tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41235591320146274312012-02-01T18:15:45.581-08:00Focusing on European population genetics and modern anthropology.Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.comBlogger1261100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-73626720788180616492012-01-30T23:03:00.000-08:002012-01-31T13:38:03.925-08:00

For the past few years I've regularly blogged about ancient European migrations to Central and East Asia. It's actually fairly easy to pick up signals of these population movements via autosomal DNA, mtDNA, and even physical traits (for example, see here and here). However, it's a lot harder to do so via Y-DNA. Indeed, to date, there have been few instances of European specific Y-chromosome

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-28353230718348051542012-01-28T23:32:00.000-08:002012-01-29T00:20:28.073-08:00

The R1a1a Subclades Y-DNA project has some awesome maps. One of the most fascinating, I think, is the image showing the modern and pre-WWII spread of R1a1a1g2d, or R1a, Z280+, Z92+.Although most people in the project who carry this marker are of Northern Polish, Eastern German and Lithuanian descent, it's actually classified as a Baltic R1a subclade. There's good reason for that; it peaks in a

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-13576475915717521742012-01-22T22:56:00.000-08:002012-01-24T15:05:06.634-08:00

This is a continuation of my ChromoPainter analysis of Europeans from north of the Pyrenees, Alps and Balkans (see here). To obtain the most accurate results possible on my laptop, I increased the burn-ins and iterations in fineSTRUCTURE to 500K each (5 hour run in all, which is all I'm willing to put this machine through). The end product looks very similar to my initial analysis, in which I

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-43833820767324318362012-01-13T23:50:00.000-08:002012-02-01T18:15:45.647-08:00

I have some preliminary results from my intra-North Euro cluster analysis, using the new ChromoPainter tool. I tested more than 400 samples and 270K SNPs, in linkage mode, and then processed the data in fineSTRUCTURE at 200K burn-ins and iterations. Like I say, the results should be treated as preliminary, but they already look better than any other cluster analysis I've ever seen dealing with

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-22892731206920231522012-01-02T16:46:00.000-08:002012-01-06T18:39:43.889-08:00

An N1c1 enthusiast from Finland has just released a short paper titled "Structure of the Y-haplogroup N1c1 updated to 67 markers". As the title suggests, it's an update of an earlier analysis, using more markers and also newly discovered SNPs. From memory, this guy's a linguist, not a genetecist, but he's done a very nice job, so I think the work deserves a plug. It'll probably take months before

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-31618597587403237092011-12-24T18:49:00.000-08:002011-12-30T07:33:59.548-08:00

A couple of times on these blogs I've made comments about the "western" genetic character of ethnic Russians, which has shown up in various analyses (see here and here). Russian scientists have now released a paper explaining why this is so. They based their conclusions only on mtDNA, which is a bit of a shame, because adding genome-wide autosomal DNA to the analysis would've provided so much

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-16623714799483801522011-12-10T19:58:00.000-08:002011-12-12T22:44:31.308-08:00

It's time for an overhaul. As of today, Eurogenes v1 is finished. In it's place I'm starting a new version of the project, with different methodologies and more streamlined goals. Basically, I'm no longer offering an ancestry service for 23andMe and FTDNA customers. Rather, I'm going to focus on analyzing the samples in my collection to try and unlock some of the mysteries about European and

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-68400010790848352392011-12-01T18:51:00.001-08:002011-12-02T05:16:18.279-08:00

It appears the R1a phylogenetic tree is heading for a major shake up. The subclades are likely to be renamed. If so, most of the designations I've been using on my blogs won't be valid. For instance, the Polish-specific R1a1a1g2 is listed as R1a1a1h1a on the diagram below, which outlines the proposed changes to R1a1a phylogeny. The graphic comes from the R1a1a and Subclades Y-DNA Project, and is

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-43590992114100615962011-11-21T20:21:00.000-08:002011-12-12T15:37:33.577-08:00

We're probably not too far away from unlocking the secrets of how Europe was populated in prehistoric times, mostly thanks to huge advances in ancient DNA technology. So I thought I'd throw my hat in the ring just before that happens, and try and predict where two of Europe's major Y-DNA haplogroups originated, and how they spread across the continent. Obviously, I'm referring here to R1a and R1b

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-44365390126720098142011-11-19T17:37:00.000-08:002011-11-19T19:37:24.708-08:00

Most scholars agree that the early Indo-Europeans most likely expanded from somewhere in Europe into Asia. However, the main competition to that theory has been the idea that the proto-Indo-Europeans pushed into Europe from what is now Armenia and surrounds. The latter supposition has now taken a major knock, thanks to a new study comparing European and Armenian Y-chromosome lineages. Indeed, it

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-17535914509069981792011-11-12T00:30:00.000-08:002011-11-15T05:09:48.149-08:00

Ten years ago, Passarino et al. released a paper focusing on the origins and spread of R1a1a (back then known as Eu19). They did this by studying the frequency and diversity of the 49a,f/TaqI haplotype 11, which appeared to be linked to R1a1a. The conclusion was that R1a1a most likely originated in present day Ukraine, and expanded from there into Europe and Asia. However, a couple years later,

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-67913817286308215222011-11-09T16:38:00.000-08:002011-11-28T21:07:41.092-08:00

Slowly, but surely, the diversity of genome-wide SNP samples available to the public is increasing. One of the most interesting and valuable sets, released courtesy of the recently published Yunusbayev et al. study, comes from the Mordovian Republic, in the Russian Federation. It includes the results for 15 people from the closely related Erzya and Moksha ethnic groups (10 and 4 samples

