HAPLOGROUP DEFINITIONS: Family Tree DNA provided the following thumbnail summaries of the different haplogroups

Image credit: Denis Finnin, American Museum of Natural History

10 – Australopithecus afarensis

The most famous member of this species is Lucy, an adult female skeleton discovered in 1974 and nicknamed after a Beatles song. Lucy lived about 3.18 million years ago and was fully capable of walking and running on two legs.

Image credit: Two Guys Fossils

9 – Australopithecus africanus

A. africanus was an early descendent of Lucy and lived in Southern Africa between 2 million and 3 million years ago. Its brain was larger than Lucy’s and its facial features were more human-like.

…continue reading this entry.

One hundred and forty-four years ago tomorrow (April 14th), Abraham Lincoln was watching a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., when John Wilkes Booth slipped into the president’s box and shot him.

Lincoln died the next morning, and now his blood and brain matter — on part of a pillowcase at a Philadelphia museum — are being sought for DNA testing that may definitively solve a medical mystery.

Was the 16th president dying of cancer at the time of the assassination?

John Sotos, cardiologist, author and consultant for the television series "House," wants to test the artifact to confirm what eyewitness accounts and 130 period images already tell him: Lincoln had a rare genetic cancer syndrome called multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2B, or MEN2B.

But Dr. Sotos’ request has stirred an ethical and scientific debate on the board of directors of the Grand Army of the Republic Museum and Library, an off-the-beaten-path Civil War institution in Philadelphia’s Frankford section.

Should the museum grant permission for the testing and enjoy the spotlight when the results are announced?

Or should it reject Dr. Sotos’ request, avoid damaging the artifact and honor the wishes of Robert Todd Lincoln to leave his father in peace?

…continue reading this entry.

With bone fragment analysis, scientists put to rest the rumors that two children might have escaped the royal family’s slaying during the Russian Revolution.

The enduring stories and movies of Anastasia have been finally proven false – and indeed, the czar and his family were gunned down and stabbed by members of the Red Guard early on the morning of July 17, 1918. Rumors have persisted that two of the children, the Grand Duchess Anastasia and her brother Alexei, survived, perhaps because the diamonds sewn into their clothes blocked attempts to kill them.

…continue reading this entry.

Digging through thick mud and an ancient swamp of black clay, archaeologists in Istanbul have discovered a grave that proves the city is 6,000 years older than they previously thought.

The skeletons of two adults and two children lie curled-up, perhaps to save space. Alongside them are pots: gifts placed in the grave to use in the afterlife.

The ancient family was unearthed at the site of a 21st Century rail project.

"We found the grave, pots and other artifacts. There were signs of houses made of tree-branches and next to the settlement was a swamp where we found small tools, wooden pieces and bones," explains Ismail Karamut, head of the Istanbul Archaeology museum, which is leading the dig.

"It all shows there was a Neolithic settlement here in the historic peninsula of Istanbul where people lived, farmed and fished," he adds.

…continue reading this entry.

…according to new genetic evidence

The first people to arrive in America traveled as at least two separate groups to arrive in their new home at about the same time, according to new genetic evidence published online on January 8th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. After the Last Glacial Maximum some 15,000 to 17,000 years ago, one group entered North America from Beringia following the ice-free Pacific coastline, while another traversed an open land corridor between two ice sheets to arrive directly into the region east of the Rocky Mountains. (Beringia is the landmass that connected northeast Siberia to Alaska during the last ice age.)

…continue reading this entry.

Scientists have used DNA to re-trace the migrations of a sea-faring civilisation which dominated the Mediterranean thousands of years ago.

The Phoenicians were an enterprising maritime people from the territory of modern-day Lebanon. They established a trading empire throughout the Mediterranean Sea in the first millennium BC.

A new study by an international team has now revealed the genetic legacy they imparted to modern populations. The researchers estimate that as many as one in 17 men from the Mediterranean may have Phoenician ancestry.

They employed a new analytical technique to detect the subtle genetic imprint of historical migrations in present-day people. The study included DNA data from more than 6,000 men from around the Mediterranean.

…continue reading this entry.

