̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Eske Willerslev

Ancient DNA reveals reason for high MS and Alzheimer's rates in Europe

jg533 — Wed, 10 Jan 2024 16:06:31 +0000

Researchers have created the world’s largest ancient human gene bank, and used it to map the historical spread of genes – and diseases – over time as populations migrated.

A new chapter in the history of evolution: Two-million-year-old DNA

cg605 — Wed, 07 Dec 2022 16:17:44 +0000

Discovery of world’s oldest DNA breaks record by one million years.

Living descendant of Sitting Bull confirmed by analysis of DNA from hair

jg533 — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 18:01:57 +0000

A man’s claim to be the great-grandson of legendary Native American leader Sitting Bull has been confirmed using DNA extracted from Sitting Bull’s scalp lock.

Stone Age bear genome reconstructed from DNA in Mexican cave

jg533 — Mon, 19 Apr 2021 16:30:09 +0000

A team of scientists led by Professor Eske Willerslev in the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology and the Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, ̽��ֱ�� of Copenhagen, have recreated the genomes of animals, plants and bacteria from microscopic fragments of DNA found in the remote Chiquihuite Cave in Mexico.

̽��ֱ��findings have been described as the ‘moon landings of genomics’, because researchers will no longer have to rely on finding and testing fossils to determine genetic ancestry and connections.

̽��ֱ��results, published today in the journal Current Biology, are the first time environmental DNA has been sequenced from soil and sediment. They include the ancient DNA profile of a Stone Age American black bear taken from samples in the cave.

Working with highly fragmented DNA from soil samples means scientists no longer have to rely on DNA samples from bone or teeth for enough genetic material to recreate a profile of ancient DNA.

̽��ֱ��samples included faeces and droplets of urine from an ancestor of the American black bear, which allowed the scientists to recreate the entire genetic code of two species of the animal: the Stone Age American black bear, and a short-faced bear called Arctodus simus that died out 12,000 years ago.

Professor Willerslev said: “When an animal or a human urinates or defecates, cells from the organism are also excreted. We can detect the DNA fragments from these cells in the soil samples and have now used these to reconstruct genomes for the first time. We have shown that hair, urine and faeces all provide genetic material which, in the right conditions, can survive for much longer than 10,000 years.

“Analysis of DNA found in soil could have the potential to expand the narrative about everything from the evolution of species to developments in climate change – fossils will no longer be needed.”

Chiquihuite Cave is a high-altitude site, situated 2,750 metres above sea level. DNA of mice, black bears, rodents, bats, voles and kangaroo rats was also found. ̽��ֱ��scientists say that DNA fragments in sediment will now be able to be tested in many former Stone Age settlements around the world.

Professor Willerslev said: “Imagine the stories those traces could tell. It’s a little insane – but also fascinating – to think that, back in the Stone Age, these bears urinated and defecated in the Chiquihuite Cave and left us the traces we’re able to analyse today.”

Reference

Petersen, M.K. et al, Environmental genomics of Late Pleistocene black bears and giant short-faced bears. Current Biology, April 2021. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.04.027

Adapted from a press release by St John's College, Cambridge.

Scientists have reconstructed ancient DNA from soil for the first time, in an advance that will significantly enhance the study of animal, plant and microorganism evolution.

Analysis of DNA found in soil could have the potential to expand the narrative about everything from the evolution of species to developments in climate change – fossils will no longer be needed.

Eske Willerslev

Devlin A Gandy

Assistant Professor Mikkel Winther Pedersen with team members sampling the different cultural layers in the cave.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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World’s largest-ever DNA sequencing of Viking skeletons reveals they weren’t all Scandinavian

Anonymous — Wed, 16 Sep 2020 15:00:00 +0000

Now cutting-edge DNA sequencing of more than 400 Viking skeletons from archaeological sites scattered across Europe and Greenland will rewrite the history books as it has shown:

Skeletons from famous Viking burial sites in Scotland were actually local people who could have taken on Viking identities and were buried as Vikings.
Many Vikings actually had brown hair not blonde hair.
Viking identity was not limited to people with Scandinavian genetic ancestry. ̽��ֱ��study shows the genetic history of Scandinavia was influenced by foreign genes from Asia and Southern Europe before the Viking Age.
Early Viking Age raiding parties were an activity for locals and included close family members.
̽��ֱ��genetic legacy in the UK has left the population with up to six per cent Viking DNA.

