Frido Welker

Mummy of the juvenile duck-billed dinosaur Edmontosaurus annectens preserved as a dried carcass resting on its ribcage some 66 million years ago. Large areas of scaly, wrinkled skin and a tall fleshy crest over its back were preserved as in a thin layer of clay over its fossilized skeleton.

New findings in Science offer insights into Wyoming’s “dinosaur mummies,” revealing that the stunningly preserved skin, spikes, and hooves of duck-billed dinosaurs are not fossilized flesh at all, but delicate clay molds formed by microbes as the creatures decayed. https://scim.ag/47DYjBi

And that was it, the 11th @icaz-news.bsky.social AGPM meeting here in Copenhagen is over! Lots of interesting talks and posters on genetics, proteomics and morphometrics in zooarchaeological reseeach, with attendees from 5 different continents! Thanks to everyone for such an enjoyable meeting :).

New methods on the block: Taxonomic identification of archaeological bones in resin-embedded sediments through paleoproteomics Abstract. The integration of biomolecular studies of past organisms with geoarchaeological studies can significantly improve our understanding of the relat

📄 New paper 📣 of @matrixerc.bsky.social & @welkergroup.bsky.social! We show that microstratigraphic-scale #paleoproteomics works in intact sediments - opening new ways to explore ancient ecosystems & hominin behaviour 🌍🦴
@erc.europa.eu @icarehb.bsky.social 🔗 academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

Now let's see what we can learn about Pleistocene hominin behaviors using this approach.

Thanks to @zandraselina.bsky.social for taking the lead on this one, @veraaldeias.bsky.social for the fun and ongoing collaboration, and 🇪🇺 @erc.europa.eu for funding PROSPER and MATRIX.

Palaeoproteomics goes micro! In our latest publication, we demonstrate that taxonomic identifications can be obtained using shotgun proteomic approaches on microscopic bone fragments in resin-embedded sediment blocks!

🔁Please share - we remind the SMBE community that the Call for Symposia for #SMBE2026 in Copenhagen is open.

We invite you to submit a symposium proposal to help shape the scientific content of our annual meeting.

🗓️Deadline: October 15th

More info: smbe2026.org/symposia
@official-smbe.bsky.social

Article reads: Woman named as Archbishop of Canterbury in historic first The 63-year-old archbishop-designate is married to Eamonn Mullally, with whom she has two children. Originally from Woking in Surrey, she was the UK's chief nursing officer from 1999 to 2004.

This article manages to name her husband before it names… her.

Paris and @welkergroup.bsky.social are ready for #ESHE2025!

🚨🚨Today is the last day to register to join us in October!! 🚨🚨 (See further details in the note and link below)!

ICAZ AGPM 2025 Exploring the Past, Informing the Future: Two Decades of Interdisciplinary Approaches in Archaeozoology

We look forward to welcoming you to Copenhagen in October! Please find further information, including on our exciting keynotes by Jean-Denis Vigne, Mary Prendergast, and Eline Lorenzen: sites.google.com/palaeome.org...

ICAZ AGPM 2025 - Registration Conference registration has opened as of 04 July 2025; the deadline to register is 15 September 2025. The registration fee includes: access to all sessions, welcome reception, coffee breaks, lunches, ...

🐑Just a few days left!🐐 Registration for the #ICAZ-AGPM Archaeozoology, Genetics, Proteomics, and Morphometrics working group meeting @icaz-news.bsky.social 🐃 is open until ⚠️Monday September 15th⚠️!
⬇️
sites.google.com/palaeome.org....

There is still time to apply to these great early career opportunities!!

Three Junior Research Group leader positions at the new University of Tübingen Cluster of Excellence 'HUMAN ORIGINS' (in biomechanics, phenotype-genotype interactions, experimental archaeology - see links)

Deadline Sept. 10!

Symposia - SMBE 2026 - Copenhagen Denmark SMBE 2026 Symposia Check deadlines and important dates below.  Days Hours Minutes Seconds Conference Symposia We are now accepting proposals for symposium for the 2026 Annual meeting taking place in C...

📣 The Call for Symposia for the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution (SMBE) 2026 Annual Meeting is now open.

🌍 The meeting will be in Copenhagen June 28th to July 2nd

🖊️ We invite you to submit a symposium proposal and help shape the scientific content of SMBE 2026

Best the organisers

⚠️ Don't forget to register folks! ⬇️

More than 500 international scholars attended ISBA 11. Here are many of them looking up at the camera in a large group shot

Thanks to @isbarchaeology.bsky.social and @isba11.bsky.social for a great conference.