DNA matches hair found in his books…

Researchers have identified the remains of Nicolaus Copernicus by comparing DNA from a skeleton and hair retrieved from one of the 16th-century astronomer’s books.

This finally answers the question of where he was laid to rest. Copernicus was a 16th century priest and astronomer whose theories identified the Sun, not the Earth, as the center of the universe…a heretical view at the time.

According to Polish archaeologist Jerzy Gassowski, the remains were first discovered in 2005 in a Roman Catholic Cathedral in Frombork, Poland. A subsequent forensic facial reconstruction of the skull bears striking resemblance to existing portraits of Copernicus….which show a broken nose and other features that resemble a self-portrait of Copernicus, and the skull bears a cut mark above the left eye that corresponds with a scar shown in the painting (above).

Moreover, the skull belonged to a man aged around 70 — Copernicus’s age when he died in 1543.

…continue reading this entry.

The oldest genetically identifiable nuclear family met a violent death, according to analysis of remains from 4,600-year-old burials in Germany.

Writing in the journal PNAS, researchers say the broken bones of these stone age people show they were killed in a struggle.

Comparisons of DNA from one grave confirm it contained a mother, father, and their two children. The son and daughter were buried in the arms of their parents.

Dr Wolfgang Haak, from The Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, in Adelaide, conducted the DNA analysis and says the scientific evidence supports the idea that they were indeed a family — "We’re really sure, based on hard biological facts not just supposing or assuming."

In total, the four graves contain 13 bodies, eight children aged six months to nine years and five adults aged 25 to 60.

In two graves, DNA was well preserved, which allowed comparisons between the occupants. One of these contained the nuclear family, while the other grave contained three related children and an unrelated woman. The researchers suggest she may have been an aunt or stepmother.

…continue reading this entry.

This photo shows four skeletons buried together in a 4,600-year-old grave. Genetic testing indicated that the remains represented a father, a mother and their two sons.

from Germany’s Landesamt für Denkmalpflege und Archäologie Sachsen-Anhalt

===============

A Stone Age burial in central Germany has yielded the earliest evidence of people living together as a family.

The 4,600-year-old grave contained the remains of a man, woman and two youngsters, and DNA analysis shows they were a mother, father and their children.

"Their unity in death suggests unity in life," researchers said in Tuesday’s edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

While tools and remains from the Stone Age have long been studied, there are few clues to the social relationships between people.

"By establishing the genetic links between the two adults and two children buried together in one grave, we have established the presence of the classic nuclear family in a prehistoric context in Central Europe — to our knowledge the oldest authentic molecular genetic evidence so far," lead author Wolfgang Haak of the University of Adelaide, Australia, said in a statement.

The researchers studied four multiple burials at Eulau, Saxony-Anhalt, all dated to the same time and containing adults and children carefully buried facing each other.

Several of the skeletons showed evidence of injuries, suggesting a violent attack. There was a stone projectile point in the vertebra of one woman, and another had a skull fracture. Several had forearm and hand injuries, indicating attempts to protect themselves, the researchers said. The scientists suggested that survivors of the raid later returned to bury the dead.

Besides the nuclear family in one grave, a second grave held three children, two of which were siblings, buried with a woman to whom they were not maternally related. The researchers think she may have been a paternal aunt or stepmother.

The team also looked at the strontium levels in the teeth of the skeletons. Strontium builds up in teeth during childhood and can be a clue where someone was raised.

Alistair Pike, head of archaeology at the University of Bristol, said the strontium levels showed that the females grew up in a different area from the males and children. That is an indication of marriage between different groups, with women going to join their husbands, which would have been important to avoid inbreeding and to forge kinship networks with other communities.

An ancient grave unearthed in modern-day Israel containing 50 tortoise shells, a human foot and body parts from numerous animals is likely one of the earliest known shaman burial sites. This 12,000-year-old grave dates back to the Natufian people who were the first society to adopt a sedentary lifestyle, Hebrew University of Jerusalem researcher Leore Grosman and colleagues said.

