minoan9 min
Minoan and Mycenaean DNA: Migration, Kinship and Marriage
DNA from 102 prehistoric Aegeans traces migration into Crete and Greece, Mycenaean-era mobility, family burials and frequent cousin unions.
Articles
kinship
6 articles on kinship, ancient-DNA research written up for readers who want the evidence, not just the headline.
Kinship in ancient DNA means reading biological relatedness between excavated individuals: parent and child, siblings, cousins, and the pedigrees that emerge when a whole cemetery is sequenced. Combined with sex, burial position and dating, it shows how communities were organised, who moved in at marriage, and which stories told about a grave were wrong. It is a method for populations of the past, not a claim about living readers; a shared segment with an ancient person is resemblance, never proof of descent.
The articles cover the reconstructed Avar-period family trees and marriage networks of Central Europe, the matrilocal communities and female-line descent of Iron Age Britain, family burials and frequent cousin unions among 102 prehistoric Aegeans, the 258-genome study of family life along southern Germany's frontier after Rome fell, the Pompeii plaster casts whose assumed family relationships the DNA overturned, and plague victims in four Siberian hunter-gatherer cemeteries 5,500 years ago.
iron-age-britain9 minIron Age Britain DNA: Women, Kinship and Celtic-Era Mobility
DNA from Iron Age Britain reveals matrilocal communities, female-line descent and continuing migration across the English Channel.
roman-frontier10 minRoman Frontier DNA: How Central Europe Changed After Rome Fell
A 258-genome study reveals migration, Roman provincial mobility and family life along southern Germany's frontier after imperial rule.
avars8 minAvar DNA: Family Trees from a Lost Steppe Empire
Ancient DNA reconstructs Avar-period families, marriage networks and neighboring communities with different ancestry across Central Europe.
plague8 minThe Oldest Known Plague Outbreak: Lake Baikal, 5,500 Years Ago
Yersinia pestis genomes from four Siberian hunter-gatherer cemeteries show lethal plague outbreaks millennia before cities, farming or rats.
pompeii9 minPompeii DNA: What the Plaster Casts Got Wrong
Ancient DNA from five Pompeii plaster casts overturns the family stories told about them for more than a century.