ANCIENT DNA - METHODS, PROGRESS, AND PERSPECTIVES

The advent of the polymerase chain reaction as a standard molecular ge netic technique and the demonstration that nucleic acids are routinely preserved in prehistoric material have led to a dramatic increase in molecular approaches to archaeological problems. These genetic approac hes to long-standing problems in prehistory hold considerable promise to clarify issues of population origins, migrations, and settlement pa tterns, as well as ancestor/descendant relationships. The evolving met hods for manipulating and analyzing ancient DNA (aDNA) are reviewed he re, as are more recent applications of these methods to anthropologica lly relevant samples. In addition, new preliminary material is present ed on mtDNA variation in Anasazi samples from the U.S. Southwest. The initial samples analyzed indicate similarity to contemporary populatio ns of the Greater Southwest, as evidenced by the modest frequency of a 9bp deletion in Region V of the mtDNA molecule,and the possible absen ce of haplogroup D. (C) 1996 Wiley-Liss, Inc.