"The interment rituals and the method used to construct and seal the grave suggest this is the burial of an ancient shaman, one of the earliest known from the archaeological record," they wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Shamans play an important role in many cultures, mediating between the human and spiritual worlds and acting as messengers, healers, magicians to serve the community, the researchers said.

The Israeli team found the bones in a small cave in the lower Galilee region of present-day Israel that was a Natufian burial ground for a least 28 people.

At the time of burial, more than 10 large stones were placed directly on the head, pelvis, and arms of the elderly woman whose body was laid on its side. The legs were spread apart and folded inward at the knee. The special treatment of the body and use of stones to keep it in a certain position suggests the woman held a unique position in the community, likely some sort of a shaman, the researchers said.

"The burial of the woman…is unlike any burial found in the Natufian or the preceding Palaeolithic periods," Grosman’s team wrote. "We argue that this burial is consistent with expectations for a shaman’s grave."

The woman was also interred with some unusual grave goods, including the complete tortoise shells and select body-parts of a wild boar, an eagle, a cow, a leopard, and two martens, as well as a complete human foot. The grave portrays several hallmarks that later become central in the spiritual arena of cultures worldwide, the researchers added.

"Tortoises, cow tails, eagle wings, and fur-bearing animals continue to play important symbolic and shamanistic roles in the spiritual arena of human cultures worldwide today," they wrote.

"It seems that the woman in the Natufian burial was perceived as being in a close relationship with these animal spirits."

Yahoo News/Reuters

Scientists have detected the faint genetic traces left by medieval crusaders in the Middle East.

The team says it found a particular DNA signature which recently appeared in Lebanon and is probably linked to the crusades.

The researchers found that some Christian men in Lebanon carry a DNA signature hailing from Western Europe.

[left: Siege of Antioch]

Four crusades came through Lebanon between the 11th and 13th Centuries – the first, second, third and sixth. The bulk of the crusader armies came from England, France, Germany and Italy; many of the men stayed to build castles and settlements, mixing with the local populations.

The scientists also found that Lebanese Muslim men were more likely than Christians to carry a particular genetic signature. But this one is linked to expansions from the Arabian Peninsula which brought Islam to the area in the 7th and 8th Centuries.

But they emphasise that the differences between the two communities are minor, and that Christians and Muslim Arabs in Lebanon overwhelmingly share a common heritage.

Genetic ’surname’

The legacy of the Muslim expansion has been demonstrated in other studies which looked at the genetics of Middle Eastern and North African populations. But signs of recent European migration to the region are more unusual.

The study focused on the Y, or male, chromosome, a package of genetic material carried only by men that is passed down from father to son more or less unchanged, just like a surname.

But over many generations, the chromosome accumulates small changes, or copying errors, in its DNA sequence. These can be used to classify male chromosomes into different groups (called haplogroups) which, to some extent, reflect a person’s geographical ancestry.

The team analysed the Y chromosomes of 926 Lebanese males and found that patterns of male genetic variation in Lebanon fell more along religious lines than along geographical lines.

A genetic signature on the male chromosome called WES1, which is usually only found in west European populations, was found among the Lebanese men included in the study.

Science and history

"It seems to have come in from Europe and is found mostly in the Christian population," said Dr Spencer Wells, director of the Genographic Project.

"This is odd because typically we don’t see this sort of stratification by religion when we are looking at the relative proportions of these lineages – and particularly immigration events."

He told BBC News: "Looking at the same data set, we saw a similar enrichment of lineages coming in from the Arabian Peninsula in the Muslim population which we didn’t see [as often] in the Christian population."

Lebanese Muslim men were found to have high frequencies of a Y chromosome grouping known as J1. This is typical of populations originating from the Arabian Peninsula, who were involved in the Muslim expansion.

"The goal of the study was to put some science to the history of this country – which is very rich," said Pierre Zalloua, a co-author on the paper, from the Lebanese American University in Beirut.

He added: "To have these great civilisations – with the Islamic expansion and the migration from Europe – coming to Lebanon, leaving not only their genes but also some of their culture and way of life, it can only make us feel richer."

The Genographic Project was launched by National Geographic in 2005 to help piece together a picture of how the Earth was populated.

