Ancient Hair Offers Clues to Arctic Past
February 22nd, 2010 | By Nora Sawyer | Filed in Arctic History, Current Events
A ball of frozen hair discovered in the permafrost near Qeqertasussuk, Greenland has yielded enough DNA for scientists to sequence the genome from an ancient human.
The man, whom scientists have dubbed “Inuk,” lived 4,000 years ago, was relatively young when he died, had dark eyes, dark skin, “shovel shaped” teeth, and would have been prone to balding later in life. He was a member of the Saqqaq culture, the earliest known to inhabit Greenland. Further tests reveal that his diet consisted mostly of seals, seabirds, and other marine foods.
Comparisons between Inuk’s DNA with that of existing native reveals that he is most closely related to the Nganasans, Koryaks and Chukchis of Eastern Siberia, rather than the native population of Greenland today. This suggests that his people migrated across the Bering Straight and moved east toward Greenland, but did not settle there, or died out.
Read more:
National Geographic: Face of Ancient Human Drawn from Hair’s DNA
Nature: The Ancient Human Genome
The Guardian: Genome from ancient human hair conjures up brown-eyed man, Inuk
Tags: ancient dna, arctic genome, dna, greenland, inuk, SCIENCE
