Analysis of Italian Mummies of the 16th and 18th Centuries from northern Italy

alais

Regular Member
Messages
49
Reaction score
22
Points
0
Twenty-Seven Y-Chromosome Short Tandem Repeats Analysis of Italian Mummies of the 16th and 18th Centuries: An Interdisciplinary Research


Introduction

Remains of ancient people represent an invaluable opportunity to understand patterns of past population dynamics, appearance and distribution of phenotypes, familial relationships, sex determination, and spread of diseases. They also constitute the opportunity to apply and test protocols, combining and optimizing the archaeogenetic and the forensic ones, in order to achieve and improve results in both fields. In the context of studies about past populations, the Italian Apennines kept a precious witness of its past. In fact, during the excavation campaign in the Church of the Conversion of Saint Paul, in Roccapelago (Modena, Northern Italy; Figure 1A), a hidden crypt was discovered. The archaeological excavation was conducted between 2009 and 2011, and led to the recovery of the remains of more than 400 individuals from the inside of the crypt, most of which incomplete or commingled.

Population Relationship Analyses

Y-chromosome short tandem repeat haplotypes were used to predict Y-chromosome paternal haplogroups and to assess genetic continuity between ancient mummies and the current population of Roccapelago.
Y-chromosome haplogroups were successfully inferred for all samples, with high prediction probabilities in almost all of the cases. Lower probabilities were observed for those samples showing more than 10 missing loci (Supplementary Table S1). Ancient DNA samples were found to belong to the Y-chromosome macro lineages I2a, J1, J2b, and R1b. The same haplogroups also characterize the present-day individuals, suggesting a homogenous Y-chromosome composition with respect to the current population of Roccapelago, even when using a Y haplogroup predictor with a higher level of resolution. Accordingly, the degree of differentiation between RP_A and RP_M population sets, evaluated based on both Y-chromosome haplogroup frequencies and Y-STR RSTs genetic distances, resulted low and not significant (FST: 0.00381, p: 0.41877 and RST: 0.01730, p: 0.28433, respectively).

I2a, H2, J1, J2b, and R1b.


https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgene.2021.720640/full



AuV86V0.png
 

This thread has been viewed 1900 times.

Back
Top