** Please note the time and venue of this special lecture **
Sequencing of the nuclear genomes of our closest evolutionary relatives—Neandertals and Denisovans—has fundamentally changed our understanding of human evolutionary history. However, due to the limitations posed by the degradation of DNA over time, the recovery of genomes from skeletal remains that are tens of thousands of years old is still challenging. Therefore, despite genomic data being recovered from more than 10,000 ancient humans to date, relatively few genomes have been recovered from the time when humans started dispersing out of Africa and could have met some of the last Neandertals.
Humans and Neandertals overlapped in Eurasia during a period known as the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition, starting at minimum ~48,000 years ago, but possibly even earlier. The exact timing and the reasons for Neandertal disappearance, the extent to which they overlapped with humans, and the nature of their interactions have been intensively debated for decades and still remain contentious issues today.
In our group we aim to answer some of these questions by applying, and further developing, cutting-edge methods for retrieving poorly preserved DNA from the remains of humans and, specifically, Neandertals from archaeological sites across Eurasia, focusing on the time period during which these groups could have met. In addition to shedding light on their genetic diversity, interactions, and regional disappearances, research into our closest ancestors and close relatives—humans and Neandertals alike—has the potential to transform our understanding of what makes humans who we are today.
PalEvo Seminar Series Trinity Term 2026
A weekly seminar on all aspects of human evolution - all welcome!
Wednesdays, 4pm, Pauling Centre, 58a Banbury Road, except for Week 4, which is at 3pm in All Souls College.
Convened by Dylan Gaffney, Thomas Püschel, Cryril Greuter, , Rick Schulting, Rachel Hurwitz and Silvia Tardaguila Giacomozzi (SAME and School of Archaeology, University of Oxford)
