▪ Abstract About 20 years ago, DNA sequences were separately described from the quagga
(a type of zebra) and an ancient Egyptian individual. What made these DNA sequences …

In the past two decades, ancient DNA research has progressed from the retrieval of small
fragments of mitochondrial DNA from a few late Holocene specimens, to large-scale studies …

Neandertals, the closest evolutionary relatives of present-day humans, lived in large parts of
Europe and western Asia before disappearing 30,000 years ago. We present a draft …

Background Recent analyses of de novo DNA mutations in modern humans have suggested
a nuclear substitution rate that is approximately half that of previous estimates based on …

Abstract The stratigraphy at Bacho Kiro Cave, Bulgaria, spans the Middle to Upper
Palaeolithic transition, including an Initial Upper Palaeolithic (IUP) assemblage argued to …

High-throughput direct sequencing techniques have recently opened the possibility to
sequence genomes from Pleistocene organisms. Here we analyze DNA sequences …

Humans are unique in that they expend considerable effort and ingenuity in disposing of the
dead. Some of the recognisable ways we do this are visible in the Palaeolithic archaeology …

Analysis of Neandertal DNA holds great potential for investigating the population history of
this group of hominins, but progress has been limited due to the rarity of samples and …

Neanderthals are the extinct hominid group most closely related to contemporary humans,
so their genome offers a unique opportunity to identify genetic changes specific to …

Our knowledge of the migration routes of the first anatomically modern populations
colonising the European territory at the beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic, of their degree …