Skip to main content

Ancient DNA

Guest Editors:
Laura S Weyrich, PhD, Pennsylvania State University, USA
Bastien Llamas, PhD, University of Adelaide, Australia


Genome Biology called for submissions to our Collection on advances in ancient DNA sequencing and analysis, with insights into paleogenomics, ancient metagenomics, pathogen genomics, and evolution.

Meet the Guest Editors

Back to top

Bastien Llamas, PhD, University of Adelaide, Australia

Bastien Llamas is currently Associate Professor and Reader in Human Genetics at the University of Adelaide, Australia, where he leads the Molecular Anthropology group of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA. He is a genomics and paleogenomics expert whose research ranges from population history to personalized genomics. He integrates past and present human genetic diversity to assess the relationships between peoples and places through time, and to investigate molecular mechanisms that underpin human adaptation to environmental and cultural stressors.

Laura S Weyrich, PhD, Pennsylvania State University, USA

Dr Weyrich is an Associate Professor of Anthropology and Bioethics at The Pennsylvania State University. She is Head of the Penn State Ancient Biomolecules Research Environment (PSABRE). The cornerstone of her research is using calcified dental plaque to reconstruct ancient human oral microbiomes. Dr Weyrich’s team was the first to reconstruct the microbiome of an extinct species -Neandertals- and is now reconstructing the evolutionary history of the human oral microbiome on six continents, leveraging the information from our ancestors to improve our health today. 
 

About the collection

Genome Biology is calling for submissions to our Collection on the extraction, sequencing, and analysis of genetic material from ancient biological remains, providing a unique window into the past. 

The study of ancient DNA represents a pivotal frontier in genomics with profound implications for our understanding of history, evolution, ecology, and disease dynamics. By unlocking the genetic information in ancient samples, we gain unprecedented insights into past populations, their migrations, admixture events, and adaptations to environmental changes. Ancient DNA analysis also allows for the reconstruction of ancient microbial communities, providing a unique perspective on the evolution of microorganisms in hosts, environments, and unique ecosystems, and it contributes to our knowledge of historical disease outbreaks.

This Collection welcomes submissions on advances in ancient DNA sequencing and analysis, with insights into paleogenomics, ancient metagenomics, pathogen genomics, and evolution. Submission topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Paleogenomics and historical migrations, population dynamics, and adaptation to changing environments in humans, animals, and other species.
  • Metagenomics of ancient microbial communities and the evolution of microorganisms, including ancient pathogen genomics.
  • Sedimentary DNA (sedaDNA) or ancient environmental DNA (eDNA) applications to reconstruct past ecologies.
  • Evolutionary dynamics, adaptive changes, selective pressures, and genetic variation.


Image credit: The Natural History Museum / Alamy Stock Photo

  2. We present a new and considerably improved version of RoAM (Reconstruction of Ancient Methylation), a flexible tool for reconstructing ancient methylomes and identifying differentially methylated regions (DMRs...

    Authors: Yoav Mathov, Naomi Rosen, Chen Leibson, Eran Meshorer, Benjamin Yakir and Liran Carmel
    Citation: Genome Biology 2025 26:266
    Content type: Software Published on:

  3. The Slavs are a major ethnolinguistic group of Europe, yet the process that led to their formation remains disputed. As of the sixth century CE, people supposedly belonging to the Slavs populated the space bet...

    Authors: Ilektra Schulz, Denisa Zlámalová, Carlos S Reyna-Blanco, Sam Morris, Guido Alberto Gnecchi-Ruscone, Raphael Eckel, Renáta Přichystalová, Pavlína Ingrová, Petr Dresler, Luca Traverso, Garrett Hellenthal, Jiří Macháček, Daniel Wegmann and Zuzana Hofmanová
    Citation: Genome Biology 2025 26:259
    Content type: Research Published on:

    The Article to this article has been published in Nature 2025 :s41586-025-09437-6

  4. Recent ancient DNA studies uncovering large-scale demographic events in Iberia have presented very limited data for Portugal, a country located at the westernmost edge of continental Eurasia. Here, we present ...

