~57~6------NEWSANDVIEWS------N_A_ru_~--VO_L_._31_4_18_~_R_1L~I~~ Molecular Egyptology there indeed two separate invasions of Australia, as often claimed? Do the geno types of mummified Europeans accord Mummified human DNA cloned with the suggestion that geographical pat terns of gene-frequency change in mod from 1.S. lones ern Europeans reflect an invasion from the East that occurred as a result of the ON page 644 of this issue, Svante PiUibo might tell us something about population development of agriculture? Mr Average, reports the remarkable extraction and clon movements in ancient Africa. Ancient as defined by the population nearest the ing of DNA from an Egyptian mummy I . Egypt is thought to have been occupied by global mean for a large number of enzyme One clone contains a 3.4 kilobase segment a number of distinct populations, and it is and blood-group loci, lives in the Middle of DNA that has been preserved for more certainly the case that some dynasties of East8: would the patterns of change in than two millenia. Although only one out Pharaohs were drawn from foreign popula mummified humans support the idea of of 23 mummies has yet produced clonable tions that invaded the Nile Valley. Perhaps worldwide spread from the Middle East? DNA, the yield from this individual ap it would be possible to test the claim of the An answer to any of these questions would proaches five per cent of that obtainable Coptic Christians of modern Egypt to be be of extraordinary interest. from fresh human material. Preliminary the lineal descendants of the ancients (who Finally, it is important to understand though it is, the report opens up some fas disappeared from the Nile Valley under that Pltltbo has not done: we cannot of cinating possibilities for future work on successive waves of invasion by Syrians, course reconstitute a functional gene (let human evolution and archaeology. Greeks, Romans, Byzantines and Arabs). alone a living individual) from this short 'Fossil genes' have been identified before DNA sequences are also useful in study repeated sequence. One American now: ancient snails buried in prehistoric ing patterns of kinship and paternity within newspaper reported the recent cloning of English earthworks retain their shell colour local populations. There is considerable mitochondrial DNA from a specimen of 2 and banding patterns , and comparisons controversy among Egyptologists about the the extinct quagga9 as "US Scientists of skeletal variants in living and extinct relatedness of groups of mummies from Clone Dinosaurs to Fight on after Nuclear mice have been used to establish the ori particular sites, and there is clear potential War", and probably there will be similar 3 gins of some Scottish mouse populations • for DNA work here. Ancient records sensational accounts of mummy DNA. Even mummies retain enough of their suggest that in the 18th Dynasty, the Molecular biology rarely lives up to its blood group substances to allow the kin Egyptian royal family practised incest headlines, but the interaction of DNA ship of family groups to be confirmed sero between brother and sister or father and technology and archaeology may open a logicallt and, on the basis of hair charac daughter for at least eight generations: new phase in our understanding of human ters, an unidentified royal mummy from information on their mummified DNA h~rory. 0 the New Kingdom has been shown to be the sequences might tell us to what extent this 1. Piiiibo. S. Nature 314, (1985). 5 mother of the heretic pharaoh Akhenaton • royal exclusivity was successful. Incest in 2. Cain, A.J. in Ecological Genetics and Evo/ution (cd. Creed, R.) 65 (Blackwell, Oxford, 1971). Valuable as such specific data may be, Egypt was designed to preserve the blood 3. Berry, R.J. Symp. zool. Soc. Land. 16, 3 (1970). there is much more potential information line of a deity. There is something intri 4. Harrison, R.O. et 01. Nature 124, 325 (1969). 5. Harris, J.E. el al. Science 100, 1149 (1978). in DNA sequences. The human genome guing about the possiblity of learning the 6. Jeffreys, A.J., Wilson, V. & Thein, S.L. Nature 314, 67 possesses hundreds of thousands of genetic genotype of a god. (1985). 7. Pagnier, A.J. et 01. Pro£'. notn. Acod. Sci. U.S.A. 81, 1771 polymorphisms at the DNA level. Some re Mummies are not unique to Egypt: pre (1984). gions (which involve variations in the num served humans have been found in Peru, 8. Piazza, A.A. et al. Proc. nOin. Acad. S,·i. U.S.A. 78, 2638 ber of copies of repeated sequences not dis Japan, Australasia and Europe. There is (1981). 9. Higuchi, R. et 01. Nature 31l, 282 (1984). similar to the Alu sequence, to which the the potential here to answer some larger mummy 3.4 kilobase clone is closely re questions abut human evolution. What is 6 1.S, lones is in the Department of Genetics and lated) are hypervariable and can provide the relationship between the native Biometry, University College London, 4 Steph particularly precise estimates of human kin Australians and the rest of the world; were enson Way, London NWI 2HE~ UK. ship and population relatedness. If these polymorphisms can be detected in mum Arcbaeoastronomy mies, we may answer some important questions about the world of our ancestors. Information on DNA sequences is Halley's comet in Babylonia uniquely suited for tracing population movements: knowledge of the geographical from C.B.F. Walker distribution of point mutations in some senses provides no more than single letters IN August 1984, Halley's comet was comet's path in antiquity. in a population's genetic identity, while the unexpectedly discovered in the British What were the Babylonians doing re ordered sequence of bases provided by its Museum or, to be more precise, on some cording comets? The beginnings of DNA haplotype gives the genetic surname Babylonian tablets in the museum's astronomy in Mesopotamia probably go itself. Thus, information on DNA se archives. That discovery, reported by F.R. back to the third millennium Be, when the quences closely linked to the sickle-cell Stephenson, K.K.C. Yau and H. Hunger Sumerians gave the planets and principal haemoglobin polymorphism has recently on page 587 of this issue, will be exciting constellations their names but, apart from been used to establish the relationships be both for eager Halley watchers and for hist simple tables of the length of daylight and tween living populations in different parts orians of science. It represents the first sig the rising and setting of constellations, 7 of Africa • Sickle-cell populations from nificant addition to our knowledge of the almost all the early texts are concerned with Senegal and Benin differ considerably in past history of the comet since the French astrology rather than astronomy, Writing their sickle-cell haplotype; but populations publication of Chinese observations in in about AD 150, the Greek astronomer from North Africa have the same haplo 1846. It fills an important gap in the his Ptolemy notes that the earliest observations type as the Nigerians. This is strong torical record, since no other account of the available to him date from the time of the evidence that the sickle-cell mutation has return of the comet in 164 Be survives. Babylonian king Nabonassar (Nabu-nasir, arisen several times, but that the northern Remarkably, it also proves that the Baby 747-734 Be). Although contemporary texts sickling populations originated by migra lonian astronomers kept records of such do not survive, later Babylonian texts also tion from West Africa. accuracy that we can now make a clear suggest that the practice of keeping a Information of this kind from mummies choice between current theories of the regular official record on the movements © 1985 Nature Publishing Group