Ancient Human Genome Sequence of an Extinct Palaeo-Eskimo
Publication: Research - peer-review › Journal article – Annual report year: 2010
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.
| Original language | English |
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| Journal | Nature |
| Publication date | 2010 |
| Volume | 463 |
| Journal number | 7282 |
| Pages | 757-762 |
| ISSN | 0028-0836 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published |
| Citations | Web of Science® Times Cited: 116 |
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ID: 4377020