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From the Black Death to Neanderthals and the first Americans: 7 secrets revealed by ancient DNA

2022-12-21 18:08:13Histori SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX

 

From the Black Death to Neanderthals and the first Americans: 7 secrets revealed
7 secrets revealed by ancient DNA

 

The rapidly expanding field of ancient DNA, formally known as paleogenetics, rose to prominence in 2022, earning its pioneering scientist Svante Pääbo a Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology.

Pääbo, director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, developed methods to recover, sequence and analyze ancient DNA from fossils – a success that lasted decades. Researchers are using special techniques to answer fundamental questions about human history and the deep past of the planet.

Many of the discoveries overturn assumptions about prehistoric times. When Pääbo's lab in Leipzig sequenced the first Neanderthal genome in 2010, many were surprised to learn that our species Homo sapiens interbred and had children with Neanderthals.

Paleogenetics has continued to uncover amazing secrets from DNA hidden in bones, teeth, and even dirt. Here are seven things we learned about this fascinating and evolving field in 2022.

The origins and legacy of the Black Death

 

From the Black Death to Neanderthals and the first Americans: 7 secrets revealed
This is an inscription on a tombstone from the Chu Valley region of Kyrgyzstan.

 

The Black Death, the world's most devastating plague outbreak, killed half the population of medieval Europe in the space of seven years in the 14th century, changing the course of human history. But research published in October suggested it was more than luck that determined who lived and who died. Analysis of centuries-old DNA from both Black Death victims and survivors identified key genetic differences that helped people survive the plague, according to a study published in the journal Nature. This genetic inheritance continues to shape the human immune system today, with genes that once conferred protection against the plague now linked to greater vulnerability to autoimmune diseases such as Crohn's and rheumatoid arthritis. Science magazine called the discovery one of the best discoveries of 2022. The ancient DNA also shed light on the origins of the plague outbreak that caused the Black Death, work detailed in a study published in June. Genetic material extracted from skeletons buried in a cemetery in Kyrgyzstan, where tombstones referred to a mysterious plague, revealed the DNA of the plague bacterium, which scientists call Yersinia pestis, in three people who died in 1338, some years before the disease entered Europe in 1347.

Neanderthal family portrait

 

From the Black Death to Neanderthals and the first Americans: 7 secrets revealed
An artist's reconstruction of a Neanderthal father and his daughter from Chagyrskaya Cave in southern Siberia.

 

Scientists have revealed a genetic picture of the oldest known family group, using ancient DNA from Neanderthals who lived in Chagyrskaya Cave in southern Siberia in Russia. The riverside hunting camp around 54,000 years ago was home to a tight-knit community of about 20 Neanderthals, including a father and his teenage daughter, a young male who may have been a nephew or cousin, and an adult female who it was a second degree relative, perhaps an aunt or a grandmother. The researchers also discovered an unexpected pattern of female migration between different strands of genetic ancestry. The diversity of Y chromosome DNA, which is inherited through the male line, was much lower than that of mitochondrial DNA, which is passed down from mothers. The study calculated that, in this group, two male individuals could expect to have an ancestor about 450 years before they lived. In contrast, the equivalent estimate for female individuals was about 4,350 years. The researchers said the best explanation for this was that more than 60% of female Neanderthals in the small Chagyrskaya group had migrated from another community. This social structure is common in today's hunter-gatherer societies and is known as patrilocality.

Lush Arctic

Scientists in Denmark discovered the world's oldest known DNA sequences in sediment from the Ice Age. The soil core, taken from northern Greenland, revealed that the polar region was once abundant with plant and animal life 2 million years ago. Mastodons, reindeer, geese, lemmings and rabbits lived in an ecosystem that was a mix of temperate and arctic flora and fauna. The genetic material in the dirt, shed by all living organisms in the environment long ago, tells a more complete story of prehistoric life than the fossil record. This unparalleled ancient ecosystem has no modern equivalent, but it may provide a genetic road map for how some species might adapt to the climate crisis.

The mystery of the medieval well

Construction workers breaking ground in 2004 on a shopping center in Norwich, England, discovered 17 bodies at the bottom of an 800-year-old well. To understand more about how the six adults and 11 children whose remains were found there died, scientists were recently able to extract detailed genetic material preserved in the bones thanks to advances in ancient DNA sequencing . The genome of six of the individuals showed that four of them were related including three sisters, the youngest of whom was 5 to 10 years old. Further analysis of the genetic material suggested that all six were "almost certainly" Ashkenazi Jews. Judaism is primarily a shared religious and cultural identity, but as a result of a long practice of marriage within the community, Ashkenazi Jewish groups often carry a distinct genetic background that includes markers for some rare genetic disorders. Scholars believe they all died during the anti-Semitic violence that ravaged the city, most likely a February 1190 riot related to the Third Crusade, one of a series of religious wars supported by the Catholic church.

Pompey's victim

From the Black Death to Neanderthals and the first Americans: 7 secrets revealed
Scientists announced earlier this year that they had sequenced the genome of a victim of the 79 AD eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

Pompeii, preserved in volcanic ash after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, is one of the most intensively studied archaeological sites in the world, but obtaining detailed genetic information from the skeletal remains preserved in the city had long eluded scientists. . Earlier this year, scientists said they had for the first time successfully sequenced the genome of a man who died after the blast. Before this latest study, only short stretches of mitochondrial DNA from human and animal remains at Pompeii had been sequenced. It may have been possible to successfully extract ancient DNA from their samples because pyroclastic materials, a hot mixture of burning gas, lava and debris, discharged during the eruption may have protected the DNA from environmental factors, such as oxygen in the atmosphere that led to decomposition. The information shed light on the man's background and health.

Hybrid animal

From the Black Death to Neanderthals and the first Americans: 7 secrets revealed
Researchers extracted DNA from kunga skeletons buried in Umm al-Marra, Syria.

A majestic horse-like creature known as a kunga that lived 4,500 years ago was the earliest known hybrid animal with parents from two different species, according to research published in January. Descriptions and images in Mesopotamian art and texts portrayed a powerful animal pulling war wagons in battle and royal vehicles in parades. Intact skeletons of the creatures were buried alongside high-status people from the era. Its true identity, however, had long puzzled archaeologists. Domesticated horses did not arrive in the region, sometimes referred to as the Fertile Crescent, until 4,000 years ago. DNA sequencing from the animal's skeleton revealed that it had a Syrian wild donkey for a father and a donkey mother, and was likely deliberately bred by humans.

The first Americans?

From the Black Death to Neanderthals and the first Americans: 7 secrets revealed

DNA sequencing revealed the origins of some strange-looking human fossils, a thigh bone and part of a skull found in a cave in southwest China in 1989. The primitive features of the bones had worried scientists, who questioned what kind of man the fossils belonged to. Perhaps, they thought, they belonged to a hybrid population of extinct and modern humans or perhaps a previously unknown human species that co-existed with our own. Chinese scientists recently extracted genetic material from the skull cap and found that the skull belonged to a female individual who was most likely a direct ancestor of modern humans, a member of Homo sapiens. The researchers then compared the genome extracted from the ancient DNA to the genomes of other people from around the world, both modern and ancient. They discovered that the bones belonged to an individual who was deeply connected to the East Asian ancestry of Native Americans. Researchers believe that this group of people traveled north to Siberia and then crossed the Bering Strait to become some of the first Americans.

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