If you could sequence the Full Genome+mt-DNA+Y-DNA of ancient individuals.....

[JeanL]

So here goes the question:

If you could sequence the Full Genome+mt-DNA+Y-DNA of ancient individuals, who would you sequence and why?

[Heber]

So here goes the question:

If you could sequence the Full Genome+mt-DNA+Y-DNA of ancient individuals, who would you sequence and why?

Charlemagne, the "Father of Europe". His "giant" bones are perfectly preserved in Aachen Cathedral and his genealogies, maternal and paternal, are probably amongst the best described in European history covering as they do many of Europe's royal houses. The Franks are also an interesting case study as his three sons Charles the Bald, Lothair and Louis the German governed most of Europe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlemagne

[OConnor]

The Amesbury Archer would interest me. He was buried with beaker pottery a short distance from Stonehenge. I have read that he may have lived at the time the large sarsen stones were put into place.

But any aDNA from European people is interesting to me.

This news about 300 graves suspected of being saxon also interests me.
Though it doesn't seem that they are very interested in a dna study.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-19507960

[rms2]

The Amesbury Archer would interest me. He was buried with beaker pottery a short distance from Stonehenge. I have read that he may have lived at the time the large sarsen stones were put into place.

But any aDNA from European people is interesting to me.

This news about 300 graves suspected of being saxon also interests me.
Though it doesn't seem that they are very interested in a dna study.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-19507960

I second the Amesbury Archer and would add the Hochdorf Prince.

Any and all Beaker Folk burials would be high on my list.

Regarding the Amesbury Archer and other British Isles Beaker Folk, the why is that I would like to know whether or not the Beaker Folk brought L21 to the British Isles. For the Hochdorf prince, I just think that one is cool. :-)

[alan trowel hands.]

The Amesbury Archer would interest me. He was buried with beaker pottery a short distance from Stonehenge. I have read that he may have lived at the time the large sarsen stones were put into place.

But any aDNA from European people is interesting to me.

This news about 300 graves suspected of being saxon also interests me.
Though it doesn't seem that they are very interested in a dna study.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-19507960

I second the Amesbury Archer and would add the Hochdorf Prince.

Any and all Beaker Folk burials would be high on my list.

Regarding the Amesbury Archer and other British Isles Beaker Folk, the why is that I would like to know whether or not the Beaker Folk brought L21 to the British Isles. For the Hochdorf prince, I just think that one is cool. :-)

Unless it was the farmers after all I dont really think there are any other candidates than beaker people. 

[JeanL]

I would like to sequence the native aborigines of the Canary Islands, a study featuring mostly remains from Gran Canaria(The tribe living there was called the Canariis) turned up some R1b-M269 amongst 3 of the 30 samples, also some I-M170 (2/30). Because Guanches (the aborigines of Tenerife, but also used as a collective term to denote all aborigines of the Canary Islands) were said to be the last Mechtoid people, and their anthropology shows a mixture of Cro-Magnon+Med types, it would be interesting to see how they plot genetically relative to modern day populations. Mt-DNA wise they look very similar to Iberians, but had a minor presence 7-10% of Sub-Saharan African lineages(L1-L3), and a good 10%-15% presence of mt-DNA U6. Y-DNA wise so far, they appear to be ~1/4 E-M78, ~1/4 E-M81, 10% R1b-M269, and ~7% I-M170, also ~1/6 J1. They are said to have come from North Africa, yet they are far more diverse in terms of their y-DNA than NW Africans who are  mostly(80%+) E-M81. 

[rms2]

The Amesbury Archer would interest me. He was buried with beaker pottery a short distance from Stonehenge. I have read that he may have lived at the time the large sarsen stones were put into place.

But any aDNA from European people is interesting to me.

This news about 300 graves suspected of being saxon also interests me.
Though it doesn't seem that they are very interested in a dna study.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-19507960

I second the Amesbury Archer and would add the Hochdorf Prince.

Any and all Beaker Folk burials would be high on my list.

Regarding the Amesbury Archer and other British Isles Beaker Folk, the why is that I would like to know whether or not the Beaker Folk brought L21 to the British Isles. For the Hochdorf prince, I just think that one is cool. :-)

Unless it was the farmers after all I dont really think there are any other candidates than beaker people. 

It would be nice to have the genetic "smoking gun" though. Until we do, the "Cavemen of Doggerland" zombie is still clawing at the window of the house of reason.

[rms2]

I would like to see the full genomes of some Breton and other Gallic Celt remains predating the immediate post-Roman Period British exodus to Brittany to see how prevalent L21 was among them.