Results of the six-year research project, published in the journal Nature, debunk the modern image of Vikings and was led by Professor Eske Willerslev, a Fellow of St John’s College, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, and director of ̽��ֱ��Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre, ̽��ֱ�� of Copenhagen.

“We have this image of well-connected Vikings mixing with each other, trading and going on raiding parties to fight Kings across Europe because this is what we see on television and read in books – but genetically we have shown for the first time that it wasn’t that kind of world,” said Willerslev, who is also affiliated with Cambridge’s Department of Zoology. “This study changes the perception of who a Viking actually was – no one could have predicted these significant gene flows into Scandinavia from Southern Europe and Asia happened before and during the Viking Age.”

̽��ֱ��word Viking comes from the Scandinavian term ‘vikingr’ meaning ‘pirate’. ̽��ֱ��Viking Age generally refers to the period from AD800, a few years after the earliest recorded raid, until the 1050s, a few years before the Norman Conquest of England in 1066.

̽��ֱ��Vikings changed the political and genetic course of Europe and beyond: Cnut the Great became the King of England, Leif Eriksson is believed to have been the first European to reach North America – 500 years before Christopher Columbus - and Olaf Tryggvason is credited with taking Christianity to Norway. Many expeditions involved raiding monasteries and cities along the coastal settlements of Europe, but the goal of trading goods like fur, tusks and seal fat was often the more pragmatic aim.

“We didn’t know genetically what they actually looked like until now,” said Willerslev. “We found genetic differences between different Viking populations within Scandinavia which shows Viking groups in the region were far more isolated than previously believed. Our research even debunks the modern image of Vikings with blonde hair as many had brown hair and were influenced by genetic influx from the outside of Scandinavia.”

̽��ֱ��international team sequenced the whole genomes of 442 mostly Viking Age men, women, children and babies from their teeth and petrous bones found in Viking cemeteries. They analysed the DNA from the remains from a boat burial in Estonia and discovered four Viking brothers died the same day. ̽��ֱ��scientists have also revealed male skeletons from a Viking burial site in Orkney, Scotland, were not actually genetically Vikings despite being buried with swords and other Viking memorabilia.

There wasn’t a word for Scandinavia during the Viking Age - that came later. But the study shows that the Vikings from what is now Norway travelled to Ireland, Scotland, Iceland and Greenland. ̽��ֱ��Vikings from what is now Denmark travelled to England. And Vikings from what is now Sweden went to the Baltic countries on their all-male ‘raiding parties’.

“We carried out the largest ever DNA analysis of Viking remains to explore how they fit into the genetic picture of Ancient Europeans before the Viking Age,” said co-first author Dr Ashot Margaryan from the ̽��ֱ�� of Copenhagen. “ ̽��ֱ��results were startling and some answer long-standing historical questions and confirm previous assumptions that lacked evidence.

“We determined that a Viking raiding party expedition included close family members as we discovered four brothers in one boat burial in Estonia who died the same day. ̽��ֱ��rest of the occupants of the boat were genetically similar suggesting that they all likely came from a small town or village somewhere in Sweden.”

DNA from the Viking remains were shotgun sequenced from sites in Greenland, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, Poland and Russia.

“We found that Vikings weren’t just Scandinavians in their genetic ancestry, as we analysed genetic influences in their DNA from Southern Europe and Asia which has never been contemplated before,” said co-first author Professor Martin Sikora form the ̽��ֱ�� of Copenhagen. “Many Vikings have high levels of non-Scandinavian ancestry, both within and outside Scandinavia, which suggest ongoing gene flow across Europe.”

