It provided the first ancient genomic data from Colombia — not just one genome, but 21, covering 5,500 years of the Altiplano’s occupation.

It addressed multiple major questions in one dataset.

Most significantly, it documented a previously unknown early branch of South American population history — a lineage that diverged early from the common ancestor of other South American populations and that was established on the Bogotá Altiplano by at least 6,000 years before present.

The discovery of this previously undocumented lineage matters for several reasons beyond its intrinsic interest.

First, it demonstrates that the genetic diversity of ancient South America was greater than the existing dataset had suggested.