There are longstanding questions about the origins and ancestry of the Picts of early medieval Scotland (ca. 300-900 CE), prompted in part by exotic medieval origin myths, their enigmatic symbols and ...inscriptions, and the meagre textual evidence. The Picts, first mentioned in the late 3rd century CE resisted the Romans and went on to form a powerful kingdom that ruled over a large territory in northern Britain. In the 9th and 10th centuries Gaelic language, culture and identity became dominant, transforming the Pictish realm into Alba, the precursor to the medieval kingdom of Scotland. To date, no comprehensive analysis of Pictish genomes has been published, and questions about their biological relationships to other cultural groups living in Britain remain unanswered. Here we present two high-quality Pictish genomes (2.4 and 16.5X coverage) from central and northern Scotland dated from the 5th-7th century which we impute and co-analyse with >8,300 previously published ancient and modern genomes. Using allele frequency and haplotype-based approaches, we can firmly place the genomes within the Iron Age gene pool in Britain and demonstrate regional biological affinity. We also demonstrate the presence of population structure within Pictish groups, with Orcadian Picts being genetically distinct from their mainland contemporaries. When investigating Identity-By-Descent (IBD) with present-day genomes, we observe broad affinities between the mainland Pictish genomes and the present-day people living in western Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Northumbria, but less with the rest of England, the Orkney islands and eastern Scotland-where the political centres of Pictland were located. The pre-Viking Age Orcadian Picts evidence a high degree of IBD sharing across modern Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Orkney islands, demonstrating substantial genetic continuity in Orkney for the last ~2,000 years. Analysis of mitochondrial DNA diversity at the Pictish cemetery of Lundin Links (n = 7) reveals absence of direct common female ancestors, with implications for broader social organisation. Overall, our study provides novel insights into the genetic affinities and population structure of the Picts and direct relationships between ancient and present-day groups of the UK.
Altitude is one of the most demanding environmental pressures for human populations. Highlanders from Asia, America and Africa have been shown to exhibit different biological adaptations, but ...Oceanian populations remain understudied Woolcock et al., 1972; Cotes et al., 1974; Senn et al., 2010. We tested the hypothesis that highlanders phenotypically differ from lowlanders in Papua New Guinea, as a result of inhabiting the highest mountains in Oceania for at least 20,000 years.
We collected data for 13 different phenotypes related to altitude for 162 Papua New Guineans living at high altitude (Mont Wilhelm, 2,300-2,700 m above sea level (a.s.l.) and low altitude (Daru, <100m a.s.l.). Multilinear regressions were performed to detect differences between highlanders and lowlanders for phenotypic measurements related to body proportions, pulmonary function, and the circulatory system.
Six phenotypes were significantly different between Papua New Guinean highlanders and lowlanders. Highlanders show shorter height (p-value = 0.001), smaller waist circumference (p-value = 0.002), larger Forced Vital Capacity (FVC) (p-value = 0.008), larger maximal (p-value = 3.20e -4) and minimal chest depth (p-value = 2.37e -5) and higher haemoglobin concentration (p-value = 3.36e -4).
Our study reports specific phenotypes in Papua New Guinean highlanders potentially related to altitude adaptation. Similar to other human groups adapted to high altitude, the evolutionary history of Papua New Guineans appears to have also followed an adaptive biological strategy for altitude.
La pigmentation de la peau est un trait complexe et hautement variable chez les humains. Il est influencé par une multitude de facteurs tels que le rayonnement ultra-violet, l’alimentation, le mode ...de vie, la sélection sexuelle et l’introgression avec des humains archaïques. La Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée (PNG), réputée pour sa diversité biologique et culturelle exceptionnelle, présente une large gamme de variations de pigmentation de la peau. Cette étude vise à révéler l’architecture génétique...
Objectives
Crown and root traits, like those in the Arizona State University Dental Anthropology System (ASUDAS), are seemingly useful as genetic proxies. However, recent studies report mixed results ...concerning their heritability, and ability to assess variation to the level of genomic data. The aim is to test further if such traits can approximate genetic relatedness, among continental and global samples.
Materials and Methods
First, for 12 African populations, Mantel correlations were calculated between mean measure of divergence (MMD) distances from up to 36 ASUDAS traits, and FST distances from >350,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) among matched dental and genetic samples. Second, among 32 global samples, MMD and FST distances were again compared. Correlations were also calculated between them and inter‐sample geographic distances to further evaluate correspondence.