Science reporter, BBC News
 

Ancient maritime traders of the Mediterranean may have left behind a large genetic footprint in the region, where 1 in 17 men still harbors Phoenician DNA, according to a new study.

The Phoenician civilization  originated two to three thousand years ago in the eastern Mediterranean—in what is now Lebanon and Syria—and included prominent traders, according to Chris Tyler-Smith, lead author and associate researcher at National Geographic Society’s Genographic Project.

"By the time of the Romans they more or less disappeared from history, and little has been known about them since," Tyler-Smith added. "Our motivation was to really identify their genetic traces."

The new research could also help scientists understand the genetic impact of other human migrations, such as military campaigns by the Greeks and the Mongols, Tyler-Smith said.

DNA Markers

Tyler-Smith and colleagues used historic and archeological records, along with information from DNA samples.

The research team analyzed the Y chromosome of 1,330 men from historic Phoenician trading centers in the Mediterranean regions of Syria, Palestine, Tunisia, Morocco, Cyprus, and Malta.

Unlike mitochondrial DNA—which is passed down from mothers—the Y chromosome, passed down by fathers, is thought to provide more detailed genetic information.

Analyses of the Y chromosomal data revealed the presence of at least seven related genetic lineages from places around the Mediterranean Sea where Phoenicians had lived.

These lineages suggest that the Phoenicians contributed their genes to at least six percent of the modern populations of historic Phoenician trading outposts.

"Our findings suggest that the Phoenicians left behind a genetic legacy that persists till modern times," Tyler-Smith said.

Colin Groves is a biological anthropologist at Australia National University in Canberra who was not associated with the study.

"I think this is a very neat finding," said Groves, adding that the study provides enough evidence for a clear genetic link between ancient Phoenician traders and persons now living in some of these historic trading towns.

However, he notes that the researchers looked only at Y chromosomes, indicating a line of descent from a male ancestor.

"This means that you will find such genetic traces only if there has been an unbroken male line in that area," Groves explained. "If a man has only daughters, his Y chromosome lineage dies out."

Groves also cautions that one should not interpret the findings as suggesting the Phoenicians were restricted to a certain place.

"It means only that Phoenicians were there, and presumably in sufficient numbers that chance events have not eliminated the Y chromosome traces."

MtDNA Haplogroups

All mtDNA haplogroups found in Europe descend from the

N group

, which is thought to represent one of the two initial migrations by modern humans out of Africa, some 60,000 to 80,000 years ago. Nowadays haplogroup N is only found at extremely low frequencies in various parts of Eurasia.

Chronological development of mtDNA haplogroups

• U => 50,000 to 60,000 years ago (arose in Western Asia)
• H => 30,000 to 50,000 years ago (in the Near East – associated with Cro-Magnon in Europe)
• J => 45,000 years ago (in the Near East)
• X => over 30,000 years ago (in north-east Europe)
• I => 30,000 years ago (origin unknown – probably in Europe)
• W => 25,000 years ago (in north-east Europe or north-west Asia)
• K => 15,000 years ago (in the Near East)
• T => 10,000 years ago (in Mesopotamia)
• V => 10,000 years ago (arose in Iberia and moved to Scandinavia)

Haplogroup H is by far the most common all over Europe, amounting to about 40% of the European population. It is also found (though in lower frequencies) in North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, Northern Asia, as well as along the East coast of Africa as far as Madagascar.

The testing of ancient DNA helped understand how long each haplogroup has been in Europe. Only a few such tests have been successfully conducted so far. Mitochondrial DNA was extracted from the skeleton of a 28,000 year-old Cro-Magnon from southern Italy, and the haplogroup matched the Cambridge Reference Sequence (H2b). Still preceding the Neolithic expansion from the Middle East, the 9,000 year-old Cheddar Man was found to belong to haplogroup U5a.

Among Bronze-age mtDNA, the 3,300 year-old Ötzi the Iceman belonged to haplogroup K1. The remains of a family found in a cave in Lichtenstein, dating from 3,000 years ago, all belonged to haplogroup T. Haplogroups I and X were both found in ancient Viking cemeteries. X was also discovered in an Anglo-Saxon tomb in England.

