DNA Study Tracks Long-Distance Migration in Peru

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA—Analysis of DNA samples, archaeological evidence, and historical data suggests that people who lived along Peru’s Pacific coastline before the rise of the Inca Empire around A.D. 1400 were more mobile than had been previously thought, according to a statement released by the University of Sydney. Jacob Bongers of the University of Sydney said that migrants from northern Peru traveled more than 430 miles south to the Chincha Valley by at least the thirteenth century A.D. The DNA study indicates that these migrants did not mix with the local population upon arrival. Later generations, however, show a mix of people from Peru’s northern, central, and southern coasts. “This likely means that, after northerners migrated to Chincha, they intermarried with groups from neighboring coastal areas, a practice that continued during the Spanish Colonial Period (A.D. 1532–1825),” Bongers explained. But all of the individuals in the study carried some ancestry from the northern coast, and northern traditions, such as cranial modification and the application of red pigment to the skull after death, persisted in the Chincha Valley from at least the thirteenth to the fifteenth century. Bongers and his colleagues think that social and political changes may have fueled this move south. “Climate hazards, the expansion of northern polities such as the Chimú, and access to valuable resources including seabird guano are all possible drivers of ancient Andean migration,” he said. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Nature Communications. For more on the people of the Chincha Valley, go to "Return to Serpent Mountain."