Results
A close ASUDAS/SNP association, based on MMD and F
ST correlations, is evident, with r
m‐values between .72 globally and .84 in Africa. The same is true concerning their association with geographic distances, from .68 for a 36‐trait African MMD to .77 for F
ST globally; one exception is F
ST and African geographic distances, r
m = 0.49. Partial MMD/F
ST correlations controlling for geographic distances are strong for Africa (.78) and moderate globally (.4).
Discussion
Relative to prior studies, MMD/F
ST correlations imply greater dental and genetic correspondence; for studies allowing direct comparison, the present correlations are markedly stronger. The implication is that ASUDAS traits are reliable proxies for genetic data—a positive conclusion, meaning they can be used with or instead of genomic markers when the latter are unavailable.
There are longstanding questions about the origins and ancestry of the Picts of early medieval Scotland (ca. 300–900 CE), prompted in part by exotic medieval origin myths, their enigmatic symbols and ...inscriptions, and the meagre textual evidence. The Picts, first mentioned in the late 3rd century CE resisted the Romans and went on to form a powerful kingdom that ruled over a large territory in northern Britain. In the 9th and 10th centuries Gaelic language, culture and identity became dominant, transforming the Pictish realm into Alba, the precursor to the medieval kingdom of Scotland. To date, no comprehensive analysis of Pictish genomes has been published, and questions about their biological relationships to other cultural groups living in Britain remain unanswered. Here we present two high-quality Pictish genomes (2.4 and 16.5X coverage) from central and northern Scotland dated from the 5th-7th century which we impute and co-analyse with >8,300 previously published ancient and modern genomes. Using allele frequency and haplotype-based approaches, we can firmly place the genomes within the Iron Age gene pool in Britain and demonstrate regional biological affinity. We also demonstrate the presence of population structure within Pictish groups, with Orcadian Picts being genetically distinct from their mainland contemporaries. When investigating Identity-By-Descent (IBD) with present-day genomes, we observe broad affinities between the mainland Pictish genomes and the present-day people living in western Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Northumbria, but less with the rest of England, the Orkney islands and eastern Scotland—where the political centres of Pictland were located. The pre-Viking Age Orcadian Picts evidence a high degree of IBD sharing across modern Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Orkney islands, demonstrating substantial genetic continuity in Orkney for the last ~2,000 years. Analysis of mitochondrial DNA diversity at the Pictish cemetery of Lundin Links (n = 7) reveals absence of direct common female ancestors, with implications for broader social organisation. Overall, our study provides novel insights into the genetic affinities and population structure of the Picts and direct relationships between ancient and present-day groups of the UK. Author summary We report two high-quality autosomal and eight mitochondrial genomes sequenced from individuals associated with the Pictish period of early medieval Scotland (ca. 300–900 CE). We demonstrate genetic affinities between the Pictish genomes and Iron Age people who lived in Britain, which supports current archaeological theories of a local origin. The autosomal genomes also allowed us to detect haplotype sharing between the Pictish genomes and present-day Europeans. Our results demonstrate a proportionally higher degree of haplotype sharing, and thus genetic affinity, between the Pictish genomes and individuals from western Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Northumbria. We also detected genetic structure in Scotland during the Iron Age, likely driven by the combination of genetic drift and small population size, which we also detect in present-day Orcadians. Lastly, the seven mitochondrial DNA from the Lundin Links cemetery showed that these individuals had no direct maternal ancestors which could suggest exchanges of people, or at least females, between groups during the Pictish period, challenging older ideas that the Picts were a matrilineal society. Overall, our results show that high-quality ancient genomes combined with haplotype imputation are highly informative for obtaining novel insights to population structure and migration over the past 2,000 years.
La découverte des groupes sanguins humains au début du XXe siècle a fait progresser de manière significative la médecine transfusionnelle. Ces groupes ont également été parmi les premiers marqueurs ...biologiques utilisés pour reconstituer l’histoire de la population de la Nouvelle-Guinée au début des années 1920. Les progrès récents du séquençage haut-débit ont permis un phénotypage et un génotypage précis des groupes sanguins (43 systèmes de groupes sanguins impliquant 48 gènes et 1500 allèles...
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