The Gypsies have two mtDNA haplogroups not found in the rest of the European population. About half of them belong to haplogroup M (found throughout East Asia and South Asia, especially in India), and 15% to haplogroup U3 (only found in high frequencies among the Gypsy community).

I, W, X and the Neanderthal debate

I, W and X are all of very ancient European origin. They are estimated to have arisen approximately 30,000 years ago, a few thousand years before the extinction of Neanderthal. Although present in all Europe and a big part of Asia, from the Middle East to Siberia, and even in North America in the case of X, these three haplogroups never exceed more than a few percents of the population in every region (most often under 1%). They are most common in cold, mountainous or desertic climates. The highest densities of X and W are observed in the Caucasus, in North-East Europe, Siberia and Central Asia, while haplogroup I reaches unusually high levels (4 or 5%) in countries like Iceland, Scotland, Norway or Latvia.

One hypothesis is that these mtDNA haplogroups might be the only surviving haplogroups descended from a specific subspecies of Neanderthal. Neanderthals lived in Europe, and as far as North-West Asia and the Middle East, for over 200,000 years. They progressively disappeared over a period of 25,000 years after the arrival of Homo Sapiens from Africa. The most recent skeletons of Neanderthals found in Iberia (dating from 25,000 years ago) show obvious signs of Homo Sapiens admixture. Just like some White Americans nowadays carry Native American or African mtDNA without looking different from a "pure" European, it is thought that Neanderthals left some genes in modern humans, and maybe some mitochondrial lineages.

The Neanderthalian hypothesis is consistent with the estimated age and place of origin of these haplogroups – in Europe or Russia, just before the presumed extinction of Neanderthal. It correlates with the fact that haplogroups I, W and X now make up only a tiny minority of European haplogroups, while the descendants of haplogroup R (H, V, J, T, U and K), representing the better adapted Homo Sapiens, account for over 95% of the modern European population. Homo Sapiens would have progressively outnumbered, then assimilated the last Neanderthals. The same phenomenon is thought to have happened in Asia between the new wave of Homo Sapiens from Africa and the various indigenous species of Homo Erectus (e.g. Peking Man, Java Man, Man of Flores) .

The fact that only the mtDNA line (i.e. the maternal line) of Neanderthal has survived is also concordant. In primitive societies women were very likely to be raped, abducted by another tribe, or spared during tribal warfare and integrated to the winning tribe. A few isolated cases are enough to pass Neanderthalian mtDNA to the Homo Sapiens population.

Due to Neanderthal’s long evolution and their adaptation to extreme climates, including several glaciations, the phylogenic tree of Neanderthal mtDNA could be as diversified, if not more, than that of modern hum

Where did we come from? Many find their answers in faith and religion. Others seek out the historical and archeological records.

Toumai: Earliest-known ancestor of modern humans?

Jaw fragments, isolated teeth and a skull excavated from the Sahel desert of Chad dated to between 6 and 7 million years old may re-cast the opening chapter in the story of human origins. The fossils, revealed in 2001 and shown in this reconstruction, put the split in the evolutionary tree that eventually led to chimps on one branch and humans on the other more than 1,500 miles northwest of east Africa’s Rift Valley, the current epicenter of research into human ancestors. But some scientists are not yet convinced the creature, named Sahelanthropus tchadensis and nicknamed Toumai, walked upright, which many scientists consider a key characteristic that distinguishes hominids from non-human primates.

Thigh bone suggests earliest two-legged walker

Analysis of a thigh bone amongst a clutch of fossils discovered in Kenya in 2000 and dated to nearly 6 million years ago may provide the earliest definitive evidence of a human ancestor that walked on two legs. Several detailed analyses of the femur, or thigh bone, shown here, have revealed it was adapted for upright walking. The bone belongs to a species known as Orrorin tugenensis. Most recently, U.S. scientists concluded the strategy first exhibited by this species for walking upright persisted for 4 million years, the majority of evolutionary history.