I mentioned the legacy of Henk Kars of VU who established ISBA

Geoarchaeology closed. Here is the link to the petition to save Earth Sciences @vuamsterdam.bsky.social

www.change.org/p/red-aardwe...

Ready for #ISBA11 meeting. Starting with the pre-conference #PAASTA 🤩 and the welcoming. It’s already being great to connect with peers from Huerta-Sánchez lab @lindaongaro.bsky.social @marcocapo.bsky.social and more (not all in this network). And remember to visit me at my poster No.254 on Friday.

Are you interested in doing a PhD in Copenhagen? Interested in studying Neanderthals and Denisovans which live on in our genomes?
Than you are more than welcome to apply to join my group starting Jan 2026 :)

candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...

Please reach out if you have any questions!

We have arrived in Turin for @isba11.bsky.social and are very excited for the week! Don't miss the following talks and posters from the Welker Group:

Universitetslektor i människans palaeo-och populationsgenomik - Uppsala universitet Universitetslektor i människans palaeo-och populationsgenomik, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Faculty of Biology, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala universitet

#Job alert: associate professor (universitetslektor) at the program in Human #Paleogenomics and #Population #Genomics. Please see the ad for more information. Application deadline: Sept 1st. #vacancy @haam-community.bsky.social @cschlebu.bsky.social

www.uu.se/om-uu/jobba-...

Parts of the group out enjoying some Copenhagen sun and iced tea!

For the last six months, @adrianaleite.bsky.social has been visiting us from @icarehb.bsky.social. Thank you for this time Adriana, it has been a joy to have you in our group and we hope to see you again soon!

Parts of the Welker Group taking a boat ride around the canals of Copenhagen, all looking very happy!

For the last six months, we've had Lucas Siero from Utrecht University visiting us for an internship, working on some #palaeoproteomics method development. It was a joy to have you join our group Lucas, and good luck with the rest of your studies!

How we use game mechanics to explore and educate about archaeology in our board game Cultivaria- a thread.

#archaeology #boardgame

Eighteen million years of diverse enamel proteomes from the East African Rift - Nature The isolation of dental proteins from fossils deposited 1.5 million to 18 million years ago in the Turkana Basin in Kenya, a tropical region, demonstrate the promise of dental enamel for palaeoproteom...

We published a new paper on enamel paleoproteomics from teeth up to 18 million years old from the Turkana Basin in Kenya. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Oldest proteins yet recovered from 18-million-year-old teeth The oldest protein fragments ever recovered have been extracted from fossilised teeth found in Kenya's Rift Valley, revealing the remains belonged to the ancient ancestors of rhinoceroses and elephant...

The record for the oldest protein ever found has been smashed five-fold after analyzing ancient fossilized teeth 🦷

@paleoproteomicist.bsky.social @fridowelker.bsky.social @harvardpress.bsky.social @smithsonianmag.bsky.social @newscientist.com

www.newscientist.com/article/2487...

Lots of exciting potential now for truly deep-time #palaeoproteomics in palaeontology!

Eighteen million years of diverse enamel proteomes from the East African Rift - Nature The isolation of dental proteins from fossils deposited 1.5 million to 18 million years ago in the Turkana Basin in Kenya, a tropical region, demonstrate the promise of dental enamel for palaeoproteom...

Two great new studies out in @nature.com today, pushing back the recovery of dental enamel proteins to 21+ million years in the Arctic (www.nature.com/articles/s41...) and 18+ million years in East Africa (www.nature.com/articles/s41...).

Woo-Hoo! This has been a long time coming, and in much testing (beta testing) but the integrated beta more functionality - smooth genome scrolling, nice uploads, and gene + function pages.

Don't hesitate to reach out to the organising team in case you have questions or additional dietary requirements than the options listed.

ICAZ AGPM 2025 - Registration Conference registration has opened as of 04 July 2025. The registration fee includes: access to all sessions, welcome reception, coffee breaks, lunches, certificate of attendance. Registration can be...

Registration is open for the 11th #ICAZ-AGPM meeting taking place this October in Copenhagen! We're looking forward to four days of #archaeozoology #aDNA #morphometrics & #palaeoproteomics.
sites.google.com/palaeome.org...

⚠️registration is now open for the ICAZ-AGPM meeting in Copenhagen this coming October⬇️ We're looking forward to welcoming you to @ucph.bsky.social @ucph-soa.bsky.social for four days of research on interdisciplinary archaeozoology.