The Uros people live on floating islands on Lake Titicaca, high in the Andes on the border of Peru and Bolivia. They have always maintained that they are an ancient and distinct people who have always lived on the shores of -or in- Lake Titicaca. Outsiders are split about this claim. Some consider the Uros indistinguishable from other indigenous South Americans such as the Quechua and Aymara, and think that the people who live there now are staying because they benefit from the lake's resources and the tourist trade. They've even been accused of fabricating their history and customs as a performance. The government of Peru has been planning to turn the area into a national reserve, so the question is important to the people who live there now and demand the right to continue living in their ancestral home.
That's where DNA tests come in. A team of geneticists traveled to Lake Titicaca and had a time convincing the Uros to give swabs of DNA for testing. Julio Vilca, mayor of the floating islands, convinced others that this was the way to prove their lineage and history, and was the first to take the swab. Read about the Uros people of Laka Titicaca and what the genetic tests revealed at Big Think.
(Image credit: BENNY GROSS.1)