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Optimized Bone Sampling Protocols for the Retrieval of Ancient DNA from Archaeological Remains

Optimized Bone Sampling Protocols for the Retrieval of Ancient DNA from Archaeological Remains

Published on: November 30, 2021

Ancient admixture in human history.

Nick Patterson¹, Priya Moorjani, Yontao Luo

¹Broad Institute of Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. nickp@broadinstitute.org

|September 11, 2012

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

We developed new methods and tools (ADMIXTOOLS) to study population mixture and human admixture history. Our findings reveal a significant admixture event in Northern Europe involving Basques/Sardinians and Northeast Asian/American ancestral groups.

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Area of Science:

Population genetics
Human evolution
Bioinformatics

Background:

Population mixture is a fundamental biological process influencing genetic diversity.
Understanding admixture history is crucial for reconstructing human migration patterns and evolutionary relationships.

Purpose of the Study:

To present ADMIXTOOLS, a software package for analyzing population mixtures.
To introduce a novel single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) array for population genetic studies.
To investigate human admixture history with new insights.

Main Methods:

Development and application of ADMIXTOOLS for formal testing, proportion inference, and dating of admixture events.
Genotyping 934 individuals from 53 populations using a custom 629,433 SNP array.
Analysis of population genetic data to identify admixture signals.

Main Results:

A clear signal of admixture in Northern Europe was detected.
One ancestral component is related to Basques and Sardinians.
The other ancestral component is linked to Northeast Asian and American populations.

Conclusions:

The detected admixture in Northern Europe likely represents interactions between Neolithic migrants and Mesolithic Europeans.
Findings align with recent ancient DNA studies, including the Tyrolean Iceman genome.
ADMIXTOOLS provides powerful tools for advancing population genetic research.