Human Evolution Research Program Uppsala University

We have a new preprint! - "Ancient Pathogen Genomics in Africa – Current Evidence and Future Directions"

A review of current evidence, challenges, and opportunities for studying past epidemics and host–pathogen evolution using ancient DNA from African contexts.

www.preprints.org/manuscript/2...

New preprint! with @a-solernunez.bsky.social

Rethinking a textbook example of human adaptation "AMY1 copy number evolution in light of demographic history"

Once population structure is accounted for, the classic starch–agriculture narrative becomes much less clear

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Family relationships identified in Stone Age graves on Gotland In a new study, researchers at Uppsala University have clarified family relationships in four graves from a 5,500-year-old hunter-gatherer culture at Ajvide...

Link to UU's press release covering the article: www.mynewsdesk.com/uu/pressrele...

Genetic relatedness mattered in the co-burial ritual of Neolithic hunter–gatherers Abstract. Kin relations among past societies can offer valuable information about the social dynamics of the population. Genetic data from prehistoric huma

Exciting new #aDNA study on genetic relatedness in Neolithic hunter‑gatherer co‑burials is now published in #ProcB @royalsociety.org 🏺🧬🧪

Great team involving our own T. Mattila, M. Fraser, J. Koelman, M. Jakobsson, @trstrstrs.bsky.social and H. Malmström

royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Summary threads 🧵 in Spanish and English by @hjorvik.bsky.social and @trstngnthr.bsky.social

bsky.app/profile/hjor...
bsky.app/profile/trst...

New preprint on #aDNA 🧬 from Iberian sheep 🐑 by our former PhD student @hjorvik.bsky.social

"Seven Millennia of Human Exploitation drove genomic Changes in Iberian Sheep"

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

📣 The @scilifelab.se #ddls postdoc (2yrs) offers a great community + training + all social benefits!

Happy to discuss your own project ideas! I also have some ideas on ARGs, pangenomes or biobank-scale datasets 🧬🐏🧪🖥️

Deadline is Mar 31 but some admin things need to be handled well in advance!

The 2026 conference of the PanAfrican Archaeological Association will take place from 26th to 31st of July in Maputo, Mozambique. The abstract submission deadline is March 30th.

This July 26-31, we are organizing two sessions at the 2026 PanAfrican Archaeological Association conference in Maputo, Mozambique 🇲🇿🏺🧬🦷🌍

We are hoping that you will be interested in submitting an abstract! (see descriptions below)

> Abstract deadline: March 30th
> Website: panaf2026moz.com

PANAF2026

Check this out! #Panaf2026 #conference Discovering #African #Archaeology and #Heritage Without Borders, 26-31 July 2026, Maputo, #Mozambique. Abstract submission until 30 March 2026. Share! panaf2026moz.com #humanpast #linguistics #genetics #panafrican #interdisciplinary @haam-community.bsky.social

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...

Postdoctoral position in Palaeo-population genomics at the Center for the Human Past - Uppsala University Postdoctoral position in Palaeo-population genomics at the Center for the Human Past, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University

#Vacancies: we are looking for not just one but three #postdoctoral researchers interested in bridging #genetics, #archaeology and #linguistics in exploring the #humanpast. shorturl.at/B3Qdd @haam-community.bsky.social @cschlebu.bsky.social

Come join us! There are still five days left to apply for this computational postdoc position 👇🏼

The coevolution of languages, peoples and environments in Central Africa’s Kwilu-Kasai region since ∼1000 BCE: A dialogue with Jan Vansina In this article, Jan Vansina’s essay on the deep-time population history of the Kwilu-Kasai region, now more than half a century old, is revisited thr…

Our new paper is out! 🪶 “The coevolution of languages, peoples & environments in Central Africa’s Kwilu-Kasai region since ~1000 BCE” revisits Jan Vansina’s ideas using new linguistic, archaeological & genetic data - revealing the region was a hub of Bantu diversification. doi.org/10.1016/j.qe...

Application deadline in less than a week! Apply to join the Uppsala Human Evolution team!

Postdoctoral position in Population Genomics - Uppsala University Postdoctoral position in Population Genomics, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University

🚨 Join us in Uppsala and the lab of @trstngnthr.bsky.social as a 2 year fully funded bioinformatics postdoc with all Swedish social benefits etc!🧪

The project involves modern and #aDNA 🧬 in humans and sheep 🐑 to study adaptation. Application deadline: Oct 21st

www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...

Associate Professor in Human Paleo- and Population Genomics - Uppsala University Associate Professor in Human Paleo- and Population Genomics, Disciplinary Domain of Science and Technology, Faculty of Biology, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University

We are recruiting an associate professor (senior lecturer) at our program in Human #Paleogenomics and #PopulationGenetics. Come and join the Uppsala team! Please see the ad for more information. Application deadline: Sept 30st.
www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...

