Clemens L Weiß, Michael Dannemann ... Hernán A Burbano
A computational method to authenticate low-coverage ancient DNA experiments shows that putative wheat sequences from 8000 years old sediments are most likely not of ancient origin.
Alison M Devault, Tatum D Mortimer ... Caitlin S Pepperell
Mineralized placental tissue from Late Byzantine Troy enables the detailed reconstruction of genomes of mixed bacterial species responsible for maternal sepsis in the ancient world.
Manjusha Chintalapati, Nick Patterson, Priya Moorjani
Development of a genomic dating method that leverages ancestry covariance patterns in a single diploid individual reveals the timing of major admixture events during the European Holocene.
Margaret L Antonio, Clemens L Weiß ... Jonathan K Pritchard
Reconstructing human mobility patterns using historical period genomes illustrates how the Roman Empire’s military and economic activities catalyzed an era of transient movement against the backdrop of generations-long prehistoric migrations.
Paloma Diaz-Maroto, Alba Rey-Iglesia ... Anders J Hansen
aDNA revealed a model of domestication where an ancient guanaco population no longer exists, the loss of the ancient vicuña genetic variation in the modern populations, and frequently interbreeding practices.
Dave W Anderson, Alesia N McKeown, Joseph W Thornton
Experimental mapping of the joint sequence space of an ancient transcription factor (TF) and its DNA binding sites reveals that epistasis across the molecular interface permitted the evolution of a new and specific TF-DNA complex.
The dual function of an ancient prokaryotic enzyme, which is linked to specific metabolite signals, may have been the evolutionary driving force behind its dual localization in eukaryotes.
Jessica E Thomas, Gary R Carvalho ... Michael Knapp
Reconstruction of great auk population dynamics suggests that hunting pressure alone could have been responsible for their extinction, demonstrating that even abundant, widespread species can be vulnerable to intense exploitation.