DNA Links Modern Picuris Pueblo Tribe to Ancestors Who Lived in Chaco Canyon Hundreds of Years Ago

[Judi Lynn]

Tribal leaders partnered with scientists to confirm their connection to the archaeological site in New Mexico

Sarah Kuta - Daily Correspondent
May 8, 2025



Pueblo Bonito is one of the largest "great houses" constructed by the Chacoan people at Chaco Canyon. National Park Service



Members of the Picuris Pueblo tribe in New Mexico have always known they were descendants of the historical inhabitants of Chaco Canyon. Now, they have the data to prove it.

Working with scientists, tribal leaders have established a genetic link between themselves and the Chacoan people who flourished between 850 and 1150 C.E. With the findings, recently published in the journal Nature, the tribe hopes to have more influence over the future of Chaco Canyon and the surrounding region.

“We steered this ship in the hopes that using technology in the Western way—that they would now listen,” Craig Quanchello, the tribe’s lieutenant governor, said at a news conference, as reported by Reuters’ Will Dunham. “This is something that we’ve always known—who we are. Our elders [have] always known we’ve been here, and [we] come to find out that everything we felt and knew [was] just validated.”

For the study, researchers sequenced the DNA of 13 present-day members of the tribe. They compared that genetic material to DNA from 16 Picuris Pueblo individuals who lived between 500 and 700 years ago, as well as ancient and modern DNA from other Indigenous populations and remains found in Chaco Canyon.

The data showed a genetic link between the modern Picuris Pueblo people, their ancestors and the inhabitants of Chaco Canyon.

More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/dna-links-modern-picuris-pueblo-tribe-to-ancestors-who-lived-in-chaco-canyon-hundreds-of-years-ago-180986575/

[alittlelark]

1. Wow!! Very Cool! Chaco is a deep experience.

This revelation answers many questions 🤓

[marybourg]

2. Oral tradition is a better keeper of history

than writing is. I’ve seen Pueblo people re-enact the Inquisition in dance and chant and in another dance, the rejection of Christian missionaries; we are forgetting the Holocaust and the Civil Rights era already, although every painful detail is in writing.