ancient DNA (Other Keyword)
76-100 (239 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bioarchaeological research has played a significant role in understanding the Casas Grandes region of Northwest Mexico. Excavations at the archaeological sites of Convento and Paquimé recovered at least 652 burials dating to AD 700–1450, providing a robust skeletal population for investigations, including research on population demographics, patterns of...
Collaborating with Descendant Communities to Explore the Biological Heritage of Enslaved People at James Madison’s Montpelier through Ancient DNA Analysis (2018)
Over the past 30 years, historical archaeologists have studied the sites and material remains of enslaved people from across the American South. Recently, archaeologists have actively worked with descendants in this research, including excavation and archaeological interpretation. However, little has been done to build the connection between biological and historical heritages of enslaved people and their descendants. In this study, we utilized ancient DNA methodology to contextualize the...
A Comparison of DNA Metabarcoding and Macroremains Analysis for Dietary Reconstruction using Coprolites from Bonneville Estates Rockshelter, Nevada (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Coprolites are increasingly the subject of multiproxy analyses, but there is need to determine how the data, results, and interpretation of coprolite contents could differ depending on the methods chosen. This study presents a comparison of DNA metabarcoding and macroremains analysis performed on ten coprolites from Bonneville Estates Rockshelter, Nevada....
The complete genome sequence of a 45,000-year-old modern human from Eurasia (2015)
We have sequenced to high coverage the genome of a femur recently discovered near Ust-Ishim in western Siberia. The bone was directly carbon-dated to 45,000 years before present. Analyses of the relationship of the Ust-Ishim individual to present-day humans show that he is closely related to the ancestral population shared between present-day Europeans and present-day Asians. The over-all amount of genomic admixture from Neandertals is similar to that in present-day non-Africans and there is no...
The complexities and implications of animal translocations in Pacific prehistory (2015)
The Pacific region has some of the earliest evidence of animal translocation in the world. The use of transported landscapes – including the introduction of a range of plants and animals - was a major strategy for Pacific Island colonists, particularly in the settlement of Remote Oceania. We have been studying genetic variation in Pacific commensals for nearly 20 years and through these studies have had to constantly rethink our concepts of human and animal interactions generally and, more...
Conceptualizing Eurasian Steppe Space, Place and Movement (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Wheels, Horses, Babies and Bathwaters: Celebrating the Impact of David W. Anthony on the Study of Prehistory" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The scholarly contributions by David Anthony have added significantly to current understandings of prehistory in the Eurasian steppes. Drawing on multiple lines of evidence, ranging from historical sources, archaeological data, genetics and linguistics, he has developed...
Confirmation of Mitochondrial Haplotype C4c in Samples from Norris Farms #36, Illinois (2016)
The Norris Farms #36 site in northern Illinois (ca. AD 1300) has been widely featured in archaeological investigations, including foundational ancient DNA analyses. We built on these studies, analyzing mitochondrial DNA hypervariable regions I and II from 98 individuals. The Norris Farms #36 site demonstrates high levels of mitochondrial diversity, with all five major founding lineages present. Included in this diversity are individuals belonging to mitochondrial haplogroup C who demonstrate the...
Connecting Archaic Age Communities in the Insular Caribbean (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The study of ancient Caribbean communities through archaeogenomic methods has seen an increased interest in recent years. In our study in 2020, we demonstrated that the Archaic Age Communities in the Greater Antilles exhibit a different genetic signal from the Ceramic Age communities in the Greater and Lesser Antilles. Still, we could not add more detail...
Contact-Era Tuberculosis at Kanamarka, Peru (2023)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Kanamarka, a Peruvian highland site approximately 150 kilometers south of Cusco, contains an early colonial-era churchyard. In use from approximately 1530-1580 CE, this cemetery is the likely resting place of contact-era disease victims. The Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTBC), a phylogeographically-dispersed group of deadly pathogens, existed in...
Cows, Genes, and African Cowboys: How Paleogenetics Could Support the Role of Afro-descending Workers in the Emergence of Cattle Ranching in Early Spanish America (2023)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Despite long term study, the history of the introduction of cattle and their management practices in the Western Hemisphere staring in the 16th century is particularly complex and there is still uncertainty around the origins and the distribution of the animals through time. While the traditional historical scholarship suggests...
Deciphering Dog Domestication: A Combined Ancient DNA and Geometric Morphometric Approach (2016)
Research into animal domestication has now broadly established the geographic and temporal origins of the major livestock species, but has failed to do so for dogs. We will apply ancient DNA (aDNA) and geometric morphometric (GM) techniques to archaeological canid remains, of which we have examined ~4000 specimens across the globe through multiple time periods. Using this multifaceted approach, we expect population level distinctions revealed by aDNA analyses to be mirrored by GM analyses. This...
Developing Minimally Destructive Protocols for DNA Analysis of Museum Collection Bone Artifacts (2016)
Ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis has revolutionized the field of archaeology with its ability to provide unique and otherwise unattainable information about the past. However, due to the destructive nature of current aDNA techniques many museum curators are hesitant to subject their collections to this kind of analysis. This poster presents a new sampling strategy for obtaining adequate amounts of bone powder from bone artifacts for aDNA extraction, while minimizing the damage done to the valuable...
Dietary DNA Analysis of Mississippian Dog Coprolites (2017)
Traditional methods for assessing diet of animal coprolite samples include targeted PCR and sequencing of specific genes. While useful for species identification, focusing on a single gene region disregards the plant and animal DNA fragments that are from other parts of the genome. Here we used next-generation sequencing methods to sequence DNA from coprolite samples from Terminal Late Woodland and Mississippian dogs from the Janey B. Goode site in Southern Illinois. BLAST searches were used to...