̽��ֱ��team’s analysis also found that genetically Pictish people ‘became’ Vikings without genetically mixing with Scandinavians. ̽��ֱ��Picts were Celtic-speaking people who lived in what is today eastern and northern Scotland during the Late British Iron Age and Early Medieval periods.

“Individuals with two genetically British parents who had Viking burials were found in Orkney and Norway,” said co-first author Dr Daniel Lawson from the ̽��ֱ�� of Bristol. “This is a different side of the cultural relationship from Viking raiding and pillaging.”

̽��ֱ��Viking Age altered the political, cultural and demographic map of Europe in ways that are still evident today in place names, surnames and modern genetics.

“Scandinavian diasporas established trade and settlement stretching from the American continent to the Asian steppe,” said co-author Professor Søren Sindbæk from Moesgaard Museum in Denmark. “They exported ideas, technologies, language, beliefs and practices and developed new socio-political structures. Importantly our results show that ‘Viking’ identity was not limited to people with Scandinavian genetic ancestry. Two Orkney skeletons who were buried with Viking swords in Viking style graves are genetically similar to present-day Irish and Scottish people and could be the earliest Pictish genomes ever studied.”

“This is the first time we can take a detailed look at the evolution of variants under natural selection in the last 2,000 years of European history,” said co-first author Professor Fernando Racimo from the ̽��ֱ�� of Copenhagen. “ ̽��ֱ��Viking genomes allow us to disentangle how selection unfolded before, during and after the Viking movements across Europe, affecting genes associated with important traits like immunity, pigmentation and metabolism. We can also begin to infer the physical appearance of ancient Vikings and compare them to Scandinavians today.”

̽��ֱ��genetic legacy of the Viking Age lives on today with six per cent of people of the UK population predicted to have Viking DNA in their genes compared to 10 per cent in Sweden.

“ ̽��ֱ��results change the perception of who a Viking actually was. ̽��ֱ��history books will need to be updated,” said Willerslev.

Reference:
Ashot Margaryan et al. ‘Population genomics of the Viking world.’ Nature (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2688-8

Adapted from a St John’s College press release.

Invaders, pirates, warriors – the history books taught us that Vikings were brutal predators who travelled by sea from Scandinavia to pillage and raid their way across Europe and beyond.

̽��ֱ��results change the perception of who a Viking actually was. ̽��ֱ��history books will need to be updated

Eske Willerslev

Dorset County Council/Oxford Archaeology

A mass grave of around 50 headless Vikings from a site in Dorset, UK. Some of these remains were used for DNA analysis.

Yes

Vikings had smallpox and may have helped spread the world’s deadliest virus

Anonymous — Thu, 23 Jul 2020 18:30:46 +0000

Smallpox spread from person to person via infectious droplets, killed around a third of sufferers and left another third permanently scarred or blind. Around 300 million people died from it in the 20th century alone before it was officially eradicated in 1980 through a global vaccination effort – the first human disease to be wiped out.

Now an international team of scientists have sequenced the genomes of newly discovered strains of the killer virus after it was extracted from the teeth of Viking skeletons from sites across northern Europe. ̽��ֱ��findings are published today in the journal Science.

“We already knew Vikings were moving around Europe and beyond, and we now know they had smallpox. Just as people travelling around the world today quickly spread COVID-19, it is likely Vikings spread smallpox. Only back then, they travelled by ship rather than plane,” said Professor Eske Willerslev in the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology and St. John’s College, and Director of ̽��ֱ��Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre at the ̽��ֱ�� of Copenhagen, who led the study.

̽��ֱ��team found smallpox - caused by the variola virus - in 11 Viking-era burial sites in Denmark, Norway, Russia, and the UK. They also found it in multiple human remains from Öland, an island off the east coast of Sweden with a long history of trade.

They were able to reconstruct near-complete variola virus genomes for four of the samples. ̽��ֱ��genetic structure of this earliest-known smallpox strain is different to the modern smallpox virus eradicated in the 20th century.

