Ancient Ice Man's Genome Sequenced via 4,000-Year-Old Hair

Have you seen this man? Probably not: He lived 4,000 years ago. The image to the left is not a wanted poster, but rather an artist's impression of Inuk, the name given to him by the scientists who sequenced his genome. It's the first time the genetic code of an ancient human has been deciphered this completely, and the researchers published their results this week in Nature. Inuk died on an island off Greenland called Qeqertasussuk. Researchers don't know the cause of death, but they do know he left bits of hair and bone that the permafrost preserved. Scientists found the thick clumps of hair—which could be the remnants of a 4,000-year-old haircut—in the 1980s, and stored them in the National Museum of Denmark. Today's DNA sequencing technology allowed them to look back in time at what he may have been like.