The genetic ancestry changed completely between the Preceramic period at 6,000 years before present and the Herrera period at 2,000 years before present, with no detectable contribution from the earlier lineage to the later population.

This is what “complete replacement” means in genetic terms.

“Lineage that vanished” is accurate in the sense that the lineage is not detectable in the populations studied.

It is potentially misleading in that it could be read as implying the physical extinction of every biological descendant — which is not what the evidence establishes.

“Unknown group of humans” is accurate in that the Checua lineage was genuinely unknown to genetic science before the 2025 study.

The archaeology had documented these people; the genetics had not.