Genetics preserves traces of ancientresistance to Inca rule12 December 2017

The fortress of Kuelap, popularly known as 'the MachuPicchu of the north,' dominates the landscape at anelevation of 3,000 meters. Credit: Chiara Barbieri

The Chachapoyas region was conquered by theInca Empire in the late 15th century. Knowledge ofthe fate of the local population has been basedlargely on Inca oral histories, written down onlydecades later after the Spanish conquest. The Incaaccounts claim that the native population wasforcibly resettled out of Chachapoyas anddispersed across the Inca Empire. However, a newstudy in Scientific Reports, by an internationalteam including researchers from the Max PlanckInstitute for the Science of Human History, usesgenetic evidence to reveal that despite Incaconquest, the population of Chachapoyas hasremained genetically distinct, and not assimilatedwith that of the Inca heartland.

Despite their spectacular achievements, from thefirst cities of the Americas to the Inca Empire, theindigenous peoples of the Andes left no writtenhistories. One legacy that can now be read,however, is the genetic diversity of theirdescendants today, especially when takentogether with the rich archaeology of the Andes

and the prehistory of its native languages. This isthe approach taken in a new study in ScientificReports to test the demographic legacy of theIncas.

The study emerges out of a collaboration betweenresearch institutes in Peru and in Germany,including the Max Planck Institute for the Science ofHuman History. The focus is on a key region in thecloud-forest transition between the Andes andAmazonia in northern Peru. Here the Incasencountered fierce resistance from the "Warriors ofthe Clouds," the Chachapoyas culture, notedparticularly for its distinctive body-shapedsarcophagi and the monumental fortress of Kuelap,the "Machu Picchu of the north." Particularly topunish and to secure control over such rebelliouslands, the Incas are thought to have resettledmillions of people across the "Four Quarters" oftheir empire, Tawantinsuyu. Chachapoyas wasreportedly singled out for such treatment, making itan ideal case for using genetics to test theaccuracy of Inca oral histories, which were notwritten down until almost a century later, by theSpanish conquistadors.

Map of sampling locations and approximate distributionof sub-branches of the Quechua language family, astraditionally classified. Red dot 1 marks the samplinglocations in the Amazonas region (Chachapoyas City,

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Luya, Huancas, Utcubamba South, La Jalca); red dot 2marks that in the San Martín region (Lamas, Waykuneighbourhood). The inset zooms in on the samplinglocations in Amazonas. Credit: Barbieri et al. Enclaves ofgenetic diversity resisted Inca impacts on populationhistory. Scientific Reports, DOI:10.1038/s41598-017-17728-w.

"By targeting various linguistic indicators, we wereable to pinpoint a genetic signal in Chachapoyasthat turned out to be far more diverse than weexpected, especially in the male line, from father toson," explains Chiara Barbieri, a geneticist at theMax Planck Institute for the Science of HumanHistory in Jena, Germany, and lead author of thestudy. "First of all, there's still a strong survivingNative American component, despite all theadmixture with European genes ever since theSpanish conquest. What's more, here the nativecomponent is quite different from the main geneticnetwork in the highlands of central and southernPeru. This is where the Inca Empire and itspredecessors originated, and their conquests, roadnetworks and empire-building ended uphomogenizing the genetic make-up here." Thecurrent study reveals how the people ofChachapoyas, by contrast, remained relativelyisolated. "So it seems that some genetic legacy ofthe Chachapoyas did indeed resist Inca impacts, allthe way through to today," explains Barbieri.

Two Peruvian geneticists, José Sandoval andRicardo Fujita of the Universidad San Martin dePorres in Lima, Peru, also took part in the study."These latest samples are part of a wider geneticcoverage of Peru that we've been building up foryears. It's these groups like the Chachapoya,culturally and linguistically highly distinctive, whohave the most to tell us about our ancestors: wherethey came from, where they migrated to, whatinteractions they had with each other, and so on.Also, the Chachapoyas culture left such extensivearchaeological remains that there are goodprospects for recovering ancient DNA, tocomplement the modern picture."

Paul Heggarty, a linguist and senior author of thestudy, also of the Max Planck Institute for theScience of Human History, was first motivated to

launch this project after unexpected results from alinguistic fieldwork trip to Chachapoyas. He wasable to find a few remaining elderly speakers of anindigenous language that most assumed wasalready extinct in this region. "Quechua is one ofour most direct living links to the people of the NewWorld before Columbus. It still has millions ofspeakers, more than any other language family ofthe Americas - but not in Chachapoyas anymore.There are only a dozen or so fluent speakers now,in a few remote villages, so we need to act fast ifwe're to work out its real origins here."

The body-shaped sarcophagi of Karajía contained theremains of high-ranking Chachapoya ancestors. Theinhabitants of Chachapoyas today may in part descendfrom these pre-Inca populations. Credit: Chiara Barbieri

The Chachapoyas form of Quechua has usuallybeen classified as most closely related to theQuechua spoken in Ecuador, but the new DNAresults show no close connections between theQuechua-speakers in these two areas. "Linguistsneed to rethink their traditional view of the familytree of Quechua languages, and the history of howthey spread through the Andes," notes Heggarty. "Itseems that Quechua reached Chachapoyaswithout any big movement of people. This alsodoesn't fit with the idea that the Incas forced out theChachapoyas population wholesale."

Jairo Valqui, another linguist co-author from theNational University of San Marcos in Lima, adds a

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further perspective on an even earlier languagelayer. "Once Quechua and Spanish arrived, thelocal Chachapoyas languages died out. Recoveringanything from them is a real puzzle and a challengefor linguists. They left very few traces, but there aresome characteristic combinations of sounds, forexample, that still survive in people's surnames andin local placenames, like Kuelap itself."

Valqui, himself a Chachapoyano, also makes apoint of taking these genetic results back to thelocal population. "For Peruvian society today, thismatters. There's long been an appreciation of theIncas, but often at the cost of sidelining everythingelse in the archaeological record across Peru, andthe diversity in our linguistic and genetic heritagetoo. As these latest findings remind us: Peru is notjust Machu Picchu, and its indigenous people werenot just the Incas."

More information: Chiara Barbieri et al, Enclavesof genetic diversity resisted Inca impacts onpopulation history, Scientific Reports (2017). DOI:10.1038/s41598-017-17728-w

Provided by Max Planck SocietyAPA citation: Genetics preserves traces of ancient resistance to Inca rule (2017, December 12) retrieved4 September 2021 from https://phys.org/news/2017-12-genetics-ancient-resistance-inca.html

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