Talk by Martin Sikora

Paleogenomics in time and space: Reconstructing 40,000 years of Eurasian population history from ancient DNA

Over the paste decade, the advent of next-generation DNA sequencing technologies has enabled a revolution in the field of paleogenomics – the study of the genomes of ancient organisms. The recovery and sequencing of ancient DNA has enabled the investigation of a diverse set of questions in evolutionary biology, ranging from the reconstruction of ancient ecosystems from plant material conserved in ice cores to the reconstruction of the history of our own species, often with surprising results.

Here, I will discuss some of our recent findings investigating the population history of Eurasia, through analyses of over 100 genomes of ancient individuals spanning 40,000 years of human evolution in Europe and North Asia.