No Ancestors, No Problem: The Vanishing Humans of Ancient Colombia
We like to think of history as a straight line—a relay race where a baton of DNA is passed from one generation to the next, eventually landing in our own hands. But sometimes, runners drop the baton. Sometimes, entire teams leave the track and are never seen again.
This is the case with a newly discovered group of humans who lived in the Colombian highlands around 6,000 years ago. According to a recent analysis of ancient DNA reported by Smithsonian Magazine, these early hunter-gatherers thrived for millennia on the high plains near Bogotá only to vanish completely, leaving no genetic trace in any living person today. They are not the ancestors of the modern Muisca people who inhabit the region, nor are they related to other known Indigenous groups. They are, genetically speaking, ghosts.
The Discovery
The findings come from an international team of researchers, including scientists from the University of Tübingen and Colombia’s National University, who published their work in Science Advances. The study focused on the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, a highaltitude plateau that has long served as a corridor for human migration in South America.
Researchers successfully sequenced the genomes of 21 individuals excavated from five archaeological sites. Among them remained from a site called Checua, dating back approximately 5,000 to 6,000 years.
When the genetic data came back, the results were unexpected. While later remains from the region showed clear links to modern Indigenous populations, the older Checua individuals were distinct. They represented a previously unknown lineage that branched off early from other South American settlers and remained genetically isolated for thousands of years. As anthropologist Kim-Louise Krettek noted, it appears there was a "complete exchange of the population" in the region.
How Lineages Disappear
How does an entire group of people exist for thousands of years and then simply blink out of the gene pool?
In the case of the Checua lineage, the evidence suggests a scenario of population replacement. Around 2,000 years ago, a new wave of migrants arrived in the Colombian highlands. These newcomers brought ceramics, agriculture, and a genetic profile similar to present-day Indigenous Andean groups.
It is possible that the older hunter-gatherer lineage was overwhelmed demographically by these farming populations. In genetic history, "disappearance" doesn't always mean a violent end. It can simply mean that a small population failed to reproduce in sufficient numbers to leave a statistical mark, or that their lineage was diluted to the point of invisibility by a much larger incoming group.
Why This Matters for Human Migration
For decades, models of the peopling of South America were relatively simple: humans crossed the Bering Strait, moved south through the Isthmus of Panama (the "gateway" of Colombia), and populated the continent in a rapid dispersion.
The Checua discovery complicates this picture. It suggests that Colombia wasn’t just a highway for people passing through to Peru or Chile; it was a home to diverse, isolated groups that established deep roots before being replaced. The existence of a "ghost lineage" proves that the human history of the Americas is full of dead ends and lost chapters that archaeology alone—without the precision of ancient DNA—could never reveal.
Not Invited to the Ancestor Party
Of course, there is a certain irony to finding out you have no descendants. From an evolutionary standpoint, the Checua lineage technically "lost" the game of life. While other ancient populations were busy ensuring their genes would be testing positive for lactose intolerance in the 21st century, this group apparently decided to peace out before things got too complicated.
Perhaps they saw the invention of agriculture and organized bureaucracy on the horizon and decided, collectively, "No thanks, we’re good." While we can’t ask them why they didn’t stick around, their absence serves as a humble reminder that survival is not guaranteed, no matter how well-adapted you are to your environment.
What We Still Don’t Know
Despite the clarity of the genetic data, the "why" remains elusive. The study indicates that this lineage disappeared, but it doesn't tell us if it was due to conflict, pathogens introduced by the new agriculturalists, or environmental shifts that made their huntergatherer lifestyle unsustainable.
Furthermore, because the sample size is small—only a handful of genomes from a specific region—we don't know if this lineage extended beyond the Bogotá high plains. Were they a small, local pocket of people, or the last remnants of a once-widespread population that spanned the northern Andes?
The Invisible Past
The discovery of the Checua lineage forces us to confront a sober truth: the faces we see in the present are only a fraction of the human story. We tend to interpret the past through the lens of the survivors—the "ancestors." But history is equally populated by those who didn't make the cut.
These ancient Colombians hunted, loved, built communities, and mourned their dead for thousands of years. They were as human as we are, yet they live on only in the calcium of their bones and the sequences of their DNA, stored on a server they could never have imagined. They remind us that while DNA is a powerful record, it is also a fragile one—and that sometimes, the only thing we leave behind is a mystery.