While archeological, ethnohistoric, and linguistic data provide crucial perspectives on the peopling of the Caribbean Basin there are still many questions regarding the timing and origins of the initial migrations as well as the ramifications of colonization on the demography on indigenous Caribbean populations.
In response to these issues, and with local and community consent, we examined mitochondrial and Y chromosome DNA diversity from two Lesser Antillean indigenous communities-the Garifuna and Santa Rosa First People’s Community.
In this study we found that both communities exhibited moderate frequencies of Indigenous American matrilineal and patrilineal varying degrees of Indigenous American, African, and European general (genome-wide) ancestry.