Ancient genomes from Iceland reveal the making of a human population

• Published in: Science
• Main Authors: Ebenesersdóttir, Sigríður Sunna, Sandoval-Velasco, Marcela, Gunnarsdóttir, Ellen D., Jagadeesan, Anuradha, Guðmundsdóttir, Valdís B., Thordardóttir, Elísabet L., Einarsdóttir, Margrét S., Moore, Kristjan H. S., Sigurðsson, Ásgeir, Magnúsdóttir, Droplaug N., Jónsson, Hákon, Snorradóttir, Steinunn, Hovig, Eivind, Møller, Pål, Kockum, Ingrid, Olsson, Tomas, Alfredsson, Lars, Hansen, Thomas F., Werge, Thomas, Cavalleri, Gianpiero L., Gilbert, Edmund, Lalueza-Fox, Carles, Walser III, Joe W., Kristjánsdóttir, Steinunn, Gopalakrishnan, Shyam, Arnadottir, Lilja, Magnússon, Ólafur Þ., Gilbert, Marcus Thomas Pius, Stefánsson, Kári, Helgason, Agnar
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Association for the Advancement of Science 2018
• Subjects: Iceland
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11250/2592828; https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aar2625

Opportunities to directly study the founding of a human population and its subsequent evolutionary history are rare. Using genome sequence data from 27 ancient Icelanders, we demonstrate that they are a combination of Norse, Gaelic, and admixed individuals. We further show that these ancient Icelanders are markedly more similar to their source populations in Scandinavia and the British-Irish Isles than to contemporary Icelanders, who have been shaped by 1100 years of extensive genetic drift. Finally, we report evidence of unequal contributions from the ancient founders to the contemporary Icelandic gene pool. These results provide detailed insights into the making of a human population that has proven extraordinarily useful for the discovery of genotype-phenotype associations. submittedVersion The definitive version was published in Science on 01 Jun 2018: Vol. 360, Issue 6392, pp. 1028-1032, DOI:10.1126/science.aar2625