Differential DNA Preservation in Archaeological Dental Calculus and Dentin Has Implications for Ancient Microbiome Research (2018)
Ancient DNA (aDNA) studies of preserved microbiomes from dental calculus and paleofeces shed light on the evolution of these complex microbial communities, as well as both human health and behavior in the past. Despite recent advances in the recovery and authentication of aDNA, environmental contamination and inconsistent molecular preservation remains a continuous concern. Recent studies suggest that dental calculus may provide a better preservation environment for DNA than other archaeological...
Discovery of a Late Preclassic Ceremonial Bundle at the Ancient Maya Center of Yaxnohcah Using Environmental DNA Analysis (2023)
This is an abstract from the "2023 Fryxell Award Symposium: Papers in Honor of Timothy Beach Part I" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A dark-stained feature near the base of a 1 m thick platform in the Helena complex of the Ancient Maya city of Yaxnohcah was found to contain remains of medicinal plants, a plant containing hallucinogens (likely used for divination), and a plant used in the manufacture of weaponry (spears and bows). The feature was...
DNA Linkage: Incorporating North American Ancient DNA Data into DINAA (2017)
Genetic data, especially from ancient samples, is frequently incorporated into modern archaeological analyses. Concurrently, sequence data from genetic/genomic research in the U.S. is increasingly available through open source context from the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). However, in spite of the accessibility of recently published genetic data, there currently is no comprehensive database exclusively for North American ancient DNA samples, nor is there comprehensive...
DNA preservation in archaeological dental calculus and dentine (2017)
Ancient DNA provides unique insights into past human behavior, health, and evolution. Skeletal tissues (bone and dentine) and microbiome remains (dental calculus and paleofeces) can be rich sources of ancient biomolecules; however, inconsistent DNA preservation and variable environmental contamination pose major challenges in recovering authentic ancient DNA. Recent studies have suggested that dental calculus may provide a better preservation environment for ancient DNA than other skeletal...
Dog Diet Reconstruction as a Tool to Assess Forager Response to Introduction of Agriculture in the Northern Plains: Stable Isotope Analysis and Ancient DNA Data (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Dogs in the Archaeological Record" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The transition to agriculture in the Great Plains of North America is generally assumed to have occurred through processes of migration and diffusion. But understanding the nuance of this transition at local and subregional scales requires a focus on different types of social interactions and community-level decision-making. One method is to use dogs...
Dog Domestication and the Dual Dispersal of People and Dogs into the Americas (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Dogs in the Archaeological Record" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Advances in the isolation and sequencing of ancient DNA have begun to reveal the population histories of both people and dogs. Over the last 10,000 years, the genetic signatures of ancient dog remains have been linked with known human dispersals in regions such as the Arctic and the remote Pacific. It is suspected, however, that this relationship has a...
Domestication of the Cochineal (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Identifying the specifics of location and time of the cultivation and domestication of the cochineal beetle (Dactylopius coccus) in the New World has eluded archaeologists and ecologists for decades. The cochineal’s production of red dye from its rich storage of carminic acid has made this insect a notable element in the lives of pre-contact Mesoamerican and...
Domestication through the Bottleneck:Archaeogenomic Evidence of a Landscape Scale Process (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Frontiers of Plant Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Domesticated crops show a reduced level of diversity that is commonly attributed to the ‘domestication bottleneck’; a drastic reduction in the population size associated with sub-sampling the wild progenitor species and the imposition of selection pressures associated with the domestication syndrome. A prediction of the domestication bottleneck is a...
Ecological Baselines, Long-Term Population Histories, and the Zooarchaeological Record (2015)
The potential for zooarchaeological data to inform modern conservation issues is unquestioned by archaeologists; however, with a few notable exceptions, such an approach has been underutilized. Zooarchaeological data are uniquely positioned to provide a long-term view on the population history and variation in foraging ecology of a species. Such information is paramount to conservation efforts for threatened taxa, particularly in addressing what has been called by conservation ecologists the...
Estudio de la variación del ADN mitocondrial en entierros de Tlailotlacan, Teotihuacan (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Teotihuacan fue una ciudad del periodo Clásico (100-650 d.C.), que tuvo una gran interacción con otras áreas de Mesoamérica como el Occidente y el Golfo de México, el Área Maya y Oaxaca. Este trabajo se centra en el análisis de restos óseos del barrio oaxaqueño en Teotihuacán, que también se conoce como Tlailotlacan. En este barrio existe evidencia de...
The Evolution of Domestication in Cassava Unraveled through Historical Genomics and Archaeobotany (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Frontiers of Plant Domestication" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cassava (‘manioc' or ‘yuca' regionally) is a staple food for 800 million people worldwide. It was domesticated in the southwestern Amazon ~7,000 years ago, and archaeobotanical evidence suggests that it dispersed widely, including through Central America, shortly thereafter. In the present day, it is most widely grown in Brazil and throughout sub-Saharan...
Examining Bronze Age Kinship and Community Patterning in the Southern Urals, Russian Federation, through aDNA Study (2023)
This is an abstract from the "From the Altai to the Arctic: New Results and New Directions in the Archaeology of North and Inner Asia" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ancient DNA studies have increased exponentially in recent years and have had tremendous impact on our understanding of early genomic patterning in many regions of the world. The vast Eurasian steppe zone has not been overlooked in these important breakthroughs. Several recent studies...