The novelty is that they represented a specific branch of that ancestry that diverged earlier than the branches documented in other ancient South American genomes, and that their specific genetic signature was not detectable in the later populations that the researchers studied.

It is also why the framing of “vanished ancestry” or “lineage that disappeared from the genetic record” requires precise qualification.

The paper does not claim that every biological descendant of the Checua people died without reproducing, or that the lineage was completely exterminated and left no living biological descendants anywhere on Earth.

What it establishes, based on the populations included in the study’s comparison dataset, is that the specific genetic signature of the Checua group was not detectable in:

– The nine Herrera-period individuals from the same plateau, dated approximately 2,000 years before present.
– The three Muisca-period individuals, dated approximately 1,200 and 520 years before present.
– The present-day South American populations included in the analysis.