GLOBETROTTER Admixture modelling

GLOBETROTTER is an R program, originally described in Hellenthal et al (2014), that can identify, date and describe admixture events occurring in the ancestral history of a given target population within the last ~4,500 years.

Unlike similar programs, it requires no a priori specification of surrogates for the original sources involved in the admixture event(s) in the ancestry of the target population. Instead you provide GLOBETROTTER with DNA information (as summarized by companion program CHROMOPAINTERv2) on multiple sampled groups (or "surrogates") that may or may not be related to ancestral sources of the target population. GLOBETROTTER then uses these sampled groups to identify whether the target population descends from any admixture event(s), and - if so - it determines precisely when the event(s) occurred and the admixing source groups involved. To describe each original admixing source, GLOBETROTTER provides our "best-guess" of the single sampled surrogate group that genetically best represents the admixing source, but also represents the admixing source as a mixture of the the DNA of all sampled surrogate groups (often many of which are inferred not to contribute to the mixture at all), allowing for a richer characterization and subsequent interpretation.

GLOBETROTTER is under rapid development and hence we ask you to email Garrett Hellenthal to acquire GLOBETROTTER (and ChromoPainterv2 which is needed to perform painting suitable for GLOBETROTTER) and be put on the list for receiving updates.