team of experts led by Danish scientists Eske Willerslev and Morten Rasmussen is analyzing the ancient remains of an ancestor of ours who lived 4,000 years ago on the west coast of Greenland, on the island of Qeqertasussuk. The remains were found in 1986, along with a lock of hair preserved in the ice, and would be rediscovered in 1986. Inuk died at a young age. The DNA of his hair was mapped, thus sequencing 80 percent of his genome. It was discovered that he belonged to the Saqqaq culture, descendants of populations who migrated from Siberia over 5,000 years ago and the first to inhabit Greenland. He had dark skin, brown eyes and hair, and was prone to baldness. He ate seabirds and seal meat, had blood type A+, and both his physique and metabolism were adapted to life in the Arctic climate, despite the fact that only a few generations had passed since his ancestors arrived in those lands. As of 2010, when the study was conducted, he was only the ninth human to have his entire genome sequenced. Ancient genomes are difficult to decipher. Even when enough tissue is preserved, it is often riddled with fungal and bacterial DNA. The very act of extracting tissue often damages it or adds human DNA to the list of contaminants.