“There are multiple ways viruses may diverge and mutate into milder or more dangerous strains. This is a significant insight into the steps the variola virus took in the course of its evolution,” said Dr Barbara Mühlemann, formerly at the Centre for Pathogen Evolution at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, now based at the Institute of Virology at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, and one of the first authors of the report.

Historians believe smallpox may have existed since 10,000 BC but until now there was no scientific proof that the virus was present before the 17th century. It is not known how it first infected humans but, like COVID-19, it is believed to be a zoonotic disease - one that originated in an animal.

Smallpox was eradicated throughout most of Europe and the United States by the beginning of the 20th century but remained endemic throughout Africa, Asia, and South America. ̽��ֱ��World Health Organisation launched an eradication programme in 1967 that included contact tracing and mass communication campaigns - all public health techniques that countries have been using to control today’s coronavirus pandemic. But it was the global roll-out of a vaccine that ultimately enabled scientists to stop smallpox in its tracks.

While it is not clear whether these ancient strains of smallpox were fatal, the Vikings must have died with smallpox in their bloodstream for the scientists to detect it up to 1400 years later. It is also highly probable there were epidemics earlier than these findings.

“While written accounts of disease are often ambiguous, our findings push the date of the confirmed existence of smallpox back by a thousand years,” said Dr Terry Jones at the Centre for Pathogen Evolution at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and the Institute of Virology at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, and one of the senior authors who led the study.

He added: “To find smallpox so genetically different in Vikings is truly remarkable. No one expected that these smallpox strains existed. It has long been believed that smallpox was in Western and Southern Europe regularly by 600 AD, around the beginning of our samples. We have proved that smallpox was also widespread in Northern Europe. Returning crusaders or other later events have been thought to have first brought smallpox to Europe, but such theories cannot be correct.”

“Smallpox was eradicated, but another strain could spill over from the animal reservoir tomorrow. What we know in 2020 about viruses and pathogens that affect humans today is just a small snapshot of what has plagued humans historically,” said Willerslev.

This research is part of a long-term project sequencing 5000 ancient human genomes and their associated pathogens. It was made possible thanks to a scientific collaboration between ̽��ֱ��Lundbeck Foundation, ̽��ֱ��Wellcome Trust, ̽��ֱ��Nordic Foundation, and Illumina Inc.

Reference

Muhlemann, B. et al. 'Diverse variola virus (smallpox) strains were widespread in northern Europe in the Viking Age. Science, July 2020. DOI: 10.1126/science.aaw8977

Adapted from a press release by St John’s College, Cambridge.

Scientists have discovered extinct strains of smallpox in the teeth of Viking skeletons – proving for the first time that the killer disease plagued humanity for at least 1400 years.

Just as people travelling around the world today quickly spread COVID-19, it is likely Vikings spread smallpox. Only back then, they travelled by ship rather than plane.

Eske Willerslev

Thames Valley Archaeological Services

Massacred 10th century Vikings found in a mass grave at St John’s College, Oxford

Yes

‘Game-changing’ research could solve evolution mysteries

Anonymous — Wed, 11 Sep 2019 17:00:00 +0000

Researchers identified an almost complete set of proteins, a proteome, in the dental enamel of the rhino and the genetic information discovered is one million years older than the oldest DNA sequenced from a 700,000-year-old horse.

The findings by scientists from the ̽��ֱ�� of Copenhagen and St John’s College, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, are published in Nature. They mark a breakthrough in the field of ancient biomolecular studies and could solve some of the biggest mysteries of animal and human biology by allowing scientists to accurately reconstruct evolution from further back in time than ever before.

Professor Enrico Cappellini, a specialist in Palaeoproteomics at the Globe Institute, ̽��ֱ�� of Copenhagen, and first author on the paper, said: “For 20 years ancient DNA has been used to address questions about the evolution of extinct species, adaptation and human migration but it has limitations. Now for the first time we have retrieved ancient genetic information which allows us to reconstruct molecular evolution way beyond the usual time limit of DNA preservation.