    Authors: Xavier Roca-Rada, Roberta Davidson, Matthew P. Williams, Vanessa Villalba-Mouco, António Faustino Carvalho, Shyamsundar Ravishankar, Evelyn Collen, Christian Haarkötter, Leonard Taufik, Daniel R. Cuesta-Aguirre, Catarina Tente, Álvaro M. Monge Calleja, Rebecca Anne MacRoberts, Linda Melo, Gludhug A. Purnomo, Yassine Souilmi…
    Citation: Genome Biology 2025 26:248
    Content type: Research Published on:

  5. Determining genetic ancestry of an individual is challenging from poorly preserved or mixed samples that permit only ultra-low coverage sequence at depths less than 0.1 × at target loci. Leveraging recent adva...

    Authors: Tarmo Puurand, Märt Möls, Lauris Kaplinski, Kadri Maal, Kaarel Krjutskov, Andres Salumets, Toomas Kivisild and Maido Remm
    Citation: Genome Biology 2025 26:243
    Content type: Methodology Published on:

  7. In-solution hybridization enrichment of genetic markers is a method of choice in paleogenomic studies, where the DNA of interest is generally heavily fragmented and contaminated with environmental DNA, and whe...

    Authors: Roberta Davidson, Xavier Roca-Rada, Shyamsundar Ravishankar, Leonard Taufik, Christian Haarkötter, Evelyn Collen, Matthew P. Williams, Peter Webb, M. Irfan Mahmud, Erlin Novita Idje Djami, Gludhug A. Purnomo, Cristina Santos, Assumpció Malgosa, Linda R. Manzanilla, Ana Maria Silva, Sofia Tereso…
    Citation: Genome Biology 2025 26:190
    Content type: Research Published on:

  8. Processes shaping the formation of the present-day population structure in highly urbanized Northern Europe are still poorly understood. Gaps remain in our understanding of when and how currently observable re...

    Authors: Owyn Beneker, Ludovica Molinaro, Meriam Guellil, Stefania Sasso, Helja Kabral, Biancamaria Bonucci, Noah Gaens, Eugenia D’Atanasio, Massimo Mezzavilla, Hélios Delbrassine, Linde Braet, Bart Lambert, Pieterjan Deckers, Simone Andrea Biagini, Ruoyun Hui, Sara Becelaere…
    Citation: Genome Biology 2025 26:127
    Content type: Research Published on:

  9. The Islamic influence on the Iberian Peninsula left an enduring cultural and linguistic legacy. However, the demographic impact is less well understood. This study aims to explore the dynamics of gene flow and...

    Authors: Gonzalo Oteo-Garcia, Marina Silva, M. George B. Foody, Bobby Yau, Alessandro Fichera, Llorenç Alapont, Pierre Justeau, Simão Rodrigues, Rita Monteiro, Francesca Gandini, María Luisa Rovira Gomar, Albert Ribera i Lacomba, Josep Pascual Beneyto, Valeria Mattiangeli, Daniel G. Bradley, Ceiridwen J. Edwards…
    Citation: Genome Biology 2025 26:108
    Content type: Research Published on:

  10. The northern European Neolithic is characterized by two major demographic events: immigration of early farmers from Anatolia at 7500 years before present, and their admixture with local western hunter-gatherer...

    Authors: Nicolas Antonio da Silva, Onur Özer, Magdalena Haller-Caskie, Yan-Rong Chen, Daniel Kolbe, Sabine Schade-Lindig, Joachim Wahl, Carola Berszin, Michael Francken, Irina Görner, Kerstin Schierhold, Joachim Pechtl, Gisela Grupe, Christoph Rinne, Johannes Müller, Tobias L. Lenz…
    Citation: Genome Biology 2025 26:43
    Content type: Research Published on:

  11. Leveraging long-read sequencing technologies, the first complete human reference genome, T2T-CHM13, corrects assembly errors in previous references and resolves the remaining 8% of the genome. While studies on...

