Genetic architecture and adaptations of Nunavik Inuit

Zhou, Sirui; Xie, Pingxing; Quoibion, Amélie; Ambalavanan, Amirthagowri; Dionne‐Laporte, Alexandre; Spiegelman, Dan; Bourassa, Cynthia V.; Xiong, Lan; Rouleau, Guy A.

doi:10.1073/pnas.1810388116

Cited by 16 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…The central High Arctic (LeMoine et al 2003), Somerset Island (Damkjar 2000), western Victoria Island (Savelle et al 2012), Foxe Basin (Savelle and Dyke 2014), and northern Labrador (Desrosiers 2017; Renouf 2003) have also produced isolated dates that may point to Late Dorset populations persisting into the thirteenth century or later. The situation in Nunavik (northern Quebec) is currently unresolved, but it is also a good candidate for Late Dorset occupations with the potential for overlap with Thule (Labrèche 2015; Pinard and Gendron 2009; Plumet 1979, 1989), particularly given a new genetic analysis that may indicate some gene flow between Paleo-Inuit and Inuit in the region (Zhou et al 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, longer periods of relatively close interaction would be expected to be visible in evidence for gene flow between the populations. Most recent analyses, however, indicate no substantial contribution of Dorset to the DNA of Thule or more recent Inuit populations (Raghavan et al 2014; cf., Zhou et al 2019). Given our complete lack of thirteenth- or fourteenth-century Dorset skeletal remains, we are unable to assess whether Thule interaction left a genetic trace in Late Dorset.…”

Section: The Dorset-thule Succession: Categories Of Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

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Radiocarbon Evidence for Fourteenth-Century Dorset Occupation in the Eastern North American Arctic

Friesen

2019

Am. Antiq.

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One of the most persistent debates in the archaeology of the North American Arctic relates to thirteenth-century AD population distributions and movements. Around this time, the final culture of the long-lived Paleo-Inuit tradition, known as Late Dorset, was replaced by Thule Inuit, who migrated from Alaska to the Eastern Arctic. Due to the almost complete lack of evidence for direct interaction between Dorset and Thule, there are currently two contrasting models for this transitional period. The first proposes a temporal hiatus between Late Dorset and Thule during which the Eastern Arctic was unoccupied. The second proposes that Late Dorset persisted to at least the late thirteenth century and still occupied some regions of the Eastern Arctic when Thule arrived. Resolution of this question depends largely on radiocarbon dates, particularly for the poorly understood Late Dorset period. This article presents 56 new AMS radiocarbon dates from three Late Dorset sites in the Iqaluktuuq region of southeastern Victoria Island in the Central Arctic. They resolve a significant part of the debate by confirming that Dorset settlement continued in this region later than AD 1300, thus overlapping with Thule settlement in adjacent regions for decades, and perhaps as much as a century.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Dorset-thule Succession: Categories Of Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Radiocarbon Evidence for Fourteenth-Century Dorset Occupation in the Eastern North American Arctic

Friesen

2019

Am. Antiq.

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“…Understanding the ‘push’ and ‘pull’ influence of environment on the migration and sustainability of peoples in northern North America over the last millennia is arguably one of the most important elements of understanding how recent climate change may affect society and lead to genetic adaptations 1 , 2 . The timing of migration has often been associated with paleo- temperature reconstructions that link evidence of distinctive material culture 3 as well as the impact of subsistence practices in areas where hunting camps were established 4 with shifting conditions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The influence of a lost society, the Sadlermiut, on the environment in the Canadian Arctic

Viehberg

Medeiros

Plessen

et al. 2021

Sci Rep

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High latitude freshwater ecosystems are sentinels of human activity and environmental change. The lakes and ponds that characterize Arctic landscapes have a low resilience to buffer variability in climate, especially with increasing global anthropogenic stressors in recent decades. Here, we show that a small freshwater pond in proximity of the archaeological site “Native Point” on Southampton Island (Nunavut, Arctic Canada) is a highly sensitive environmental recorder. The sediment analyses allowed for pinpointing the first arrival of Sadlermiut culture at Native Point to ~ 1250 CE, followed by a dietary shift likely in response to the onset of cooling in the region ~ 1400 CE. The influence of the Sadlermiut on the environment persisted long after the last of their population perished in 1903. Presently, the pond remains a distorted ecosystem that has experienced fundamental shifts in the benthic invertebrate assemblages and accumulated anthropogenic metals in the sediment. Our multi-proxy paleolimnological investigation using geochemical and biological indicators emphasizes that direct and indirect anthropogenic impacts have long-term environmental implications on high latitude ecosystems.

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“…Whole exome sequencing, which documents the variation in protein-coding sequences, has also been used as a tool to investigate natural selection. A number of studies in isolated populations have identified genetic variation that confers protection against environmental conditions such as adaptation to hypoxia at high altitudes among Tibetans 12 or arctic climate among Nunavik Inuit 13 and Siberians 14 . Signatures of natural selection are detected even in the context of more recent population divergence and this influences many aspects of physiology, underscored by variations in genes that impact on height, blood coagulation, pigmentation, diet availability and resistance to infections 15,16 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of whole exome sequencing in severe mental illness hints at selection of brain development and immune related genes

Mahadevan

Pathak

Vemula

et al. 2021

Preprint

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Evolutionary trends may underlie some aspects of the risk for common, non-communicable disorders, including psychiatric disease. We analyzed whole exome sequencing data from 80 unique individuals from India coming from families with two or more individuals with severe mental illness. We used Population Branch Statistics (PBS) to identify variants and genes under positive selection and identified 75 genes as candidates for positive selection. Of these, 20 were previously associated with Schizophrenia, Alzheimers disease and cognitive abilities in genome wide association studies. We then checked whether any of these 75 genes were involved in common biological pathways or related to specific cellular or molecular functions. We found that immune related pathways and functions related to innate immunity such as antigen binding were over-represented. We also evaluated for the presence of Neanderthal introgressed segments in these genes and found Neanderthal introgression in a single gene out of the 75 candidate genes. However, the introgression pattern indicates the region is unlikely to be the source for selection. Our findings hint at how selection pressures in individuals from families with a history of severe mental illness may diverge from the general population. Further, it also provides insights into the genetic architecture of severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia and its link to immune factors.

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Genetic architecture and adaptations of Nunavik Inuit

Cited by 16 publications

References 43 publications

Radiocarbon Evidence for Fourteenth-Century Dorset Occupation in the Eastern North American Arctic

Radiocarbon Evidence for Fourteenth-Century Dorset Occupation in the Eastern North American Arctic

The influence of a lost society, the Sadlermiut, on the environment in the Canadian Arctic

Analysis of whole exome sequencing in severe mental illness hints at selection of brain development and immune related genes

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