Genomes from ancient Maya people reveal collapse of population and civilization 1,200 years ago
Skeletons buried near the ancient Maya city of Copán have revealed new clues about the collapse, but not total decimation, of the Maya civilization.
A study of the genomes of seven people from the Classic Maya period (A.D. 250 to 900) of Copán in what is now western Honduras showed that the population dramatically shrank around 1,200 years ago.
"Our findings indicate a decline in population size" among the Maya, study co-author Shigeki Nakagome, an assistant professor of genomic medicine at Trinity College Dublin, told Live Science in an email, which "aligns with a scenario proposed by archaeologists in which the population decreased but did not become entirely extinct."
Nakagome and colleagues published their findings Wednesday (May 28) in the journal Current Biology. In their study, the researchers investigated the hypothesis that outsiders assumed power at Copán in the late 420s and explored how interactions between locals and non-locals created social and cultural change at this important Maya center.
Copán was a major capital located at the extreme southeast of the Classic Maya civilization, functioning as a kind of crossroads between Central and South America. The royal dynasty that ruled for four centuries was established at Copán in A.D. 426 by a man known as K'inich Yax K'uk' Mo', who was an outsider according to inscriptions. Previous genomic and isotopic analyses of skeletons from other Maya sites have suggested that migration and gene flow were common, but the nature of that gene mixing at Copán had never before been investigated.
Based on their sequencing of genomes of seven people buried at Copán, the researchers discovered that the people all had different maternal lineages. Two males, however, belonged to the same Y-chromosome lineage and were buried together: one male in a wealthy burial was a possible dynastic ruler and the other male was a potential sacrifice.
But the men were not closely related. "Even though the dynastic ruler and the sacrificed individual share the same Y-chromosome haplogroup," Nakagome said, "we did not find any kinship." The lineage the men share is common among present-day Indigenous American populations, he said.
Related: Secret of ancient Maya blue pigment revealed from cracks and clues on a dozen bowls from Chichén Itzá
By comparing the seven ancient genomes to previously sequenced genomes across Siberia and the Americas, the researchers found strong evidence of genetic continuity in the Maya region from the Late Archaic period, roughly 3700 B.C. to 1000 B.C., to the present day. These genetic data suggest "the enduring persistence of local ancestry in the Maya region," the researchers wrote in the study.
They also found that during the Classic Maya period, there was an influx of people with highland Mexican ancestry, possibly from other Maya sites such as Chichén Itzá. These "outsiders" — perhaps part of the ruling dynasty of Copán — mixed with the locals, creating a population with two main ancestries.
RELATED STORIES
—'Trash' found deep inside a Mexican cave turns out to be 500-year-old artifacts from a little-known culture
—'Stunning' discovery reveals how the Maya rose up 4,000 years ago
—Mysterious Maya underground structure unearthed in Mexico
Delving further into the genomic data of the seven individuals, the researchers were able to estimate the size of the Maya population at specific points in time. According to their model, "the population in the Maya region appears to have experienced significant growth in effective size, reaching approximately 19,000 [people]" around A.D. 730, they wrote. The increase may be related to the advent of maize agriculture, which could have supported a larger population. Then, the population size began to decline around A.D. 750, "coinciding with the onset of the collapse of Classic Maya civilization," they wrote.
Although the population dramatically dwindled with the collapse of the Maya political system, the researchers ultimately found support in their analysis for population persistence through time.
