Ancient DNA Used to Understand Europeans Today

From the beginning of humans venturing out of Africa to different parts of the world changes in genetic composition have occurred. As their environment changed so did their genetic traits, and those who ended up in Europe were no different. Their skin and hair becoming lighter were the most obvious traits to have changed but many other traits also changed and this can be easily observed from looking at living Europeans today.  However, due to the advanced biotechnology which has now recently been harnessed it is possible to extract DNA from bones of Europeans who lived thousands of years ago.

David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School and his colleagues have analyzed nine genomes of ancient Europeans, eight of which were hunter-gatherers believed to have been living 8,000 years ago, and one farmer who is believed to have lived 7,000 years ago. Comparing the genomes to Europeans living today the researchers revealed Europeans today have genes from three different populations. The oldest population is the first Europeans who were hunters-gatherers, the second being farmers from the near east who expanded into Europe around 8,500 years ago, and the third, surprisingly, from north Eurasia about 7,000 years ago. Most Europeans today carry all three genes. Most exciting of the study is that now there is a timeline created, describing when and how other areas, such as the east, has influenced Europe.

A 7,700-year-old skeleton of a woman found in Hungary has yielded DNA. Scientists have found that she belonged to a wave of early farmers who moved into Europe from the Near East.

This article was particularly interesting to me because I found the results of the European genetics being influenced by the east interesting. Personally I would have thought that it would be the opposite due to Europe’s huge influence on the entire world early in time. I also am always interested in the techniques which can be used to analyze ancient DNA, although this article did not give much information and detail on the process. 

Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/30/science/from-ancient-dna-a-clearer-picture-of-europeans-today.html?ref=science&_r=0
Related Article: http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/ancient-dna-shows-earliest-european-genomes-weathered-the-ice-age-and-shines-new-light-on