Ötzi (Tyrolean Iceman) genome coming "soon"

Someone at a genealogical DNA forum posts a reply received from the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman in Bolzano, Italy: "The Iceman genome will be published soon including his Y haplogroup. You may understand that we cannot release any information in advance." The information is apparently scheduled to be released 'October 20-22, 2011, at the next Bolzano Mummy Congress called "Mummies from the Ice".'

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now that's exciting. Any thoughts in advance?

n/a said...

I don't have any strong predictions. There are some people playing guess the haplogroup at the forum I linked to. If I had to guess, I would probably go with I or G.

Anonymous said...

That seems to be their consensus as well.

Now, what of this finding by a team at U Montreal of Neanderthal DNA in all non-African populations? I'm a novice in these matters, so if this isn't groundbreaking or is somehow suspect, pardon my ignorance.

n/a said...

I don't want to downplay it, but I don't have much to say. Probably the most groundbreaking contribution in this area is the Neanderthal ancient DNA work of Paabo et al. Other researchers have long pointed out genetic patterns in modern humans consistent with interbreeding, but it was not until Neanderthal DNA was actually sequenced that this conclusion became (more or less) universally accepted.

princenuadha said...

Isn't the ground breaking part that its in ALL non sub-saharan (or at least a wide variety).

Before the recent findings did people have any idea that Asians and new guinies had similar levels of neandertal as Europeans?

I assume the main hypotheses is that proto non African humans mixed with neandertal before they separated into different populations.

n/a said...

princenuadha,

"Before the recent findings did people have any idea that Asians and new guinies had similar levels of neandertal as Europeans?"

This was also the conclusion of the Neanderthal ancient DNA paper. And yes the thinking is the interbreeding must have taken place in the Middle East (any interbreeding that occurred in Europe having left no obvious trace in modern Europeans). Papuans were also later found to have additional ("Denisovan") admixture from a separate interbreeding event.