Ancient Indigenous lineage of Blackfoot Confederacy

Ancient Indigenous lineage of Blackfoot Confederacy goes back 18,000 years to last ice age, DNA reveals (complete title)

A new DNA study of living and historical members of the Blackfoot Confederacy in the U.S. and Canada suggests that they share a lineage with people from the last ice age.


The Blackfoot Confederacy, shown here in a historical photo, has an ancient genetic lineage that goes back 18,000 years. (Image credit: ilbusca via Getty Images)


Members of the Blackfoot Confederacy have an ancient lineage that goes back 18,000 years, meaning that Indigenous peoples living in the Great Plains of Montana and southern Alberta today can trace their origins to ice age predecessors, a new DNA study reveals.

In the new study, published April 3 in the journal Science Advances, a team of researchers led by three members of the Blackfoot Confederacy investigated the genetic history of their tribes.

Comprising four related tribes — the Blackfeet, Kainai, Piikani and Siksika — members of the Blackfoot Confederacy historically included nomadic bison hunters and trout fishers. Their territory was divided in the mid-19th century by the U.S.-Canadian border, and in the late 19th century both countries' governments forced the Indigenous confederacy members to settle on reservations.

Since then, tribes in the Blackfoot Confederacy have had to defend their land claims and water rights, in spite of both archaeological evidence and oral traditions testifying to their deep history in the area. To provide an additional line of evidence that could help secure their treaty rights as well as to advance scientific knowledge of Indigenous genomic lineages, members of the Kainai Nation in Canada and the Blackfeet tribe in Montana partnered with scientists from multiple U.S. universities to investigate their genetic history.

https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/ancient-indigenous-lineage-of-blackfoot-confederacy-goes-back-18000-years-to-last-ice-age-dna-reveals