Life in Bronze Age Britain (artist's impression)
Researchers have just completed a massive gene bank for ancient humans who lived in Eurasia up to 34,000 years ago (i.e., up to 24,000 years before creationist dogma says the universe and everything in it was magicked out of nothing by a god made of nothing who self-assembled out of nothing before there was time and space to self-assemble in.
The gene bank has enabled researchers to trace the historical and geographical spread of genes and diseases, producing four papers published in Nature. This article deals with just one of them; others will follow.
The results should disturb any creationists who has the courage to read about them because, not only did it all occur long before the mythical 'Creation Week' that is central to their superstition, but is shows that any designer either could not have been omniscient, or must have been malevolent, because it shows how the genes for Multiple Sclerosis (MS) arose in North Europe, probably as a side-effect of evolving genes to increase resistance to the diseases carried by domestic animals. An omniscient designer who deigned them should have been aware of what they would also cause, so either isn't omniscience and didn't know what its design would do, or created MS deliberately.
As the University of Cambridge News release explains:
The new study found the genes that significantly increase a person’s risk of developing multiple sclerosis (MS) were introduced into north-western Europe around 5,000 years ago by sheep and cattle herders migrating from the east.
By analysing the DNA of ancient human bones and teeth, found at documented locations across Eurasia, researchers traced the geographical spread of MS from its origins on the Pontic Steppe (a region spanning parts of what are now Ukraine, South-West Russia and the West Kazakhstan Region).
They found that the genetic variants associated with a risk of developing MS ‘travelled’ with the Yamnaya people - livestock herders who migrated over the Pontic Steppe into North-Western Europe.
These genetic variants provided a survival advantage to the Yamnaya people, most likely by protecting them from catching infections from their sheep and cattle. But they also increased the risk of developing MS.
The age of specimens ranges from the Mesolithic and Neolithic through the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Viking period into the Middle Ages. The oldest genome in the data set is from an individual who lived approximately 34,000 years ago.It must have been a distinct advantage for the Yamnaya people to carry the MS risk genes, even after arriving in Europe, despite the fact that these genes undeniably increased their risk of developing MS.
These results change our view of the causes of multiple sclerosis and have implications for the way it is treated.
Professor Eske Willerslev, jointly at the Universities of Cambridge and Copenhagen
Fellow of St John’s College
expert in analysis of ancient DNA and Director of the project.
The findings provide an explanation for the ‘North-South Gradient’, in which there are around twice as many modern-day cases of MS in northern Europe than southern Europe, which has long been a mystery to researchers.
From a genetic perspective, the Yamnaya people are thought to be the ancestors of the present-day inhabitants of much of North-Western Europe. Their genetic influence on today’s population of southern Europe is much weaker.
Previous studies have identified 233 genetic variants that increase the risk of developing MS. These variants, also affected by environmental and lifestyle factors, increase disease risk by around 30 percent. The new research found that this modern-day genetic risk profile for MS is also present in bones and teeth that are thousands of years old.
Multiple sclerosis is a neurodegenerative disease in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks the ‘insulation’ surrounding the nerve fibres of the brain and spinal cord. This causes symptom flares known as relapses as well as longer-term degeneration, known as progression.These results astounded us all. They provide a huge leap forward in our understanding of the evolution of MS and other autoimmune diseases.
Showing how the lifestyles of our ancestors impacted modern disease risk just highlights how much we are the recipients of ancient immune systems in a modern world.
Dr William Barrie, first author of the MS study
University of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology.
Image top: Yamnaya Bronze Relief. Evolution to cope with pathogen pressures in the Bronze Age impacts genetic risk for multiple sclerosis today. Credit SayoStudio.
Image: bottom: Mixing Pot. Ancient Steppe (top), Farmer (middle) and Hunter-Gatherer (bottom) populations mixed to form present-day Europeans. Credit SayoStudio."
These findings are published, open access, in Nature:The new findings were made possible by the analysis of data held in a unique gene bank of ancient DNA, created by the researchers over the past five years with funding from the Lundbeck Foundation.
The Porsmose man from the Neolithic period, found in 1947 in Porsmose, Denmark.
Credit: The Danish National Museum.
This is the first gene bank of its kind in the world and already it has enabled fascinating new insights in areas from ancient human migrations, to genetically-determined risk profiles for the development of brain disorders.
By analysing the bones and teeth of almost 5,000 ancient humans, held in museum collections across Europe and Western Asia, the researchers generated DNA profiles ranging across the Mesolithic and Neolithic through the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Viking period into the Middle Ages. They compared the ancient DNA data to modern DNA from 400,000 people living in Britain, held in the UK Biobank.
The team now plans to investigate other neurological conditions including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, and psychiatric disorders including ADHD and schizophrenia. They have received requests from disease researchers across the world for access to the ancient DNA profiles, and eventually aim to make the gene bank open access.Creating a gene bank of ancient DNA from Eurasia’s past human inhabitants was a colossal project, involving collaboration with museums across the region. We’ve demonstrated that our gene bank works as a precision tool that can give us new insights into human diseases, when combined with analyses of present-day human DNA data and inputs from several other research fields.
That in itself is amazing, and there’s no doubt it has many applications beyond MS research.
