The ancient DNA analysis was conducted by researchers at the University of Copenhagen’s Centre for GeoGenetics, the same institution associated with Eske Willerslev and his colleagues who had been central to the Anzick-1 genome analysis.

The ancient DNA community working on early American populations was small enough in 2014 that the same group of researchers appeared in multiple landmark papers that year — a reflection of how specialized the technical expertise required for this work remained.

The Cenotes And The People Who Came After

The cave system beneath the Yucatán Peninsula is not just a scientific curiosity.

It is a landscape that has been known and used by the people who have lived on the peninsula for thousands of years — and that relationship between people and the underground water world of the Yucatán is woven into the history and culture of the Maya and their ancestors in ways that go far beyond the utilitarian.