Chalcolithic

New research reveals that Ötzi the iceman was bald and probably from a farming family – what else can DNA uncover?

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星期四, 八月 24, 2023
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This amazing find would subsequently become known as Ötzi the Iceman.

Key Points: 
  • This amazing find would subsequently become known as Ötzi the Iceman.
  • His body and belongings were extensively studied, prompting numerous questions: what was he doing here?
  • His unique preservation enabled the sequencing of Ötzi’s whole genome – the complete “instruction booklet” for building a human.
  • But it was enough for a team led by Turi King at the University of Leicester to extract fragments of DNA from them.

Crime scene samples

    • Sequencing a genome, which comprises billions of DNA bases, enables scientists to evaluate regions of the human genome that contribute to appearance.
    • For more than 30 years, forensic scientists have looked at specific highly variable regions in DNA to match these to crime scene samples, or to relatives of a suspect or victim.
    • So how likely is it that DNA from such a sample could accurately paint a picture of me?
    • Can forensic scientists build a kind of identikit photo from a crime scene DNA sample?
    • Hair colour can be predicted from DNA, but darker shades of hair are more accurately predicted than blonde hair.

Environmental factors

    • Commercially sold laboratory kits such as Hirisplex can simultaneously evaluate several DNA regions to predict the hair and eye colour from a biological sample.
    • However, unlike eye colour, hair colour prediction from DNA is only of value until midlife, when the natural processes of ageing lead to greying or white hair.
    • These processes also lead to hair loss in some people and more than 300 gene variants have been linked to baldness.
    • More representative data from the rest of the world will therefore enhance studies in forensic archaeology, such as the Ötzi research.

Ancient DNA reveals the earliest evidence of the last massive human migration to Western Europe

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星期三, 七月 19, 2023
Chalcolithic, DNA, Life, Culture, Farmer, Research, Animal husbandry, Gold, Animal, Bronze Age, Metallurgy during the Copper Age in Europe, Dairy, Copper, Transport, Steppe, Agriculture, Pottery, Weaving, Tea, Nature, Yamnaya culture, Black Sea

Nomadic animal-herders from the Eurasian steppe mingled with Copper Age farmers in southeastern Europe centuries earlier than previously thought. In a new study published in Nature, we used ancient DNA to gain new insights into the spread of culture, technologies and ancestry at a crucial juncture in European history.How ancient DNA can help us understand changeHowever, it is not always clear how these changes moved between different groups of people.

Key Points: 


Nomadic animal-herders from the Eurasian steppe mingled with Copper Age farmers in southeastern Europe centuries earlier than previously thought. In a new study published in Nature, we used ancient DNA to gain new insights into the spread of culture, technologies and ancestry at a crucial juncture in European history.

How ancient DNA can help us understand change

    • However, it is not always clear how these changes moved between different groups of people.
    • It can happen either by a spread of ideas (such as through trade), or through the migration of people.
    • Read more:
      European invasion: DNA reveals the origins of modern Europeans

      First, there was an expansion of early farming groups from Anatolia around 9,000 years ago.

The Copper Age in southeastern Europe

    • Southeastern Europe played an important role in the spread of farming across Europe after early farmers from Anatolia arrived around 9,000-8,000 years ago.
    • Approximately 1,000 years later, easy access to copper, gold and salt led to the development of many flourishing settlements in parts of today’s Bulgaria and Romania.

A new era and a melting pot of human interaction

    • The reason for this is not fully understood, but it is likely due to the depletion of resources due to unfavourable climatic conditions.
    • Instead, large settlements of several thousand houses emerged further north in parts of what are now Moldova and Ukraine.
    • Here, during a period called the Eneolithic spanning from 5,200 to 6,500 years ago, the region around today’s Odesa became a “melting pot” of human interaction.

A surprising discovery

    • In addition to the previously observed Copper Age ancestry, we detected new genetic contributions from individuals from the forest steppe regions, and the North Caucasus.
    • This new ancestry and its appearance in western Europe had been uniquely associated with the spread of a later cultural group known as the Yamnaya.
    • We didn’t expect to see signs of this ancestry until at least 500 years later, when the Yamnaya arrived.

A mosaic of ancestries

    • In eight of these individuals we observed the expected westward expansion of steppe pastoralists, this time associated with the Yamnaya culture.
    • Our study of genetic data over time reveals a highly dynamic picture of human prehistory in southeastern Europe.