New paper: Mesolithic mariners in the Central Mediterranean made sustained, long distance sea journeys. Not accidents, one offs, and not rare events. See thread in the comments. academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar..., led by @jblinkhorn.bsky.social

🐘 check out our newest paper from Liang Bua! www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... Did H. floresiensis hunt Stegodon? 🔪 Did they also had control use of fire? 🔥 We tested these early claims of complex behavior using taphonomy, experimental archaeology, and zooarchaeology of the Stegodon assemblage.

Our late Neandertal paper is officially out! 💀❤️🧬 www.nature.com/articles/s41... It was years in the making, a tremendous feat spearheaded by our PhD student Alba Bossoms Mesa and co-led by @janetk.bsky.social and @benmpeter.bsky.social

So happy and proud to see this paper out in @natcomms.nature.com today! We show that traces of human DNA can persist on cave walls for thousands of years. Absolutely fantastic work by the wonderful Alba Bossoms Mesa at @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social and a great team! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Investigating ancient human DNA preservation on cave walls and in rock art - Nature Communications

Ancient DNA can be preserved on materials from archaeological floor deposits such as bones, sediments and artifacts. Here, the authors investigate whether Palaeolithic wall art can preserve human DNA ...

nature.com

Ancient DNA preserves on cave walls over thousands of years! Amazing (and complex) study lead by Alba Bossoms Mesa as part of the FirstArt project. Very proud to see it published in @natcomms.nature.com :) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Investigating ancient human DNA preservation on cave walls and in rock art - Nature Communications

Ancient DNA can be preserved on materials from archaeological floor deposits such as bones, sediments and artifacts. Here, the authors investigate whether Palaeolithic wall art can preserve human DNA ...

nature.com

If you're you have experience in working in animal / pathogen #aDNA and are interested in a postdoctoral position as part of my ERC Project HERDPATH, please DM/email me kevin[at]palaeome.org

Hey Hey, a few weeks ago, we released quicksand version v2.6 github.com/mpieva/quick... This version allows the `--taxlvl g` flag to obtain summary statistics and output-files on the genus level. Especially for multi-genus families (e.g. Bovidae or Cervidae), this is much more informative 🐂

GitHub - mpieva/quicksand: A pipeline for the analysis of sedimentary ancient mtDNA.

A pipeline for the analysis of sedimentary ancient mtDNA. - mpieva/quicksand

github.com

Our institute @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social starting a new Masters program with the University of Leipzig. If you are a bachelors student graduating soon, and would like to get involved with our research during you MSc, consider applying :) www.uni-leipzig.de/en/studying/...

Leipzig U and the MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) have an open faculty position (W2) in evolutionary population genetics! This position is tenured and comes with generous core funding. We are eager to welcome a new colleague! Deadline March 11. www.uni-leipzig.de/en/newsdetai...

UPDATE: The application period for these (amazing, fun, really cool!) sedaDNA PhD positions in our group is March 2-27, but we will start screening applications after the first week. If you are interested, please try to submit *between March 2nd and 8th!* Not by March 1st as I originally wrote..

Benjamin Vernot@benvernot.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Are you interested in human DNA from ancient sediments? Do you want to do a PhD in Vienna? We have two open positions in our group! You can learn more and apply here (scroll down to the very bottom, ours are the last two listings): careers.univie.ac.at/en/praedoc/s...

Are you interested in human DNA from ancient sediments? Do you want to do a PhD in Vienna? We have two open positions in our group! You can learn more and apply here (scroll down to the very bottom, ours are the last two listings): careers.univie.ac.at/en/praedoc/s...

🦴🔬 773,000-year-old #fossils from Morocco illuminate the shared ancestry of H. sapiens, Neandertals & Denisovans. Study @nature.com by an intl. team led by J.-J. Hublin, incl. @matthewskinnerphd.bsky.social & P. Gunz @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social. tinyurl.com/yxz4kcff & www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Early hominins from Morocco reveal an African lineage near the root of Homo sapiens

Study pinpoints 773,000-year-old fossils with high-resolution magnetostratigraphic dating, illuminating the shared ancestry of Homo sapiens, Neandertals, and Denisovans

tinyurl.com

📢 We're hiring a postdoc (33 months) in human evolutionary genomics / paleogenomics / statistical genetics, Paris 🇫🇷 Project on selection on disease-associated variants, integrating ancient genomes, GWAS, and Ancestral Rec. Graphs. Start May 2026 (flexible). Apply here: emploi.cnrs.fr/Offres/CDD/U...

📢Do you work on the (micro-) geoarchaeology of cave sediments? Join our Session #178 at the EAA 2026 Annual Meeting in Athens (26–29 August 2026)! For further details, please scan the QR code below! Abstract submissions open on 19 December 2025! 📢

🚨ONLINE WORKSHOP🚨 We will be hosting a free online workshop “Maximising Data from Palaeolithic Bone" as part of the the COEXIST project on 10th March 2026. Please submit abstract by 23rd January 2026. Further information in the flyer. See you there!

I am very excited to present this work to the (sed)aDNA community - and I am looking forward to some cool applications! If you want to use quicksand, I recommend following supplementary section 8, which demonstrates several use-cases :) see github.com/mpieva/quicksand for more details

Molecular Biology and Evolution@molbioevol.bsky.social · 8mo ago

@merszym.bsky.social @janetk.bsky.social et al. develop quicksand, an open-source Nextflow pipeline designed for rapid and accurate taxonomic classification of mammalian mitochondrial DNA in sedimentary ancient DNA samples. 🔗 doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msaf305 #evobio #molbio #compbio #aDNA

Cool work from my colleagues @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social just dropped! Merlin Szymanski, @janetk.bsky.social et al. developed quicksand, a fast, accurate and beautifully designed Nextflow pipeline for taxonomic classification of mammalian mtDNA from ancient sediment DNA. doi.org/10.1093/molb...

quick analysis of sedimentary ancient DNA using quicksand

Abstract. Ancient DNA extracted from the sediments of archaeological sites (sedaDNA) can provide fine-grained information about the composition of past eco

doi.org

Abstract submission & Award applications for SMBE 2026 are now open! Submit your research and apply for SMBE awards via the submission portal. 📝 Read more & submit here: smbe2026.org/abstracts And symposium selection is now finalized! 👉 See all accepted symposia: smbe2026.org/programme #SMBE2026