Gone With the Wind: Exploring a Vanished Rock Dove, Columba Livia, Hybrid Zone in the Sahara Desert In this study, we tested the hypothesis of the existence of a hybrid zone between two differentiated rock dove lineages, which may contribute significantly to their divergence. By analyzing newly gen...

Despite our name, we are not just working on humans!

@germanha.bsky.social et al find traces of a rock dove 🕊️ (the wild relatives of domestic pigeons) hybrid zone during the Green Sahara and suggest that Western African pops represent a separate species 👇🏼

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Estimating allele frequencies, ancestry proportions and genotype likelihoods in the presence of mapping bias Abstract. Population genomic analyses rely on an accurate and unbiased characterization of the genetic composition of the studied population. For short-rea

New paper on reference/mapping bias, its impact on estimating ancestry proportions and a a genotype likelihood to adjust for it in #aDNA studies:

doi.org/10.1093/g3jo...

by @trstngnthr.bsky.social et al

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...

The Iceman Ötzi's genome was one of the first ancient human genomes sequenced. Now our former postdoc Myriam Croze et al present the population dynamics in his Alpine region from the Mesolithic to the Bronze Age 🧪🏺

Fun collaboration with Valentina Coia and others at EURAC

doi.org/10.1038/s414...

I'm thrilled to announce that our featured article, "Herders from the Green Sahara", was published in the 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘚𝘤𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘵 magazine. Another great collaboration with Viktor Černý and Carina Schlebusch.

Free access here: livejohnshopkins-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/person...

Wide-scale geographical analysis of genetic ancestry in the South African Coloured population - BMC Biology Background The South African Coloured (SAC) population, a prominent admixed population in South Africa, reflects centuries of migration, admixture, and historical segregation. Descendants of local Kho...

A big congrats to Imke Lankheet + co-authors for this new publication on genetic ancestry in the South African Coloured population. We reveal fine-scale regional differences in SAC, shaped by complex history and social factors @schlebuschgroup.bsky.social

bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

The Early Bantu Expansion into Central Africa | 9 | New Data and Insig Central Africa hosts populations characterised by diverse linguistic, cultural, and genetic backgrounds. In this study, we have generated new genome-wide

Thrilled to announce that Routledge has published our book chapter in #OpenAccess. This chapter is part of an outstanding 740-page book that examines the early events of the Bantu expansion in Africa using multidisciplinary perspectives, including genetics. www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-...

Great to attend the #HumanEvo25 conference with Cesar Fortes-Lima and @a-solernunez.bsky.social, who gave an excellent talk and poster presentation representing the Schlebusch group and @humanevouu.bsky.social!

A popular science feature now available on our recently published Fulani study in The Conversation - Africa!

Revisiting the African mtDNA Landscape: A Continental Update from Complete Mitochondrial Genomes Africa harbors the richest diversity of mitochondrial DNA lineages, reflecting its central role in human evolutionary history. Early studies of mtDNA variation provided the first genetic evidence for ...

We have a new preprint! Mapping and analyzing nearly 5,000 full mitogenomes across Africa.
First major update on mtDNA distribution since Salas et al. 2002, "The making of the African mtDNA landscape." Congrats to Imke Lankheet and thanks to all collaborators!

📄 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Population history and admixture of the Fulani people from the Sahel The Fulani people, one of the most important pastoralist groups in sub-Saharan Africa, are still largely underrepresented in population genomic resear…

Very happy that our new article was published today in AJHG @ajhgnews.bsky.social. Great collaboration with Cesar Fortes-Lima, Yoro Diallo, Vaclav Janousek, and Viktor Cerny. "Population history and admixture of the Fulani people from the Sahel" www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Postdoctoral position in Population Genetics at the Center for the Human Past - Uppsala University Postdoctoral position in Population Genetics at the Center for the Human Past, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University

We have a postdoc position in Human Population Genetics available at the Center for the Human Past. Closing date 31 Jan. Please circulate and apply! More info and application available here:

www.uu.se/en/about-uu/...

The scene is set for Pedro Morell Miranda @hjorvik.bsky.social to defend his thesis "Following the herd" with Dan Bradley, Trinity College Dublin, as faculty opponent.

The genetic legacy of the expansion of Bantu-speaking peoples in Africa - Nature We gathered genetic data for 1,763 individuals from 147 populations across 14 African countries, and 12 Late Iron Age individuals, to trace the expansion of Bantu-speaking peoples over the p...

New paper and ginormous effort from the Schlebusch lab!!! Cesar Fortes-Lima, Concetta Burgarella, Rickard Hammarén et al. analyzed thousands of modern and ancient samples across Africa to study "The genetic legacy of the expansion of Bantu-speaking peoples in Africa" 🧪