In this project, we will address two problems. The first one is technical – the amount of genomic information that can be retrieved from ancient human genomes is usually low. Sparse genetic data restricts population genomic analyses to the ones that use allele frequencies, while analyses of longer genomic segments are not possible. To overcome this, we will use genotype imputation (GI) (inferring missing genotypes based on the available information in the genome sequence and a reference panel) to increase the amount of genomic data for downstream analyses. To optimise the GI performance in ancient samples of East European origin we will enrich the reference panel by compiling several high-coverage human genome datasets including those from Estonia and Poland. Second, we will use haplotype and frequency-based approaches to study population relatedness, mobility and social structure of the currently understudied Iron Age-Medieval period in Eastern Baltics. The outcome of the project will contribute to the technical improvement of ancient DNA analyses as well as to our understanding of the role of the Iron Age-Medieval period in the formation of today’s genetic and cultural landscape of Eastern Baltics.
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