Ballynahatty woman

The Ballynahatty Woman is the name given to a prehistoric female human found in the townland of Ballynahatty near Belfast in 1855.[1] She is estimated to have lived about 5,000 years ago.[2] In 2015, her genome, along with that of a trio of men who lived 4,000 years ago, was sequenced by geneticists at Trinity College Dublin and archaeologists at Queen's University Belfast.[1]

Both Ballynahatty Woman and one of the men were found to have mutations that can cause hemochromatosis, a disease where the body retains too much iron and has a high prevalence in the British Isles.[2] She was found to have Neolithic Anatolian ancestry, and out of modern peoples most genetically resembles the Basques and Sardinians.[1]

  1. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference r1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference r2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).