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-90800123477003790302011-10-28T08:51:00.000-07:002011-10-29T19:37:37.660-07:00

I just read Dienekes' retort to my criticism of his work. Hilarious stuff...Actually, according to the PCA plot of the Yunusbayev et al. (2011) paper, they are transitional, being situated toward both the Balkans and the Caucasus, relative to Belorussians/Lithuanians, i.e., the populations that generally show peaks of East European-related components. This is also supported by the ADMIXTURE

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-58641351270592379202011-10-28T00:04:00.001-07:002011-10-28T06:14:20.732-07:00

Yesterday I blogged about a couple of newly discovered R1a1a SNPs that seemed to represent two major migration routes across Eurasia, one north of the Caspian Sea and the other south. These SNPs are Z280 and Z93 respectively, and I'll be watching how their story unfolds as new data comes in (see here). Meantime, I'd like to show how my theories gel with modern genome-wide autosomal DNA. Below is

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-87829325138878765912011-10-27T03:15:00.001-07:002011-10-28T06:16:52.659-07:00

A very coherent picture is emerging of the genetic history of Central and Eastern Europe, based on Y-DNA, autosomal DNA and craniofacial studies (see links below). One of the major discoveries has been the high diversity of the Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a1a in the Southern Baltic region, centered on modern-day Poland. This area harbors inflated frequencies of a number of R1a1a clades, defined by

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-8256821469177976582011-10-19T20:22:00.001-07:002011-10-29T19:48:28.487-07:00

A while back, Dienekes welcomed "peer review" of his work, which I thought was very commendable. I recently spotted a serious error in his analysis, and let him know about it over at his blog. I was hoping to see a correction, and also an admission that his methodology was faulty. Unfortunately, this hasn't happened to date, so I thought I'd describe the problem in detail here.In the blog entry

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-85556329713913673152011-10-18T19:38:00.001-07:002011-10-19T03:57:52.340-07:00

I thought it might be useful to post the results of the massive global ADMIXTURE analysis from the recent Rasmussen et al. paper. It's bigger than anything I'll ever be able to attempt, both in terms of the number of samples and ancestral clusters (K). Despite that, it shows very strong parallels with my own work. Note, for instance, the navy blue North European-specific component, which runs

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-74329155587495697862011-10-17T08:10:00.000-07:002011-10-17T08:11:16.827-07:00

The maps below were based on alleles from three different SNPs each, reported in multiple scientific papers as showing high association with blue (or green) eyes and/or fair hair in Europeans. The results imply a general increase in genotypes linked to eye and hair blondism from south to north Europe, with clear peaks in populations east of the Baltic Sea. The three SNPs include rs1667394 (HERC2

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-43331108054992767072011-10-15T19:40:00.001-07:002011-10-17T18:15:39.092-07:00

I'm starting a series of unsupervised ADMIXTURE analyses focusing on Eurasia. To produce the most accurate and stable results possible, I'm using a dataset of almost 1500 samples. However, I've removed all potential near and distant relatives, and even individuals who showed unusual genome-wide affinity for their respective biogeographic regions. The reason I've taken such extreme measures was to

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-51217044123408192062011-10-07T18:06:00.000-07:002011-10-07T20:26:02.440-07:00

Two-rooted lower canines are rare in humans, but they are most commonly found in European populations, at levels of up to 9%. A new study reveals that this trait reached unusually high frequencies in ancient groups from Central-Eastern Asia, particularly those of Afanasevo, Scythian, Uighur and Ordos origin (2.8% to 4%). This is a strong indication that such groups carried significant European

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-49558760307924166392011-09-30T20:08:00.000-07:002011-10-26T07:35:32.829-07:00

This is a PCA plot showing the genetic relationship between various groups from across Europe, superimposed on a geographic map of the continent. It was posted recently at the 23andMe Research Findings blog. The results obviously show a high correlation with modern ethnic and political borders, which makes sense. I wonder if 23andMe is planning to update its ancestry tools by including something

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-43226350038920002032011-09-26T01:37:00.000-07:002011-09-26T06:53:36.432-07:00

The samples from the new Yunusbayev et al. paper, on the genetics of the Caucasus, are now freely available online. I thought I'd first use them in an MDS analysis of Eastern Europe. Below are three MDS plots or genetic maps, featuring 1) Eastern Europeans without Baltic Finns, 2) Eastern Europeans with Baltic Finns, and 3) Eastern Europeans with Baltic Finns and Volga-Ural samples. The data

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-65530512349285812392011-09-23T02:41:00.000-07:002011-09-23T03:41:56.067-07:00

I recently blogged about a thesis abstract that announced the discovery of Siberian mtDNA lineages in Neolithic and Bronze Age Ukraine. That made sense, because we know via various methodologies that there was contact between Europeans and Siberians across the steppes. However, it now appears as if certain Neolithic groups in Central Europe carried substantial East Asian admixture, at least as

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-85358379689388435382011-09-19T23:16:00.000-07:002011-09-20T07:51:03.410-07:00

As mentioned on my other blog recently, there's a lot of action on different fronts to try and decipher the story of R1a1a. Many new SNPs are being discovered, and one of the most fascinating found to date is Z93. This marker appears to be a signal of a major split within R1a1a, with most samples from north of the Alps and Carpathians coming back Z93-. These include Brits, Germans, Poles, Finns,

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-1505374095787062162011-09-14T23:22:00.001-07:002011-09-19T23:19:38.380-07:00

