May 1, 2025 — In a landmark study in Nature, SMU Anthropology’s Michael A. Adler (co-first author), David J. Meltzer (co-last author), and Matthew T. Boulanger, along with their international collaborators, including the University of Copenhagen’s Thomaz Pinotti and Eske Willerslev, have used ancient DNA to definitely link the people of Picuris Pueblo with an ancestral heritage site, Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon. This innovative research, which brought together archaeologists, geneticists, and the Picuris Pueblo community, is not only groundbreaking in its findings but exemplary in its modeling of tribal data sovereignty.
A video and more information are available here.