New technique provides accurate dating of ancient skeletons

Interest in the origins of human populations and their migration routes has increased greatly in recent years. A critical aspect of tracing migration events is dating them. However, radiocarbon techniques commonly used to date and analyse DNA from ancient skeletons can be inaccurate and difficult to apply. Inspired by the Geographic Population Structure model that can track mutations associated with geography, researchers have developed a new analytic method, the Time Population Structure (TPS), that uses mutations to predict time in order to date the ancient DNA.