The Scots; A Genetic Journey, episode 2
Post categories: The Scots: A Genetic Journey
| 11:35 UK time, Tuesday, 22 February 2011
Here are some words from Alistair Moffat about the recording of the second episode of The Scots; A Genetic Journey. The photographs are also from the recording at Cairnpapple Hill.
Alistair Moffat - To Cairnpapple on Thursday 21st October.
Very windy, very sunny and the hill very high. It's the site of a prehistoric temple built in stages from 3500BC by peoples who had become farmers around the Linlithgow area. They were producing enough surplus food to be able to devote time to building a wooden henge and a series of very elaborate and impressive burials. One of them had pottery with the remains of strong drink in one bowl and there were traces of flowers in the graves - the start of long traditions at funerals. The producer Amanda Hargreaves had organised access and Jim Wilson, my scientific collaborator and I marched to the top of the very windy hill and talked about it with Adrian Cox from . Good stuff.
Photographs taken during the recording of episode 2, Cairnpapple HIll, October 2010
The Scots; A Genetic Journey is broadcast on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio Scotland, Wednesdays, 1530-1600
Comment number 1.
At 24th Feb 2011, isobel wrote:this is a facsinating topic - the distribtion of DNA. I am curious as to whether there are clues to the distribution of peoples in blood group types, and how they link to DNA. Perhaps this gets a mention in later epsodes.
Also, I recall reading an artcle that relates 'O' groups to hunter gatherers, so that that kind of diet - meat, fish, fruits - suits these types, and 'A' groups relate back to early farmers - thus cereals and startchy food suit the 'A's. Where do the Scots sit with this theory?
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Comment number 2.
At 28th Feb 2011, Alan Braidwood wrote:Hello Isobel,
Jim Wilson has written a response to your question and sent it to me to put on the blog here.
JW
There are indeed clues to the distribution of DNA in blood groups types - as these are themselves genetically encoded, they are a marker, like any other. Much work was done on blood groups in the 60s and 70s as that is all there was to look at, it was not possible to analyse DNA at that time. Today we have so many more markers that these get left behind, but they do vary across scotland.
The ABO blood groups are part of the changes in marker frequency from SE to NW Europe seen at many other genetic variants, and it may be that European hunter-gatherers commonly were of the O group, however this in no way translates to dietary suitability. Blood groups have no influence on the ability to metabolise certain foodstuffs, and all Europeans are descended from a mix of indigenous hunter-gatherers and incoming farmers - wherever your particular ABO variant happened to have come from.
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