Jan Bartek – AncientPages.com – A new genetic study reveals indigenous Mexicans migrated to California 5,200 years ago. Researchers have found evidence hunter-gatherers who came from Mexico spread unique languages from the south about 1,000 years earlier than previously thought.

This new discovery questions the belief that Uto-Aztecan languages, like Nahuatl, (spoken by Aztecs and Toltecs), Hopi, and Shoshoni were spread northward by prehistoric migrants from Mexico along with maize farming technologies.

“The distinctive genetic lineages that characterize present-day and ancient people from Northwest Mexico increased in frequency in Southern and Central California by 5,200 years BP, providing evidence for northward migrations that are candidates for spreading Uto-Aztecan languages before the dispersal of maize agriculture from Mexico,” the researchers write in their study published in Nature.

“The dating and the location of this genetic material coming into California is really important for understanding the Uto-Aztecan migration,” study lead author Nathan Nakatsuka, a population geneticist and a postdoctoral fellow at the New York Genome Center, told Live Science.

“We haven’t fully figured it out, but we did provide evidence for a substantial migration of people coming into California at this time,” he said.

Nakatsuka and his team examined genome-wide data extracted from the teeth and bones of 79 ancient people found in central and southern California archaeological sites. These remains spanned from 7,400 to 200 years ago. In addition, the scientists studied ancient DNA from the remains of 40 individuals from sites in the northwest and central north of Mexico, dating to between 2,900 and 500 years ago.

By comparing the DNA, scientists could discover the indigenous Mexicans migrated from northern Mexico to southern and central California around 5,200 years ago.

As reported by Live Science, “the timing of this migration refutes an existing idea that the spread of maize farming from about 4,300 years ago led to the spread of Uto-Aztecan languages, as migrant farmers prospered more than the hunter-gatherers who lived there before them. But the new study indicates that such languages may have been spread instead by a migration of hunter-gatherers that occurred nearly 1,000 years earlier.

Nakatsuka acknowledged the possibility that the later spread of maize farming into California may have been the result of the earlier migration, when the first wave of migrants were joined by related people who farmed corn by that time.

“But at the very least, we see that people are coming up here into California earlier than maize farming,” he said.

See also: More Archaeology News

Archaeologists know people moved to America tens of thousands of years, as indicated by evidence from various sites. Oregon archaeologists have found evidence suggesting humans occupied the Rimrock Draw Rockshelter outside of Riley, Oregon, more than 18,000 years ago. Scientists have found fossilized human footprints at the White Sands National Park in New Mexico that are  21,000 to 23,000 years old.

There is no doubt humans have been present in America for a very long time. Still, this news study is of special interest as it offers evidence of a migration within a specific region that was previously unknown.

Written by Jan Bartek – AncientPages.com Staff Writer