New preprint led by Hrushikesh Loya, me, and Simon Myers where we introduce GhostBuster! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
The idea is to find all the different ways a target individual relates to reference groups in genealogies, to "bust the ghosts" in our ancestry.
Delighted to be part of this new special issue of the Cambridge Archaeological Journal on โKinship Troubleโ (link to full Table of Contents in next post) with perspectives from archaeology, archaeogenetics, and social anthropology. Critical as data from archaeogenetics becomes pervasive.
Delighted to share this new study of seasonality and mobility in the fascinating Kura-Araxes culture (3500-2500 BC) of the Caucasus and surrounding regions, led by Gwendoline Maurer. @uclarchaeology.bsky.social
journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...
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:
โข erase community-defined relationships
โข reinforce Western biases
โข and even cause real harm in policy + research
Special Issue: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Can you believe that until now there were more genomes sequenced for the woolly mammoth than for living African elephants?
Today, we bring you the first genomic, continent-scale analyses of 232 high-quality genomes of both species, the savanna and forest elephant.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Congratulations!! ๐
Very well deserved!
This is awesome! I will have to use this as an example when teaching PCA...
I am not one of the authors, but @fravasini.bsky.social or @lovedalen.bsky.social might know what the higher PCs look like for this!
Ooh! Now I can't un-see it ๐
Great example of genetic data in PCA space mirroring geography - this time in Scandinavian lemmings!
New @cpgsthlm.bsky.social paper! Unofficial title according to me: "Lemmings mirror geography within Fennoscandia" Wink, wink ๐ค
Check this thread about our latest paper, written by one of the lead authors, @officialernst.bsky.social. It was such an exciting project!
Very excited to share our study of an ancient environmental genome extracted from lake sediment! It originates from a brown bear that lived around 9,600 years ago close to the last ice-sheet remains in northern Sweden, and has an unexpected mitochondrial haplogroup. 1/7 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Hot off the press!! New open access special edition of the Cambridge Archaeological Journal on "Kinship Trouble". www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
All papers are open access, and the papers, I think, really capture this dynamic moment in studies of past kinship.
EGP1K: Whole-Genome Sequencing of 1,024 Egyptians Characterizes Population Structure and Genetic Diversity www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.04...
Our institute @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social starting a new Masters program with the University of Leipzig. If you are a bachelors student graduating soon, and would like to get involved with our research during you MSc, consider applying :) www.uni-leipzig.de/en/studying/...
๐๐๐
DNA Analysis of Ancient Seeds Reveals Early Grape Domestication in France by 650 B.C. #GrapeDomestication #Winemaking #AncientSeeds #DNAAnalysis #FrenchWine
How did catastrophic black death and myxomatosis outbreaks on an isolated island affect the genomes of humans & rabbits, respectively?
And how did the microbes evolve in response to this?
PhD position @cpgsthlm.bsky.social with Anders Gรถtherstrรถm and me as supervisors!
su.varbi.com/en/what:job/...
The microARCH Lab and the Penn State Ancient Biomolecules Research Environment (PSABRE) in the Anthropology Department at PSU are excited to announce two new research position openings for motivated scholars eager to work at the forefront of microbial genomics, aDNA, and biomolecular anthropology
A mosaic of painted tiled with various birds, a goat, a hare and a hedgehog, and a mythical creature with the body of a leopard and the head of human
Medieval (13th century) Seljuk painted tiles, of various real and mythical creatures, at the Karatay Tile Works Museum in Konya, Tรผrkiye. #MosaicMonday
The special issue Functional and Adaptive Effects of Genomic Structural Variation is now out in Heredity. Many thanks to all contributors for their submissions, to the editorial team at @heredityjournal.bsky.social and to @ellenleffler.bsky.social, @mydennis.bsky.social & @gokcumenlab.bsky.social!
In the early 1990s, Bruno Latour was not hired at the Institute for Advanced Study. I wrote an article about that decision and what it reveals about the science wars and the history of science studies, now live @histsocialscience.bsky.social
muse.jhu.edu/article/985884
๐ข Our aDNA study has been published today in
@natcomms.nature.com! A great collaboration with Ricardo Rodrรญguez, Anders Gรถtherstrรถm, Carina Schlebusch & team.
๐๐ฏ๐ข๐ญ๐บ๐ด๐ช๐ด ๐ฐ๐ง ๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ฅ๐ช๐ฆ๐ท๐ข๐ญ ๐ฃ๐ถ๐ณ๐ช๐ข๐ญ๐ด ๐ง๐ณ๐ฐ๐ฎ ๐๐ฃ๐ช๐ป๐ข ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ท๐ฆ๐ข๐ญ๐ด ๐จ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ฆ๐ต๐ช๐ค ๐ข๐ฏ๐ฅ ๐ฑ๐ข๐ต๐ฉ๐ฐ๐จ๐ฆ๐ฏ๐ช๐ค ๐ฅ๐ช๐ท๐ฆ๐ณ๐ด๐ช๐ต๐บ ๐ฅ๐ถ๐ณ๐ช๐ฏ๐จ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐๐ด๐ญ๐ข๐ฎ๐ช๐ค ๐ฑ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ช๐ฐ๐ฅ. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Map of the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages, showing the Islamic areas of influence and Ibiza.
Ricardo, lead author of the article, processing one of the samples in the lab.
New paper alert ๐จ
Researchers at #CPGStlhm have analyzed ancient genomes from an Islamic cemetery in Ibiza (950โ1150 CE) ๐๏ธ
They found a highly diverse community with ancestry from Europe and North Africa!
The paper was published in @natcomms.nature.com
OA link www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Bronze figurine of an enslaved person from Roman Britain on a conference poster advertising a conference next month in Toronto
Bluesky friends, I am happy to advertise a conference on ancient and medieval slave trading in the Mediterranean, co-organized by myself and Elizabeth Fentress, to be held in Toronto next month (April 15-17, 2026). Contact me via email (rather than here) or the email on the poster for more info!
Check out our bear-y cool paper about Scandinavian brown bears published today in Royal Society Open Science!๐ป More about it in the thread๐งต @cpgsthlm.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1098/rsos...
Congratulations @amandalindahl.bsky.social and team, so glad to be part of this super interesting research ๐ปโ๐งฌ
Side view of specimen with measurement and tag
Other side view of specimen with measurements and tag
As promised, what follows is a behind-the-scenes story of how we came across this permafrost-mummified tissue and tried to determine which species it belonged to.
Now available for preorder, with promo code TCCCR2026, "The Cambridge Companion to Classics and Race," a major intervention against the decades-old orthodoxy of the alleged anachronism of "race" and "racism" for the study of the ancient past. www.cambridge.org/core/books/c...
Come work with me on the William & Mary Anthropology Collections! We're looking for a postdoc in North American archaeology, preferably with experience on collections. Apply by April 2 for full consideration. ๐บ๐๏ธ #academicsky