scholarly journals Demographic and immune-based selection shifts before and after European contact inferred from 50 ancient and modern exomes from the Northwest Coast of North America

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Lindo ◽  
Emilia Huerta-Sánchez ◽  
Shigeki Nakagome ◽  
Morten Rasmussen ◽  
Barbara Petzelt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Native Americans ◽  
North America ◽  
Population Decline ◽  
Human Leukocyte ◽  
Northwest Coast ◽  
Effective Population ◽  
European Contact ◽  
Before And After ◽  
European Colonization ◽  
Hla Dqa1

The susceptibility of Native Americans to infectious disease has been postulated as a major factor for their population decline after European contact. To investigate if a preexisting genetic component contributed to this phenomenon, we analyzed 50 exomes of both ancient and modern individuals from the Northwest Coast of North America, dating from before and after European contact. We confirmed the genetic continuity between the ancient and modern individuals and modeled the population collapse after European contact, inferring a 57% reduction in effective population size. We also identified signatures of positive selection on immune-related genes in the ancient but not the modern group. The strongest selection signal in the ancients came from the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) gene HLA-DQA1, with alleles that are close to fixation. The important immune function of HLA-DQA1 supports an ancient adaptation to the environments of the Americas. The modern individuals show a marked decrease in the frequency of the associated alleles (the most pronounced variant showing a 64% difference). This decrease is likely due to the environmental change associated with European colonization, which resulted in a shift of selection pressures, whereby negative selection may have acted on the same gene after contact. Furthermore, the selection pressure shift could correlate to the European-borne epidemics of the 1800s, suffered in the Northwest Coast region. This is among the first studies to examine a single population through time and exemplifies the power of such studies in uncovering nuanced demographic and adaptive histories.

Reconstructing the Past

2020 ◽  
pp. 94-122
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Weiss ◽  
James W. Springer
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
North America ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Population Size ◽  
The Past ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Native American Tribes ◽  
Answering Questions

Weiss and Springer summarize the bioarchaeological research that has challenged previously held stereotypes of Native Americans, answering questions about population size in North America prior to Columbus’s arrival; social structure of pre-contact Native Americans; violence rates in Native American tribes both before and after Columbus’s arrival; Native Americans health and diseases, such as tuberculosis and syphilis, before and after contact with Europeans; Native American diet throughout time; and Native Americans’ relationship with their environment.

scholarly journals Disentangling signatures of selection before and after European colonization in Latin Americans

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier Mendoza-Revilla ◽  
Camilo Chacon-Duque ◽  
Macarena Fuentes-Guajardo ◽  
Louise Ormond ◽  
Ke Wang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Latin American ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Latin Americans ◽  
European Contact ◽  
Snp Data ◽  
Before And After ◽  
European Colonization ◽  
Source Populations ◽  
Genomic Regions

Throughout human evolutionary history, large-scale migrations have led to intermixing (i.e., admixture) between previously separated human groups. While classical and recent work have shown that studying admixture can yield novel historical insights, the extent to which this process contributed to adaptation remains underexplored. Here, we introduce a novel statistical model, specific to admixed populations, that identifies loci under selection while determining whether the selection likely occurred post-admixture or prior to admixture in one of the ancestral source populations. Through extensive simulations we show that this method is able to detect selection, even in recently formed admixed populations, and to accurately differentiate between selection occurring in the ancestral or admixed population. We apply this method to genome-wide SNP data of ~4,000 individuals in five admixed Latin American cohorts from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru. Our approach replicates previous reports of selection in the HLA region that are consistent with selection post-admixture. We also report novel signals of selection in genomic regions spanning 47 genes, reinforcing many of these signals with an alternative, commonly-used local-ancestry-inference approach. These signals include several genes involved in immunity, which may reflect responses to endemic pathogens of the Americas and to the challenge of infectious disease brought by European contact. In addition, some of the strongest signals inferred to be under selection in the Native American ancestral groups of modern Latin Americans overlap with genes implicated in energy metabolism phenotypes, plausibly reflecting adaptations to novel dietary sources available in the Americas.

Reconsidering Taíno Social Dynamics after Spanish Conquest: Gender and Class in Culture Contact Studies

2004 ◽  
Vol 69 (4) ◽  
pp. 597-626 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Deagan
Keyword(s):  
Native Americans ◽  
Social Practice ◽  
Social Dynamics ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
Culture Contact ◽  
Contact Period ◽  
Cultural Elements ◽  
Mitigating Factors ◽  
Before And After

Despite the fact that the Taíno people of the Caribbean were the first Native Americans to encounter and coexist with Europeans after 1492, there has been almost no archaeology of Taíno response to that encounter. This study explores the reasons for (and consequences of) this neglect, and their larger implications for American contact-period archaeology. It also challenges prevailing historical models of Taíno social disintegration, drawing upon six years of archaeological work at the En Bas Saline site in Haiti, the only extensively excavated Taíno townsite occupied both before and after contact. Our results, organized by a household-scale analytical framework emphasizing Taíno constructions of gender and class, suggest that there were few major alterations to traditional Taíno social practice during the post-contact period, and most of these were related to activities thought to have been the domain of non-elite Taíno men. It is suggested that the relatively nonspecialized gender roles among the Taíno, as well as the clearly differentiated nature of their social classes, may have served as mitigating factors in the disruption of Taíno cultural practice under Spanish domination. This work also reveals a marked Taíno resistance to the incorporation of European cultural elements, which provides a striking contrast to the Spanish patterns documented in contact-era European towns, and underscores the critical importance of incorporating gender relations into studies of culture contact.

The early use of metal by native Americans on the northwest coast

JOM ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 45 (7) ◽  
pp. 60-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael L. Wayman
Keyword(s):  
Native Americans ◽  
Northwest Coast ◽  
Early Use

scholarly journals Discipline and Divinity: Colonial Quakerism, Christianity, and “Heathenism” in the Seventeenth Century

2016 ◽  
Vol 85 (3) ◽  
pp. 502-528 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Plank
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Native Americans ◽  
North America ◽  
Core Beliefs ◽  
Society Of Friends ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Christian Teaching ◽  
The Social ◽  
Christian Message

Quakers began arriving in the Caribbean and North America when their religious society was still new and struggling to define its core beliefs and institutional structure. There were tensions within the Society of Friends stemming from the Quakers’ validation of individual inspiration and their communal commitment to the Christian message as contained in the Bible. A bitter debate over scriptural authority wracked Quaker meetings for the remainder of the seventeenth century, and the controversy included arguments over the Quakers’ relations with Native Americans, Africans, and others outside of Europe beyond the reach of formal Christian teaching. On both sides of the Atlantic opponents of Quaker discipline challenged long-standing assumptions about the source and content of the Christian message and the social hierarchies that resulted when some groups claimed privileged access to truth. The ensuing argument influenced the Quakers’ plans for their colonies in North America, and their debate over slavery.

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