Screenshot of a PDF of the published article. Title: "The tie that binds us? Challenging the primacy of DNA in kinship studies and re-centring community in defining human connections across time"

DNA is not the same as kinship.

Our perspective paper argues that treating genetics as the ultimate proof of identity or family can:

• erase community-defined relationships
• reinforce Western biases
• and even cause real harm in policy + research

Special Issue: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

SAVE THE DATE!
SMBE Satellite Meeting on Gene–Culture Co-Evolution: Molecular Perspectives on Human History and Diversity
🌍 University of Cagliari, Italy
- Abstract submission and travel grants deadline: 30 April
- Registration opening soon
- Conference dates: 21-23 September 2026

Mehmet Somel (Middle East Technical University, Turkey) will join us in Copenhagen to present a plenary talk on the latest advances in human evolution, at SMBE 2026.

Title: "Human societies past and present in light of ancient DNA"

#SMBE2026

A large mass grave from the Early Iron Age indicates selective violence towards women and children in the Carpathian Basin - Nature Human Behaviour In this analysis of biomolecular and archaeological data from a ninth-century BCE mass grave in the Carpathian Basin, Fibiger et al. find evidence for the targeted killing of mostly unrelated women an...

Really excited to share our new paper on the Early Iron Age mass grave at Gomolava (9th c. BCE), a study I had the pleasure to work on during my PhD with an amazing group of co-authors across multiple disciplines. Open access link: www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵👇

Scientists no Longer Find Twitter Professionally Useful, and have Switched to Bluesky Synopsis. Social media has become widely used by the scientific community for a variety of professional uses, including networking and public outreach. For

Bluesky is the new science Twitter, new study by @whysharksmatter.bsky.social and Julia Wester concludes!

"Results show that for every reported professional benefit that scientists once gained from Twitter, scientists can now gain that benefit more effectively on Bluesky than on Twitter."

Ανοιχτή επιστολή σχετικά με τις εξελίξεις στην European Association of Archaeologists - Σύλλογος Ελλήνων Αρχαιολόγων Ανοιχτή επιστολή σχετικά με τις εξελίξεις στην European Association of Archaeologists Κατόπιν της ομόφωνης απόφασης των μελών του…

The Association of Greek Archaeologists has published an open letter withdrawing its participation from the EAA Athens advisory committee 🍉
archaeol.gr/anoichti-epi...

Assessing Ancient DNA Sampling Strategies for Natural Selection Inference in Humans Using Allele Frequency Time Series Data Abstract. The increased availability of genomic data from ancient humans allows estimating the strength of natural selection at a given locus using time se

Interested in using aDNA time-series datasets to estimate selection?

Our study "Assessing Ancient DNA Sampling Strategies for Natural Selection Inference in Humans Using Allele Frequency Time Series Data" is now out in GBE! doi.org/10.1093/gbe/... @genomebiolevol.bsky.social @cegamorim.bsky.social

🧬 Now published in Bioinformatics Advances: "pygenstrat: A Python package for EIGENSTRAT data processing" by @dilekopter.bsky.social

Full article available: https://doi.org/10.1093/bioadv/vbag022

🚨 6th HAAM-RADIO Webinar
🌍 African Population Demography and Social Organizations of the Past
🗓️ Wed, 28 Jan 2026
Register here:
👉 forms.gle/FuBTTX4wreW4...

#AncientDNA #HumanGenetics #AfricanHistory #HAAM #Webinar
@abinstitute.bsky.social @cesarforteslima.bsky.social
@hildegunnink.bsky.social

A 5500-year-old Treponema pallidum genome from Sabana de Bogotá, Colombia Treponematosis, a bacterial infection caused by Treponema pallidum subspecies and T. carateum (yaws, bejel, syphilis, pinta), has afflicted humans for millennia. Despite paleopathological evidence and...

Treponemal diseases might have been with us much longer than previously thought! In our recent study, we used ancient DNA to reconstruct a 5,500-year-old 𝘛𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘮𝘢 𝘱𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘥𝘶𝘮 genome, revealing a previously unknown divergent subspecies.
You can check it out here:
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Nature Aging @nataging.nature.com turns 5 and asked ~50 researchers to reflect on the field. I am honored to contribute alongside colleagues whose work has shaped how I think about #aging science.

