Ian Armit

Jan 10, 2024 | nature.com | Kyriaki Anastasiadou |Marina Silva |Thomas C Booth |Christopher Barrington |Pooja Swali |Ian Armit | +4 more

AbstractAncient DNA is a valuable tool for investigating genetic and evolutionary history that can also provide detailed profiles of the lives of ancient individuals. In this study, we develop a generalised computational approach to detect aneuploidies (atypical autosomal and sex chromosome karyotypes) in the ancient genetic record and distinguish such karyotypes from contamination. We confirm that aneuploidies can be detected even in low-coverage genomes ( ~ 0.0001-fold), common in ancient DNA.

Mar 6, 2023 | cambridge.org | Ian Armit

There is little doubt that the last few years have seen spectacular successes for the application of ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis in studies of European prehistory. Questions that have occupied archaeologists for more than a century now have definitive answers. From a British perspective alone, we now know beyond doubt that agriculture was introduced by people arriving from continental Europe, and that the Mesolithic inhabitants of the islands had a minimal genetic legacy (Brace et al.