Evan Irving-Pease

Ancient DNA insights into diverse pathogens and their hosts Nature Reviews Genetics - Ancient DNA techniques are being applied to study increasingly diverse pathogens of the past. The authors review the latest insights into pathogen–host coevolution,...

Lovely to work with @blevinske.bsky.social, @paleogenomics.bsky.social & Verena Schuenemann on " Ancient DNA insights into diverse pathogens and their hosts"! Read it at rdcu.be/eSVPN

Homo sapiens-specific evolution unveiled by ancient southern African genomes - Nature The genomes of 28 ancient southern African individuals dated to between 10,200 and 150 years before present offer insights into the evolution of Homo sapiens.

Our new ancient DNA paper has just been published!
We present 28 new genomes from southern Africa - several of them high-coverage whole genomes.
Exciting to be moving towards population-level representation of ancient southern African genetic diversity!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Congratulations!

Imputation of ancient canid genomes reveals inbreeding history over the past 10,000 years | PNAS The multi-millennia-long history between dogs and humans has placed them at the forefront of archaeological and genomic research. Despite ongoing e...

Our paper in the PNAS Special Feature on 🐕 is out!
We demonstrated the accuracy of imputing ancient canid genomes, looked at inbreeding levels over the past 10,000 years and found genomic regions resistant to ROH which were enriched for immunity and chemosensory genes.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

The dispersal of domestic cats from North Africa to Europe around 2000 years ago The domestic cat (Felis catus) descends from the African wildcat Felis lybica lybica. Its global distribution alongside humans testifies to its successful adaptation to anthropogenic environments. Unc...

What's that? 5 ancient doggy papers in 10 days is too many dogs?

Can I interest you in some cats?

Perhaps a complete retelling of cat domestication, dispersal, and replacement across Eurasia?

As you wish!

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

Cell Genomics
www.cell.com/cell-genomic...

Imputation of ancient canid genomes reveals inbreeding history over the past 10,000 years | PNAS The multi-millennia-long history between dogs and humans has placed them at the forefront of archaeological and genomic research. Despite ongoing e...

A PNAS Special Feature exclusively about dogs? Woof!
Here are 3 of the 8 that we were involved with. Congrats to @lachiescarsbrook.bsky.social & @undeaddandy.bsky.social
Dingoes!
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
German Shepherds!
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Imputation!
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

🚨 PNAS Special Feature 2 🐕

We used ancient DNA and dietary isotopes to show that landscape modification and the introduction of European dogs impacted dingo populations across Australia.

🔗 Full paper here: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

🚨 PNAS Special Feature 🐕

We analysed genomes of historical German Shepherds to reveal how bottlenecks linked to WWII and the use of popular sires led to significant declines in genomic health. We also found an early 20th century wolf-dog hybrid!

🔗 Full paper here: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

A legacy of genetic entanglement with wolves shapes modern dogs | PNAS Dogs evolved through interactions between people and gray wolves during the Late Pleistocene and have been ubiquitous in human societies ever since...

Our paper is out! Although wolves and dogs can interbreed and produce fertile offspring, hybridization between the two is rare. We found that most dogs today have low but detectable levels of post-domestication wolf ancestry that has shaped their evolution in human environments. tinyurl.com/yt4x4r7n

How a surge in ancient plagues 5000 years ago shaped humanity Plague, leprosy, smallpox and other diseases didn't jump from animals to humans when we thought. Ancient DNA is revealing where they come from and how they changed history

This is such an exciting time to be working at the interface between ancient DNA and human health! www.newscientist.com/article/2500...

State formation across cultures and the role of grain, intensive agriculture, taxation and writing - Nature Human Behaviour Opie and Atkinson conduct a global phylogenetic analysis of 868 cultures and find evidence indicating that cereal grain cultivation, not agricultural surplus, drove state formation. Their findings als...

The invention of agriculture (around 9,000 years ago) spurred the rise of early states? NO. Our research www.nature.com/articles/s41... (with @drqueue.bsky.social) in @nathumbehav.nature.com supports an alternative theory that States almost invariably formed in societies that grew cereal grains.

Very thankful to the @royalsociety.org for the opportunity to start my own research group at the Big Data Institute, @ndm.ox.ac.uk, as a Royal Society University Research Fellow! royalsociety.org/news/2025/11...

Lastly, we demonstrated the accuracy of imputation for ancient canids, paving the way for future studies to leverage the greater information content of phased haplotypes.

We observed remarkable stability in inbreeding over the past 10 Kya, until the beginning of modern breed formation, which led to a substantial increase in the number and length of ROH segments. We also found that genomic regions resistant to ROH are enriched for immunity and taste receptor genes.

