A multidisciplinary approach to Neolithic life reconstruction

Open access A Multidisciplinary Approach to Neolithic Life Reconstruction, by Goude et al. J Archaeol Method Th (2018).

Abstract (emphasis mine):

The expansion of Neolithic stable isotope studies in France now allows distinct regional population-scale food patterns to be linked to both local environment influences and specific economic choices. Carbon and nitrogen isotope values of more than 500 humans and of animal samples also permit hypotheses on sex-biased human provenance. To advance population scale research, we here present the first study that draws together carbon (C), nitrogen (N), sulphur (S) and strontium (Sr), dental calculus, aDNA, and palaeoparasitology analysis

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Mitochondrial DNA unsuitable to test for IBD, and undersampling genomes show biased time and rate estimates

Two interesting papers questioning previous methods have been published.

Open access Mitochondrial DNA is unsuitable to test for isolation by distance, by Teske et al. Scientific Reports (2018) 8:8448.

Abstract (emphasis mine):

Tests for isolation by distance (IBD) are the most commonly used method of assessing spatial genetic structure. Many studies have exclusively used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences to test for IBD, but this marker is often in conflict with multilocus markers. Here, we report a review of the literature on IBD, with the aims of determining (a) whether significant IBD is primarily a result of lumping spatially discrete

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Ancient mtDNA from Central America and Mexico

New article, Successful reconstruction of whole mitochondrial genomes from ancient Central America and Mexico, by Morales-Arce et al., Scientific Reports (2017).

Abstract:

The northern and southern peripheries of ancient Mesoamerica are poorly understood. There has been speculation over whether borderland cultures such as Greater Nicoya and Casas Grandes represent Mesoamerican outposts in the Isthmo-Colombian area and the Greater Southwest, respectively. Poor ancient DNA preservation in these regions challenged previous attempts to resolve these questions using conventional genetic techniques. We apply advanced in-solution mitogenome capture and high-throughput sequencing to fourteen dental samples obtained from the Greater Nicoya sites of Jícaro

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Preprint paper: Estimating genetic kin relationships in prehistoric populations, by Monroy Kuhn, Jakobsson, and Günther

A new preprint paper appeared some days ago in BioRxiv, Estimating genetic kin relationships in prehistoric populations, by researchers of the Uppsala University Jose Manuel Monroy Kuhn, Mattias Jakobsson, and Torsten Günther. Jakobsson and Günther. You might remember the last two from their work Ancient X chromosomes reveal contrasting sex bias in Neolithic and Bronze Age Eurasian migrations, whose results were said not to be replicable by Lazaridis and Reich (PNAS), something they denied pointing to the limitations of the current aDNA data (PNAS).

They propose a new, more conservative method to infer close … Read the rest “Preprint paper: Estimating genetic kin relationships in prehistoric populations, by Monroy Kuhn, Jakobsson, and Günther”