Ijust came across a paper published nearly one year ago (February 2025) with a suggestive title: The Origin of Amerindians: A Case Study of Secluded Colombian Chimila, Wiwa, and Wayúu Ethnic Groups and Their Trans-Pacific Gene Flow by Arnaiz-Villena A, Lledo T, Silvera-Redondo C, Juarez I, Vaquero-Yuste C, Martin-Villa JM, Suarez-Trujillo F.. published in Genes. 2025; 16(3):286. https://doi.org/10.3390/genes16030286)
I have mentioned the Wayúu, in a post many years ago which dealt with Y-chromosome haplogroup C, and a probable transpacific origin of these natives! The 2025 paper looks at their HLA.
Arnaiz-Villena et al. wrote the following (I underlined the relevant text to highlight it):
"Results: The results obtained place the Chimila, Wayúu, and Wiwa populations phylogenetically close to the other North and South Amerindian populations included in this study. Amerindians are genetically separated from the rest of the world’s populations. Chimila, Wayúu, and Wiwa present unique extended HLA haplotypes and specific alleles, such as HLA-B*48 or HLA-A*24:01, shared with Oceanian populations. Conclusions: These genetic results and anthropological data support prehistorical trans-Pacific (bidirectional) contacts that contributed to the settlement of America and also suggest that the effects of ancient European gene flow cannot be discarded"
The paper mentions the HLA peculiarities and its similarity with Polynesian variants:
"The Chimila, Wayúu, and Wiwa samples studied in the present work revealed the presence of HLA-A*24 (A*24:02) and - B*48 alleles in their genetic profile at varying frequencies. Noteworthily, these alleles are characteristic of populations inhabiting Southeast Asia and the Asian and Pacific islands; they are found in Polynesian and Easter Islander genetic profiles, even in some sites located over 4000 km from the Pacific coast of South America...
If these alleles had been introduced via the Beringian migration route, they would likely be more evenly distributed across the continent rather than being concentrated along or near the Pacific coastline. This suggests the existence of direct genetic and population exchanges between Pacific Islanders and the indigenous peoples of the Americas, though it remains unclear whether these interactions were bidirectional or one-way.... [transpacific contact] could explain why the HLA-A*24(:02) and -B*48 alleles are in the Amerindian populations studied in the present work and also in others distributed along or close to the Pacific coast of America, such as Quechua (Peru and Bolivia, Aymara (Peru and Bolivia), Mayo (Mexico), and Mapuche (Chile), among others. This distribution supports the hypothesis that the settlement of America did not occur only from Asia (through the Bering Strait) but that the peoples of the continent had Pacific transoceanic contacts with other populations.
I am surprised at the remark about HLA-B*48, because in a recent post I included data about the global distribution of this variant and it was not high among Polynesians.
For HLA-A*24 the situation is different, it has a clear distribution that is trans-pacific: Japan, Taiwan, Melanesia, Polynesia, and some spots in America, as you can see in the following map (red circles mark higher frequency in the population, blue is lowest).
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall ©
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