MITOCHONDRIAL-DNA DIVERSITY IN THE KUNA AMERINDS OF PANAMA

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplotype diversity was determined for 63 Ch ibcha-speaking Kuna Amerinds sampled widely across their geographic ra nge in eastern Panama. The Kuna data were compared with mtDNA control region I sequences from two neighboring Chibchan groups, the Ngobe and the Huetar; two Amerind groups located at the northern and southern e xtremes of Amerind distribution, the Nuu-Chah-Nulth of the Pacific Nor thwest and the Chilean Mapuche; and with a single Na-Dene group, the H aida of the Pacific Northwest, The Kuna exhibited low levels of mitoch ondrial diversity as had been reported for the other two Chibchan grou ps and, furthermore, carried only two of the four Amerind founding lin eages first reported by Schurr and coworkers (Am. J. Hum. Genet. 1990; 46: 613-623), We posit that speakers of modern Chibchan languages (he nceforth referred to as the Chibcha) passed through a population bottl eneck caused either by ethnogenesis from a small founding population a nd/or subsequent European conquest and colonization, Using the approac h of Harpending al al. (Curr. Anthropol. 1993; 34: 483-496), we estima ted a Chibchan population bottleneck and subsequent expansion approxim ately 10000 years before present, a date consistent with a bottleneck at the time of Chibchan ethnogenesis, The low mtDNA diversity of Kuna Amerinds, as opposed to the generally high levels of mtDNA variation d etected in other Amerind groups, demonstrates the need for adequate sa mpling of cultural or racial groups when attempting to genetically cha racterize human populations.