Aakancha Shaw, St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata
Researchers, for the first time, have been successfully able to sequence the entire genome from the skull of PeşteraMuierii 1. She is a woman who lived about 35,000 years ago in today’s Romania. Muierii woman is somehow related to Europeans, though she is not a direct ancestor. This study was conducted at Uppsala university by MattiasJakobsson. The muierii woman is a bit more like the modern-day Europeans as compared to the ancient Europeans who lived 5000 years earlier back but the difference is quite less than the researchers thought it was. It was evident that she is not a direct ancestor of the modern Europeans but a predecessor of the Hunter-gatherers who lived in Europe until the end of the last Ice Age. Although efforts have been made to sequence the complete genome older than 30,000 years yet it was unsuccessful and very few complete genomes older than 30,000 years were sequenced. Now that the research team has sequenced the entire genome from PeşteraMuieriithey can similarly relate the genome with modern humans in Europe while also keeping in mind that she is not a direct ancestor. In previous studies, another group of researchers observed that the shape of her cranium has similarities with both Neanderthals and modern humans. It was for this reason that they assumed that the muierii woman had a greater component of Neanderthal ancestry when compared to other contemporaries which made her stand out from the norm, but the genetic analysis showed that she had the same level of Neanderthal DNA as other individuals living in her time. When it was compared with remains from some other individuals who lived 5000 years ago like PeşteraOase 1 she was only found to have half as much Neanderthal ancestry.
The spread of modern humans out of Africa which occurred around 80,000 years ago is considered a genetic bottleneck and is a very important period. Populations moved into Asia and Europe and the effect of the migrations is visible even today. Genetic diversity is lower in populations outside Africa than in Africa. PeşteraMuierii 1 has the highest genetic diversity which implies that the greatest loss of genetic diversity was during the last Ice Age instead of during the African migration. This diversity was much more than what was expected from Europe then. The researchers also tracked the genetic variation in Europe over the last 35,000 years and could see a clear decrease in the genetic variations during the last Ice Age. This reduced genetic variation has been linked to pathogenic variants in the genome being more common among populations outside Africa.
Advanced medical genomics allowed the researchers to study the ancient remains and also look for genetic diseases. They didn’t find any difference during the last 35,000 years even though the individuals who were alive during the Ice Age had low genetic diversity. The researchers have accessed everything from the remains. PeşteraMuierii 1 is very important from both cultural and research perspectives.
Also read: Analysis of new species of Listeria improves food safety
Source:https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0960982221005923
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