More evidence of "Ghost Population" in Mesoamerica

[Zosimus]

A new ancient DNA paper and its abstract as follows: 

Aridoamerica and Mesoamerica are two distinct cultural areas that hosted numerous pre-Hispanic civilizations between 2,500 BCE and 1,521 CE. The division between these regions shifted southward due to severe droughts ca. 1,100 years ago, allegedly driving demographic changes and population replacement in some sites in central Mexico. 
Here, we present shotgun genome-wide data from 12 individuals and 26 mitochondrial genomes from eight pre-Hispanic archaeological sites across Mexico, including two at the shifting border of Aridoamerica and Mesoamerica. We find population continuity spanning the climate change episode and a broad preservation of the genetic structure across present-day Mexico for the last 2,300 years. Lastly, we identify a contribution to pre-Hispanic populations of northern and central Mexico from an ancient unsampled ′ghost′ population.

This of course is within the Book of Mormon timeframe. 

Also from the linked article:

If true, the existence of such a ghost population would call for a dramatic paradigm change regarding the founding of the Americas and might also shed insight into the Paleo-Asian ancestry seen in South America although the UpopA ghost population is not described in this paper as having a Paleo-Asian character and this may be entirely separate population for the source of the Paleo-Asian DNA.

[Pyreaux]

2 hours ago, Zosimus said:

A new ancient DNA paper and its abstract as follows: 

Aridoamerica and Mesoamerica are two distinct cultural areas that hosted numerous pre-Hispanic civilizations between 2,500 BCE and 1,521 CE. The division between these regions shifted southward due to severe droughts ca. 1,100 years ago, allegedly driving demographic changes and population replacement in some sites in central Mexico. 
Here, we present shotgun genome-wide data from 12 individuals and 26 mitochondrial genomes from eight pre-Hispanic archaeological sites across Mexico, including two at the shifting border of Aridoamerica and Mesoamerica. We find population continuity spanning the climate change episode and a broad preservation of the genetic structure across present-day Mexico for the last 2,300 years. Lastly, we identify a contribution to pre-Hispanic populations of northern and central Mexico from an ancient unsampled ′ghost′ population.

This of course is within the Book of Mormon timeframe. 

Also from the linked article:

If true, the existence of such a ghost population would call for a dramatic paradigm change regarding the founding of the Americas and might also shed insight into the Paleo-Asian ancestry seen in South America although the UpopA ghost population is not described in this paper as having a Paleo-Asian character and this may be entirely separate population for the source of the Paleo-Asian DNA.

Its been a long time, but a I had once been told there were, or are, living ghosts populations. Legends/rumors of populations of ethnically different people hidden and isolated (unsampled) in the mountains of South America. I don't know if that is still the case, or that anything has ever come of those rumors, or if we've lost our concern to validate them since we've come to understand genetic drifting and bottle necking explains why modern genetics can't tell us everything about the genetics of past than to keep bringing up the wild chances that we've not met and sampled the DNA of every native folk.

[Zosimus]

On 6/25/2022 at 5:43 PM, Pyreaux said:

if we've lost our concern to validate them since we've come to understand genetic drifting and bottle necking explains why modern genetics can't tell us everything about the genetics of past than to keep bringing up the wild chances that we've not met and sampled the DNA of every native folk.

Geneticists seem to be pretty excited by the discovery of traces of this ghost population throughout Mesamerica and South America. I don't see any indication that there isn't an interest in sampling more. The paper even recommends further research into the signals so answers can be found.