Past, present and future perspectives on the science of aging
www.nature.com/articles/s43...

📢 We're hiring a postdoc (33 months) in human evolutionary genomics / paleogenomics / statistical genetics, Paris 🇫🇷
Project on selection on disease-associated variants, integrating ancient genomes, GWAS, and Ancestral Rec. Graphs.
Start May 2026 (flexible).
Apply here: emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/U...

I will be recruiting two PhDs for my ERC Project HERDPATH - let's discover out how livestock and pathogens evolved together using #aDNA. Projects will be animal or pathogen focused but will be in dialogue.

Details at my quaint website below. Deadline 3rd October.

kevingdaly.github.io

The University of Texas at Austin seeks a postdoctoral researcher in Ancient DNA. Requirements include a PhD, DNA analysis experience, and strong computational skills. Apply to Ainash Childebayeva. More info: ainash.childebayeva@austin.utexas.edu. #postdoc

#SMBE2025 Symposium 28: Human history and past social organisation in the light of palaeogenomes: new methods, new findings session B

🔗 smbe2025.scimeeting.cn/en/web/program/25070

🌾 Agriculture didn’t always spread with mobility of people.
New ancient DNA research shows that in western Anatolia, while communities stayed put, farming and village life spread through the movement of ideas and practices.

Révolution néolithique: Quand les idées voyagent plus loin que les individus Le passage à l'agriculture et à un mode de vie sédentaire est l'un des grands tournants de l'histoire de l'humanité. Pourtant, la manière dont ce mode de vie néolithique s'est propagé du Croissant fer...

📰 News Recherche
Une équipe de @unil.bsky.social @sib.swiss METU, @hacettepe.bsky.social met en lumière la manière dont les premiers modes de vie agricoles se sont diffusés - et comment, parfois, les idées ont voyagé plus loin que les individus.
➡️ www.unil.ch/news/1750772...

@dilekopter.bsky.social

🧬In Neolithic Çatalhöyük, family was built on social relations rather than blood ties.
Genetic analysis shows that over time, co-residents were no longer genetic relatives. Female subadults were buried with 5x more grave goods.
🔍A surprising story of Neolithic social life.

Türkçe haberi de şurada: haber.metu.edu.tr/tr/2025/06/f...

I didn’t know much about the Neolithic, neither had I ever heard the saying « pots don’t equal people ».

Well that changed, thanks to a real fun interview with @dilekopter.bsky.social and her colleagues behind this study (text also available in English, see comments) 👇
#archaeology #paleogenomics

Our research confirms the archaeological adage "pots don't equal people." and showed ideas traveled further than people in the ancient Aegean.

"Background mobility", the low but steady movement of individuals sharing ideas and materials, can explain how Neolithic practices spread without mass migration in early Neolithic of Western Anatolia.

In West Anatolia, we found thousands of years of genetic continuity despite rapid cultural changes. People adopted farming through idea exchange, not population replacement.

Key findings: Our results showed that the Neolithic transition wasn't uniform: some regions saw cultural adoption, others experienced population movement, and some combined both.

Integrating paleogenomics and material culture data we found a complex mosaic of cultural change dynamics. This new methodology integrating genomics and archaeology reveals the diverse ways people interacted and changed during this period.

Out-of-Anatolia: Cultural and genetic interactions during the Neolithic expansion in the Aegean West Anatolia has been a crucial yet elusive element in the Neolithic expansion from the Fertile Crescent to Europe. In this work, we describe the changing genetic and cultural landscapes of early Hol...

Happy to share our new study from my PhD on the spread of farming across Anatolia and into the Aegean and then into Europe. @compevohumang.bsky.social

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

👇🏽

Pre-processing of paleogenomes: mitigating reference bias and postmortem damage in ancient genome data - Genome Biology We investigate alternative strategies against reference bias and postmortem damage in low coverage paleogenomes. Compared to alignment to the linear reference genome, we show that masking known polymo...

Check out our new paper!

We studied reference bias in ancient genomes and proposed bamRefine, a new algorithm for PMD-correction.

We showed that graph alignment + bamRefine is the most practical solution to mitigate bias, and we urge the community to publish raw data!

doi.org/10.1186/s130...