(A) Genomic inbreeding coefficient (FROH) of imputed and modern dogs plotted as a function of time, calculated based on ROH. Imputed samples are colored based on their geographic grouping, while modern samples are colored in gray. A loess regression was applied with each colored shaded area depicting the SE. (B) Total number of ROH segments plotted against total ROH length for the imputed dogs. Colors correspond to age of imputed samples in years before present (ybp)., while modern samples belonging to each dog group are colored in gray. (C) Map of imputed dog samples colored by their inbreeding coefficient (FROH). Samples with FROH values above 0.1 are indicated.

Delighted to see our paper characterising the inbreeding history of dogs and wolves over the past 10,000 years published this week in @pnas.org. Work led by the excellent @katiabou.bsky.social, and co-supervised by me, Laurent Frantz and Fernando Racimo www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

We are recruiting!

If you like evolutionary biology, microbial genomics, and host-pathogen interactions we have a PhD opening at @ugiatucl.bsky.social using population-scale metagenomics to map global phage diversity and uncover evolutionary signatures that could point to new antimicrobials.

⏰ The clock is ticking❗

LESS THAN 10 DAYS LEFT to submit your abstracts (30th Nov).

Do it here👉 icp2026.palaeogenomics.org/abstracts/

Many of you are asking for the registration fees 💸. We are still working out the details, but we estimate 400-500€ for regular attendees and 300-400€ for students.

The missing heritability question is now (mostly) answered Not with a bang but with a whimper

I wrote a little bit about the "missing heritability" question and several recent studies that have brought it to a close. A short 🧵

The 2026 EMBL symposium 'Reconstructing the human past using ancient and modern genomics' is live with a fantastic invited speaker lineup!

Abstract deadline 9 June. If work is ongoing, plan for Heidelberg in September😉.

Organised by Maanasa Raghavan, @matejahajdi.bsky.social, Choongwon Jeong & me.

High-resolution mapping of a rapidly evolving complex trait reveals genotype-phenotype stability and an unpredictable genetic architecture of adaptation The extent to which adaptation can be predicted, particularly for traits with complex genetic bases, is unknown. Here, we leveraged a model complex trait, model species, and high-powered longitudinal ...

Thrilled to finally share the magnum opus of my PhD that focuses on the genetic basis of evolutionary change! Specifically, we know we can map the genetic basis of a trait, but can we tell which genes will underlie the trait shift when it evolves? doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Genomic evidence for the Holocene codispersal of dogs and humans across Eastern Eurasia As the first domestic species, dogs likely dispersed with different cultural groups during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene. To test this hypothesis, we analyzed 73 ancient dog genomes, including 17 ...

🚨 New paper alert 🚨

Our research, published today in Science, reveals remarkable concordance between human and dog genomes through time, highlighting how deeply intertwined our evolutionary histories have been over the past 11,000 years.

🔗 Read the full paper here: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The emergence and diversification of dog morphology Dogs exhibit an exceptional range of morphological diversity as a result of their long-term association with humans. Attempts to identify when dog morphological variation began to expand have been con...

In the immortal words of Sir Mix-a-Lot: "And ugh, double-up, ugh, ugh".

2 doggy papers are so much better than 1. Both studies a testament to slow science & international collaboration between brilliant people. What it's all about.

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

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

Estimation and mapping of the missing heritability of human phenotypes - Nature WGS data were used from 347,630 individuals with European ancestry in the UK Biobank to obtain high-precision estimates of coding and non-coding rare variant heritability for 34 co...

First time on Bsky and first big announcement!

I am excited to announce that our new study explaining the missing heritability of many phenotypes using WGS data from ~347,000 UK Biobank participants has just been published in @Nature.

Our manuscript is here: www.nature.com/articles/s41....

Excited to share our latest work on the factors that determine what genes we find (and don't find!) in GWAS and burden tests.

We describe a critical concept that we call *specificity*.

Led by Jeff Spence and Hakhamanesh Mostafavi:

My first preprint of my PhD! Thanks to @ekerdoncuff.bsky.social and @moorjanipriya.bsky.social for their guidance and mentorship in this project!

Paul Nurse describing the main job of a PI

(From ‘The Thinking Game’, 2024)

Are you obsessed with archaeological or historical questions and easily get into coding?

Or a computational scientist that want to understand biology and disease evolution, and curious about the ancient past?

If you have these or other burning questions that fits into our programme, apply below!

One week left to apply!

Old Goats: 3,000 years of genetic connectivity of the domestic goat in Ireland The domestic goat likely first arrived to the island of Ireland as part of the introduction of agriculture approximately 5,900 years ago, and remains a part of the island's biocultural heritage. Howev...

Very happy to see our pre-print on ancient Irish goat genetics on bioRxiv #aDNA #spiergorm

I want to acknowledge this was only possible through the work of the late Dr. Judith Findlater, along with Prof. Eileen Murphy at @qubelfastofficial.bsky.social.