One of the biggest nonsense theories going around is that the North Caucasus region has had a close genetic relationship with Europe, and particularly Eastern Europe. But to the irritation of some, I've been arguing for years on various fora that there's a very sharp genetic barrier between the Caucasus and the Eastern European plain. I could see it in the data I had available. Now I have

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-11182561236687852772011-09-05T17:52:00.000-07:002011-10-17T07:16:02.826-07:00

A student from the Grand Valley State University has just tested 17 remains from Neolithic and Bronze Age Ukraine for his Masters thesis, and found that six of the individuals carried East Eurasian-specific mtDNA C. This looks like a very important finding, because it backs up what I've been arguing for years on my blogs and elsewhere. Basically, it seems East Eurasian mtDNA lineages were fairly

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-221255872352440142011-08-31T18:40:00.000-07:002011-08-31T20:04:37.672-07:00

Here's another abstract from the ICHG/ASHG 2011 annual meeting line up. This one looks jam packed with info. Hopefully it doesn't take a decade to get through the peer-review process, and into print somewhere. LD patterns in dense variation data reveal information about the history of human populations worldwide. S. Myers1,2, G. Hellenthal2, D. Lawson3, G. Busby4, S. Leslie5, B. Winney5, P.

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-60641903460835238282011-08-31T18:15:00.000-07:002011-09-20T00:13:50.188-07:00

It appears scientists have discovered a major admixture event in South Asia via two very different methodologies - Y-STR diversity and genome-wide LD patterns. Interestingly, the estimated ages of the event from both studies roughly coincidence with the assumed arrival of Indo-European speech in South Asia. However, it's important to note that it's not possible to accurately age Y-DNA haplogroups

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-76096189488543178302011-08-14T21:43:00.000-07:002011-08-14T21:53:11.899-07:00

The datasheet for the plot below (dimensions 1&2) is available here. It features data for up to six dimensions of genetic variation, so you can use it to build various plots, including movable 3D maps. For instructions on how to achieve that, see here.

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-31813947469771455892011-06-14T02:02:00.000-07:002011-06-14T06:33:42.123-07:00

This is an awesome idea. Basically, you analyze your 23andMe raw data with a variety of tools, without actually having to send it anywhere. Unfortunately, it's still a bit buggy in places, but I'm sure all of that will be sorted out eventually. Included is an ancestry chromosome "painting", with some very cool advanced options. I'm told that this is the most experimental feature on the site at

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-20266119275420725242011-05-16T03:44:00.000-07:002011-05-16T21:40:22.413-07:00

No, it's cool, they're not invading anyone. They've launched yet another major study into ancient DNA. This time, they're focusing specifically on the genetic history of the steppes of Eurasia, and how developments in this region - termed Faktor X by the study group - might have affected the ethnogenesis of modern Europeans. Excuse teh Internets slang, but OMFG! Here's a map of the sampling sites

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-71532133823093358612011-05-15T06:49:00.000-07:002011-05-16T05:42:06.575-07:00

Russian anthropologist A.G. Kozintsev recently argued that the European-like steppe tribes of Bronze Age Central Asia could not have originated in Southwest Asia, as had been suggested in the past. Based on craniometric evidence, he came to the conclusion that the most likely source of these semi-nomadic groups was Central or Eastern Europe. These findings gelled with ancient DNA studies of

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-90832055553987503012011-05-14T00:00:00.000-07:002011-05-14T01:39:58.803-07:00

The conclusion of the authors of this paper on Sorb genetics is that these last Slavic speakers of Germany are closer to Poles than to Germans in terms of overall genetic structure. This is a reasonable conclusion based on the data they analyzed, but the problem is that they didn't analyze any German samples sourced specifically from near the Sorb homeland (ie. eastern Germany). So this paper

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-60296983944036075842011-05-09T22:03:00.000-07:002011-05-14T06:08:02.605-07:00

While I'm working to "break up" Northern Europe into K=6 and K=7 (see here), I thought I'd run some quick analyses for the new project members. This MDS analysis shows the three main sources of Asian admixture in Northern Europeans; West Asian (mostly Neolithic?), Northeast Asian (Altaic?) and North Asian (Uralic or Arctic?). The West Asian influence peaks in Germanic speakers of Central and

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-84573085526552707012011-05-02T00:34:00.001-07:002011-05-02T21:53:28.745-07:00

Believe it or not, samples occasionally get mixed up in studies. Zack A. of Harappa recently listed good examples of such cases in the Behar et al. dataset (see Behar Paniya). I believe I found a similar problem in the Rasmussen et al. collection, with at least two fully European Russians being passed off as native Siberians. The samples are Koryak GSM558848 and Chukchi GSM558866. Based on

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-44489238428683632552011-04-22T20:23:00.000-07:002011-04-23T06:09:50.677-07:00

I'm really impressed with this Moorjani et al. paper. They've gone out of their way to find and characterize Sub-Saharan African admixture in Southern Europeans, Jews and Middle Easterners. The only issue I can see is the lack of Sicilian and Greek sample sets (the latter removed during data prepping).Abstract: Previous genetic studies have suggested a history of sub-Saharan African gene flow

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-30469126780219620492011-03-22T22:49:00.001-07:002011-03-25T06:21:18.500-07:00

Back in 2009, Reich et al. theorized that the current South Asian gene pool was basically made up of two founding genetic components; Ancestral North Indian (ANI), and Ancestral South Indian (ASI). The distilled ANI, they noted, was more similar to the genomes of modern Northwest Europeans than those of the Adygei from the Caucasus. This is obviously out of whack with geography, but it does make

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-21549128004928399982011-03-15T21:06:00.000-07:002011-03-18T17:36:56.747-07:00

