European diseases left a genetic mark on Native Americans

When the indigenous peoples of the Americas encountered European settlers in the 15th century, they faced people with wildly different religions, customs, and—tragically—diseases; the encounters wiped out large swaths of indigenous populations within decades. Now, researchers have found that these diseases have also left their mark on modern-day populations: A new study suggests that infectious diseases brought by Europeans, from smallpox to measles, have molded the immune systems of today’s indigenous Americans, down to the genetic level.

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Kim TallBear, a native studies researcher at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, says the study is well designed and provides “deeper genetic resolution on what we already know.” Still, she’s concerned the paper suggests that indigenous people are defined by their differences with Europeans, rather than by their adaption to their own environment. “Within the dominant scientific narrative, the European body is the standard and indigenous bodies are thought of as biologically deviant,” TallBear says.

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