Middle Awash discovery fills gap in evolution story

Teeth and bones of the hand, foot, and thigh, shown here, are among the fossils of a 4.2 million year old Australopithecus anamensis specimen found in Ethiopia’s Middle Awash region that has allowed scientists to link together their most complete chain of human evolution to date. The discovery helped fill a gap in the story, showing a likely transition between an earlier human ancestor known as Ardipithecus ramidus to the more recent australopithecines. The Middle Awash has yielded eight species in the story spanning 6 million years.

Lucy, the world’s most famous fossil

Lucy, a 3.2 million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis named after the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," is perhaps the world’s most famous fossil. She was discovered in the Afar region of Ethiopia in 1974 and remains among the most complete skeletons of an erect-walking human ancestor ever found, with about 40 percent of her bones intact. Her discovery allowed scientists for the first time to determine that upright walking predated the big brains of modern humans. Lucy’s brain case is about the size of a chimp. In this file photo, visitors view the Lucy skeleton at a Houston museum. The exhibit is currently in Seattle.

Taung child hailed as ‘missing link’ in 1924

The diminutive fossil skull of 3.5-year-old early human ancestor, known as Taung child, was hailed as the "missing link" between apes and humans when it was discovered in 1924. Known scientifically as Australopithecus africanus, the discovery of the 2 million-year-old child also provided the first evidence that early humans evolved in Africa, rather than Europe, as many scientists believed at the time. In this photo, a researcher holds a replica of the skull as he makes the case that an eagle killed the Taung child.

Turkana boy, most complete skeleton found

Turkana boy, a nearly complete 1.6 million-year-old fossil of what some scientists call Homo ergaster, an early African population of Homo erectus, is considered the most complete skeleton of a prehistoric human ever found. The boy, who was discovered in 1984 in Kenya’s Turkana region, stood 5-foot 3-inches, indicating that hominids had gotten considerably taller and lankier since the days of Lucy, 3.2 million years ago. Plans to unveil Turkana boy at the National Museum of Kenya, shown here, in 2007 caused a stir between creationists and scientists.

Fossil discovery splinters human family tree

Many cartoons of evolution show a humpbacked ape slowly, linearly, progressing to a tall and erect modern human. Scientists long ago concluded that was too simple of a view, preferring instead to use a branching, thorny and knotted tree to depict the process. A discovery announced in 2007 threw yet another splinter in the picture. Many scientists had believed Homo habilis gave rise to Homo erectus who gave rise to modern humans. But the new finding shows habilis and erectus lived side by side for half a million years, raising doubt that habilis is a direct human ancestor. The scientists also found that erectus exhibited large size variation within the species, as shown in this image comparing two erectus skulls.

Neanderthals’ relationship to modern humans fuzzy

The 1856 discovery of a skull cap and partial skeleton from a cave in Germany’s Neander valley was the first recognized fossil human form. But exactly how the species, named in 1864 as Homo neanderthalensis, is related to modern humans remains the subject of fierce academic debate. Neanderthals occupied Europe and Asia from about 200,000 years to 30,000 years ago, overlapping in places with modern humans. Recent genetic analyses suggest little, if any, interbreeding between the species. Skeletal evidence, however, suggests Neanderthals were not very different than their modern human cousins. Even their brains were comparable to, if not bigger, than ours, as depicted in this Neanderthal reconstruction. Other studies have shown that like modern humans, Neanderthals used tools, wore jewelry, hunted, and buried their dead.

Hobbit discovery stuns the world, stirs debate

As modern humans spread around the world over the past 160,000 years or so, a hobbit-like ancestor was holed up on the Indonesian island of Flores until at least 12,000 years ago, scientists announced at a press briefing in 2004, shown here. The stunning find has been scrutinized ever since. Some scientists agree the fossils represent a new species, Homo floresiensis. Others suggest the fossils belong to a diminutive race of modern humans, perhaps afflicted by one of several diseases associated with dwarfing.

