ancient dna

Wolfgang Haak et al., Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe, bioRxiv http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/013433 ID I0412 Culture: Els Trocs, Spain (Cardial pottery, Early Neolithic) 5310-5206 BCE mtDNA N1a1a1 Y-DNA I2a1b1, L161+ ID I0172 Culture...

Schiffels et al. (2014) tested two Iron Age Celtic samples and four early medieval Anglo-Saxon samples, all from Hixton in Cambridgeshire, East Anglia, England. The Iron Age Britond lived approximately 2,000 years ago, while the Anglo-Saxon individuals are dated to c. 1,300 years before present...

Here is a new paper by Daniel Gómez-Sánchez and co-workers. They tested 19 mitochondrial sequences from the Burgos region in Castile and León, northern Spain, all dating from the late Copper Age (2050 to 2500 BCE). The authors note the heterogeneity of mt-haplogroups compared to other...

A new paper by Emilia Huerta-Sánchez and colleagues was published in Nature yesterday: Altitude adaptation in Tibetans caused by introgression of Denisovan-like DNA. Abstract As modern humans migrated out of Africa, they encountered many new environmental conditions, including greater...

Sikora et al. published a new paper comparing the genome of two 2,500-year-old Iron Age Thracians (P192-1 and K8) with Ötzi (Chalcolithic Alps), Gök4 and ajv70 (Neolithic Sweden), brana1 (Mesolithic Spain) and Swedish hunter-gatherers. The admixture comparison is particularly interesting. The...

A very interesting new paper by Wilde et al. 2014 tested three genes (HERC2, SLC45A2 and TYR) associated with skin, eye and hair pigmentation in 63 ancient samples from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe (mostly modern Ukraine) dating from the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. The results are relatively...

At present, ancient Y-DNA tests have only confirmed the presence of haplogroups G2a and F among the remains of Neolithic farmers from the Linear Pottery culture (LBK) in Central Europe. Elsewhere, only G2a and E-V13 have been found, besides the Mesolithic lineage I2a. Most people now agree that...

Rasmussen et al. tested the entire genome of a boy from the Clovis culture who died 12,600 years ago in Anzick, Montana. The results shows that all indigenous people in both North an South America seem to be descended from the same group of ancestors as those of the Clovis culture, which started...

I am starting to get annoyed by the number of useless studies published recently in the field of population genetics that do not tell us anything that we didn't already know, and do not provide any worthwhile new data (e.g. Pickrell et al. 2014, Sverrisdóttir et al. 2014, Pierron et al. 2013...

Brandt et al. analysed 364 ancient mtDNA samples from the Early Neolithic (Linear Pottery culture) to the Early Bronze Age (Unetice culture), mostly around Germany, Bohemia and Poland. I believe that this is the largest study on ancient mtDNA to date. Although the article is behind a paywall...

The Huns, known as the Khün, Hunnu, or Xiongnu in East Asia, migrated from the Altai to the Volga region in the 1st century CE, then invaded eastern and central Europe in the 4th century, establishing the Hunnic Empire (c. 370-469 CE). There has been an impressive number of studies...

Patrick J. Geary of the Institute for Advanced Study announced a few days ago that he and his team were going to test the DNA of hundreds of Lombard-era individuals from cemeteries in Pannonia and Italy. They will test about 5000 SNP's in each sample. The aim is of course to better understand...

Just released: A European population in Minoan Bronze Age Crete, by Hughey et al. Abstract The first advanced Bronze Age civilization of Europe was established by the Minoans about 5,000 years before present. Since Sir Arthur Evans exposed the Minoan civic centre of Knossos, archaeologists...

Ancient DNA from an Early Neolithic Iberian population_MtDNA Ancient DNA from an Early Neolithic Iberian population supports a pioneer colonization by first farmers C. GAMBA,* E. FERNA´ NDEZ,*† M. TIRADO,* M. F. DEGUILLOUX,‡ M. H. PEMONGE,‡ P. UTRILLA,§ M. EDO, – M . MOLIST , * * R . RASTEIRO...