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Ancient human genome sequence of an extinct Palaeo-Eskimo.

ABSTRACT: We report here the genome sequence of an ancient human. Obtained from approximately 4,000-year-old permafrost-preserved hair, the genome represents a male individual from the first known culture to settle in Greenland. Sequenced to an average depth of 20x, we recover 79% of the diploid genome, an amount close to the practical limit of current sequencing technologies. We identify 353,151 high-confidence single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), of which 6.8% have not been reported previously. We estimate raw read contamination to be no higher than 0.8%. We use functional SNP assessment to assign possible phenotypic characteristics of the individual that belonged to a culture whose location has yielded only trace human remains. We compare the high-confidence SNPs to those of contemporary populations to find the populations most closely related to the individual. This provides evidence for a migration from Siberia into the New World some 5,500 years ago, independent of that giving rise to the modern Native Americans and Inuit.

SUBMITTER: Rasmussen M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3951495 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Ancient human genome sequence of an extinct Palaeo-Eskimo.

Rasmussen Morten M Li Yingrui Y Lindgreen Stinus S Pedersen Jakob Skou JS Albrechtsen Anders A Moltke Ida I Metspalu Mait M Metspalu Ene E Kivisild Toomas T Gupta Ramneek R Bertalan Marcelo M Nielsen Kasper K Gilbert M Thomas P MT Wang Yong Y Raghavan Maanasa M Campos Paula F PF Kamp Hanne Munkholm HM Wilson Andrew S AS Gledhill Andrew A Tridico Silvana S Bunce Michael M Lorenzen Eline D ED Binladen Jonas J Guo Xiaosen X Zhao Jing J Zhang Xiuqing X Zhang Hao H Li Zhuo Z Chen Minfeng M Orlando Ludovic L Kristiansen Karsten K Bak Mads M Tommerup Niels N Bendixen Christian C Pierre Tracey L TL Grønnow Bjarne B Meldgaard Morten M Andreasen Claus C Fedorova Sardana A SA Osipova Ludmila P LP Higham Thomas F G TF Ramsey Christopher Bronk CB Hansen Thomas V O TV Nielsen Finn C FC Crawford Michael H MH Brunak Søren S Sicheritz-Pontén Thomas T Villems Richard R Nielsen Rasmus R Krogh Anders A Wang Jun J Willerslev Eske E

Nature 20100201 7282

We report here the genome sequence of an ancient human. Obtained from approximately 4,000-year-old permafrost-preserved hair, the genome represents a male individual from the first known culture to settle in Greenland. Sequenced to an average depth of 20x, we recover 79% of the diploid genome, an amount close to the practical limit of current sequencing technologies. We identify 353,151 high-confidence single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), of which 6.8% have not been reported previously. We es ...[more]

PMID: 20148029

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Project description:Evolutionary studies of insular biotas are based mainly on extant taxa, although such biotas represent artificial subsets of original faunas because of human-caused extinctions of indigenous species augmented by introduced exotic taxa. This makes it difficult to obtain a full understanding of the history of ecological interactions between extant sympatric species. Morphological bill variation of Fringilla coelebs and F. teydea (common and blue chaffinches) has been previously studied in the North Atlantic Macaronesian archipelagos. Character displacement between both species has been argued to explain bill sizes in sympatry. However, this explanation is incomplete, as similar patterns of bill size have been recorded in F. coelebs populations from islands with and without F. teydea.The discovery of a new extinct species in Tenerife (Canary Islands), here named Carduelis aurelioi n. sp. (slender-billed greenfinch), provides the opportunity to study ancient ecological interactions among Macaronesian finches. To help understand the evolutionary histories of forest granivores in space and time, we have performed a multidisciplinary study combining: (1) morphological analyses and radiocarbon dating (11,460±60 yr BP) of the new taxon and, (2) molecular divergence among the extant finch species and populations in order to infer colonization times (1.99 and 1.09 My for F. teydea and F. coelebs respectively).C. aurelioi, F. coelebs and F. teydea co-habited in Tenerife for at least one million years. The unique anatomical trends of the new species, namely chaffinch-like beak and modified hind and forelimbs, reveal that there was a process of divergence of resource competition traits among the three sympatric finches. The results of our study, combined with the presence of more extinct greenfinches in other Macaronesian islands with significant variation in their beak sizes, suggests that the character displacement has influenced patterns of divergence in bill size and shape on other Macaronesian islands as well.

Dataset Information

Ancient human genome sequence of an extinct Palaeo-Eskimo.

Publications

Ancient human genome sequence of an extinct Palaeo-Eskimo.

Similar Datasets

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