Oldest modern humans found in Ethiopia

The two partial skulls shown here of modern humans, Homo sapiens, were unearthed in Ethiopia in 1967. At the time, they were given a preliminary date of 130,000 years old. A 2005 revision using more modern dating techniques found them to be about 195,000 years old, making them the oldest known fossils of modern humans. Genetic evidence suggests modern humans arose in Africa about 200,000 years ago and then spread around the world, though other scientists hypothesize modern humans arose in parallel in Africa, Europe, and Asia.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27225171/

above: A hairy mammoth bull, right, cow and calf, with trees and snow in the background, is part of a scene from "Prehistoric Kansas," at Dyche Museum in Kansas City, Mo., in this 1938 file photo. AP file image

Sergey Zimov’s Pleistocene Park is unlike any preserve on the planet.

In northern Siberia, Zimov and his colleagues are attempting to restore a large area of wetlands and forest to the dry landscape that existed more than 10,000 years ago. They are re-introducing herbivores and predators they think will alter the biology and ecology of the region to its previous state.

The effort is designed to solve a longstanding mystery of what happened to the woolly mammoths, and it might also help reduce global warming, Zimov says.

The park’s primary purpose is to reveal what role various animals had on the ancient ecosystem and whether humans are to blame for the mammoth’s extinction. The giant mammals, related to elephants, once roamed many parts of the planet, including North America. Their last holdout was on an island off the coast of Alaska about 8,000 years ago.

Zimov, director of the Northeast Science Station in Cherskii in the Republic of Sakha, has led the park-creation effort over the past decade. He describes the ambitious project today in the journal Science.

The Pleistocene era ran from about 1.8 million years ago to 10,000 years ago, when the last ice age ended. Like about half the land area of the planet at the time, northeastern Siberia was covered in arid grasslands.

"There, vast dust-covered plains and valleys dominated the landscape," Zimov writes. "Mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, bison, horses, reindeer, musk-oxen, elk, moose, saiga, and yaks grazed on grasslands under the predatory gaze of cave lions and wolves."

About 10,000 years ago, the ecosystem disappeared. Mosses and forests, their growth fueled by increased humidity, replaced the dry tundra that had been the mammoth’s home. The planet warmed, and the mammoths disappeared.

Scientists for decades have debated why they died off, however.

"It actually might not have been the climatic changes that killed off these great animals and their ecosystem," Zimov argues. "More consequential, perhaps, were shifts in ecological dynamics wrought by people who relied on increasingly efficient hunting practices, which decimated the very populations of grazing animals that maintained the tundra steppe."

A study released last month supports Zimov’s view, finding that ancient waves of human expansion corresponded to declines in populations of various elephant species.

Zimov calls the human species an ecosystem terminator, contending that our ancestors permanently altered the planet as time moved into the Holocene era.

"The mammoth ecosystem was the first large-scale victim," he says, "but the global destruction of grasslands only accelerated in the Holocene when people invented agriculture, and began raising cattle."

The park currently covers an area of 40,000 acres (160 square kilometers). So far, Zimov and his colleagues, with government approval, have re-introduced or fostered the survival of reindeer, moose, wild horses, musk-oxen, hares, marmots, and ground squirrels, along with predators such as wolves, bears, lynxes, wolverines and foxes.

left: Yakutian horses grazing on a snow-covered tundra meadow in northern Siberia.

"The most important phase of the program will be the reintroduction of bison from Canada and subsequently, when the herbivores are sufficiently abundant, the acclimatization of Siberian tigers," Zimov said.

There is another motive. The region holds a lot of carbon that is sequestered in permafrost. If the planet grows warmer, this permafrost will melt and release the carbon into the atmosphere, where it will add to the heat-trapping blanket of greenhouse gases and fuel further warming. (Already the permafrost in many locations around the globe is disappearing, other studies show.)

Creating a Pleistocene-like grassy, arid ecosystem would prevent the carbon’s release, Zimov says.

In a separate effort, scientists with the Mammoth Creation Project hope to find frozen woolly mammoth DNA and inject it into an elephant. If the species could be revived in this longshot program, the mammoths would have a park to play in, scientists figure.

source: LiveScience

above: A hairy mammoth bull, right, cow and calf, with trees and snow in the background, is part of a scene from "Prehistoric Kansas," at Dyche Museum in Kansas City, Mo., in this 1938 file photo. AP file image

Scientists with the Mammoth Creation Project hope to find a frozen woolly mammoth specimen with sperm DNA. The sperm DNA would then be injected into a female elephant; by repeating the procedure with offspring, a creature 88 percent mammoth could be produced within fifty years.