"The genetic continuity observed in our study supports the idea that the population was not replaced by another group after the collapse." The genomes of the more than 7 million present-day Maya are closely related to the genomes of ancient Maya.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
35 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Is Earth's rotation speeding up? July 22 will be second shortest day in history
Earlier this month, the Earth spun just a bit faster than usual on July 9 and is expected to do so again on July 22 and Aug. 5, according to the website TimeAndDate. Over a millisecond was reportedly shaved off the clock on July 9, but the shortest day out of all three predicted will be in August. This shortening is due to the moon's position relative to Earth and its influence on the planet's rotation. Here's what to know about why Earth's rotation is speeding up, and how it is shortening three days this summer. Is Earth's rotation speeding up? Earth takes 24 hours to complete a full rotation in a standard day, equal to exactly 86,400 seconds. If a standard day is shortened or lengthened by a number of milliseconds, that added or detracted time is referred to as "length of day," according to the website TimeAndDate. Until 2020, the shortest "length of day" ever recorded by atomic clocks was -1.05 ms, meaning that Earth completed one daily rotation in 1.05 milliseconds less than 86,400 seconds. "Since then, however, Earth has managed to shatter this old record every year by around half a millisecond," astrophysicist Graham Jones wrote for TimeAndDate. That culminated on July 5, 2023, with the shortest day of all time, with a "length of day" of -1.66 ms, according to Jones. While the variations are expected, recent research suggests that human activity is also contributing to Earth's changing rotation. Researchers at NASA calculated that dwindling ice and groundwater and rising seas have actually increased the length of our days since 2000 by 1.33 milliseconds per century . A photo of Earth rising over the moon's horizon taken in 1968 by astronaut Bill Anders How short will the day be on July 22 On July 22, scientists predicted a -1.38 ms "length of day." This is a little bit faster than July 9, , which had about a -1.30 ms "length of day," according to TimeAndDate. August 5 is expected to the most truncated at -1.51 ms "length of day." On these days, the moon will be at its furthest from the Earth's equator, changing its gravitational pull and causing our planet to spin just a tiny bit faster on its axis, according to science news website LiveScience. Will the sped-up day be noticeable? Of course, you're unlikely to notice such a minuscule difference in your standard 24-hour day. But scientists who track and operate atomic clocks may be facing a bit of a predicament. First introduced in the 1950s, atomic clocks replaced how scientists previously measured the length of a day by tracking the Earth's rotation and the position of the sun. The clocks are also capable of measuring in billionths of a second, or nanoseconds, which are synchronized globally to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC.) If the clocks are thrown off even a tiny amount, it could also throw off computers, servers, GPS signals, and other networks that rely on accurate times, David Gozzard, an experimental physicist at the University of Western Australia, told the Guardian. This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Earth will spin faster today, creating second shortest day in history
National Geographic
9 hours ago
- National Geographic
4,000-year-old victim was shot in the back—and survived with an arrow to the rib
A flint arrowhead lodged in a rib from a person who lived in the Spanish Pyrenees more than 4,000 years ago was most likely shot during a skirmish with a rival clan, researchers say. "It is direct evidence of a violent conflict episode," says Carlos Tornero, who led the team that unearthed the rib in a mountain cave 6,000 feet above sea level near the Spanish-French border. His team announced the finding July 8. Previous excavations at the cave—called Roc de les Orenetes, or "Rock of the Swallows" in Catalan—unearthed thousands of human bones. Some had fractures and cut marks apparently caused by stone-tipped spears, arrows, and copper or bronze axes and daggers. The researchers published their analysis of the bones last year and concluded the injuries came from conflicts with other groups. This latest finding reinforces that idea. The interior of the cave as seen from the entrance. Photograph by Leo Pérez, IPHES-CERCA "This extraordinary discovery is direct proof, and confirms our initial hypothesis," says Tornero, an archaeologist at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and a researcher at the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES-CERCA). Little is known about who shot the arrow, except that they were probably from an enemy group who fought violently against the people later buried in the cave—in a dispute over territory, or perhaps access to resources. The researchers dated the violent episodes to between 2550 and 2150 B.C. Tornero says the victims in the cave were likely from a single clan of Early Bronze Age farming people; but their attackers may have been nomadic hunters. The archer shot this individual from behind so the arrow lodged in their back, within the rib cage but below the shoulder blade. "Undoubtedly, the person who was struck had little ability to react in time to avoid it," says Tornero. Excavation work at the Roc de les Orenetes site, where human remains dating to 2400 BC can be seen in the foreground. Photograph by Leo Pérez, IPHES-CERCA The moment of the discovery of a flint arrowhead with a broken tip, dated to 2400 BC. Photograph by Iván Ramírez, IPHES-CERCA Each arrowhead found in the cave was likely once embedded in the flesh of the dead people interred there, he says. But this individual did not die from their arrow wound—instead, the rib bone shows signs of healing that indicate the victim lived for a long time after their close encounter with death, Tornero says. Roc de les Orenetes was discovered in 1969, and the remains of 60 bodies—many bearing scars from battle—have since been unearthed there, although only one-third of the site has been excavated, according to Tornero. The newly found arrowhead is another indicator of the violent conflicts in prehistory, as well as final proof for Tornero that the ancient people buried at Roc de les Orenetes were sometimes the victims of violence—and may have been the perpetrators of deadly violence in return.
