Comparable studies in the uncharted regions of the Americas have the potential to reveal demographic histories that are currently completely unknown to science.

The Petrous Bone And The Science Of Recovery

The technical success of the 2025 study deserves some additional attention, because the extraction of genome-wide data from 6,000-year-old remains in a tropical highland environment was not a foregone conclusion.

The petrous bone — the dense inner-ear portion of the temporal bone — has become the standard target for ancient DNA extraction in archaeological research over the past decade.

The decision to focus on the petrous bone was driven by a series of studies that demonstrated its superiority as a DNA source: the bone’s extraordinary density creates a physical barrier that resists bacterial invasion, and the cells within the cochlea (the spiral structure of the inner ear housed within the petrous) appear to contain unusually high amounts of DNA even in ancient remains.