DNA data that genetically tracks human evolution only covers the last 400,000 years. But the lineages that led to modern humans and to the chimp – the living species genetically closest to humans – branched apart around six to seven million years ago which means scientists currently have no genetic information for more than 90 per cent of the evolutionary path that led to modern humans.

Scientists also don’t know what the genetic links are between us and extinct species such as Homo erectus – the oldest known species of human to have had modern human-like body proportions – because everything that is currently known is almost exclusively based on anatomical information, not genetic information.

Researchers have now used ancient protein sequencing – based on ground-breaking technology called mass spectrometry – to retrieve genetic information from the tooth of a 1.77 million year old Stephanorhinus – an extinct rhinoceros which lived in Eurasia during the Pleistocene. Researchers took samples of dental enamel from the ancient fossil which was discovered in Dmanisi, Georgia, and used mass spectrometry to sequence the ancient protein and retrieved genetic information previously unobtainable using DNA testing.
Tooth enamel is the hardest material present in mammals. In this study researchers discovered the set of proteins it contains lasts longer than DNA and is more genetically informative than collagen, the only other protein so far retrieved from fossils older than one million years.

Professor Jesper V. Olsen, head of the Mass Spectrometry for Quantitative Proteomics Group at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research, ̽��ֱ�� of Copenhagen, and co-corresponding author on the paper, said: “Mass spectrometry-based protein sequencing will enable us to retrieve reliable and rich genetic information from mammal fossils that are millions of years old, rather than just thousands of years old. It is the only technology able to provide the robustness and accuracy needed to sequence tiny amounts of protein this old.”

Professor Cappellini added: “Dental enamel is extremely abundant and it is incredibly durable, which is why a high proportion of fossil records are teeth.

“We have been able to find a way to retrieve genetic information that is more informative and older than any other source before, and it’s from a source that is abundant in the fossil records so the potential of the application of this approach is extensive.”

Lead author Professor Eske Willerslev, who holds positions at St John’s College, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, and is director of The Lundbeck Foundation Centre for GeoGenetics, Globe Institute, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, at the ̽��ֱ�� of Copenhagen, said: “This research is a game-changer that opens up a lot of options for further evolutionary study in terms of humans as well as mammals. It will revolutionise the methods of investigating evolution based on molecular markers and it will open a complete new field of ancient biomolecular studies.”

This rearranging of the evolutionary lineage of a single species may seem like a small adjustment but identifying changes in numerous extinct mammals and humans could lead to massive shifts in our understanding of the way the world has evolved.

̽��ֱ��team of scientists is already implementing the findings in their current research. ̽��ֱ��discovery could enable scientists across the globe to collect the genetic data of ancient fossils and to build a bigger, more accurate picture of the evolution of hundreds of species including our own.

Reference:
Enrico Cappellini et al. 'Early Pleistocene enamel proteome from Dmanisi resolves Stephanorhinus phylogeny.' Nature (2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1555-y

Originally published by St John's College, Cambridge

An evolution revolution has begun after scientists extracted genetic information from a 1.7 million-year-old rhino tooth – the largest and oldest genetic data to ever be recorded.

This new analysis of ancient proteins from dental enamel will start an exciting new chapter in the study of molecular evolution.

Enrico Cappellini

Mirian Kiladze, Georgian National Museum

Stephanorhinus skull from Dmanisi

Yes

DNA from 31,000-year-old milk teeth leads to discovery of new group of ancient Siberians

hll43 — Wed, 05 Jun 2019 17:00:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��finding was part of a wider study which also discovered 10,000-year-old human remains in another site in Siberia are genetically related to Native Americans – the first time such close genetic links have been discovered outside of the US.

̽��ֱ��international team of scientists, led by Professor Eske Willerslev who holds positions at St John’s College, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, and is director of ̽��ֱ��Lundbeck Foundation Centre for GeoGenetics at the ̽��ֱ�� of Copenhagen, have named the new people group the ‘Ancient North Siberians’ and described their existence as ‘a significant part of human history’.

