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      Medieval mummies of Zeleny Yar burial ground in the Arctic Zone of Western Siberia

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          Abstract

          Notwithstanding the pioneering achievements of studies on arctic mummies in Siberia, there are insufficient data for any comprehensive understanding of the bio-cultural details of medieval people living in the region. In the Western Siberian arctic, permafrost mummies have been found in 12 th to 13 th century graves located in the Zeleny Yar (Z-Y) burial ground (66°19'4.54"С; 67°21'13.54"В). In 2013–2016, we were fortunate to be able to excavate that cemetery, locating a total of 47 burials, including cases of mummification. Some of these mummies had been wrapped in a multi-layered birch-bark cocoon. After removal of the cocoon, we conducted interdisciplinary studies using various scientific techniques. Gross anatomical examination and CT radiography showed that the internal organs were still well preserved inside the body cavities. Under light and electron microscopy, the histological findings were very similar to those for naturally mummified specimens discovered in other countries. Ancient DNA analysis showed that the Z-Y mummies’ mtDNA haplotypes belong to five different haplogroups, namely U5a (#34), H3ao (#53), D (#67–1), U4b1b1 (#67–2), and D4j8 (#68), which distinguish them for their unique combination of Western- and Eastern Siberia-specific mtDNA haplogroups. Our interdisciplinary study obtained fundamental information that will form the foundation of successful future investigations on medieval mummies found in the Western Siberian arctic.

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          Ancient DNA.

          DNA that has been recovered from archaeological and palaeontological remains makes it possible to go back in time and study the genetic relationships of extinct organisms to their contemporary relatives. This provides a new perspective on the evolution of organisms and DNA sequences. However, the field is fraught with technical pitfalls and needs stringent criteria to ensure the reliability of results, particularly when human remains are studied.
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            The molecular dissection of mtDNA haplogroup H confirms that the Franco-Cantabrian glacial refuge was a major source for the European gene pool.

            Complete sequencing of 62 mitochondrial DNAs (mtDNAs) belonging (or very closely related) to haplogroup H revealed that this mtDNA haplogroup--by far the most common in Europe--is subdivided into numerous subhaplogroups, with at least 15 of them (H1-H15) identifiable by characteristic mutations. All the haplogroup H mtDNAs found in 5,743 subjects from 43 populations were then screened for diagnostic markers of subhaplogroups H1 and H3. This survey showed that both subhaplogroups display frequency peaks, centered in Iberia and surrounding areas, with distributions declining toward the northeast and southeast--a pattern extremely similar to that previously reported for mtDNA haplogroup V. Furthermore, the coalescence ages of H1 and H3 (~11,000 years) are close to that previously reported for V. These findings have major implications for the origin of Europeans, since they attest that the Franco-Cantabrian refuge area was indeed the source of late-glacial expansions of hunter-gatherers that repopulated much of Central and Northern Europe from ~15,000 years ago. This has also some implications for disease studies. For instance, the high occurrence of H1 and H3 in Iberia led us to re-evaluate the haplogroup distribution in 50 Spanish families affected by nonsyndromic sensorineural deafness due to the A1555G mutation. The survey revealed that the previously reported excess of H among these families is caused entirely by H3 and is due to a major, probably nonrecent, founder event.
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              Ancient DNA: extraction, characterization, molecular cloning, and enzymatic amplification.

              S Pääbo (1989)
              Several chemical and enzymatic properties were examined in the DNA extracted from dry remains of soft tissues that vary in age from 4 to 13,000 years and represent four species, including two extinct animals (the marsupial wolf and giant ground sloth). The DNA obtained was invariably of a low average molecular size and damaged by oxidative processes, which primarily manifest themselves as modifications of pyrimidines and sugar residues as well as baseless sites and intermolecular cross-links. This renders molecular cloning difficult. However, the polymerase chain reaction can be used to amplify and study short mitochondrial DNA sequences that are of anthropological and evolutionary significance. This opens up the prospect of performing diachronical studies of molecular evolutionary genetics.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Data curationRole: Formal analysisRole: Funding acquisitionRole: MethodologyRole: Project administrationRole: ResourcesRole: ValidationRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Data curationRole: InvestigationRole: Resources
                Role: Data curationRole: InvestigationRole: Resources
                Role: Data curationRole: Formal analysisRole: InvestigationRole: Visualization
                Role: Data curationRole: Formal analysis
                Role: Data curationRole: Formal analysisRole: Investigation
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Data curationRole: Formal analysisRole: Funding acquisitionRole: InvestigationRole: Project administrationRole: ValidationRole: Writing – original draftRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                PLoS ONE
                plos
                plosone
                PLoS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, CA USA )
                1932-6203
                25 January 2019
                2019
                : 14
                : 1
                : e0210718
                Affiliations
                [1 ] Tyumen Scientific Center of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Tyumen, Russia
                [2 ] Arctic Research Center, Archeology Department, Archeology and Ethnology Sector, Salekhard, Russia
                [3 ] Institution of Culture of Sverdlovsk Region, Center for Protection and Use of Monuments of History and Culture of Sverdlovsk Region, Scientific and Production Center, Ekaterinburg, Russia
                [4 ] Lab of Bioanthropology, Paleopathology, and History of Diseases, Department of Anatomy/Institute of Forensic Science, Seoul National University College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea
                [5 ] Department of Dental Hygiene, College of Health Science, Eulji University, Seongnam, South Korea
                Hebrew University, ISRAEL
                Author notes

                Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1157-7983
                http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8032-1266
                Article
                PONE-D-18-17918
                10.1371/journal.pone.0210718
                6347368
                30682121
                51c93949-be2b-4bab-a14e-dc2ca61f4467
                © 2019 Slepchenko et al

                This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 15 June 2018
                : 1 January 2019
                Page count
                Figures: 10, Tables: 3, Pages: 23
                Funding
                Funded by: funder-id http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100003725, National Research Foundation of Korea;
                Award ID: 2017R1D1A1B03030127
                Award Recipient :
                Funded by: funder-id http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100002674, Russian Academy of Sciences;
                Award ID: 2018-2020 (program XII.186.2)
                Award Recipient :
                This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (2017R1D1A1B03030127). DHS received the funding. This study was also funded by Basic Research Program RAS 2018-2020 (program XII.186.2), project № 0372-2016-0002 of Tyumen Scientific Center, SB RAS. SMS received the funding. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
                Categories
                Research Article
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Anatomy
                Musculoskeletal System
                Skeleton
                Medicine and Health Sciences
                Anatomy
                Musculoskeletal System
                Skeleton
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Evolutionary Biology
                Population Genetics
                Haplogroups
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                Genetics
                Population Genetics
                Haplogroups
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                Population Biology
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