title: A Molecular Approach to the Sexing of the Triple Burial at the Upper Paleolithic Site of Dolní Věstonice.
abstract: In the past decades ancient DNA research has brought numerous insights to archaeological research where traditional approaches were limited. The determination of sex in human skeletal remains is often challenging for physical anthropologists when dealing with incomplete, juvenile or pathological specimens. Molecular approaches allow sexing on the basis of sex-specific markers or by calculating the ratio of DNA derived from different chromosomes. Here we propose a novel approach that relies on the ratio of X chromosome-derived shotgun sequencing data to the autosomal coverage, thus establishing the probability of an XX or XY karyotype. Applying this approach to the individuals of the Upper Paleolithic triple burial of Dolní Věstonice reveals that all three skeletons, including the individual DV 15, whose sex has long been debated due to a pathological condition, were male.
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, D-07745, Jena, Germany.|Institute for Archeological Sciences, University of Tübingen, D-72070, Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Alissa
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mittnik
authors.affiliation: Institute for Archeological Sciences, University of Tübingen, D-72070, Tübingen, Germany.|Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, 02115, United States of America.
authors.forename: Chuan-Chao
authors.initials: CC
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, Kotlářská, 61137, Brno, Czech Republic.|Institute of Archaeology, Academy of Science of the Czech Republic, 69129, Dolní Věstonice, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Jiří
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Svoboda
authors.affiliation: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, D-07745, Jena, Germany.|Institute for Archeological Sciences, University of Tübingen, D-72070, Tübingen, Germany.
authors.forename: Johannes
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Krause
mesh_terms: D001106:Archaeology; D001842:Bone and Bones / Q000378:metabolism*; D041321:Chromosomes, Human, X / Q000235:genetics*; D004247:DNA / Q000737:chemistry / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D059014:High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing; D006801:Humans; D059785:Karyotype; D008297:Male; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D012723:Sex
chemical_list: D004247:DNA