Publications by authors named "Pernille Bangsgaard"
Article Synopsis
- - The aurochs (Bos primigenius), now extinct, was a critical species in prehistoric Eurasian and North African ecosystems and is the ancestor of today's cattle, playing a significant role in providing food and labor for humans over thousands of years.
- - Researchers analyzed 38 ancient genomes, identifying four distinct aurochs populations (European, Southwest Asian, North Asian, and South Asian) that adapted to climate changes and human impacts throughout history.
- - The genetic study revealed that North Asian and European aurochs populations were separated until they mixed after the last glacial period, with domestication originating from a small group of individuals from Southwest Asia, leading to a hybridization with various aurochs strains.
The analysis of the DNA entrapped in ancient shells of molluscs has the potential to shed light on the evolution and ecology of this very diverse phylum. Ancient genomics could help reconstruct the responses of molluscs to past climate change, pollution, and human subsistence practices at unprecedented temporal resolutions. Applications are however still in their infancy, partly due to our limited knowledge of DNA preservation in calcium carbonate shells and the need for optimized methods for responsible genomic data generation.
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- The study analyzes 317 ancient genomes from Mesolithic and Neolithic periods across northern and western Eurasia to understand human migration impacts during the Holocene.* -
- Findings show a significant genetic divide between eastern and western populations, with the west experiencing major gene replacement due to the introduction of farming, while the east maintained its hunter-gatherer ancestry longer.* -
- The Yamnaya culture, which emerged around 5,000 BP, played a crucial role in spreading ancestry across western Eurasia, leading to significant genetic changes in European populations.*
Major migration events in Holocene Eurasia have been characterized genetically at broad regional scales. However, insights into the population dynamics in the contact zones are hampered by a lack of ancient genomic data sampled at high spatiotemporal resolution. Here, to address this, we analysed shotgun-sequenced genomes from 100 skeletons spanning 7,300 years of the Mesolithic period, Neolithic period and Early Bronze Age in Denmark and integrated these with proxies for diet (C and N content), mobility (Sr/Sr ratio) and vegetation cover (pollen).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSpecies determination based on genetic evidence is an indispensable tool in archaeology, forensics, ecology, and food authentication. Most available analytical approaches involve compromises with regard to the number of detectable species, high cost due to low throughput, or a labor-intensive manual process. Here, we introduce "Species by Proteome INvestigation" (SPIN), a shotgun proteomics workflow for analyzing archaeological bone capable of querying over 150 mammalian species by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Aceramic Neolithic (∼9600 to 7000 cal BC) period in the Zagros Mountains, western Iran, provides some of the earliest archaeological evidence of goat () management and husbandry by circa 8200 cal BC, with detectable morphological change appearing ∼1,000 y later. To examine the genomic imprint of initial management and its implications for the goat domestication process, we analyzed 14 novel nuclear genomes (mean coverage 1.13X) and 32 mitochondrial (mtDNA) genomes (mean coverage 143X) from two such sites, Ganj Dareh and Tepe Abdul Hosein.
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