[Heber]

King Tut would be an interesting candidate. However this time publish the detailed results. It would be interesting to see if he was indeed R1b as speculated last year. Was there any connection with the Hittites or even the Sea People's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Hittites

[gtc]

Rollo, principally because I'd like to know William the Conqueror's haplogroup, and this joint Norwegian and French project plans to obtain DNA samples from Rollo’s grandson and great grandson, Richard I and Richard II:

http://www.newsinenglish.no/2011/06/15/viking-is-forefather-to-british-royals/

http://www.explicofund.org/famoushistoricalfigures.jpg

Working through the French bureaucratic chain to obtain the various permissions has been a long and slow process, however in April it seems they made a big breakthrough:

"April 2012
Finally a Rollo update: We've been in the long awaited meeting with the French Cultural Department, our final meeting after approval has been given on all levels up to here. We received confirmation that we can go on with the project and indeed was offered assistance from here on. However, regarding the time it takes for all papers (some has to be produced still) to go through on this level, we are looking at some more months. So more patience needed, but green light still."

[princenuadha]

The Amesbury Archer would interest me. He was buried with beaker pottery a short distance from Stonehenge. I have read that he may have lived at the time the large sarsen stones were put into place.

But any aDNA from European people is interesting to me.

This news about 300 graves suspected of being saxon also interests me.
Though it doesn't seem that they are very interested in a dna study.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-19507960

I second the Amesbury Archer and would add the Hochdorf Prince.

Any and all Beaker Folk burials would be high on my list.

Regarding the Amesbury Archer and other British Isles Beaker Folk, the why is that I would like to know whether or not the Beaker Folk brought L21 to the British Isles. For the Hochdorf prince, I just think that one is cool. :-)

Unless it was the farmers after all I dont really think there are any other candidates than beaker people. 

It would be nice to have the genetic "smoking gun" though. Until we do, the "Cavemen of Doggerland" zombie is still clawing at the window of the house of reason.

I would love for the doggerland people to have left some descendants in northwest europe. There's still a chane given the "extra" closeness of northwest Europeans to the Brana individuals.

Although, someone has argued that on e of the brana guys had some neolithic in him.

[avalon]

Imagine if Cheddar Man was R1a.

That would set the cat amongst the pigeons. ;)

[glentane]

Any of the people from Teviec or Hoedic, Morbihan.
http://dro.dur.ac.uk/5842/
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-18602250.html

or this old woman from The Netherlands (Polderweg)


There's a shedload from Aveline's Hole by Cheddar, England and a fair few from Margaux and Autours, up the Meuse (in Belgium), all with dates close to the earliest Isles meso., sort of 8-9000 (small) b.c.

And Swifterbant's another tasty "transitional" site with burials, Ertebolle-ish, but a bit closer in to the farming core and the tricky interface zone between Linear Pottery groups, Cardial groups, and whatever the heck was going on in NW France at the time.

Trouble is they're mostly from very old excavations, so all sorts of messing about by curators, and just plain random meddlers has gone on since. I've dealt with pots and bones consolidated with (yer gonna love this) carpenters' hide glue, i.e. boiled horse and cow bits ..

If only .. if only. Le sigh. Then we'd have some sort of base to work from, when it comes to figuring out what happened to them, and who else joined the party later on.

I'm not being all chauvinistic and obsessing about the Isles, it's just that being isolated and a bit of a dead-end, it makes a neat "wasp-trap" for working out who's a "local" forager-type, and who the incoming farmer/herders on the Continent might be, and from whence  they set off, without having to worry to much about random tribes from who knows where going walkabout and interrupting things (barring any Argonaut-like "moonshots" from Iberia or Scandinavia ... extremely unlikely, but stranger things have happened! We have no real idea exactly how nautically competent these people, fisher/gatherer or herder/farmer, might actually have been.)

There aren't any burials AFAIK from Lepenski Vir in the Iron Gates of the Danube.
I'd quite fancy some of those, if there were.

[inver2b1]

Apparently Richard III remains have been found and there will be DNA testing; I don't know if any testing has been done on British Royalty but is there a likely candidate for his Y haplogroup?

[razyn]

Apparently Richard III remains have been found and there will be DNA testing; I don't know if any testing has been done on British Royalty but is there a likely candidate for his Y haplogroup?

I've read that there are 14 tested candidates with paper trails, none of whom matches any other; and that a couple of the best candidates (Warrens) are both Hg I1, but don't match each other.  It has been worked on, anyway.  If the skeleton they just found matches anybody with a paper trail, that would be pretty good evidence that that paper trail was good, and that the remains (with spinal deformation and a bashed in skull, and buried in the right monastery) are Richard's.

Here is one place to look that isn't behind a paywall:

http://www.genforum.genealogy.com/plantagenet/messages/1674.html

[secherbernard]

I am french, so I choose the most emblematic french bell beaker: the skeleton of the burial of La Fare, Forcalquier in south France. See the photo of the burial here: http://secher.bernard.free.fr/Archeologie/LaFare_Campaniforme.jpg
This skeleton is a man and he is brachycrane. The objects in the burial were: three vases whose one mixed beaker, a copper dagger, a bone segmented bead and a bone coil. See the beaker here: http://secher.bernard.free.fr/Archeologie/LaFare_Vase.jpg

[OConnor]

I would like to add The Red Lady.

