Adam Benjamin Rohrlach, Maïté Rivollat, Patxuka de-Miguel-Ibáñez, Ulla Moilanen, Anne-Mari Liira, João C Teixeira, Xavier Roca-Rada, Javier Armendáriz-Martija, Kamen Boyadzhiev, Yavor Boyadzhiev, Bastien Llamas, Anthi Tiliakou, Angela Mötsch, Jonathan Tuke, Eleni-Anna Prevedorou, Naya Polychronakou-Sgouritsa, Jane Buikstra, Päivi Onkamo, Philipp W Stockhammer, Henrike O Heyne, Johannes R Lemke, Roberto Risch, Stephan Schiffels, Johannes Krause, Wolfgang Haak, Kay Prüfer
Aneuploidies, and in particular, trisomies represent the most common genetic aberrations observed in human genetics today. To explore the presence of trisomies in historic and prehistoric populations we screen nearly 10,000 ancient human individuals for the presence of three copies of any of the target autosomes. We find clear genetic evidence for six cases of trisomy 21 (Down syndrome) and one case of trisomy 18 (Edwards syndrome), and all cases are present in infant or perinatal burials. We perform comparative osteological examinations of the skeletal remains and find overlapping skeletal markers, many of which are consistent with these syndromes...
February 20, 2024: Nature Communications