Kristina Killgrove is an archaeologist with specialties in ancient human skeletons and science communication. Her academic research has appeared in numerous scientific journals, while her news stories and essays have been published in venues such as Forbes, Mental Floss and Smithsonian.
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.
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.
The research team took samples for whole-genome sequencing from seven skeletons that were carbon-dated to between 1805 and 1917, a period in which interactions between Blackfoot people and Euroamericans were increasing because of the fur trade. While DNA preservation was not ideal, as the samples came from skeletons that had been exposed on a burial platform, all the remains produced mitochondrial DNA information, or genetic data passed down from the maternal side.
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