Inter-continental ADMIXTURE tests usually show a couple per cent of North and/or East African admixture in certain Southern European groups, but almost no West African influence. For example, see this analysis done by Zack as part of his Harappa Ancestry Project. The Spanish sample set has 4.3% of "Northwest African", which peaks in the Mozabite Berbers from the HGDP, and splits off the same Fst

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-49833957175497022292011-03-06T18:33:00.000-08:002011-03-06T22:55:51.889-08:00

I found it fascinating how one of my recent ADMIXTURE experiments gelled in a big way with an archeology paper I linked to late last year. The paper, titled The Steppe Belt of stockbreeding cultures in Eurasia during the Early Metal Age, suggested that metallurgical innovations in Central-Eastern Europe sparked migrations east from that region across the steppes during the Bronze and Iron Ages.

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-24281664621980157762011-02-23T21:11:00.001-08:002011-02-24T08:02:10.358-08:00

A fairly comprehensive craniometric analysis of prehistoric European skulls, published today in The Proceedings of the Royal Society B, shows that the spread of farming into Southeastern and Central Europe during the Neolithic was accompanied by large-scale migration from the Near East. However, it also shows that this migration failed to effectively penetrate Northern and Eastern Europe.The

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-14838415097117810712011-02-19T04:55:00.000-08:002011-02-19T17:12:17.592-08:00

The old R1a1a7, now known as R1a1a1g, struck me as a really god candidate for a marker of proto-Slavic expansions when it was first announced (see here). Nothing's really changed since then, and it has now acted as something of a tie-breaker in an effort to identify the ethnic affiliation of a medieval German community. Physical anthropology couldn't quite figure out whether the skeletons dug up

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-56682704745428594892011-02-11T18:23:00.000-08:002011-02-12T06:04:48.473-08:00

Finnish scientists have just done their Swedish colleagues a big favor and released a detailed study on genome-wide genetic substructure within Sweden. Most of the results are in line with what we've already seen via different means; Southern Swedes are very similar to North Central Europeans, while Northern Swedes show more Finnic and even East Eurasian influence. The paper is freely available

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-25195917251548083802011-01-25T02:26:00.000-08:002011-02-06T00:24:55.853-08:00

These days it's not really all that difficult to unravel your genetic ancestry. Even if you're really mixed, it's still possible to use a variety of tools to decipher the signals from your genome and come up with some pretty sound estimates where your ancestors came from. In some cases, if you're not particularly mixed, PC-MDS genetic maps can plant your ass within 200 miles or so from the

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-24334545919340492862011-01-18T00:29:00.000-08:002011-01-18T05:06:03.913-08:00

The latter, methinks. It's something I've been arguing for years, and I'm not the only one...In addition, it is more likely that the corded ware drifted out from Europe into the steppe, not from the steppe into Europe. It is certainly true that while archaeologically recovered evidence does support some population mixing, as well as cultural interaction, having occurred among eastern-European and

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-68620831678159930422011-01-01T20:04:00.000-08:002011-01-29T04:18:22.673-08:00

I thought this Finnish experiment was going to be a real challenge, and something of a long-term project. In fact, I managed to get it all done in a couple of hours. And it turned out great too.Basically, I wanted to see if I could take a more detailed look at genome-wide sites of possible non-West Eurasian admixture in some of my Northern European reference samples. Up to this point, I’ve been

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-80562569133909019692010-12-24T04:21:00.000-08:002010-12-24T18:46:06.233-08:00

A few years ago, a study on ancient European DNA from Neolithic farmers found that the samples showed a high incidence of mtDNA haplogroup N1a. This haplogroup is extremely rare in Europe today, so the findings prompted speculation that these lineages were of local Paleolithic origin, and later largely replaced by successive waves of migrants from outside of Europe. As it turns out, the same

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-35186946758698934512010-12-21T21:40:00.000-08:002010-12-22T02:14:52.389-08:00

The horse plays a key part in the mythologies of the Indo-Europeans. And no wonder, because its domestication was most likely one of the main factors that facilitated the expansion of Indo-European culture across Eurasia. Indeed, I've just spotted some uncanny parallels between the results of a study on ancient horse DNA, published in PLoS One today, and the info in many of my blog posts about

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-90750365624752595682010-12-20T18:30:00.000-08:002010-12-20T18:51:12.465-08:00

This study focuses on STRUCTURE, but as far as I can see, it's also relevant to ADMIXTURE and FRAPPE. All of these are model-based algorithms for inferring ancestry, and suffer from very similar problems. I've already mentioned some of these issues in a couple of earlier blog posts (see here and here), but it's finally good to see a formal paper on the topic.One of the primary goals of population

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-42851493381267008862010-12-17T22:17:00.000-08:002010-12-18T18:45:56.700-08:00

During the past few years certain Russian anthropologists have worked hard to resolve the mysteries surrounding the origins of the Indo-Europeans and their early migrations. Their results have already been corroborated in large-part by ancient DNA from Bronze and Iron Age kurgans of Central Asia (see here). I expect we'll see more of the same soon, when German scientists reveal their findings on

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-4774821663852670402010-12-09T19:23:00.000-08:002010-12-09T20:18:19.446-08:00

This MDS plot was produced as part of my Eurogenes BGA Project. After the new year I'm hoping to put together an interactive version for my members. We'll see how that goes, considering my limited programming skills. Anyway, as always, I'm mostly using official two letter country codes, such as PL for Poland, DE for Germany, FR for France, EE for Estonia, LT for Lithuania, etc...

