RT Journal Article
T1 The genomic legacy of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the Yungas Valley of Bolivia
A1 Heinz, Tanja Maria
A1 Cárdenas Paredes, Jorge Mario
A1 Álvarez Iglesias, Vanesa
A1 Pardo Seco, Jacobo José
A1 Gómez Carballa, Alberto
A1 Santos, Carla
A1 Taboada Echalar, Patricia
A1 Martinón Torres, Federico
A1 Salas Ellacuriaga, Antonio
AB During the period of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (TAST) some enslaved Africans were forced to move to Upper Peru (nowadays Bolivia). At first they were sent to Potosí, but later to the tropical Yungas valley where the Spanish colonizers established a so-called “hacienda system” that was based on slave labor, including African-descendants. Due to their isolation, very little attention has been paid so far to ‘Afro-Bolivian’ communities either within the research field of TAST or in genetic population studies. In this study, a total of 105 individuals from the Yungas were sequenced for their mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region, and mitogenomes were obtained for a selected subset of these samples. We also genotyped 46 Ancestry Informative Markers (AIM) in order to investigate continental ancestry at the autosomal level. In addition, Y-chromosome STR and SNP data for a subset of the same individuals was also available from the literature. The data indicate that the partitioning of mtDNA ancestry in the Yungas differs significantly from that in the rest of the country: 81% Native American, 18% African, and 1% European. Interestingly, the great majority of ‘Afro-descendant’ mtDNA haplotypes in the Yungas (84%) concentrates in the locality of Tocaña. This high proportion of African ancestry in the Tocaña is also manifested in the Y-chromosome (44%) and in the autosomes (56%). In sharp contrast with previous studies on the TAST, the ancestry of about 1/3 of the ‘Afro-Bolivian’ mtDNA haplotypes can be traced back to East and South East Africa, which may be at least partially explained by the Arab slave trade connected to the TAST.
PB PLOS
YR 2015
FD 2015
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/21898
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/21898
LA eng
NO Heinz T, Cárdenas JM, Álvarez-Iglesias V, Pardo-Seco J, Gómez-Carballa A, Santos C, et al. (2015) The Genomic Legacy of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the Yungas Valley of Bolivia. PLoS ONE 10(8): e0134129. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0134129
NO The research leading to these results has received funding from the People Program (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program FP7/2007-2013/ under REA grant agreement no. 290344 from the “Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación” (SAF2011-26983), the Plan Galego IDT (EM 2012/045), and a grant from the Sistema Universitario Gallego- Modalidad REDES (2012-PG226) from the Xunta de Galicia (to A.S.). C.S. is supported by funding awarded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) and co-financed by the European Social Fund (Human Potential Thematic Operational Program SFRH/BD/75627/2010)
DS Minerva
RD 23 abr 2026