Our family has great friends in the San Ildefonso Pueblo. Our son, David, was given his Pueblo middle name, Shu-ma pin, by Pilar Aguilar, niece of the famous potter Maria Martinez. David was taken into the kiva at age eight weeks; what a privilege. Well, the Pueblo people have been in the history of the Southwest a very long time. I urge you to visit the stunning Canyons of the Ancients Visitor Center and Museum in Dolores, Colorado.
Now, Thomas Pinotti and 20 colleagues from Picuris Pueblo and 10 institutions on 3 continents have helped fill in gaps of the rich story of Picuris. They have blended oral traditions with genomes from 16 ancient Picuris individuals and 13 living members of the sovereign nation. These genomes show that the Picuris people have genetic continuity with the Ancestral Puebloans, extending to the awesome Chaco Canyon culture.
They show also that the population did not decline before the Europeans arrived, even if the Puebloans migrated as the climate shifted several times. Moreover, before 1500 CE the Athabascan people from northern Canada – future Dine’ and Apache - did not merge into the Puebloan population. DNA, oral history, and archaeology paint a unified picture.
This has been an outreach activity of the Las Cruces Academy, viewable at GreatSchools.org
Source: Nature 642: 125-132 (5 June 2025)
Image: 332. Joseph Aguilar Pueblo anthropologist.jpg (my photo)
