The recent recovery of ancient DNA from a growing number of human samples shows that mitochondrial DNA haplogroup I was introduced to Europe after the end of the Last Glacial Maximum. This paper provides a spatio-temporal analysis of the various subhaplogroups of mitochondrial DNA I. The study suggests that haplogroup I diversified into haplogroups I1, I2’3, I4 and I5 at specific regions in Eur...

The detection of ancient microbial DNA offers a new approach for the study of infectious diseases, their occurrence, frequency and host-pathogen interaction in historic times and populations. Moreover, data obtained from skeletal and mummified tissue may represent an important completion of contemporary phylogenetic analyses of pathogens. In the last few years, a variety of bacterial, protozoal...

Investigating the molecular evolution of human genome has paved the way to understand genetic adaptation of humans to the environmental changes and corresponding complex diseases. In this review, we discussed the historical origin of genetic diversity among human populations, the evolutionary driving forces that can affect genetic diversity among populations, and the effects of human movement i...

Studies continue to report ancient DNA sequences and viable microbial cells that are many millions of years old. In this paper we evaluate some of the most extravagant claims of geologically ancient DNA. We conclude that although exciting, the reports suffer from inadequate experimental setup and insufficient authentication of results. Consequently, it remains doubtful whether amplifiable DNA s...

Whilst archaeological evidence for many aspects of life in ancient China is well studied, there has been much less interest in ancient infectious diseases, such as intestinal parasites in past Chinese populations. Here, we bring together evidence from mummies, ancient latrines, and pelvic soil from burials, dating from the Neolithic Period to the Qing Dynasty, in order to better understand the ...

Unlike rare mendelian diseases, which are due to new mutations (i.e. derived alleles), several alleles that increase the risk to common diseases are ancestral. Moreover, population genetics studies suggest that some derived alleles that protect against common diseases became advantageous recently. These observations can be explained within an evolutionary framework in which ancestral alleles re...

Dental caries and periodontal disease are two of the most common human diseases along with the common cold. Signs of dental caries have been seen even in early hominids (Australopithecus). It is well known that many signs of dental caries and periodontal disease were also seen in the Krapina Neanderthals and the archaic homo sapiens Kabwe man (also called “Broken Hill Man”: human from 300,000-1...

In ancient times in Iran, infectious diseases of animals and human beings were referred to as choleraic diseases. Rhazes (9th century), followed by Avicenna (10th century), Jorjani (11th century) and others, had specific opinions on the cause and effect relationship in these diseases, which recall the fermentation theory of Louis Pasteur. In ancient Iran, the methods adopted for veterinary proc...

Objective: To analyze the similarities and differences of the applications of “the lung and large intestine being interior-exteriorly related” between the ancient and modern clinical practices, and to reveal the theory meaning. Method: Based on the ancient and modern medical cases database, 245 ancient medical records and 373 modern medical records were studied with the general statistical desc...

The present study has examined the similarity and the mutual intelligibility between Amharic and two Tigrigna varities using three tools; namely Levenshtein distance, intelligibility test and questionnaires. The study has shown that both Tigrigna varieties have almost equal phonetic and lexical distances from Amharic. The study also indicated that Amharic speakers understand less than 50% of th...