Ancestry studies in South America

[RaFeSa]

It seems the Americas are being left behind in population ancestry studies. Apparently researchers have more interest in looking at ancestral populations. Since the Americas are for a large part formed by recently arrived human groups - and I mean "recently" in historic terms - there's not much interest in unveiling their genetic makeup. The only exception to that is Mexico, where there is a large Native (that is, ancestral) or Native-admixed region.

However, South America, which is less Native than Mexico and Central America, seems to be overlooked. Aside from some papers on Brazil and Argentina, I have been unable to find studies about any kind of ancestry - paternal, maternal, and autosomal - among the other South American nationalities.

Can someone please post some papers on this issue?

[Maroon King]

South America is more than Native than Central America and Mexico. Bolivia is the most Indigenous country in the Americas.

[RaFeSa]

I don't agree. Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay - three countries that combined concentrate over half of the South American population - are, according to autosomal studies, only 10-20% Native. Their populations heavily descend from immigrant groups from either Europe or Africa. Chile, too, is arguably less than 50% Native. Bolivia is one of the least populous countries in South America. And Mexico, on the other hand, is more Native than anything else.

Be that as it may, comparing ancestry of South America against Mexico and Central America is not my point. I'd just like to know of ancetry studies in South America, specially in countries other than Argentina and Brazil.

[Malcolm Z]

This might be the best study on Latin American ancestry done yet:

http://www.pnas.org/content/107/suppl.2/8954.full

Genome-wide patterns of population structure and admixture among Hispanic/Latino populations (Bryc, Velez, Karafet, Moreno-Estrada, Reynolds, Auton, Hammer, Bustamante, Ostrer).

They have done that study with Ecuadorians, Colombians, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Mexicans, using 73,000 SNPs.

[dbbrainer]

I read it real quick looking specifically for the info that they had on us P.R's Malcolm Z and I could not disagree. Seems to be on point maybe they could improve by expanding on the quantity of the samples. (numbers).