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Yahoo
Researchers pack a "quantum light factory" into a 1mm² CMOS chip — combines photonics, electronics, and quantum hardware with traditional silicon manufacturing that can achieve mass scale
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Researchers from Boston University, UC Berkeley, and Northwestern University have created something that sounds straight out of a sci-fi movie: a 'quantum light factory' squeezed onto a 1 mm² silicon chip. Built using a standard 45 nm CMOS manufacturing process—the same kind used for standard x86 and ARM processors—this breakthrough brings quantum hardware a step closer to the world of mass production. The work, published in Nature Electronic, could pave the way for scalable quantum computing that doesn't require exotic setups, instead relying on mass production techniques that we already employ today. Think of this chip as a prototype for a future quantum factory line. It packs 12 tiny silicon loops, called "microring resonators," each acting as a generator of photon pairs with special quantum properties. These photon pairs are the lifeblood of many quantum technologies, but producing them usually requires fragile lab setups. Here, they're generated directly on a chip no bigger than a fingernail. What makes this remarkable is that the chip doesn't just produce quantum light; it's more about keeping that light stable. Microring resonators are powerful but temperamental—small temperature changes or manufacturing quirks can throw them out of tune, halting the photon flow. To solve this, the researchers built a feedback system directly into the chip; each resonator has a tiny photodiode to monitor its performance, along with miniature heaters and control circuits that adjust it on the fly. This self-tuning approach means all 12 resonators can work together in perfect sync, without the bulky stabilization equipment usually needed. 'This is a small step, but an important one,' said Miloš Popović, associate professor at Boston University and one of the senior authors. 'It shows we can build repeatable, controllable quantum systems in commercial semiconductor foundries.' That's the real story here—this isn't just a niche, bleeding-edge lab demo, but proof that quantum chips can be made with the same industrial techniques used to build CPUs and GPUs. Of course, quantum computing is nowhere near the maturity of standard semiconductors powering our devices today, but this is a step closer to that eventuality. Let's talk about the most important revelation. The team's choice of CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) is a game-changer. CMOS is the backbone of modern electronics, used by companies like TSMC to mass-produce everything from smartphones to supercomputers. While the 45 nm node used here isn't cutting-edge, it's proven, cost-effective, and compatible with the vast infrastructure of silicon manufacturing. The chip was built using a platform co-developed with GlobalFoundries and Ayar Labs, a company already leading the charge in optical interconnects for AI and high-performance computing. This overlap with the AI world is no coincidence. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang recently called out microring resonators—like those on this chip—as key components for scaling AI hardware via optical connections. This new research shows that the same photonics technology could also unlock scalable quantum systems. It's not hard to imagine a future where quantum and AI hardware share similar silicon platforms. Moreover, Nvidia is already heavily investing in this field, so we can only expect development to ramp up. The term 'quantum light factory' isn't just for flair, either. Just as classical chips rely on streams of electrons and optical networks depend on laser light, future quantum technologies will need a steady supply of quantum light. By proving that these quantum light sources can be built, stabilized, and replicated on silicon, the team has shown that quantum hardware can move beyond one-off experiments and into something that can be scaled like traditional computing. Some of the researchers involved are already taking this expertise into industry roles. Team members have joined companies like PsiQuantum, Ayar Labs, and Google X, all of which are betting heavily on photonic and quantum technologies. It's another sign that this field is moving rapidly from academic research to real-world products, even if they're sometimes more fun-oriented than revolutionary. Backed by the National Science Foundation's Future of Semiconductors (FuSe) program, the Packard Fellowship, and the Catalyst Foundation, the project shows how far interdisciplinary collaboration can go. Photonics, electronics, and quantum optics are worlds apart, but this chip proves they can be brought together on a commercial platform. If Intel's 4004 microprocessor marked the start of mass-produced computing power, this 1 mm² quantum light factory could be remembered as the first step toward mass-produced quantum hardware. What once needed an entire lab bench now fits onto a silicon wafer—and that's a leap worth paying attention to. Who knows? Maybe a decade from now, you'll be seeing a new TSMC competing for quantum computing excellence, especially now that there's already an operating system for it out there. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News to get our up-to-date news, analysis, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.