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-65172595922895267562010-11-25T20:10:00.001-08:002010-12-20T19:05:47.877-08:00

Model-based ancestry estimation algorithms, like ADMIXTURE and STRUCTURE, always, as far as I know, show the Sardnian samples from the HGDP as entirely of West Eurasian descent. In other words, these Sardinians overwhelmingly fit into clusters that peak north of the Sahara and west of Central Asia. Indeed, in this sort of context, they basically come out as one of the most European groups, with

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-88690195400454022832010-11-22T08:42:00.000-08:002010-12-18T05:18:08.239-08:00

I briefly touched on some of the shortcomings of model-based, genetic ancestry estimation algorithms like ADMIXTURE and STRUCTURE in a recent post. Today I'd like to expand on that, and also offer a solution; a simple and lightweight, but very clever program combo called RHHcounter/RHHmapper (see bottom of the post for details).The main problems I have with the model-based stuff is that it a)

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-88009144567167184512010-11-09T20:37:00.001-08:002010-11-11T00:52:37.570-08:00

I woke up this morning to find that Europe's oldest confirmed Y-DNA haplogroups are now G2a3 and F* (and not R1a1a anymore). That's what Haak et al. discovered after testing early Neolithic LBK remains from Germany. However, it appears these German ancients had much more in common genetically with Near Easterners than with Europeans. Indeed, the data in this paper strongly suggests that these LBK

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-45020686554906518192010-11-09T04:17:00.000-08:002011-03-06T18:45:12.002-08:00

I'm perusing an interesting PDF about a subject close to my heart - the origins of the early North European-like, R1a1a-dominated steppe tribes. Here are some teaser quotes and images from this 2008 paper...Modern research shows that at their apogee, the stockbreeding cultures of the Eurasian “steppe belt” covered a gigantic territory. From West to East, from the Middle Danube basin to Manchuria

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-2286715078079616042010-10-27T23:53:00.000-07:002010-10-27T23:56:13.110-07:00

I might be wrong, but these here are probably some of the most detailed genetic maps of the Near East published to date (dimensions 1&2, 1&3, and labeled versions). They were created as part of my Eurogenes 500K BGA Project. As mentioned in my previous posts, I generally use official two or three letter abbreviations for the samples (ie. KSA = Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, IR = Iran). But sometimes I

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-20096257997692464532010-10-19T04:41:00.001-07:002010-10-20T05:07:19.016-07:00

Archaeologists studying the site of a planned highway in southeastern Poland have made a stunning discovery; a kurgan burial mound dating to the Copper Age. According to the Polish press, who seem unusually excited by this archaeological news item, the 6,000-year-old kurgan and its contents are a major find that might change the way we view European prehistory. Basically, it's older than any

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-68179094166854801442010-10-16T21:13:00.000-07:002010-10-18T06:47:28.844-07:00

The other day I ran a quick MDS analysis of the Genomes Unzipped crew (see here), comparing them against samples from Europe and the Caucasus. Most clustered in or near the British Isles zone, made up of individuals from England, Ireland, the Orkney Isles and nearby continental Europe (ie. the Low Countries, Northwest Germany, etc.). However, Vincent Plagnol's results suggested he might be from

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-66066962796180352502010-10-14T23:35:00.000-07:002010-10-16T02:33:17.447-07:00

Perhaps you've noticed lately that, amongst the myriad of anonymous IDs featured in my Eurogenes BGA project updates, there are also 12 full names doing the rounds? Nope, I haven't outed some members by error. Those names belong to a bunch of scientists who, apparently, have nothing to hide as far as their genome-wide SNPs are concerned, since they've made their raw data zip files from 23andMe

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-39515114764890054742010-10-14T20:08:00.001-07:002010-12-09T23:19:36.827-08:00

Below is an MDS map of Europe, courtesy of my Eurogenes BGA Project. Eventually, I hope to be able to superimpose this MDS plot over an actual map of Europe. Yes, that's certainly doable because every time new samples are added, the shape of the plot changes. Given enough of the right samples, this effort should show a high correlation with the geographic shape of Europe.

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-75074160831803826972010-08-01T20:58:00.000-07:002010-08-01T22:07:53.761-07:00

Despite only focusing on ancient mtDNA (ie. maternal lineages), this Melchior et al. effort dealing with Bronze and Iron Age Scandinavia produces some very useful results. Firstly, it suggests that recent suppositions about a sharp genetic divide between Mesolithic and Neolithic North Europeans might have been premature. Secondly, it shows that the modern southern Scandinavian mtDNA structure

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-52773598950460970962010-07-05T15:29:00.000-07:002010-08-14T19:05:44.155-07:00

I'm playing around with a soon to be publicly released Identity by Descent (IBD) tool at 23andMe, called the Ancestry Finder. Basically, it anonymously shows IBD segments of 5-15 centimorgans (cM) that I share with other customers (ie. my genetic cousins), and informs me about the geographic origins of their grandparents. It's a neat concept for those of us who've been frustrated by the lack of

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-38253016028788460932010-06-30T18:21:00.000-07:002010-07-01T19:41:19.176-07:00

Eastern Europeans weren't strangers to metallurgy in prehistoric times (see Kelekna 2009 quote below), but it's been widely assumed that they acquired this technology from the Near East. Perhaps not, as a new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science suggests...The beginnings of extractive metallurgy in Eurasia are contentious. The first cast copper objects in this region emerge

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-57246994062469175192010-05-22T20:45:00.000-07:002010-05-22T21:35:20.830-07:00