At 33,000 years old, it is the oldest ceremonial burial of a modern human ever discovered anywhere in Western Europe

ht.tp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Lady_of_Paviland

[brunetmj]

Like secherberbard i am also French and like his choice. However recently a theory was proposed for the location of a mass grave from the battle of Hastings . As you may know up to this point no one knows what happened to the thousands killed at this battle. Perhaps some sequencing of both Norman and English dead would be interesting should this buial site prove correct.

[brunetmj]

I credit joss ar gall , a fellow French L21 for finding this story.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/archaeology/9632922/Are-bodies-of-10000-lost-warriors-from-Battle-of-Hastings-buried-in-this-field.html

[gtc]

Like secherberbard i am also French and like his choice. However recently a theory was proposed for the location of a mass grave from the battle of Hastings . As you may know up to this point no one knows what happened to the thousands killed at this battle. Perhaps some sequencing of both Norman and English dead would be interesting should this buial site prove correct.

My attention was drawn to that interesting article a few days ago.

IIRC correctly from my earlier readings about The Conquest, the victorious Normans reportedly buried their own dead with military dignity in separate individual graves, whereas the English dead were dumped into a mass grave (or mass graves).

If that is the case, then the Normans have nicely separated the forces for us.

Now all we need to do is find those graves.

[seferhabahir]

OK, since this thread has come to life again, I would sequence King David. Mostly for his Y-DNA (and presumably the Y-DNA of his seven brothers, his son King Solomon, and the male offspring of Solomon's 700 wives and 300 concubines).

I'll guess I'll leave aside the historicity debate about whether there was a Davidic kingdom, a David, or a Solomon. But I propose someone having relations with 1000 different women would leave behind a heck of a lot of Y-DNA. Would be fascinating to know if it was R1b something or other.

[OConnor]

OK, since this thread has come to life again, I would sequence King David. Mostly for his Y-DNA (and presumably the Y-DNA of his seven brothers, his son King Solomon, and the male offspring of Solomon's 700 wives and 300 concubines).

I'll guess I'll leave aside the historicity debate about whether there was a Davidic kingdom, a David, or a Solomon. But I propose someone having relations with 1000 different women would leave behind a heck of a lot of Y-DNA. Would be fascinating to know if it was R1b something or other.

I'll bet he was a fast runner.

[Heber]

OK, since this thread has come to life again, I would sequence King David. Mostly for his Y-DNA (and presumably the Y-DNA of his seven brothers, his son King Solomon, and the male offspring of Solomon's 700 wives and 300 concubines).

I'll guess I'll leave aside the historicity debate about whether there was a Davidic kingdom, a David, or a Solomon. But I propose someone having relations with 1000 different women would leave behind a heck of a lot of Y-DNA. Would be fascinating to know if it was R1b something or other.

As King Solomons mines are supposed to be located at Tartessos, Huevla (Rio Tinto) and this was the epicentre of Celtic from the West (Cunliffe and Koch) and the expansion of Bell Beakers in Europe 3,600 BP (Patterson) what comes to mind is a founder effect. I doubt if King David and Solomon remains are extant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartessos

[brunetmj]

If that is the case, then the Normans have nicely separated the forces for us.

In the course of human endeavors there is always a factor that must always be considered. Human Laziness. I am sure quite a few Norman bodies would be found amongst the English.

[seferhabahir]

OK, since this thread has come to life again, I would sequence King David. Mostly for his Y-DNA (and presumably the Y-DNA of his seven brothers, his son King Solomon, and the male offspring of Solomon's 700 wives and 300 concubines).

I'll guess I'll leave aside the historicity debate about whether there was a Davidic kingdom, a David, or a Solomon. But I propose someone having relations with 1000 different women would leave behind a heck of a lot of Y-DNA. Would be fascinating to know if it was R1b something or other.

As King Solomons mines are supposed to be located at Tartessos, Huevla (Rio Tinto) and this was the epicentre of Celtic from the West (Cunliffe and Koch) and the expansion of Bell Beakers in Europe 3,600 BP (Patterson) what comes to mind is a founder effect. I doubt if King David and Solomon remains are extant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartessos

Wasn't sure if we had to suggest someone whose remains exist. Even the First Temple ivory (well, hippo) pomegranate they dug up is in doubt. There is also this from the wikipedia entry on Tarshish:

Tarshish תַּרְשִׁישׁ occurs in the Hebrew Bible with several uncertain meanings. One of the most recurring is that Tarshish is a place, probably a city or country, that is far from Israel by sea where trade occurs with Israel and Phoenicia. The Septuagint, the Vulgate and the Targum of Jonathan render this as Carthage. But other biblical commentators read it as Tartessos in ancient Spain.