New research using ancient DNA finds that a population split after people first arrived in North America was maintained for millennia before mixing again before or during the expansion of humans into the southern continent.
Researchers analysed DNA extracted from 4,000-year-old human remains to reveal that more than 90% of Lebanese ancestry is from ancient Canaanite populations.
Several major studies, published today, concur that virtually all current global human populations stem from a single wave of expansion out of Africa. Yet one has found 2% of the genome in Papuan populations points to an earlier, separate dispersal event – and an extinct lineage that made it to the islands of Southeast Asia and Oceania.
Wealth and power may have played a stronger role than “survival of the fittest”.
Millennia-old genetic variant that once provided advantages for survival in cold climates increases risk of hypoglycemia and infant mortality.
Cambridge University researchers have discovered that lactose tolerant milk-drinkers in India and Europe could be related to the same person who lived at some point in the last 10,000 years.
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