Genetic Research Detects Common Ancestry in California

CHAMPAIGN, ILLINOIS—According to a statement released by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a genetic study conducted by Ripan Malhi of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Noah Rosenberg of Stanford University, members of the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, and their colleagues has found that eight members of today’s Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, who live in the San Francisco Bay area, share ancestry with 12 individuals who lived in the region up to 2,000 years ago. It had been previously suggested that the Ohlone people first migrated to the area between A.D. 500 and 1000, based upon analysis of artifacts and language patterns. The ancient remains in the study were unearthed ahead of a large-scale construction project at two sites situated near San Francisco Bay. The excavation determined that the first village was occupied between 490 B.C. and A.D. 1775, and the second between A.D. 1345 and 1839. “The Ohlone living today who participated in the study may not be direct descendants of the ancient people whose genomes we sequenced,” Rosenberg explained, “but the analysis suggests they descended from the broader population to which those ancient people belonged.” Read the original scholarly article about this research in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. To read more about California’s Indigenous history, go to “Letter from California: Inside a Native Stronghold.”