The story of R1b in Europe might be a lot more complicated than anyone, including myself, previously fathomed. That's what an abstract from a recent workshop on forensic genetics suggests (PDF link)... Increased Resolution Within Y-Chromosome Haplogroup R1b M269 Sheds Light On The Neolithic Transition In EuropeGeorge Busby et al.Early studies on classical polymorphisms have largely been

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-63091995920546964612010-05-02T05:01:00.001-07:002010-05-04T05:14:18.586-07:00

Morelli et al. claim in this PLoS paper that Europe wasn't colonized by Middle Eastern farmers, but basically by farming, without any significant gene flow. This is the cultural diffusion theory of how agriculture came to be in Europe, and competes with the demic diffusion model favored elsewhere, including in a recent article by Balaresque et al. Here's part of the abstract from Morelli...In the

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-79666031423447948902010-04-22T05:13:00.000-07:002011-02-24T08:01:15.682-08:00

The basic upshot of this Malyarchuk et al. article, published in PLoS One today, is that mitochondrial haplogroup U5 originated somewhere in Southern Europe (or at least in the Mediterranean basin) 25,000 to 30,000 years ago. It was then taken east via Central Europe, most likely as things warmed up following the Ice Age (LGM). Also, the authors suggest that pre-LGM Eastern Europeans carried U2,

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-9544579238180377042010-04-10T05:47:00.000-07:002010-04-11T05:19:01.825-07:00

If anyone has more info on the population genetics aspects of this endeavor, including the results from the PCA analysis described below, please let me know.The male whose genome was to be sequenced was chosen from data contained in the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of ethnic groups of the Russian Federation. One thousand three hundred eighty-two individuals representing 32 ethnic groups

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-72768394925875566202010-03-27T17:36:00.000-07:002010-03-28T02:27:58.406-07:00

This paper from 2007 goes nicely with all those recent discoveries of R1a1 carrying Europeans in Asia during the Bronze and Iron Ages.In our inferred scenario there is little gene flow between East Asians and Europeans and the Yakut is the only East Asian population to have two European donors; the Russians and the Orcadians. The Russian contribution is not surprising because the Yakut live in

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-47064158211741400692010-02-25T19:39:00.000-08:002010-02-26T01:41:04.403-08:00

Ancient genetic evidence of a major migration from West Eurasia all the way to China during the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age is really piling up now (see also here). This article is open access (ie. free), so please take a look at the results in detail, which pertain to a 4,000-year-old burial site in the Taklamakan desert. Here's an interesting tit-bit...Besides the East Eurasian lineage, two

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-10975215314847862342010-02-13T16:25:00.000-08:002010-02-13T17:05:01.760-08:00

According to some people (usually some Indians), the Indo-European invasion of South Asia never happened. But the data I'm seeing says otherwise (see also here).The dopamine D2 receptor (DRD2) gene, with its known human-specific derived alleles that can facilitate haplotype reconstruction, presents an important locus for anthropological studies. The three sites (TaqIA, TaqIB, and TaqID) of the

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-83310165757622933212010-02-11T04:38:00.000-08:002010-05-14T08:52:11.064-07:00

This individual's DNA was preserved by permafrost, but I'm hoping we'll soon be seeing full (or near full) genome sequences of more southerly ancient samples. Top of my wish list are the Bronze and Iron Age south Siberians.Speaking of Siberians, this study includes a very useful genome-wide admixture analysis of quite a few north Eurasian populations. Some of the groups featured here have rarely,

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-65818824401395393422010-01-21T06:18:00.000-08:002010-04-29T02:56:03.311-07:00

The authors identify this guy as someone of Indo-European origin who joined the elite ranks of the Xiongnu. You can see a picture of his skull in the supporting info. Also, for some more reading on ancient European-like skeletons and R1a1 deep in Asia, see my earlier blog entry here.We analyzed mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), Y-chromosome single nucleotide polymorphisms (Y-SNP), and autosomal short

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-3092872662561713902010-01-20T19:04:00.000-08:002010-04-29T02:55:15.159-07:00

Let's hope this new Balaresque et al. paper sets a major trend for more realistic dating of Y-DNA haplogroup ages and expansion times in peer reviewed articles. Till now, such estimates have been blown out by three or four times (for example, see here), making this whole area of study a bit of a joke.Anyway, what this article basically says is that the invention of farming resulted in a

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-17250112770381138102010-01-13T05:10:00.000-08:002010-01-13T16:38:19.157-08:00

I wonder if groups carrying R1a and R1b spread the ability to digest lactose to Europe and India?Background: Lactose malabsorption (LM), the inability to break down lactose into glucose and galactose, is due to a deficiency in the small intestinal lactase phlorizin hydrolase enzyme. Ethnic and geographic variations of LM are known.Objective: The aim of this study was to compare the frequency of

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-32263025956636801842010-01-04T08:49:00.000-08:002011-06-04T22:40:39.107-07:00

Here's a new paper on European pigmentation genetics. Unfortunately, lots of the SNPs covered in this report aren't on the chip used by 23andMe. But anyway, it's an interesting read, focusing on cohorts from Scotland and Denmark...Background: Eye and hair colour is highly variable in the European population, and is largely genetically determined. Both linkage and association studies have

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-83689532348823706082010-01-01T22:39:00.000-08:002010-01-03T06:07:55.569-08:00

Human remains from one of Europe's most famous Upper Paleolithic sites, Kostenki, have yielded an ancient mtDNA result. The full sequence carries "five distinct mtdna substitutions that define mtdna U2". Interestingly, it appears Europe's Mesolithic inhabitants sported a lot of U4 and U5 (see here). So it seems the U family of mtDNA haplogroups was well represented in pre-Neolithic Europe, and

