Hannah Moots

Congratulations on the great paper, Francesco! 🎊

Very happy to share our new paper just published in Genome Biology and Evolution!

Archaic ancestry inference in imputed ancient human genomes When modern humans expanded from Africa into Eurasia, they interbred with archaic hominins such as Neanderthals and Denisovans. This groundbreaking discovery, made in part possible through the genomic...

Turns out imputation of introgressed archaic regions in aDNA works really well — sometimes even better than for the rest of the genome. More on this (and other cool results) in our new preprint 👇 #aDNA #ArchaicIntrogression #imputation
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

A new perspective on the arrival of the Eastern Mediterranean genetic influx in Central Italy before the onset of the Roman Empire Abstract. Italian genetic history was profoundly shaped by the Romans. While the Iron Age Central Italian gene pool was comparable to that of other coeval

🚨 New paper out in Genome Biology and Evolution!
We present new ancient DNA evidence from Central Italy suggesting that Eastern Mediterranean genetic influence predates the Roman Empire.
@beniamino77.bsky.social @fravasini.bsky.social

🧵👇
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/...

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It’s another billionaire’s overpriced pet project that ignores the needs of TN families.

I'm happy to share our latest manuscript "Impediments to countering racist pseudoscience", coauthored with @gillianrbrown1.bsky.social @kztwyman.bsky.social & Marcus Feldman.

The palaeogenetics of cat dispersal in the ancient world - Nature Ecology & Evolution Ancient DNA analysis of archaeological cat remains shows cats dispersed along trade routes from the Neolithic era onwards, while its gene pool shows admixture from multiple geographical sources and th...

🐈‍⬛ Cat domestication and globalization 🐈
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I am starting a computational lab at LIOS, Riga, Latvia, and going to recruit a few people. Please DM if you are interested in a postdoc or PhD position in my Metabolic Research Group within the TARGETWISE project. I can highly recommend Riga, it is a beautiful city with very good living conditions.

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

#SMBE2025

about the nature of human mobility, privileging certain narratives over others. Terms such as “movement," “mobility,”
and “flows,” on the other hand, encompass a wider range of processes, and their definition is not limited to those with a single direction, end point, or purpose.”

And also touches on the importance of these designations. As Isayev and Baroud 2015 point out “The application of the contemporary notion of migration to historical processes is not a neutral statement but the activation of an explanatory framework that brings with it assumptions...

This poster summarizes a project looking at how to incorporate the terminology that’s been developed in the social sciences for a diverse range of mobility, including trade, political and religious administration, warfare, enslavement and forced relocation, pilgrimage, and more.

The focus on migration as an explanatory mechanism in ancient DNA research derives from several historical contingencies, including semantic differences across disciplines, as well as issues of equifinality when working with (relatively) small datasets.

Come check out my poster this afternoon! On the language we use to talk mobility in ancient DNA studies #SMBE2025

AdDeam: A Fast and Scalable Tool for Estimating and Clustering Reference-Level Damage Profiles AbstractMotivation. DNA damage patterns, such as increased frequencies of C→T and G→A substitutions at fragment ends, are widely used in ancient DNA studie

Thrilled to see this out in Bioinformatics! AdDeam is a powerful tool to rapidly estimate aDNA damage from BAM files and cluster them to flag outliers—great for large/small aDNA projects and ancient metagenomics to find contigs likely to be modern. Great work by Louis Kraft!
doi.org/10.1093/bioi...

Symposium 5: Human history and past social organisation in the light of palaeogenomes: new methods, new findings session A

#SMBE2025

New preprint comparing aDNA preservation and recovery rates during extraction from all three ossicles and the petrous. Congrats @compevohumang.bsky.social!

#ICAC_events

🎨 Exposició #Arqueosexisme

Mostra itinerant que ofereix testimonis il·lustrats sobre comportaments inadequats als jaciments arqueològics

📅 De l'1 de juliol fins al 30 d'agost
📍C. Major, 14 - Tarragona

#IgualtatICAC #ArcheoEthique #Cultura_cat @payetatruelle.bsky.social @urv.cat

A book cover showing a Roman relief of two satyrs picking grapes from central vine tree, small wicker basket before each.

