Working alongside the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe, researchers from several universities extracted DNA from 12 ancient people buried in the region as far back as 2,000 years ago and found biological continuity with DNA collected from modern-day tribe members.
Archaeologists, left, with Muwekma Ohlone vice chair Monica Arellano at the Sii Tuupenatak site in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2016. published in 1925, anthropologist Alfred Kroeber pronounced the Ohlone people “extinct so far as all practical purposes are concerned,” noting that only “a few scattered individuals survive.”
“Validation, finally,” said Monica Arellano, the vice chair of the tribe and an author of the paper. “This adds to all the information we’ve put out there, years of compiling and doing research proving who we are.” Far Western also excavated another ancient site nearby, named Rummey Ta Kuččuwiš Tiprectak , which was inhabited as early as 2,500 years ago.
Ripan Malhi, an anthropologist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Noah Rosenberg, a population geneticist at Stanford University, joined the project to lead the ancient DNA analysis. The researchers presented all additional tests to the tribal council for approval. The council gave the researchers the go-ahead to study dental plaque for signs of inhalants such as tobacco, as well as to conduct tests to determine the sexes of the buried children, Byrd said.
In keeping with the principles of Indigenous data sovereignty, the Muwekma will review requests for genomic data collected from the sites and tribal members, retaining power over how the data is used. “It’s minimizing potential harms to communities,” Bader said. “That is important.”
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