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-11639028935421507562009-12-12T04:15:00.000-08:002010-01-22T04:34:43.431-08:00

About 250 Funnelbeaker (Trichterbecherkultur) and Wartberg Culture skeletons are being tested for Y-DNA, mtDNA and autosomal SNP and STR markers at a lab in Kiel. They come from 3400-3000BC burial sites at Panker, eastern Schleswig-Holstein, Großenrode and Odagsen, southern Lower Saxony, and Calden, North Hessen. All of those places are in North-Central Germany. The scientists not only hope to

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-74886701885078951172009-12-07T03:55:00.000-08:002010-04-29T02:52:42.080-07:00

This article by A.G. Kozintsev was published late last year, but it goes well with a lot of stuff I've been posting lately about the early Indo-Europeans, Indo-Iranians and Scythians (see here and here), so enjoy:The article presents some results of a multivariate analysis of 245 male Eurasian cranial series dating to various periods from the Neolithic to the Early Iron Age. These results

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-38056190572986240532009-11-25T17:55:00.000-08:002010-04-29T02:52:00.787-07:00

I'm not a big fan of the use of autosomal STRs in population genetics. The general scientific opinion is that they're more suited to forensic work. However, recently I've been going through some of the articles available at DNA Tribes, a personal genetics company that uses autosomal STRs, and I have to say they're actually pretty good. I'd recommend the following piece, which focuses on the

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-82622119518702174792009-11-21T04:01:00.000-08:002009-11-22T03:45:00.407-08:00

If you scored some admixture in your ancestry analysis at 23andMe, and would like to know more about the SNPs involved, then it's certainly possible. All you need to do is log in to your account using Firefox, and then rummage through the Flash data behind the "Ancestry Painting" presentation. It's easy:First of all, you have to make sure you've got the free Firebug plug-in installed. Right click

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-33756219087860245632009-11-08T04:40:00.000-08:002009-11-17T19:26:04.788-08:00

We've known for a while that variation within the EDAR gene causes straight, coarse hair in East Asians. Now, thanks to a new study, we know that the Trichohyalin gene (TCHH) has a similar effect in Europeans.Hair morphology is highly differentiated between populations and among people of European ancestry. Whereas hair morphology in East Asian populations has been studied extensively, relatively

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-85198168507248345712009-11-05T16:37:00.000-08:002010-04-22T23:27:02.033-07:00

I've just posted an entry on my other blog about an article on the freshly discovered R1a1a7, defined by the M458 marker. No doubt, this is major news for R1a enthusiasts. Unfortunately, the authors of the paper seemed to have grossly overestimated the age of this new haplogroup, but I'm hopeful this will be corrected in the near future. See here.

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-74842666329982576832009-10-25T23:07:00.000-07:002009-10-25T23:08:47.455-07:00

These are only based on 4965 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), so they're not as detailed as some of the others I've posted. However, they come from an interesting study about links between intra-European biogeographic origins and certain systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) manifestations. EEUR here stands for Eastern European, and probably includes samples of Polish origin (I'll have to

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-53272236369432833982009-10-04T05:52:00.000-07:002009-11-19T01:43:19.654-08:00

I'm yet to see a really detailed study of North and East Eurasian influence in Eastern Europe. A paper published this week in BMC Genetics focuses on Uralic admixture in Russia and Belarus, but uses the DRD2 locus for the job, instead of the hundreds of thousands of SNPs I'd prefer. However, it seems like a pretty decent effort, and probably a fairly accurate guide of what's to come in the future

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-48759737819272745612009-09-24T19:42:00.000-07:002009-11-19T01:31:12.745-08:00

Apparently, modern Swedes don't have as much in common with their Scandinavian hunter-gatherer predecessors as the Lithuanians and Latvians do from across the pond, according to a new study on ancient mtDNA from Gotland anyway....The driving force behind the transition from a foraging to a farming lifestyle in prehistoric Europe (Neolithization) has been debated for more than a century [1,2,3].

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-87655621518866518732009-09-18T06:56:00.000-07:002010-04-29T02:46:33.165-07:00

Dienekes has a write up on a new paper on the craniometrics of the ancient Novgorodians from Russia, looking at the period from the 10th to the early 20th centuries. Basically, the article says that relatively sharp-faced Balto-Slavs from the south moved into Northern Russia during the early medieval times. Here they mixed with older, flatter faced groups, and eventually became a lot like them.

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-56159285640583987462009-09-18T05:32:00.000-07:002009-09-18T09:15:13.641-07:00

This story's been all over the press and various blogs like a rash, so I won't spend too much time on it. But I will say that conclusions based on mtDNA need to be made very carefully, especially if there's no other genetic data available to corroborate them. Anyway, the vast majority of the hunter-gatherers sampled here carried mtDNA U types (mostly U4 and U5), while the farmers studied earlier

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-64496622990734858732009-09-04T06:25:00.000-07:002009-09-06T00:42:23.144-07:00

Abstracts from the ASHG 2009 Annual Meeting are now available here. Some examples...Fine-scale Population Structure in Worldwide Ethnic Populations as Revealed by Identity by Descent SegmentsBrenna M. Henn, Lawrence Hon, JM Macpherson1, Nick Eriksson, Anne Wojcicki, Linda Avey, Serge Saxonov, Joanna L. MountainIt is well established that human population genetic diversity reflects

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-74202980025920217802009-08-28T01:45:00.000-07:002009-09-01T19:25:17.141-07:00

