18:20 10 February 2010 by Ewen Callaway
A brown-eyed man from 4400 years ago, dubbed Inuk, has become the first ancient human to have his complete genome sequenced, a Danish team announced today.
With the publication of a full Neanderthal genome expected soon and the woolly mammoth's a year ago, ancient genomics is starting to deliver on its enormous potential.
"Nobody really knows where the limits are," says Eske Willerslev, who has pioneered analysis of ancient DNA at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and led the team that sequenced Inuk's DNA. Egyptian and South American mummies and human ancestors more ancient than Neanderthals could be next – though success with remains this old is far from certain.
The new study reveals that Inuk – an Eskimo from the Saqqaq culture – had type A-positive blood, a disposition for male pattern baldness, was susceptible to ear infections and carried a gene variant that today is associated with brown eyes. More significantly, it suggests he was descended from a previously unknown migration from Siberia into North America, around 5500 years ago.
Read full story here: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18509-resurrection-ancient-humans-rise-from-dead.html
(Submitted by Tim Chapman)
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