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Humans (Homo sapiens) spread to all continents except for the Antarctica, after the Out-of-Africa expansion.  Why were humans able to adapt to the various environment (such as high latitude, cold regions, highlands, etc.) in a very short timescale (about 60,000 years)?  Our laboratory aims to answer the questions, by Genome Anthropology based on ancient genome analysis technology.

Ancient genome information is obtained by extracting and purifying DNA from the biological remains and sequencing it by next generation sequencer.  A recent achievement of our laboratory is a publication of the first draft whole genome sequence of a Jomon individual.  We are going to expand our research using such Paleogenomics technology and genome information that has been accumulated so far.

Jomon genome information is a key to clarifying the peopling history of present-day humans in East Eurasia and the lives of people before the beginning of farming.  It is possible to find out what kind of marriage system the Jomon people, who were hunter-gatherers, had from the genomic information.  What did the Jomon people eat?  We are challenging DNA extraction from coprolites.  By developing the technique, we will be able to identify the foods of Jomon people.  Further, we are estimating the genome fragments of Jomon people (Jomon haplotype) present in the modern Japanese genome.  Using cultured cells, we construct the experimental system that compare gene expression patterns in the cells including Jomon and modern Japanese haplotypes.