When ancient DNA studies began to gain attention, little more than a decade ago, the view took hold among geneticists that ...

The DNA of elites from the Golden Horde reveals roots in Mongolia and direct links to the line of Genghis Khan.

Fragments of DNA from long-extinct human relatives still circulate in modern genomes, and in some cases they do more than linger. They actively shape how people survive in extreme environments. The ...

When ancient humans mated, dad was a Neanderthal, mom was Homo sapiens.

A 2,800-year-old mass grave in Serbia reveals a chilling pattern: women and children deliberately targeted, most unrelated to one another, and buried in a ritualized ceremony.

A glowing, digital double helix represents the billions of base pairs scientists analyze when sequencing ancient DNA. In 1976, workers excavating a tunnel for the Toronto subway system came across ...

A major study shows how people in Bronze Age Europe adapted to change through shifting ancestry, burial rites and daily life practices.

The human genome is a rich, complex record of migration, encounters, and inheritance written over thousands of millennia.

Ancient DNA is turning Europe’s deep past from a sketch into a family album. Instead of guessing who first called the continent home, researchers can now read genetic traces from teeth, bones and cave ...

Because cremation dominates the Urnfield period, the Late Bronze Age has long been a “blind spot” for biomolecular research. The new study published in Nature tackled that gap by focusing on ...

Most people alive today carry fragments of Neanderthal DNA in their genome. Now scientists are gaining a more intimate ...

Ancient DNA from a Stone Age burial site in Sweden shows that families 5,500 years ago were more complex than expected. Many ...