The genomic data suggest that Neandertals mixed with modern human ancestors some 120,000 years ago, leaving traces of Ne andertal DNA in contemporary humans, suggesting that gene flow from Neand Bertals into the ancestors of non-Africans occurred before the divergence of Eurasian groups from each other.
A tooth found in Denisova Cave carries a mitochondrial genome highly similar to that of the finger bone, further indicating that Denisovans have an evolutionary history distinct from Neanderthals and modern humans.
We generated genome-wide data from 69 Europeans who lived between 8,000–3,000 years ago by enriching ancient DNA libraries for a target set of almost 400,000 polymorphisms. Enrichment of these…
A genome-wide scan for selection using ancient DNA is reported, capitalizing on the largest ancient DNA data set yet assembled: 230 West Eurasians who lived between 6500 and 300 bc, including 163 with newly reported data.
The precautions and criteria necessary to ascertain to the greatest extent possible that results represent authentic ancient DNA sequences are discussed, which highlight some significant results and areas of promising future research.
It is shown that most present-day Europeans derive from at least three highly differentiated populations: west European hunter-gatherers, who contributed ancestry to all Europeans but not to Near Easterners; ancient north Eurasians related to Upper Palaeolithic Siberians; and early European farmers, who were mainly of Near Eastern origin but also harboured west Europeanhunter-gatherer related ancestry.
A 38,000-year-old Neanderthal fossil that is exceptionally free of contamination from modern human DNA is identified and it is revealed that modern human and Neanderthal DNA sequences diverged on average about 500,000 years ago.
DNA sequences determined from a Neandertal, a mammoth, and a cave bear show that purines are overrepresented at positions adjacent to the breaks in the ancient DNA, suggesting that depurination has contributed to its degradation.
Current ideas on the protein and DNA components of this transcriptional memory system are reviewed and how they interact dynamically with each other to orchestrate cellular memory for several hundred genes are reviewed.
A reconstructed ancient genome of Yersinia pestis is reported at 30-fold average coverage from Black Death victims securely dated to episodes of pestilence-associated mortality in London, England, 1348–1350, suggesting that contemporary Y. pestis epidemics have their origins in the medieval era.