Atlantis Online
March 28, 2024, 03:57:41 pm
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: Towering Ancient Tsunami Devastated the Mediterranean
http://www.livescience.com/environment/061130_ancient_tsunami.html
 
  Home Help Arcade Gallery Links Staff List Calendar Login Register  

Most European men descend from a handful of Bronze Age forefathers

Pages: [1]   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: Most European men descend from a handful of Bronze Age forefathers  (Read 291 times)
0 Members and 86 Guests are viewing this topic.
Challoner
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 3892



« on: May 24, 2015, 05:49:05 pm »


Most European men descend from a handful of Bronze Age forefathers

Tue, May 19, 2015






University of Leicester researchers discover a European male-specific population explosion that occurred between 2,000 and 4,000 years ago.
Most European men descend from a handful of Bronze Age forefathers

University of Leicester—Geneticists from the University of Leicester have discovered that most European men descend from just a handful of Bronze Age forefathers, due to a 'population explosion' several thousand years ago.

The project, which was funded by the Wellcome Trust, was led by Professor Mark Jobling from the University of Leicester's Department of Genetics and the study is published in the prestigious journal Nature Communications.

The research team determined the DNA sequences of a large part of the Y chromosome, passed exclusively from fathers to sons, in 334 men from 17 European and Middle Eastern populations, using new methods for analysing DNA variation that provides a less biased picture of diversity, and also a better estimate of the timing of population events. This allowed the construction of a genealogical tree of European Y chromosomes that could be used to calculate the ages of branches. Three very young branches, whose shapes indicate recent expansions, account for the Y chromosomes of 64% of the men studied.

Professor Jobling said: "The population expansion falls within the Bronze Age, which involved changes in burial practices, the spread of horse-riding and developments in weaponry. Dominant males linked with these cultures could be responsible for the Y chromosome patterns we see today."

In addition, past population sizes were estimated, and showed that a continuous swathe of populations from the Balkans to the British Isles underwent an explosion in male population size between 2,000 and 4,000 years ago.

This contrasts with previous results for the Y chromosome, and also with the picture presented by maternally-inherited mitochondrial DNA, which suggests much more ancient population growth.

____________________________________

europeanbronzeagepic
Report Spam   Logged

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Challoner
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 3892



« Reply #1 on: May 24, 2015, 05:51:06 pm »



Europe during the late bronze age (1100 BC).  Xoil, Wikimedia Commons
Report Spam   Logged
Challoner
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 3892



« Reply #2 on: May 24, 2015, 05:51:37 pm »

Previous research has focused on the proportion of modern Europeans descending from Paleolithic—Old Stone Age—hunter-gatherer populations or more recent Neolithic farmers, reflecting a transition that began about 10,000 years ago.

Chiara Batini from the University of Leicester's Department of Genetics, lead author of the study, added: "Given the cultural complexity of the Bronze Age, it's difficult to link a particular event to the population growth that we infer. But Y-chromosome DNA sequences from skeletal remains are becoming available, and this will help us to understand what happened, and when."

____________________________________

The study 'Large-scale recent expansion of European patrilineages shown by population resequencing' is published in Nature Communications.

Adapted and edited from the University of Leicester press release.

*The Wellcome Trust is a global charitable foundation dedicated to improving health. It provides more than £700 million a year to support scolarship in science, the humanities and the social sciences, as well as education, public engagement and the application of research to medicine.

The £18 billion investment portfolio provides the independence to support such transformative work as the sequencing and understanding of the human genome, research that established front-line drugs for malaria, and Wellcome Collection, the free venue for exploring medicine, life and art.

____________________________________________

spring2015coverfinal6Did you like this? Read more articles like this with a premium subscription to Popular Archaeology Magazine.

In addition, the latest Popular Archaeology ebook is now available.


 

 

 

 

 ______________________________________________


http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/spring-2015/article/most-european-men-descend-from-a-handful-of-bronze-age-forefathers
Report Spam   Logged
Pages: [1]   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by EzPortal
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum
Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy