WELLINGTON, New Zealand (Aug. 27, 2014)—National Geographic’s Genographic Project Principal Investigator and Allan Wilson Centre Principal Investigator Professor Lisa Matisoo-Smith today presented the DNA results of 100 Wellingtonians at an event at Government House. Six months ago, 100 Wellington volunteers — including the Governor-General, Lieutenant General The Right Honourable Sir Jerry Mateparae, and the former Governor-General, Sir Anand Satyanand — contributed DNA samples to the Genographic Project, a multiyear global research initiative that uses DNA to map the history of human migration.
“We are excited to reveal the Wellingtonians’ DNA results,” said Genographic Project Director and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Dr. Spencer Wells. “The Genographic Project provides a great citizen science opportunity — and the more people who participate, the more our scientific knowledge will grow.”
Wells and members of the Genographic team visited New Zealand in March to collaborate with Matisoo-Smith and the Allan Wilson Centre to take the genetic temperature of the Wellington area. The samples taken then were sequenced and analyzed using cutting-edge technology that looks at nearly 150,000 Ancestry Informative Markers (AIMs) across the human genome.
- Nearly all the European maternal lineages were represented in the Wellington sample, with Northern European lineages accounting for more than 50 percent and Mediterranean lineages making up approximately 30 percent. By contrast, no African maternal or paternal lineages were found, and only three Asian lineages were found. Five individuals carried one of two Oceanic maternal lineages, and one Oceanic paternal lineage was found in the sample.
- Ninety-four percent of paternal lineages were West Eurasian or European, 4 percent were East Asian and 2 percent were Oceanic.
- Regarding the participants’ personal ancestry breakdown, Northern European was commonly the highest percentage, but some Oceanic ancestry (>1 percent) was found in 10 participants. Two participants had predominantly South Asian ancestry, and one participant was more than 10 percent Native American.
- A vast range of hominin-cousin DNA (Neanderthal and Denisovan) was detected among the participants, ranging from almost 0 percent to more than 5 percent in some. Most people of European ancestry average 2 percent Neanderthal and/or Denisovan DNA in their genetic makeup.
The Wellington study using the Geno 2.0 analysis is a sub-sample of an ongoing nationwide study led by Matisoo-Smith focusing on the genetic ancestry of 2,000 New Zealanders. The entire study should be finished in mid- to late 2015.
Said Matisoo-Smith, “The question about the New Zealand identity has no single answer. There are as many stories as people behind the reasons that we and our ancestors made the longest journey from Africa to Aotearoa/New Zealand, the final major landmass on Earth to be inhabited by humans.”
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MORE ABOUT THE GENOGRAPHIC PROJECT
The Genographic Project is a multiyear global initiative that is gathering and analyzing the world’s largest collection of anthropological DNA samples in the hope it will capture an invaluable genetic snapshot of humanity. Members of the public can take part in this real-time research initiative with the Geno 2.0 Ancestry Kit. www.genographic.com