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mtDNA is inherited only from the mother, with no paternal input. So mtDNA tells us the history of women, and can through matrilineal descent for generations be traced. Theoretically, all the way from Eve. So all we need is a living descendant on the mother’s side, ja?
Of all the negative emotions, envy was the hardest to conceal.
if you ran with wolves, you’d better not trip.
‘Every human heart keeps a record of its own deeds.’
Two hands. That means it came from a woman’s gravestone.’
Dental tissue grows at the rate of four micrometres per day and that’s shown by striations on the tooth. Like the age of a tree trunk, really. So we can tell the age of young people to within twenty days. If we have the entire jaw, we can assess age by taking X-rays of the teeth and dental eruptions into the mouth, but that’s not an option here. Past the age of twenty-five, the biting surfaces wear down, gums recede, pulp chambers become smaller, roots are resorbed and the tips of roots become translucent, so in adults we estimate age by decades rather than years.’
The most useful form of DNA is mitrochondrial DNA which is passed without any changes from mothers to children, generation after generation. That’s how they identified the remains of Tsar Nicolas, by comparing his mtDNA with that of the Duke of Edinburgh who was related through the Tsar’s mother.
Fascinating information. This book would make a great movie.
‘If you only had one week to investigate this issue, you’d come up with an answer, but if you studied it for a lifetime, you’d never get to the truth.’
The fertilised egg contains a mixture of the father’s and mother’s nuclear DNA and an exact copy of the mother’s mtDNA — but none of the father’s mtDNA.’
the story is based on incidents that took place in the Polish village of Jedwabne and, to a lesser extent, in nearby villages during World War II. In July 1941, the Jewish inhabitants of Jedwabne were rounded up, locked in a barn and set on fire by their Polish neighbours. The truth about this atrocity was covered up for over fifty years and the Nazis were blamed, but an investigation conducted in 2000 by Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance confirmed that the perpetrators were not Germans but Poles.
