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Africa

The homeland of our lineage, Africa encompasses a fossil hominin record across the last 6 million years or more. The genetics of African populations give us insights into the evolutionary history of humans across the last few hundred thousand years.

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Top 10 discoveries about ancient people from DNA in 2023

This year's highlights include ways of finding ancient relatives, how some phenotypes evolved in ancient people, and trace evidence from artifacts.

DNA molecular models on a cloudy background
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Tracing the signature of African-to-Neandertal gene flow

A new study of African genetic variation yields a more accurate picture of the genetic exchanges between ancient Africans and Neandertals 250,000 years ago.

DNA with chains of bubbles rising from it in a fluid
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Ghostbusters of human origins

Humans tend to mix and interact with each other. Geneticists are once again starting to take that seriously, changing their view of our origins.

Meme with the four movie Ghostbusters crossing the streams
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Kabwe: A famous fossil unearthed amid the human costs of mining

Mining led to the skull's discovery, destroyed its context, and left a century-long legacy of lead poisoning.

The Kabwe skull viewed from the left side
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Neandertals got 6% of their genomes from Africa

An analysis by Melissa Hubisz and coworkers finds that mtDNA is not all that Neandertals received from our African ancestors

A Banksy-style portrait of a Neandertal wearing a blazer
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How much Neandertal DNA do today's African peoples have?

New research shows that today's populations in Africa have around one third the Neandertal ancestry as people in Eurasia.

A male Neanderthal with white beard and long hair, holding spear
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The transition to Middle Stone Age from Acheulean did not make humans more deadly

Reading a meta-analysis of faunal data by Geoff Smith and coworkers that concludes that all Middle Pleistocene African peoples hunted the same prey animals.

A group of eland
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Three big insights into our African origins

Recently, I delivered a lecture to the American Society for Human Genetics, focusing on the African record of human origins. It was a great privilege to speak to more than 5000 members of this professional organization, together with other distinguished experts on African genetic variation and health. Here I share

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Growing genetic data suggest a two-phase model for prehistoric population expansions in Africa

I describe results from two papers of African genetic variation, which show that the population growth from agriculture followed an earlier demographic expansion.

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Modern human origins was more interesting than a single point of dispersal

A study of SNP variation across Africa enables us to look at a structured ancestral population long before 100,000 years ago.