Bryan Clifford Sykes (9 September 1947 – 10 December 2020) was a Britishgeneticist, universityprofessor,popular-science writer, andgenetic genealogy company executive. He received afellowship atWolfson College and apersonal chair, lateremeritus professorship, inhuman genetics at theUniversity of Oxford.^[2][3]

Sykes published the first report on retrievingDNA from ancient bone (Nature, 1989). He was involved in a number of high-profilearchaeogenetics (ancient DNA) cases, including that ofÖtzi the Iceman.

Sykes is best known outside the community of geneticists for his two most popular books –The Seven Daughters of Eve (2001), andBlood of the Isles / Saxons, Vikings and Celts (2006) – both on the investigation of human history and prehistory through studies ofmitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). However, many of his conclusions in these works about European populations and their histories have become dubious or have been invalidated by more recent advances inwhole-genome sequencing for more detailed archaeogenetics. He also suggested an American accountant named Tom Robinson was a direct descendant ofGenghis Khan, a claim that was subsequently disproved.^[4][5][6][7]

Of more lasting significance, besides contributions to archaeogenetic technology, his mtDNA work in the Pacific demonstrated that the historical populating ofOceania took place entirely from Asia, dispelling a decades-persistentfringe theory of origins on the western coast of the Americas.^[1]

Bryan Sykes was born 9 September 1947 in south-east London, to Frank (an accountant) and Irene Sykes.^[1]

Sykes was educated atEltham College, received hisBSc from theUniversity of Liverpool, hisPhD from theUniversity of Bristol, and hisDSc from theUniversity of Oxford (to which he was admitted in 1973).^[3][1] Originally focusing on bone andconnective-tissue disorders, in Oxford'sorthopaedic surgery department, he did early work oncollagen andelastin genetics.^[1]

Sykes became an Oxfordlecturer inmolecular pathology in 1987.^[1] Although much of his academic output remained focused on heritable skeletal disorders at the university's then-newInstitute of Molecular Medicine,^[1] his genetic research broadened.

In 1989, he came to career-remaking attention after a pivot from his medical-related work to a nascent archeological field,archaeogenetics, and publishing in the prestigious science journalNature the results of his research team's success in an important "first": the elusive goal of extracting intact genetic material (in the form of mtDNA) from ancient bones, up to 12,000 years old.^[1] Other key participants in this team (coalescing through their work together at theJohn Radcliffe Hospital) wereErika Hagelberg andRobert E. M. Hedges of the Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art at the Oxford'sSchool of Archaeology.^[1] Hedges was later to become a leading scholar of the molecular analysis of ancient diets and of archaeological environments, follow on his earlier key roles in the developmentradiocarbon dating and then the application ofaccelerator mass spectrometry in archaeology.^[8] Hagelberg published, as Sykes would, on mtDNA's use in establishing prehistoric human population movements,^[9] and made high-profile strides inforensic analysis of degraded genetic samples.

Sykes received apersonal-chair professorship inhuman genetics at Oxford in 1997.^[1]

From 1999 to 2016, he published a number ofpopularized-science books for a broad audience, to considerable attention (not all of it positive, especially from fellow academics). Starting withThe Human Inheritance (1999), much of this material was focused on explaining the uses of genetics in understanding the history of human populations, especially in Europe (The Seven Daughters of Eve, 2001;Blood of the Isles, 2006) and North America (DNA USA, 2011). In more academic work, he turned his mtDNA lens on the Pacific and East Asia, though these efforts did not result in books.

He branched out into other subjects, including inAdam's Curse (2003) an examination of themen's infertility crisis (and fears of extinction of the human male) along with how this may relate to [stereo]typically male behaviors. In a somewhat tongue-in-cheek vein, he reported on his research teams' debunking of supposed biological evidence of "ape-men" such asYeti andBigfoot, in a three-part TV miniseries^[1] and two books,The Nature of the Beast (2015), andBigfoot, Yeti, and the Last Neanderthal (2016).

Skyes retired from academia in 2016 as anemeritus professor,^[1] but continued his genetic-genealogy business pursuits, maintained a public and media presence, and published a final book,Once a Wolf (2019), on the prehistoricdevelopment of the wild wolf into the domestic dog.

In 2001, Sykes published a book for the popular audience,The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry, in which he explained how the dynamics of maternalmitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) inheritance leave their mark on the human population in the form of genetic "clans" sharing common maternal descent. He noted that the majority of Europeans can be classified into seven such groups, known scientifically ashaplogroups, distinguishable by differences in their mtDNA that are unique to each group, with each descending from a separate prehistoric female-line ancestor. He referred to these seven "clan mothers" as "daughters of Eve", a reference to themitochondrial Eve to whom the mtDNA of all modern humans traces.

