families.Scopus© Citations 2 3