Initially, the analysis of aDNA was a curio, used to analyze unusual specimens of limited relevance to the general archaeologist (e. g., Egyptian mummies). However, since the mid - to late 1990s, it has become a fully fledged part of a larger discipline called archae-ogenetics which tackles central questions in archaeology, such as the origin of modern humans and the domestication and spread of plants and animals.
Archaeogenetics is the application of population genetics to the study of the past. It includes:
• the analysis of DNA from living populations (including humans and domestic plant and animal species) in order to study the human past and the genetic legacy of human interaction with the biosphere;
• the application of statistical methods (see Statistics in Archaeology) developed by evolutionary geneticists to genetic, archaeological, or linguistic data, including sophisticated computer modeling of population dynamics (see Paleoanthropology, Computer-Assisted);
• the analysis of DNA recovered from archaeological remains, that is, aDNA.
Although much archaeogenetics research draws on data from living populations alone, the roles of living population genetics and aDNA are inextricably intertwined. Living population genetics can rapidly analyze many genetic markers in the large numbers of samples from global populations required to make statistically robust biogeographical patterns. aDNA cannot do this, for two reasons, partly due to the time and expense needed to produce and validate aDNA research (which means that only small numbers of samples can be analyzed at a given time). But, more importantly, except in the most unusual cases, it is not possible to analyze a ‘real’ ancient population as defined in biological terms.
The most effective use of aDNA is based within a thorough examination of genetic features of living plants and animals from living populations. From this, we construct a biogeographic framework of relatedness between living populations, and model
World History
