The latest articles

  • by Miguel de Navascues
    The analysis of the abundance of radiocarbon samples through time has become a popular method to address questions of demography in archaeology. The history of this approach is marked by the use of the Sum of Probability Distributions (SPD), a key methodological development that first allowed researchers to visualize the abundance of radiocarbon samples on […]
  • by Frederik Valeur Seersholm
    In the period between 5,300 and 4,900 calibrated years before present (cal. bp), populations across large parts of Europe underwent a period of demographic decline1,2. However, the cause of this so-called Neolithic decline is still debated. Some argue for an agricultural crisis resulting in the decline3, others for the spread of an early form of plague4. […]
  • by Gwenna Breton
    Sub-equatorial Africa is today inhabited predominantly by Bantu-speaking groups of Western African descent who brought agriculture to the Luangwa valley in eastern Zambia similar to 2000 years ago. Before their arrival the area was inhabited by hunter-gatherers, who in many cases were subsequently replaced, displaced or assimilated. In Zambia, we know little about the genetic […]
  • by Isabel Alves
    The demographical history of France remains largely understudied despite its central role toward understanding modern population structure across Western Europe. Here, by exploring publicly available Europe-wide genotype datasets together with the genomes of 3234 present-day and six newly sequenced medieval individuals from Northern France, we found extensive fine-scale population structure across Brittany and the downstream […]
  • by Hugo Zeberg
    Modern human ancestors diverged from the ancestors of Neandertals and Denisovans about 600,000 years ago. Until about 40,000 years ago, these three groups existed in parallel, occasionally met, and exchanged genes. A critical question is why modern humans, and not the other two groups, survived, became numerous, and developed complex cultures. Here, we discuss genetic […]
  • by Nora Bergfeldt
    With the Neolithic transition, human lifestyle shifted from hunting and gathering to farming. This change altered subsistence patterns, cultural expression, and population structures as shown by the archaeological/zooarchaeological record, as well as by stable isotope and ancient DNA data. Here, we used metagenomic data to analyse if the transitions also impacted the microbiome composition in […]
  • by Emrah Kirdök
    Prehistoric chewed pitch has proven to be a useful source of ancient DNA, both from humans and their microbiomes. Here we present the metagenomic analysis of three pieces of chewed pitch from Huseby Klev, Sweden, that were dated to 9,890-9,540 before present. The metagenomic profile exposes a Mesolithic oral microbiome that includes opportunistic oral pathogens. […]
  • by Laura Niiranen
    Epigenetic changes have been identified as amajor driver of fundamentalmetabolic pathways. More specifically, the importance of epigenetic regulatory mechanisms for biological processes like speciation and embryogenesis has beenwell documented and revealed the direct link between epigenetic modifications and various diseases. In this review, we focus on epigenetic changes in animals with special attention on human […]
  • by Maciej Chylenski
    The demographic history of East-Central Europe after the Neolithic period remains poorly explored, despite this region being on the confluence of various ecological zones and cultural entities. Here, the descendants of societies associated with steppe pastoralists form Early Bronze Age were followed by Middle Bronze Age populations displaying unique characteristics. Particularly, the predominance of collective […]

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