Those who enjoy genetic "maps" will love this study, which includes quite a few of them comparing Europeans to each other and to closely related populations from North Africa and Southwest Asia. As expected, the refined sets of Ancestry Informative Markers (AIMs) used by the authors produce results generally in tune with geography, but which vary somewhat depending on the samples used.In the

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-10693213960800511712009-08-21T03:47:00.000-07:002010-02-03T16:10:15.684-08:00

The presentation abstracts aren't up yet, and who knows if and when we'll see the full reports, but here are some of the more interesting poster titles...Haplogroup H of mitochondrial DNA, a far echo of the West in the heart of Central Asia. S. R. Woodward, U. A. Perego, J. E. Gomez-Palmieri, N. Angerhofer, D. Tumen, K. H. Ritchie, B. HooshiarAdmixture between Ashkenazi Jews and Central Europeans

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-28429108011528776882009-07-31T01:34:00.000-07:002009-08-21T03:44:56.942-07:00

I wish there were more studies like this, using even more sample sets from all over Europe, and comparing different historical periods too...Human populations across the world vary greatly in cranial morphology. It is highly debated to what extent this variability has accumulated through neutral processes (genetic drift) or through natural selection driven by climate. By taking advantage of

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-908467446990231342009-06-19T22:38:00.000-07:002010-04-29T02:42:13.984-07:00

Gene Expression has a link to this open access study on height changes in Germany. Like most Europeans, ze Germans experienced a growth spurt during the 20th century, with their average stature increasing from 174 cm to 179.8 cm between 1957 and 1993 (for males). That has now slowed big time, suggesting they might not get much taller even with improved living conditions.Reliable data on growth

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-60646550213907836882009-06-16T23:26:00.001-07:002010-04-29T02:41:30.840-07:00

The results of this study of a burial site in York aren't really all that surprising. But what I'd like to know is whether these Roman Africans left any modern descendants in the UK. Via Dienekes... In the European groups, the crania showed the greatest affinity with the Northern European and American White reference samples. The diversity of the female crania from Trentholme Drive suggests a

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-15897037244102095442009-06-10T05:04:00.000-07:002009-11-19T01:42:44.847-08:00

Considering the new stuff that's just come out on the genetics of Bronze and Iron Age Southern Siberians, I thought it was worth mentioning this study by V.G. Moiseyev from 2006. It focuses on non-metric cranial traits, and basically tells the same story as the Y-DNA, mtDNA, and autosomal markers.The analysis of nonmetric cranial traits has revealed various affinities of the Early Iron Age

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-25864444184275848632009-06-05T03:11:00.000-07:002009-06-05T05:34:29.514-07:00

It might seem amazing that different parts of Iceland can appear genetically more distinct from each other than entire European countries. But that's what happens when genetic drift starts working its magic on allele frequencies in small, isolated populations. Case in point, check out this Principal Component Analysis (PCA) from a study published in PLoS Genetics today...Based on the first two

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-53937831342248892942009-06-03T06:43:00.000-07:002009-06-04T02:13:35.081-07:00

Out of the six skeletons tested as part of this study of a burial site in Ergolding, Bavaria, four turned out to be R1b and two G2a. The latter haplogroup is relatively scarce in Central Europe, but seems to pop up regularly along the old migration route of the Alans, a Sarmatian people from the east. Well, I actually got that last bit of info from Wikipedia, so it should be taken with a grain of

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-79647978272043338232009-05-24T23:05:00.000-07:002009-12-12T17:58:04.190-08:00

Hot on the heels of that recent Bouakaze et al. paper on the pigmentation genetics of ancient south Siberians, here's another effort on the topic by the same team. The authors say a lot of the stuff I've been thinking for a very long time...Our autosomal, Y-chromosomal and mitochondrial DNA analyses reveal that whereas few specimens seem to be related matrilineally or patrilineally, nearly all

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-75907416877453871302009-05-18T04:16:00.000-07:002010-04-29T02:39:37.597-07:00

It looks like more than 60% of the Andronovo et al. individuals successfully tested here were blue or green eyed, and possibly fair haired too:In the present study, a multiplexed genotyping assay for ten single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) located within six pigmentation candidate genes was developed on modern biological samples and applied to DNA retrieved from 25 archeological human remains

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-82527718350152266832009-05-14T08:56:00.000-07:002009-05-14T09:10:41.451-07:00

A new series on BBC2, The Incredible Human Journey, has caused quite a stir online in recent weeks. The main reason is a reconstruction of an early European featured on the show, based on 35,000 year old remains from the Carpathians. Peter Frost has an interesting entry on his blog, Evo and Proud, regarding this controversial model, who looks a lot more exotic than many people seem comfortable

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-67950641590736844032009-05-11T09:17:00.000-07:002009-05-11T10:04:30.890-07:00

The Greek blogging machine, aka Dienekes, points me to a new paper on the relationship between skull morphology and genes. It looks like the temporal, sphenoid, frontal, and parietal bones show the highest correlation with neutral genetic markers, while the zygomatic and occipital not so much. The latter two are apparently more easily affected by such factors as diet and cradling,

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-57334049446028772772009-05-09T03:32:00.000-07:002010-04-29T03:57:12.091-07:00

I've already made an entry about this Nelis et al. study on the my other blog, looking at it from a Polish perspective, but thought it deserved a more general write up here. It's great to finally see some samples from the Baltic states being compared to Finns and other Europeans in terms of genome-wide SNPs. To be honest the results are astonishing, but they do make a lot of sense.It's now pretty

Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com0