All articles tagged with #ancient dna
New genetic analysis of 15,800-year-old dog remains from Türkiye and 14,300-year-old bones from Gough’s Cave in Britain pushes back the domestication timeline, showing dogs lived closely with humans across western Eurasia during the Late Upper Paleolithic and were integrated into human groups, with evidence of dietary overlap and even burial alongside people, suggesting a deep, early bond before farming.
Two Nature studies of ancient dog and wolf DNA reveal the oldest dog remains come from a 15,800–16,000-year-old skull in Pınarbaşı, Turkey, pushing dog domestication back by about 5,000 years. The research shows dogs spread across Europe by around 14,300 years ago, were kept by hunter‑gatherers before the Neolithic farmers’ arrival, and include evidence of puppies buried near human graves, indicating a close human–dog relationship. While dogs clearly split from wolves long before farming, the exact domestication path remains unresolved due to a persistent genetic gap between dogs and wolves.
DNA from a 110,000-year-old Neanderthal bone from Denisova Cave shows two individuals belonged to closely related lineages but were not direct ancestors, indicating small, isolated Neanderthal populations in the Altai region and repeated use of Denisova Cave.
Researchers studying ancient dog remains, including a 14,300-year-old jawbone from Gough’s Cave in the UK and a Swiss find, are using genomics and archaeology to trace where dogs came from and how they spread with people, offering new clues about when and where domestication occurred.
Ancient DNA from dog remains across Anatolia, the UK, and Serbia shows dogs were widespread in Europe and western Asia by about 14,000 years ago, with the oldest specimen dating to 15,800 years. Isotopic data indicate dogs ate fish, suggesting they were fed by humans, and puppies buried with a human at Pınarbaşı point to deep emotional bonds. The findings push the origin of domesticated dogs to the last Ice Age and imply rapid spread and sustained human–dog relationships, with many modern European breeds tracing substantial ancestry to these ancient dogs.
Researchers reconstructed the oldest Treponema pallidum genome from a 5,500-year-old Colombian hunter-gatherer, revealing a previously unknown lineage that diverged from modern strains before subspecies formed. The discovery shows treponemal diseases circulated in the Americas long before agriculture or dense populations, suggesting hunter‑gatherer ecologies and mobility helped spread the pathogen and expanding the historical context for syphilis origins.
New ancient-DNA findings from Belgium, the Netherlands and Rhine-Meuse wetlands reveal that Neolithic farming spread into hunter-gatherer Europe largely via women marrying into forager communities, supporting a permeable frontier model. Over time, later migrations such as Corded Ware from the steppe reshaped the region’s ancestry, leading to populations with mixed hunter-gatherer and farmer lineages rather than a simple farmer replacement.
A Science study using ancient DNA finds that interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans favored male Neanderthals and female humans, inferred from X-chromosome inheritance patterns across the genomes.
New research from the Tishkoff lab shows that Neanderthal DNA on the human X chromosome is surprisingly scarce, while modern-human DNA is enriched on Neanderthal X chromosomes by about 62% compared with their other chromosomes. This pattern points to sex-biased interbreeding where Neanderthal males mated with anatomically modern human females, shaping the modern genome more through mating dynamics than simple genetic incompatibility. Published in Science, the findings suggest ancient social patterns left a lasting imprint on our DNA and offer new insight into human evolution.
New genetic analysis of 5,500-year-old graves on Gotland, Sweden reveals that people buried together were mostly second- or third-degree relatives, underscoring the central role of extended kin networks in Stone Age hunter-gatherer society.
A DNA analysis of 5,500-year-old burials at Ajvide on Gotland, Sweden, uncovers complex kinship networks among Neolithic hunter-gatherers: many graves held distant relatives rather than immediate family, including a teen girl whose father’s bones were placed atop her grave, with bones moved from elsewhere; the study suggests kinship beyond the immediate family shaped burial practices.
Colossal Biosciences has brought dire wolves Romulus and Remus to life from ancient DNA, raised with surrogate dog mothers, and they are now about 16 months old with maturation to around age three. They recently fed on their first deer carcass and also catch small prey on Colossal’s 2,000+ acre preserve, illustrating their wolf nature rather than domestication. A female pup named Khaleesi, born Jan. 2025, rounds out the trio. They’re friendly toward staff when fed but remain wild wolves, not pets.
Extinction of Neanderthals appears to be the result of a mix of regional pressures: small, isolated populations prone to inbreeding and mutational burden, competition with expanding modern humans, and varied demographic dynamics across Eurasia. Genetic evidence confirms interbreeding with Homo sapiens, meaning Neanderthals contributed to the modern human genome, but there is no single smoking gun or uniform fate—different Neanderthal groups disappeared for different reasons over time.
Ghost lineages are extinct or unsampled ancestral populations whose DNA persists in modern genomes; scientists detect them when portions of our DNA cannot be traced to known relatives, revealing hidden chapters of evolution and ancient gene flow from Neanderthals, Denisovans, and other unknown lineages.
DNA analysis of remains from Grotta della Monaca in Calabria uncovers a 3,700-year-old case of a child born to a father–daughter pair, the earliest such instance confirmed in prehistoric Europe. The population shows strong links to Early Bronze Age Sicily and some movement to northeastern Italy, indicating wider regional networks despite the site’s remote location. Interestingly, most adults lacked the lactase-persistence gene, yet dairy was regularly consumed—likely via yogurt or cheese—demonstrating culturally driven dietary adaptation before genetic changes.