On the Move: Ancient DNA Illuminates Early Stone Age Social Networks

Hora Rockshelter in Malawi, where recent excavations uncovered two of the individuals analyzed in a collaborative study of ancient DNA.
February 24, 2022

“A new analysis of ancient human DNA demonstrates that people moved and chose their reproductive partners along complex social networks that stretched across large swathes of Africa between 80,000 and 20,000 years ago”, according to a study co-led by Yale anthropologist and YIBS Affiliated Faculty member, Jessica Thompson. “The study, published Feb. 23 in the journal Nature, provides the first genetic evidence of major demographic changes among hunter-gatherer populations in eastern and south-central Africa during the last Ice Age. The analysis includes the earliest DNA extracted from ancient human remains in Africa and the oldest from anywhere in the tropics.” For more information, please click here for an article published by Yale News.

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