RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 A genetic history of the pre-contact Caribbean JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 2020.06.01.126730 DO 10.1101/2020.06.01.126730 A1 Daniel M. Fernandes A1 Kendra A. Sirak A1 Harald Ringbauer A1 Jakob Sedig A1 Nadin Rohland A1 Olivia Cheronet A1 Matthew Mah A1 Swapan Mallick A1 Iñigo Olalde A1 Brendan J. Culleton A1 Nicole Adamski A1 Rebecca Bernardos A1 Guillermo Bravo A1 Nasreen Broomandkhoshbacht A1 Kimberly Callan A1 Francesca Candilio A1 Lea Demetz A1 Kellie Sara Duffett Carlson A1 Laurie Eccles A1 Suzanne Freilich A1 Ann Marie Lawson A1 Kirsten Mandl A1 Fabio Marzaioli A1 Jonas Oppenheimer A1 Kadir T. Özdogan A1 Constanze Schattke A1 Ryan Schmidt A1 Kristin Stewardson A1 Filippo Terrasi A1 Fatma Zalzala A1 Carlos Arredondo Antúnez A1 Ercilio Vento Canosa A1 Roger Colten A1 Andrea Cucina A1 Francesco Genchi A1 Claudia Kraan A1 Francesco La Pastina A1 Michaela Lucci A1 Marcio Veloz Maggiolo A1 Beatriz Marcheco-Teruel A1 Clenis Tavarez Maria A1 Cristian Martinez A1 Ingeborg París A1 Michael Pateman A1 Tanya Simms A1 Carlos Garcia Sivoli A1 Miguel Vilar A1 Douglas J. Kennett A1 William F. Keegan A1 Alfredo Coppa A1 Mark Lipson A1 Ron Pinhasi A1 David Reich YR 2020 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/06/01/2020.06.01.126730.abstract AB Humans settled the Caribbean ~6,000 years ago, with intensified agriculture and ceramic use marking a shift from the Archaic Age to the Ceramic Age ~2,500 years ago. To shed new light on the history of Caribbean people, we report genome-wide data from 184 individuals predating European contact from The Bahamas, Cuba, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, Curaçao, and northwestern Venezuela. A largely homogeneous ceramic-using population most likely originating in northeastern South America and related to present-day Arawak-speaking groups moved throughout the Caribbean at least 1,800 years ago, spreading ancestry that is still detected in parts of the region today. These people eventually almost entirely replaced Archaic-related lineages in Hispaniola but not in northwestern Cuba, where unadmixed Archaic-related ancestry persisted into the last millennium. We document high mobility and inter-island connectivity throughout the Ceramic Age as reflected in relatives buried ~75 kilometers apart in Hispaniola and low genetic differentiation across many Caribbean islands, albeit with subtle population structure distinguishing the Bahamian islands we studied from the rest of the Caribbean and from each other, and long-term population continuity in southeastern coastal Hispaniola differentiating this region from the rest of the island. Ceramic-associated people avoided close kin unions despite limited mate pools reflecting low effective population sizes (2Ne=1000-2000) even at sites on the large Caribbean islands. While census population sizes can be an order of magnitude larger than effective population sizes, pan-Caribbean population size estimates of hundreds of thousands are likely too large. Transitions in pottery styles show no evidence of being driven by waves of migration of new people from mainland South America; instead, they more likely reflect the spread of ideas and people within an interconnected Caribbean world.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.