On the west coast of Greenland, on the island of Qeqertasussuk, lives an ancestor of ours whose remains, along with a lock of hair preserved in the ice, were discovered in 1986. Inuk died at a young age. In the following years, a team of experts led by Danish scientists Eske Willerslev and Morten Rasmussen analyzed the ancient remains, mapped the DNA of his hair, and sequenced 80 percent of his genome. This allowed them to uncover numerous details about the life and identity of Inuk, who belonged to the Saqqaq culture, descendants of populations who migrated from Siberia over 5,000 years ago and were the first to inhabit Greenland. He had dark skin, brown eyes, and thick hair, although the young man apparently had a tendency to baldness. He fed on seabirds and seal meat, his blood type was A+ and both his physique and metabolism had adapted to life in the Arctic climate, even though not many generations had passed since his ancestors had arrived in those lands.