🍇 Interested in #Wine and #AncientRome?

Check out this review of Methods in Ancient Wine Archaeology: Scientific Approaches in Roman Contexts ed. by @emlynkd.bsky.social & @divali.bsky.social, reviewed by Anna Meens.

doi.org/10.16995/tra...

Planning to take part into TRAC2025 between 22nd and 24th October 2025 online on the Gather Town platform? I and Tess organise a session on the materiality of Roman architecture. If you are interested, send me an abstract of 200-300 words before August 31. #Archaeology #AncientBluesky ⚱️🦋

Happy to announce that our study examining the genetic history of the Qimmeq (Greenland Sled Dog) came out today in Science.

@mhssinding.bsky.social
#qimmeq #dogs #palaeogenetics #greenland #greenlandsleddog @science.org #Ilisimatusarfik #globeinstitute #ucph #nih

Genomic diversity and structure of prehistoric alpine individuals from the Tyrolean Iceman’s territory - Nature Communications Here, the authors perform genomic analysis of prehistoric individuals from the Italian Alps, to reveal a genetic shift from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic and genetic continuity from the Neolithic to...

A wonderful look at the population history of the eastern Alps! While the Alps have often been a barrier to human movement, this paper highlights the Alps as a region of connection and interaction as well 🏔️🏺 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

As @prehistoryteller.bsky.social said: Our book project #RepresentationMatters has a publication date! „Diversity in Visual Representations of the Past“ will be out in September, published in „Themes of contemporary Archaeology“-series @archaeologyeaa.bsky.social 🏺: link.springer.com/book/9783031...

On far-right attempts to repurpose the past - an important (and timely!) piece by @davidwengrow.bsky.social

Seeds of another world The nexus of radical inequality, social atomization and male victimhood has been exploited before. But why now, on such a scale? To understand the appeal of the far-right today we need to examine the...

To understand the appeal of the far-right today we need to examine the origins of the fascist myth of primordial male kinship.
New essay, out today @eurozine.bsky.social
www.eurozine.com/seeds-of-ano...

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...).

Photo of text from the book _All Roads Lead to Rome_ by Rhiannon Garth Jones. The text reads: Want to know more? ‘Citation is how we acknowledge our debt to those who came before; those who helped us find our way when the way was obscured because we deviated from the paths we were told to follow.’ Sara Ahmed, Living a Feminist Life, Duke University Press, 2017. There are so many scholars whose brilliant work I have relied upon to form my thoughts in the process of researching and writing this book. Here, I have highlighted the people whose research I particularly relied upon and suggested some of their public scholarship that you might enjoy, if you want to learn more. I have included podcasts and writing intended for a popular audience, as well as books that you might be able to find in your local bookstore or library. These suggestions are organised by chapter to help the reader, although, of course, the influence of these scholars is not limited to just one section or chapter. This is intended as a way for me to properly acknowledge those who helped me find my way and as a place for interested readers to start exploring. If you are looking for a more exhaustive list of references, a full bibliography follows.

A lot of people have mentioned they loved the 'Want to Know More?' section of my book – basically an annotated bibliography but with a clear statement on citation ethics (shout out to Sara Ahmed) and a focus on *accessible* scholarship.

That means blogs, podcasts, books for a popular audience.

🧵

Art by flaroh illustration. A view of the colosseum from the palatine hill, illustrated in a warm orange and purple palette.

Art by flaroh illustration. A view of the colosseum from the palatine hill, illustrated in a cool blue and purple pink palette.

Colosseum (Flavian Amphiteatre) summer day and twilight 🏟️🌞🏺🌙

recolour of an illustration from last year #art #ancientbluesky

#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

Regional disparities in US media coverage of archaeology research US media coverage of archaeology shows geographic disparities, with archaeology of China/Taiwan less likely to receive coverage.

Wonder what archaeology makes headlines? In a new study, we investigated US media coverage for 1,115 arch papers published over 6 years. Seems Chinese archaeology was under-reported.
Regional disparities in US media coverage of archaeology research | Science Advances www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...