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Historically, hunter-gatherers living east and west of the Andean foothills of southern South America (Fuego-Patagonia) practiced different subsistence strategies. To the east, the wide open and relatively dry pampas presented a climate ideal for Terrestrial hunter-gatherers who depended on terrestrial animals (e.g., Lama guanicoe). In contrast, Marine hunter-gatherers who lived on islands in the western archipelago, a colder and wetter environment, mainly subsisted on marine resources (e.g., seals and shellfish). Archaeological evidence dates Terrestrial hunter-gatherers’ presence in Fuego-Patagonia to at least ~10,500 BP, whereas Marine hunter-gatherers’ presence dates to ~6,500 BP and is associated with highly specialized tools that have only been observed in the archaeological record after this time. Genetic analyses of some ancient Fuegian-Patagonians have supported the hypothesis that Marine hunter-gatherers migrated into the region after Terrestrial hunter-gatherers, around 6,500 BP (7,500 calBP), while analyses of other individuals suggest that Marine hunter-gatherers descended from the earlier Terrestrial hunter-gatherer groups. Here, we test these hypotheses by analyzing newly collected genome-wide data from n=46 ancient Chilean Fuegian-Patagonian individuals belonging to Marine, Terrestrial, and Mixed-economy archaeological sites dating to 6,895–304 calBP. We explored basic population structure among these hunter-gatherer groups using PCA and ADMIXTURE. We calculated π, pairwise-FST, and f-statistics, and developed demographic simulations to further examine genetic relationships among the groups. The results of this study shed light on local demographic patterns of ancient southern South American groups, which in turn provides more insight into broader population histories of South America. This study was funded by FONDECYT (Chile), National Geographic Society, National Science Foundation, and Wenner-Gren Foundation. C. M. Balentine is supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.
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This content will become publicly available on April 1, 2026
A South American sebecid from the Miocene of Hispaniola documents the presence of apex predators in early West Indies ecosystems
The absence of terrestrial apex predators on oceanic islands led to the evolution of endemic secondary apex predators like birds, snakes and crocodiles, and loss of defence mechanisms among species. These patterns are well documented in modern and Quaternary terrestrial communities of the West Indies, suggesting that biodiversity there assembled similarly through overwater dispersal. Here, we describe fossils of a terrestrial apex predator, a sebecid crocodyliform with South American origins from the late Neogene of Hispaniola that challenge this scenario. These fossils, along with other putative sebecid specimens from Cuba and Puerto Rico, show that deep-time Caribbean ecosystems more closely resembled coeval localities in South America than those of today. We argue that Plio-Pleistocene extinction of apex predators in the West Indies resulted in mesopredator release and other evolutionary patterns traditionally observed on oceanic islands. Adaptations to a terrestrial lifestyle documented for sebecids and the chronology of West Indian fossils strongly suggest that they reached the islands in the Eocene–Oligocene through transient land connections with South America or island hopping. Furthermore, sebecids persisted in the West Indies for at least five million years after their extinction in South America, preserving the last populations of notosuchians yet recovered from the fossil record.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2215184
- PAR ID:
- 10659316
- Publisher / Repository:
- Royal Society
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
- Volume:
- 292
- Issue:
- 2045
- ISSN:
- 1471-2954
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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