McMaster Ancient DNA News

Members of the McMaster Ancient DNA Centre and forensic researchers in Denmark presented their initial findings on the putative causes surround Pablo Neruda’s death.

By examining the mitochondrial genome diversity and isotopic ratios of 74 ancient remains in conjunction with the archaeological record, we have provided definitive evidence for the genetic discontinuity between the maternal lineages of these populations. This northeastern margin of North America appears to have been populated multiple times by distinct groups that did not share a recent common ancestry, but rather one much deeper in time at the entry point into the continent.

Congratulations to Ana Duggan on receiving a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Recent work by the McMaster University Ancient DNA Centre and collaborators on the sequencing of a smallpox genome from a 17th century Lithuanian child mummy and the identification of malaria in Roman Italy has been featured in the current issue of World Archaeology (CWA 81).

Pregnancy complications are poorly represented in the archeological record, despite their importance in contemporary and ancient societies. While excavating a Byzantine cemetery in Troy, we discovered calcified abscesses among a woman’s remains.

The partially mummified remains of a young child have offered a unique insight into the history of a once-feared disease. The remains, recovered from the crypt of the Dominican Church of the Holy Spirit in Vilnius, Lithuania, have been dated to the mid-17th century.

Using ancient DNA technology, we were able to retrieve over 50% of the Plasmodium falciparum mitochondrial genome from two adults in different localities.

Emil's talk on the myths, misconceptions, and ethics of paleogenomics and de-extinction.

Lateral gene transfer is an important mechanism for evolution among bacteria. Here, genome-wide gene insertion and deletion rates are modelled in a maximum likelihood framework with the additional flexibility of modelling potential missing data.