̽��ֱ��DNA was recovered from the only human remains discovered from the era – two tiny milk teeth – that were found in a large archaeological site found in Russia near the Yana River. ̽��ֱ��site, known as Yana Rhinoceros Horn Site (RHS), was found in 2001 and features more than 2,500 artefacts of animal bones and ivory along with stone tools and evidence of human habitation.

̽��ֱ��discovery is published as part of a wider study in Nature and shows the Ancient North Siberians endured extreme conditions in the region 31,000 years ago and survived by hunting woolly mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, and bison.

Professor Willerslev said: “These people were a significant part of human history, they diversified almost at the same time as the ancestors of modern-day Asians and Europeans and it’s likely that at one point they occupied large regions of the northern hemisphere.”

Dr Martin Sikora, of ̽��ֱ��Lundbeck Foundation Centre for GeoGenetics and first author of the study, added: “They adapted to extreme environments very quickly, and were highly mobile. These findings have changed a lot of what we thought we knew about the population history of northeastern Siberia but also what we know about the history of human migration as a whole.”

Researchers estimate that the population numbers at the site would have been around 40 people with a wider population of around 500. Genetic analysis of the milk teeth revealed the two individuals sequenced showed no evidence of inbreeding which was occurring in the declining Neanderthal populations at the time.

̽��ֱ��complex population dynamics during this period and genetic comparisons to other people groups, both ancient and recent, are documented as part of the wider study which analysed 34 samples of human genomes found in ancient archaeological sites across northern Siberia and central Russia.

Professor Laurent Excoffier from the ̽��ֱ�� of Bern, Switzerland, said: “Remarkably, the Ancient North Siberians people are more closely related to Europeans than Asians and seem to have migrated all the way from Western Eurasia soon after the divergence between Europeans and Asians.”

Scientists found the Ancient North Siberians generated the mosaic genetic make-up of contemporary people who inhabit a vast area across northern Eurasia and the Americas – providing the ‘missing link’ of understanding the genetics of Native American ancestry.

It is widely accepted that humans first made their way to the Americas from Siberia into Alaska via a land bridge spanning the Bering Strait which was submerged at the end of the last Ice Age. ̽��ֱ��researchers were able to pinpoint some of these ancestors as Asian people groups who mixed with the Ancient North Siberians.

Professor David Meltzer, Southern Methodist ̽��ֱ��, Dallas, one of the paper’s authors, explained: “We gained important insight into population isolation and admixture that took place during the depths of the Last Glacial Maximum – the coldest and harshest time of the Ice Age - and ultimately the ancestry of the peoples who would emerge from that time as the ancestors of the indigenous people of the Americas.”

This discovery was based on the DNA analysis of a 10,000-year-old male remains found at a site near the Kolyma River in Siberia. ̽��ֱ��individual derives his ancestry from a mixture of Ancient North Siberian DNA and East Asian DNA, which is very similar to that found in Native Americans. It is the first time human remains this closely related to the Native American populations have been discovered outside of the US.

Professor Willerslev added: “ ̽��ֱ��remains are genetically very close to the ancestors of Paleo-Siberian speakers and close to the ancestors of Native Americans. It is an important piece in the puzzle of understanding the ancestry of Native Americans as you can see the Kolyma signature in the Native Americans and Paleo-Siberians. This individual is the missing link of Native American ancestry.”

Reference:
Martin Sikora et al. ' ̽��ֱ��population history of northeastern Siberia since the Pleistocene.' Nature (2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1279-z

Originally published on the St John's College website.

Two children’s milk teeth buried deep in a remote archaeological site in north eastern Siberia have revealed a previously unknown group of people lived there during the last Ice Age.

This individual is the missing link of Native American ancestry

Eske Willerslev

Russian Academy of Sciences

̽��ֱ��two 31,000-year-old milk teeth found at the Yana Rhinoceros Horn Site in Russia which led to the discovery of a new group of ancient Siberians

Yes