Highlights
- •Kinship determination is important for understanding social habits and structure in past human communities.
- •Complete or nearly complete autosomal STR and Y-STR profiles were obtained from the archaeological human skeletal remains.
- •Kinship analysis revealed siblingship between two males with high KP value of 99.99996 %.
- •Identical haplotypes and Y-haplogroup prediction suggested that all male individuals are related by patrilineal descent.
- •Employing additional markers is crucial for getting a comprehensive information about close and distant relatives, and ancestry.
Abstract
Medieval cemeteries Klisa-Guca Gora, Alihodze and Glavica-Han Bila located in the
Travnik area (Travnik, Bosnia and Herzegovina) were archaeologically examined in the
period 2011–2014, revealing human skeletal remains of 11 individuals in total. Archaeological
skeletal samples, previously deposited in Travnik Homeland Museum (Travnik, Bosnia
and Herzegovina) were subjected to genetic analysis. The aim of this research was
to test familiar relationship of 11 individuals excavated from three medieval cemeteries
and to predict Y-haplogroup for male individuals. In order to perform molecular-genetic
characterisation of collected human skeletal remains, two systems of genetic markers
were analysed: autosomal and Y-STR loci. Complete or partial data obtained by autosomal
STR typing of 11 individuals were subjected to kinship analysis. Male sex was determined
in eight samples out of 11. Direct relatives of the "brother-brother" type were detected
in one case with high kinship probability (KP) value of 99.99996 %. Complete or nearly
complete and usable Y-STR profiles were obtained for six out of eight male individuals.
The presence of identical haplotypes at Y-STR loci and results of Y-haplogroup prediction
suggest that all male individuals share the same paternal lineage and belong to J2a
haplogroup. Overall, this study emphasises the usefulness, efficiency and sensitivity
of STR markers in the molecular-genetic characterisation of old skeletal remains as
well as the importance of employing additional markers like Y-STRs in archaeogenetic
studies, besides traditionally used autosomal STR markers, in order to get a comprehensive
information about close and distant relatives, and ancestry.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: January 16, 2023
Accepted:
January 15,
2023
Received in revised form:
January 13,
2023
Received:
June 30,
2022
Identification
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© 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