"This is possible with modern technology we already have," said Akira Iritani, who is chairman of the genetic engineering department at Kinki University in Japan and a member of the Mammoth Creation Project. However, the DNA in mammoth remains found to date has been unusable, damaged by time and climate changes. "From a geologist’s point of view, the preservation of viable sperm is very unlikely, and this is so far confirmed by the poor condition of cells in the mammoth carcasses," said Andrei Sher, Russian paleontologist and mammoth expert.

Woolly mammoths became extinct about 10,000 years ago as warming weather reduced their food sources. Although only about a hundred specimens have been found, as many as ten million mammoths are believed buried in permanently frozen Russian soil.

Irtani has already picked out a preserve for living mammoths in northern Siberia; this "Pleistocene Park" would feature extinct species of deer, woolly rhinoceroses and maybe even saber-toothed cats, along with the mammoths.

In his novel Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton popularized the idea of using dinosaur DNA taken from mosquito-like insects trapped in amber to create a Jurassic Park of recreated dinosaurs. Unhappily for the Pleistocene Park planners, both books and all three movies ended badly for most of the participants, including the investors. Also, astute scientists are already pointing out that these experiments would merely create mammoth-like creatures, not mammoths themselves. This wasn’t pointed out until the third movie in the Jurassic Park series.

source; Livescience

The genes of a European person can be enough to pinpoint their ancestry down to their home country, claim two new studies.

By reading single-letter DNA differences in the genomes of thousands of Europeans, researchers can tell a Finn from a Dane and a German from a Brit. In fact a visual genetic map mirrors the geopolitical map of the continent, right down to Italy’s boot.

"It tells us that geography matters," says John Novembre, a population geneticist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who led one of the studies. Despite language, immigration and intermarriage, genetic differences between Europeans are almost entirely related to where they were born.

This, however, does not mean that the citizens of each European nation represent miniature races. "The genetic diversity in Europe is very low. There isn’t really much," says Manfred Kayser, a geneticist at Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands, who led the other study.

One-letter differences

Kayser’s and Novembre’s teams uncovered the gene-geography pattern only by analysing hundreds of thousands of common gene variants called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) across the genomes of people from about two dozen countries. SNPs are places in the genome where one person’s DNA might read A, while another’s T.

Though the teams worked independently, they used some of the same DNA samples, which were gathered by the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline to help hunt for genes linked to drug side effects. The researchers recorded the results alongside the country of origin for each subject as well as that of their parents and grandparents when possible.

For each subject, the researchers decoded half a million SNPs. However, to get an overall assessment of the difference between any two genomes, the researchers used a mathematical trick that scrunched the hundreds of thousands of SNPs into two coordinates, with each person’s genome represented by a point. The greater the distance between two points, the greater the difference in their genomes.

When both teams plotted thousands of genomes on a single graph along with their country of origin, a striking map of Europe emerged. Spanish and Portuguese genomes clustered "south-west" of French genomes, while Italian genomes jutted "south-east" of Swiss.

These cardinal directions are artificial, but the spatial relationships between genomes are not. In general, the closer together two people live, the more similar their DNA. The same is known to be true of animals .

Predicting origins

The map was so accurate that when Novembre’s team placed a geopolitical map over their genetic "map", half of the genomes landed within 310 kilometres of their country of origin, while 90% fell within 700 km.

Both teams found that southern Europeans boast more overall genetic diversity than Scandinavians, British and Irish.

"That makes perfect sense with the major migration waves that went into Europe," says Kayser, noting Homo sapien’s European debut 35,000 years ago, post-ice age expansions 20,000 years ago, and movements propelled by the advent of farming 10,000 years ago. In each case, members of established southern populations struck north.

"A pattern in which genes mirror geography is essentially what you would expect from a history in which people moved slowly and mated mainly with their close neighbours," says Noah Rosenberg, a geneticist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Journal references: Nature (DOI: 10.1038/nature07331)

Current Biology (DOI:10.1016/j.cub.2008.07.049)