Amplification of human short tandem repeats from medieval teeth and bone samples

The suitability of typing hypervariable DNA loci for the genetic analysis of prehistoric populations is demonstrated for the first time. Alleles of the human short tandem repeat locus VWA31/A have been amplified from ancient teeth and bone samples derived from an early medieval burial site at Weingarten, Germany, using the polymerase chain reaction. The DNA results for 76 individuals reveal remarkable similarity of the allelic frequencies between the past and modern populations. A surplus of apparent homozygotes in the ancient population is most likely due to a stochastic problem of amplification of degraded DNA. Therefore technical obstacles for the application to ancient DNA were evaluated. The substantial perspectives of using microsatellite typing for the analysis of heritable diseases, determination of relatedness, and establishment of genealogies in prehistoric populations are outlined.