在家里发现耗子的足迹对多数人来说至少也是烦恼的事情。但对于英国约克大学的杰里米?瑟尔(Jeremy Searle)教授来说，这些足迹却是含金量丰厚的信息库，能帮助破解人类迁徙史中的疑难问题。
最新的英国《皇家学会学报B》（Proceedings of the Royal Society B）刊载了他的论文，介绍他率领研究班子追踪欧洲各地老鼠群遗传基因的结果。
科学家已经知道，西欧的家鼠是在3000年前左右的铁器时代从中东过来的。它们住在人家里，在人类迁徙时也往往躲在家当里一起搬迁，并一起乘船飘洋过海。
瑟尔对英国96个不同地点的310只耗子的线粒体DNA(MtDNA，即Mitochondiral DNA)进行研究。这种展示母系遗传的基因信息显示，英国本土的家鼠与德国耗子是近亲，而苏格兰以北的奥克尼(Orkney)群岛上的耗子却是北欧血统的。
人们早已知道过去1000多年中有大批来自现在德国和丹麦地区的人类部落侵占并迁移到英国，也知道苏格兰北部，包括奥克尼岛是11—12世纪挪威“海盗”(Vikings)帝国的地盘。
但是这些北欧人的足迹如何踏到这里，以及格陵兰、冰岛和现在属于加拿大的纽芬兰岛，却仍然有许多疑问。
瑟尔教授说，他的发现可望为解开这些以及人类迁徙史中的其他疑难问题提供有用的工具。
研究者对DNA的研究也发现，新西兰的家鼠祖先大多来自英国，不过也有一些来自东欧和南亚，反映了移民的不同来源。他说：“对家鼠MtDNA的研究还有可能揭示人类历史其它新的领域。”（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐原始出处：
Proceedings of the Royal Society B，doi：10.1098/rspb.2008.0958，Jeremy B. Searle，Fríða Jóhannesdóttir
Of mice and (Viking?) men: phylogeography of British and Irish house mice
Jeremy B. Searle1, Catherine S. Jones2, 3, İslam Gündüz1, 4, Moira Scascitelli1, 5, 6, Eleanor P. Jones1, Jeremy S. Herman1, 7, R. Victor Rambau1, 8, Leslie R. Noble2, 3, R.J. Berry2, Mabel D. Giménez1, Fríða Jóhannesdóttir1
The west European subspecies of house mouse (Mus musculus domesticus) has gained much of its current widespread distribution through commensalism with humans. This means that the phylogeography of M. m. domesticus should reflect patterns of human movements. We studied restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) and DNA sequence variations in mouse mitochondrial (mt) DNA throughout the British Isles (328 mice from 105 localities, including previously published data). There is a major mtDNA lineage revealed by both RFLP and sequence analyses, which is restricted to the northern and western peripheries of the British Isles, and also occurs in Norway. This distribution of the ‘Orkney’ lineage fits well with the sphere of influence of the Norwegian Vikings and was probably generated through inadvertent transport by them. To form viable populations, house mice would have required large human settlements such as the Norwegian Vikings founded. The other parts of the British Isles (essentially most of mainland Britain) are characterized by house mice with different mtDNA sequences, some of which are also found in Germany, and which probably reflect both Iron Age movements of people and mice and earlier development of large human settlements. MtDNA studies on house mice have the potential to reveal novel aspects of human history.