Professor Eske Willerslev, co-corresponding author
Department of Zoology
University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
AbstractThis is a classic example of deleterious genes increasing in the local species gene pool because they are linked to genes which are advantageous genes in the local environment, and the advantage in terms of survival to produce more offspring, outweighs the pressure in the opposite direction from the deleterious genes, especially so in the case of Alzheimer's which doesn't manifest itself until way past the normal breeding age so carrying it doesn't affect the number of offspring who carry it. And this is generally true of most degenerative conditions such as arthritis, late onset diabetes, etc.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a neuro-inflammatory and neurodegenerative disease that is most prevalent in Northern Europe. Although it is known that inherited risk for MS is located within or in close proximity to immune-related genes, it is unknown when, where and how this genetic risk originated1. Here, by using a large ancient genome dataset from the Mesolithic period to the Bronze Age2, along with new Medieval and post-Medieval genomes, we show that the genetic risk for MS rose among pastoralists from the Pontic steppe and was brought into Europe by the Yamnaya-related migration approximately 5,000 years ago. We further show that these MS-associated immunogenetic variants underwent positive selection both within the steppe population and later in Europe, probably driven by pathogenic challenges coinciding with changes in diet, lifestyle and population density. This study highlights the critical importance of the Neolithic period and Bronze Age as determinants of modern immune responses and their subsequent effect on the risk of developing MS in a changing environment.
Main
MS is an autoimmune disease of the brain and spinal cord that currently affects more than 2.5 million people worldwide1. Its prevalence varies markedly with ethnicity and geographical location, with the highest prevalence observed in Europe (142.81 cases per 100,000 people); Northern Europeans are particularly susceptible to developing the disease3. The origins of and reasons for this geographical variation are poorly understood, yet such biases may hold important clues as to why the prevalence of autoimmune diseases, including MS, has continued to rise during the past 50 years.
Although still elusive, MS aetiology is thought to involve gene–gene and gene–environment interactions. Accumulating evidence suggests that exogenous triggers initiate a cascade of events involving a multitude of cells and immune pathways in genetically vulnerable individuals, which may ultimately lead to MS neuropathology1.
Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified 233 commonly occurring genetic variants that are associated with MS; 32 variants are located in the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) region and 201 are located outside the HLA region4. The strongest MS associations are found in the HLA region, with the most prominent of these, HLA-DRB1*15:01, conferring an approximately threefold increase in the risk of MS in individuals carrying at least one copy of this allele. Collectively, genetic factors are estimated to explain approximately 30% of the overall disease risk, while environmental and lifestyle factors are considered the major contributors to MS. For instance, although infection with Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) frequently occurs in childhood and usually is symptomless, delayed infection into early adulthood, as typically observed in countries with high standards of hygiene, is associated with a 32-fold-increased risk of MS5,6. Lifestyle factors associated with increased MS risk, such as smoking, obesity during adolescence and nutrition or gut health, also vary geographically7. Autoimmunity could also result from altered pressure from other pathogens, creating a shift in the delicate balance of pro- and anti-inflammatory pathways8.
European genetic ancestry (henceforth ‘ancestry’) has been postulated to explain part of the global difference in MS prevalence in admixed populations9. Specifically, African American individuals with MS exhibit increased European ancestry in the HLA region compared with control individuals, with European haplotypes conferring more MS risk for most HLA alleles, including HLA-DRB1*15:01. Conversely, Asian American individuals with MS have decreased European ancestry in the HLA region compared with control individuals. Although ancient European ancestry and MS risk in Europe are known to be geographically structured (Fig. 1a,b), the effect of ancestry variation within Europe on MS prevalence is unknown.
a, The modern-day geographical distribution of MS in Europe. Prevalence data for MS (cases per 100,000) were obtained from ref. 3. b, Steppe ancestry in modern samples as estimated by ref. 26. c,d, A model of European prehistory21 onto which our reference samples were projected using non-negative least squares (NNLS) for population painting (see Methods) (c) and the same data represented spatially (d). Samples are shown as vertical bars representing their ‘admixture estimate’ obtained by NNLS (see Methods) from six ancestries: EHG (green), WHG (pink), CHG (yellow), farmer (ANA + Neolithic; blue), steppe (cyan) or an outgroup (represented by ancient Africans; red). Important population expansions are shown as growing bars, and ‘recent’ (post-Bronze Age) non-reference admixed populations are shown for the Denmark time transect (see Extended Data Fig. 2 for details). Chronologically, WHG and EHG were largely replaced by farmers amid demographic changes during the ‘Neolithic transition’ around 9,000 years ago. Later migrations during the Bronze Age about 5,000 years ago brought a roughly equal steppe ancestry component from the Pontic-Caspian steppe to Europe, an ancestry descended from the EHG from the middle Don River region and the CHG2. Steppe ancestry has been associated with the Yamnaya culture and then with the expansion westwards of the Corded Ware culture and Bell Beaker culture, with eastward expansion in the form of the Afanasievo culture26,27. ka, thousand years ago.
It's also an example of how local populations can evolve slightly differently to other populations of the same species. In this case, the migration of the Yamnaya from Central Asia into northern Europe, with their cattle and farming culture, created an advantage in evolving genes that gave immunity to the disease the domestic cattle brought with them, while there was no such evolutionary pressure in southern Europe where farming was less important in the local culture.
These examples of evolution will be dismissed by creationists of course on the childish grounds that the people didn't sprout wings or a third arm or something equally ludicrous, but what they should have difficulty with is the fact that this all happened 24,000 years before they think people existed.
This book explains why faith is a fallacy and serves no useful purpose other than providing an excuse for pretending to know things that are unknown. It also explains how losing faith liberates former sufferers from fear, delusion and the control of others, freeing them to see the world in a different light, to recognise the injustices that religions cause and to accept people for who they are, not which group they happened to be born in. A society based on atheist, Humanist principles would be a less divided, more inclusive, more peaceful society and one more appreciative of the one opportunity that life gives us to enjoy and wonder at the world we live in.
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How did you come to be here, now? This books takes you from the Big Bang to the evolution of modern humans and the history of human cultures, showing that science is an adventure of discovery and a source of limitless wonder, giving us richer and more rewarding appreciation of the phenomenal privilege of merely being alive and able to begin to understand it all.
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