Based on the geographical and ethnological distribution of the modern descendants of each clan, he assigned provisional homelands for the seven clan mothers, and used the degree to which each clan diverges to approximate the time period when the clan mother would have lived. He then used these deductions to give fictional but research-based "biographies" for each of the clan mothers, assigning them arbitrary names based on the scientific designation of their haplogroup (for example, using the name Xenia for the founder ofhaplogroup X).

In his 2006 bookBlood of the Isles: Exploring the Genetic Roots of Our Tribal History (published in the United States and Canada asSaxons, Vikings and Celts: The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland), Sykes examined purported ancestral genetic "clans" of theBritish Isles. He presented evidence from bothmitochondrial DNA, inherited by both sexes only from their mothers, and theY chromosome, inherited by men only, from their fathers. In this work, he made the following claims (among others):

• The genetic makeup ofBritain and Ireland is overwhelmingly what it has been since theNeolithic period and to a very considerable extent since theMesolithic period, especially in the female line, i.e. those people, who in time would become identified as British Celts (culturally speaking), but who (genetically speaking) should more properly be calledCro-Magnon.^{[citation needed]} In continental Europe, this same Cro-Magnon genetic legacy gave rise to theBasques. "Basque" and "Celt" are cultural designations, not genetic ones.^{[citation needed]}
• The contribution of theCelts of Central Europe to the genetic makeup of Britain and Ireland was minimal; most of the genetic contribution to theBritish Isles of those we think of as Celtic, came from western continental Europe, i.e. theAtlantic seaboard.
• ThePicts were not a separate people: the genetic makeup of the formerly Pictish areas ofScotland shows no significant differences from the general profile of the rest of Britain. The two "Pictland" regions are Tayside and Grampian.^[10]
• TheAnglo-Saxons are supposed, by some, to have made a substantial contribution to the genetic makeup of England, but in Sykes's opinion it was under 20 per cent of the total, even inSouthern England.
• TheVikings (Danes and Norwegians) made a substantial contribution, which is concentrated in central, northernm and eastern England – the territories of the early-medievalDanelaw. There is a very heavy Viking contribution in theOrkney and theShetland Islands, around 40 per cent. Women as well as men contributed substantially in all these areas, showing that the Vikings engaged in large-scale settlement.
• TheNorman contribution was extremely small, on the order of 2 per cent.
• There are only sparse genetic traces of theRoman occupation, almost all in Southern England.
• In spite of all these later contributions, the genetic makeup of the British Isles remains overwhelmingly what it was in theNeolithic: a mixture of the firstMesolithic inhabitants with Neolithic settlers who came by sea fromIberia and ultimately from the easternMediterranean.
• There is a difference between the genetic histories of men and women in Britain and Ireland. Thematrilineages show a mixture of original Mesolithic inhabitants and later Neolithic arrivals fromIberia, whereas thepatrilineages are much more strongly correlated with Iberia.
• There is evidence for a "Genghis Khan effect", whereby some male lineages in ancient times were much more successful than others in leaving large numbers of descendants; e.g.Niall of the Nine Hostages in 4th- and 5th-century Ireland, andSomerled in 12th-century Scotland.

With the advent ofwhole-genome sequencing and more completeanalysis of ancient DNA, many of Sykes's theories regarding the origins ofthe British have been largely invalidated. A 2018 study argues that over 90% of the DNA of the Neolithic population of Britain was overturned by a North EuropeanBell Beaker population, originating in thePontic–Caspian steppe, as part of an long-term migration process that brought large amounts of Steppe DNA (including theR1b haplogroup) to North and West Europe.^[11] Modern autosomal genetic clustering is testament to this fact, as both modern and Iron Age British and Irish samples cluster genetically very closely with other North European populations, rather than Iberians,Galicians, Basques, or those from thesouth of France.^[12][13] Similar studies have concluded that the Anglo-Saxons, while not replacing the previous populations outright, may have contributed more to the gene pool in much of England than Sykes had claimed.^[14][15][16]

Sykes used a similar approach to that inThe Seven Daughters of Eve to identify nine ancient (Palaeolithic toJōmon period) "clan mothers" of Japanese ancestry, "all different from the seven European equivalents".^[17] While this work garnered some brief press attention, it did not culminate in a book, and has not had a significant impact in academic circles.

More importantly, his Pacific mtDNA genetic sample collections and analyses in the 1990s demonstrated thatPolynesia and the rest ofOceania were historically entirely populated from Asia, not (even in part) from the Americas. The latter idea – a notion of migration of people from South and Central American into the Pacifc, and extensive maritime trade between the regions – has never had solid evidence to support it, yet remained stubbornly popular in certain circles for over half a century, especially after being heavily promoted by adventurerThor Heyerdahl from 1938 onward in books, films, and on television.^[1]

Sykes and his team at Oxford University carried out DNA analysis of purportedYeti ("Abominable Snowman") tissue samples, and hypothesized they may have come from an inter-specific bearhybrid, produced from a mating betweenbrown andpolar bears. Sykes toldBBC News:^[18][19]

I think this bear, which nobody has seen alive, may still be there and may have quite a lot of polar bear in it. It may be some sort of hybrid and if its behaviour is different from normal bears, which is what eyewitnesses report, then I think that may well be the source of the mystery and the source of the legend.

