Daily Galaxy sold a ghost story on a paper that is sixteen months old. The bones are real. The sequencing is real. The title is the part that does not survive a look at the study. I enjoy Daily Galaxy articles, but something is usually a little off. I still like them, but as we dive into them, it becomes apparant.
On May 28, 2025, Science Advances published the first ancient human genomes from Colombia. Kim-Louise Krettek was first author. Cosimo Posth of the University of Tübingen was senior author. Andrea Casas-Vargas of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia was on the paper. They pulled genome-wide data from 21 people at five sites on the Altiplano, the high plains around Bogotá, covering almost 6,000 years and stopping just short of the Spanish.
Seven of them came from Checua, north of Bogotá, at about 3,000 meters. Hunter-gatherers. About 6,000 years old. Their DNA sits on a basal branch of the first fast spread into South America. It does not line up with the Anzick-1 Clovis-related line, or with the California Channel Islands-related line, both already known from the early Americas. When the team checked people who lived on the same plateau about 2,000 years ago, later Muisca-period burials, and present-day South American groups in the comparison set, that Checua component was gone.
Krettek said it in the Tübingen release of May 30, 2025: “We couldn’t find descendants of these early hunter-gatherers of the Colombian high plains — the genes were not passed on.” Casas-Vargas called a total local wipeout of the original traces unusual for South America. She is right about that. In the Andes and the southern cone, ancient and living people usually still share a long genetic thread. So far, so good.
The 4,000-year gap is the whole mystery. Checua at 6,000 years. Next genomes at 2,000. Nothing sequenced in between.
By 2,000 years ago the plateau carries a different ancestry, tied to Central America and the Herrera ceramic period, closer to Chibchan speakers in Panama than to many later Indigenous Colombians. That later ancestry holds through the Muisca period while the culture changes. Casas-Vargas links the newcomers to ceramics and, probably, Chibchan languages. That is genetics plus archaeology. There is no language gene in the dataset.
The paper is explicit about the limits. The data are SNP capture, not full genomes. Twenty-one people. A regionally focused sample. Too thin to time the replacement, or to say whether it stopped at the Altiplano. Posth also warned, in the same release, that genetic disposition is not cultural identity. The team met with the Guardia Indígena Muisca before they published.
Daily Galaxy ran the story on October 4, 2026, under the headline “Scientists Uncover 6,000-Year-Old Human Remains. No Known Living Population Share Their DNA.” The URL slug is ancient-dna-unknown-human-lineage. Phys.org had the Tübingen release in late May 2025. Smithsonian wrote it up in June. Reuters filed from Bogotá on August 25, 2025. “Uncover” is a rerun.
The body of the Daily Galaxy piece mostly tracks the university announcement. The quotes check out. The site count checks out. The Central American replacement checks out. The liberties are in the frame. You all know us at Whatfinger News. We call out the BS from all. In this case, it is more for publicity sake, so it is easily bypassed since we do love the site.
“No known living population share their DNA” is stronger than the measurement. Every living person shares the bulk of the human genome with these seven. What the authors report is narrower: this ancestral component does not show up as a detectable contribution in the ancient or present-day South American groups they tested. Absence in a comparison set is not proof that no living person carries a trace, and it is not proof the people were wiped off the earth. Small contributions fall below detection. A lot of Colombia, the Amazon, and the neighboring countries still have no ancient genomes.
“Unknown human lineage” is the other slip. Readers who spent the summer on the Berkeley ghost-ancestry papers in Science will hear a new species. Checua is modern Homo sapiens. A previously unsampled branch of the first South Americans. Not a Denisovan cousin. Not the African ghost lineage reported in July 2026. The university release calls them a previously unknown early population. It does not call them another kind of human.
The 4,000-year hole does the rest of the damage. Died out, pushed out, folded into a larger group below the detection line, or walked somewhere that has not been sequenced. The paper cannot pick. Daily Galaxy lists those possibilities later, then lets the headline pretend the case is closed. Obviously this is not true.
I would run the finding. First Colombian ancient genomes. A basal South American branch with no clear later footprint on that plateau. A local replacement that is rare for the continent. That is a real mystery, and it is sitting in a peer-reviewed journal. I would not run the title. The title borrows the heat of this year’s ghost-hominin coverage and sticks it on a year-old population-turnover paper. But overall, for entertainment’s sake. The article, we give a pass. As I said, we like them for entertainment, and every now and then sites take certain liberties. You take the good with the bad as we say.
— The Whatfinger News Team: Luke and Ben, with Alex, and Grok on edits and graphics
Top Features and Vids across all Whatfinger sites
- Must Watch, please don’t Skip. 5 mins of knowledge YOU need. It gets better and better with more info over 5 mins
- President Trump Holds a Rally in Vandalia, OH
- MAN DETAILS HOW YOU CAN EXPLOIT THE SYSTEM AND LIVE RENT-FREE IN OREGON
- Ten Drops Later, the Surgery Talk Stopped. Yet another simple solution to so many ailments
- Ana Kasparian has completely DESTROYED her career.
Weekly Specials
Our Projects…
- FingerJam is up – discover music, listen tou the top songs from all decades, much more
- Robots Of Dawn – Latest tech, robots you can buy now, what’s coming… Top players
- Joe Rogan Mysteries🛑
- NEW: Whatfinger Deals – Best Prices – Amazon, Walmart, Home Depot, Target on select items.
- FingerPlay is up: search a game, get the official trailer and player clips, score it with Fingers, and run the lists — Out Now through From the Past, plus RPGs, shooters, and each console.
- Whatfinger Hate Hoax File – You wanted the better research, here you go🛑
- The list — Survival Command: Grid-Down Survival & Weapons – save this link – it might save your life one day!
- The Great Whatfinger Link Directory
- We Built the Movie And TV Page Rotten Tomatoes Is Afraid Of – And FREE! – Whatfinger News’ Flick
