Poster Session #2
Presentation Type
Poster
Faculty Mentor’s Full Name
Meradeth Snow
Faculty Mentor’s Department
Anthropology
Abstract / Artist's Statement
The Orton Quarry site (36ER243) is a Late Prehistoric ossuary along the coast of Lake Erie in northwestern Pennsylvania. In March 1991, heavy-equipment operators accidentally exposed and destroyed approximately two-thirds of the original ossuary, leaving only the eastern third intact. Due to a personal interest in ossuaries an extensive literature search and personal communication with a one of the lead archeologists from the site was conducted. It was discovered that very little had been published on the site’s importance or its original inhabitants. One of the primary objectives of this project is to change that. By extracting and analyzing the mtDNA using the Dabney et al. (2013) protocol and the aDNA contamination avoidance protocols standard in the Snow lab we will obtain valuable data on the site’s genetic ancestry. Thus far the DNA from the first five samples have been isolated, and are being amplified for the first hypervariable region of the mtDNA mitogenome. The resulting sequences will be reviewed in Sequencher software. Any single nucleotide polymorphisms that are identified in comparison with the revised Cambridge Reference Sequence will then be compared with the Haplogrep software in order to confirm haplogroup assignment. The aspiration of this project is to analyse the data and compare the results to other ancient and modern DNA data from the Great Lakes region, using haplogroup and haplotype comparisons, as seen in Pfeiffer et al. (2014). Ultimately all of these results will then be written and presented on, adding to both the knowledge of the Orton Quarry Ossuary at well as the genetic data for the Great Lakes region.
Category
Social Sciences
DNA Extraction and Analysis of Bone Samples from the Orton Quarry Ossuary
UC South Ballroom
The Orton Quarry site (36ER243) is a Late Prehistoric ossuary along the coast of Lake Erie in northwestern Pennsylvania. In March 1991, heavy-equipment operators accidentally exposed and destroyed approximately two-thirds of the original ossuary, leaving only the eastern third intact. Due to a personal interest in ossuaries an extensive literature search and personal communication with a one of the lead archeologists from the site was conducted. It was discovered that very little had been published on the site’s importance or its original inhabitants. One of the primary objectives of this project is to change that. By extracting and analyzing the mtDNA using the Dabney et al. (2013) protocol and the aDNA contamination avoidance protocols standard in the Snow lab we will obtain valuable data on the site’s genetic ancestry. Thus far the DNA from the first five samples have been isolated, and are being amplified for the first hypervariable region of the mtDNA mitogenome. The resulting sequences will be reviewed in Sequencher software. Any single nucleotide polymorphisms that are identified in comparison with the revised Cambridge Reference Sequence will then be compared with the Haplogrep software in order to confirm haplogroup assignment. The aspiration of this project is to analyse the data and compare the results to other ancient and modern DNA data from the Great Lakes region, using haplogroup and haplotype comparisons, as seen in Pfeiffer et al. (2014). Ultimately all of these results will then be written and presented on, adding to both the knowledge of the Orton Quarry Ossuary at well as the genetic data for the Great Lakes region.