He conducted another similar survey in 2014, this time examining samples attributed not just to Yeti but also toBigfoot and other "anomalous primates". The study concluded that two of the 30 samples tested most closely resembled the genome of aPalaeolithic polar bear, and that the other 28 were from living mammals.^[20]

The samples were subsequently re-analysed by Ceiridwen Edwards and Ross Barnett. They concluded that the mutation that had led to the match with a polar bear was a damaged artefact, and suggested that the two hair samples were in fact fromHimalayan brown bears (U. arctos isabellinus). These bears are known in parts of Nepal asdzu-the (meaning 'cattle-bear'),^{[clarification needed]} and have been associated with the myth of the Yeti.^[21][22] Sykes and Melton acknowledged that theirGenBank search was in error but suggested that the hairs were instead a match to a modernpolar bear specimen "from the Diomede Islands in the Bering Sea reported in the same paper". They maintained that they did not see any sign of damage in their sequences and commented that they had "no reason to doubt the accuracy of these two sequences any more than the other 28 presented in the paper".^[23] Multiple further analyses, including replication of the single analysis conducted by Sykes and his team, were carried out in a study conducted by Eliécer E. Gutiérrez, a researcher at theSmithsonian Institution, and Ronald H. Pine, affiliated with theUniversity of Kansas. All of these analyses found that the relevant genetic variation in brown bears makes it impossible to assign, with certainty, the Himalayan samples to either that species or to the polar bear. Because brown bears occur in the Himalayas, Gutiérrez and Pine stated that there is no reason to believe that the samples in question came from anything other than ordinary Himalayan brown bears.^[24]

Despite the cold academic reception, and the hypothesis not panning out, Sykes's idea was not on-its-face implausible, asbrown × polar bear hybridization is well-documented elsewhere.

Sykes married Sue Foden, whom he met when she was a student in Oxford. They were married from 1978 to 1984, with the union ending inannulment, but they remained close, and their son was born in 1991.^[1] Sykes married a second time, to Janis Wilson; this ended in divorce.^[1] His partner and wife throughout his later years was Danish painter Ulla Plougmand; they began their relationship in 2007.^[1]

As a youth, Sykes had been active in distance running, swimming, andrugby.^[1] As an adult, he was an avid cyclist andfly angler.^[1] Also a keencroquet player, he represented Ireland in the 1984 Home Internationals.^[25]

Skyes was the founder and chairman of a now-defunctgenetic genealogy company,Oxford Ancestors, operating 2001–2021.^[26] This has been claimed to be the firstdirect-to-consumer business of this sort,^[1] though this is difficult to ascertain since many such companies, in various countries, came and went.^[27]

Sykes died on 10 December 2020.^[1][26]

• Sykes, Bryan (1999).The Human Inheritance: Genes, Language, and Evolution.Oxford University Press.ISBN 978-0-19-850274-6.
• —— (2002).The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry.Corgi Books.ISBN 978-0-552-14876-4.
• —— (2003).Adam's Curse: A Future Without Men.Bantam Books.ISBN 978-0-593-05004-0.
• —— (2006).Blood of the Isles: Exploring the Genetic Roots of Our Tribal History. Bantam.ISBN 978-0-593-05652-3. Published in North America asSaxons, Vikings, and Celts: The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland.W. W. Norton & Co. /Penguin Random House Canada. 2007.ISBN 978-0-393-33075-5.
• —— (2011).DNA USA: A Genetic Biography of America. W. W. Norton & Co.ISBN 978-0-393-07804-6.
• —— (2015).The Nature of the Beast: The First Scientific Evidence on the Survival of Apemen into Modern Times.Hodder & Stoughton.ISBN 978-1-444-79126-6.
• —— (2016).Bigfoot, Yeti, and the Last Neanderthal: A Geneticist's Search for Modern Apemen.Disinformation Books.ISBN 978-1-93887515-1.
• —— (2019).Once a Wolf: The Science Behind Our Dogs' Astonishing Genetic Evolution.Liveright Publishing.ISBN 978-1-63149-379-9.

• Adams, Guy (20 September 2006)."Celts descended from Spanish fishermen, study finds".The Independent.
• "We're nearly all Celts under the skin".The Scotsman. 21 September 2006.
• Baker, Martin (15 February 2008)."Curiosity drives the gene genie to a £1m turnover".The Daily Telegraph.

• 1947 births
• 2020 deaths
• Recent African origin of modern humans
• English geneticists
• Genetic genealogists
• English science writers
• Fellows of Wolfson College, Oxford
• People educated at Eltham College
• English croquet players
• Ötzi

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