Discoveries

April 16, 2024

Blood in the Soil

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A new genetic analysis is shedding new light on the ancestral lineage and enduring presence of North America’s Blackfoot Indigenous peoples, Science Magazine reported.

Conducted collaboratively by a team of geneticists and Blackfoot community members, the study provided further support to Indigenous oral traditions and archeological evidence attesting to the Indigenous group’s longstanding inhabitation of their ancestral lands across the Rocky Mountains’ eastern slopes in the United States and adjacent plains of what is now Montana, Alberta, and Saskatchewan in Canada.

Genetic data obtained from modern Blackfoot individuals, as well as historic ancestors dating back 100 to 200 years, were compared so as to unveil a unified genetic lineage. This lineage showed a continuous presence of the Blackfoot people in the region stretching back more than 10,000 years.

The researchers also came across a previously unknown genetic branch that split approximately 18,000 years ago from the major known lineages, and that leads to all other present-day Indigenous people who have been studied genetically across the Americas.

They noted that this split “was very surprising,” adding that it further strengthens the Blackfoot’s claims to ancestral land and water rights.

Scientists not involved in the study explained that the findings have “a lot of implications in terms of the relations of the different early lineages to each other.”

While the study further deepens our understanding of Indigenous history, scholars emphasized the need for caution and further investigation.

Meanwhile, Kim Tallbear, a Native studies researcher uninvolved with the paper, wondered whether it will impact federal-tribal relationships.

“We know Indigenous people were here before settlers, she said, “It’s not a foregone conclusion that adding genetic information to what we already know about Indigenous history in the Americas is going to make a big difference.”

Even so, the research marks a cooperative effort between geneticists and Indigenous communities aiming to rectify historical injustices and foster equitable collaboration in scientific endeavors.

This story originally appeared in the April 16, 2024 newsletter, Like Father Like Son.