From Ancient DNA, a Clearer Picture of Europeans Today - NYTimes.com

From Ancient DNA, a Clearer Picture of Europeans Today - NYTimes.com




"...............

Up till now, scientists have learned about evolution on the Continent mostly by looking at living Europeans. But advances in biotechnology have made it possible to begin extracting entire DNA from the bones of ancestors who lived thousands of years ago. Their genomes are like time machines, allowing scientists to see bits of European history playing out over thousands of years.

Recently David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School, and his colleagues analyzed the genomes of nine ancient Europeans. Eight belonged to hunter-gatherers who lived about 8,000 years ago, seven in what is now Sweden and one in Luxembourg. The ninth came from a farmer who lived 7,000 years ago in present-day Germany.

The scientists compared these genomes with those of living Europeans. As they reported last month in Nature, the study revealed something scientists never knew: Europeans today have genes from three very different populations...................."

This forms and interesting addition to the post I did in 2008 pointing the Bradshaw foundation animation video which is really interesting! http://nickhorslen.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=longNow