Hear the story of a 10,000 year old skeleton and the secrets it unlocks to our ancestors in the British Isles in millennia past, in Tom Booth’s talk.
Advances in the extraction and analysis of DNA obtained from ancient human remains (including hundreds of thousands – to millions – of sequences from across an individual’s whole genome) have revolutionised our understanding of prehistoric population histories.
Studies of populations living in Europe over the last c20,000 years have identified several major episodes of significant population change, often associated with synchronous changes in archaeological cultures.
In this talk, Tom will discuss the findings from Britain, including: the 10,000-year-old Cheddar Man skeleton, the origins of farming, the arrival of ‘Beaker’ cultures and what the future may hold as studies move into more recent time periods.
Tom Booth is a Visiting Researcher at the Natural History Museum. After completing his PhD in Archaeological Science at the University of Sheffield in 2014, he joined the ancient DNA team at the Natural History Museum in London to work on a Wellcome Trust-funded project investigating the genetic history of populations living in Britain over the last c.10,000 years. This involved obtaining and analysing genome-wide information from hundreds of ancient human skeletons from around Britain, including the 10,000-year-old Mesolithic skeleton known as Cheddar Man.
This lecture was presented at Family Tree Live (FTL), London, 26-27 April 2019. Please note that these FTL videos are copyrighted to the presenter and should only be used for personal study. They are not to be used for any other purpose without the presenter's express permission. Also, please note that because this is a rapidly advancing field, the content may quickly become outdated. The FTL lectures were sponsored by FamilyTreeDNA (at www.ftdna.com) and organised by Debbie Kennett, a volunteer from ISOGG (International Society of Genetic Genealogy at www.isogg.org). ISOGG volunteers provided free DNA advice and support for members of the public at the conference.
