With the development of the Human Genome Project, a complete reference
sequence of the human genome became available. As new sequencing platforms and
bioinformatics tools were continuously developed, sequencing costs were reduced. The
emergence of several genome projects was grounded in such developments, allowing
the scrutinizing, at the genome level, of the present human genetic variation, the
analysis of extinct species (such as the Neanderthal) as well as the study of non-human
primates. A general characterization of the main genome projects with potential impact
in the field of Biological Anthropology is performed in this chapter. Examples of
studies which profited from the genomic data produced are also provided. As high
resolution studies are becoming affordable and faster, anthropologists around the world
are being challenged to benefit and exploit the data being generated from the several
international large-scale genomic projects. If they are able to meet this challenge,
traditional questions of anthropological importance can be addressed in a new and
much more efficient way.
Keywords: 1000 Genomes, ENCODE, Genographic, GTEx, HapMap, Human
genome, Human genome projects, Neanderthal genome, Non-human primates
genome projects, Roadmap Epigenomics.