    Authors: Shen-Ao Liang, Tianxin Ren, Jiayu Zhang, Jiahui He, Xuankai Wang, Xinrui Jiang, Yuan He, Rajiv C. McCoy, Qiaomei Fu, Joshua M. Akey, Yafei Mao and Lu Chen
    Citation: Genome Biology 2025 26:32
    Content type: Research Published on:

  12. The history of human populations has been strongly shaped by admixture events, contributing to patterns of observed genetic diversity across populations. In this study, we introduce the Principal component Anc...

    Authors: Luciana de Gennaro, Ludovica Molinaro, Alessandro Raveane, Federica Santonastaso, Sandro Sublimi Saponetti, Michela Carlotta Massi, Luca Pagani, Mait Metspalu, Garrett Hellenthal, Toomas Kivisild, Mario Ventura and Francesco Montinaro
    Citation: Genome Biology 2025 26:29
    Content type: Methodology Published on:

  13. We investigate alternative strategies against reference bias and postmortem damage in low coverage paleogenomes. Compared to alignment to the linear reference genome, we show that masking known polymorphic sit...

    Authors: Dilek Koptekin, Etka Yapar, Kıvılcım Başak Vural, Ekin Sağlıcan, N. Ezgi Altınışık, Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas, Can Alkan and Mehmet Somel
    Citation: Genome Biology 2025 26:6
    Content type: Method Published on:

  15. The Italic Iron Age is characterized by the presence of various ethnic groups partially examined from a genomic perspective. To explore the evolution of Iron Age Italic populations and the genetic impact of Ro...

    Authors: Francesco Ravasini, Helja Kabral, Anu Solnik, Luciana de Gennaro, Francesco Montinaro, Ruoyun Hui, Chiara Delpino, Stefano Finocchi, Pierluigi Giroldini, Oscar Mei, Michael Allen Beck De Lotto, Elisabetta Cilli, Mogge Hajiesmaeil, Letizia Pistacchia, Flavia Risi, Chiara Giacometti…
    Citation: Genome Biology 2024 25:292
    Content type: Research Published on:

  16. Reconstructing premortem DNA methylation levels in ancient DNA has led to breakthrough studies such as the prediction of anatomical features of the Denisovan. These studies rely on computationally inferring me...

    Authors: Susanna Sawyer, Pere Gelabert, Benjamin Yakir, Alejandro Llanos-Lizcano, Alessandra Sperduti, Luca Bondioli, Olivia Cheronet, Christine Neugebauer-Maresch, Maria Teschler-Nicola, Mario Novak, Ildikó Pap, Ildikó Szikossy, Tamás Hajdu, Vyacheslav Moiseyev, Andrey Gromov, Gunita Zariņa…
    Citation: Genome Biology 2024 25:261
    Content type: Method Published on:

  17. The advent of genome-wide ancient DNA analysis has revolutionized our understanding of prehistoric societies. However, studying biological relatedness in these groups requires tailored approaches due to the ch...

    Authors: Erkin Alaçamlı, Thijessen Naidoo, Merve N. Güler, Ekin Sağlıcan, Şevval Aktürk, Igor Mapelli, Kıvılcım Başak Vural, Mehmet Somel, Helena Malmström and Torsten Günther
    Citation: Genome Biology 2024 25:216
    Content type: Method Published on:

Submission Guidelines

Back to top

This Collection welcomes submission of original Research, Method, Short Report, Review, and Database article types. Before submitting your manuscript, please ensure you have read our submission guidelines.

To submit your manuscript to this Collection, please use our online submission system and indicate in your covering letter that you would like the article to be considered for inclusion in the "Ancient DNA" Collection.

All articles submitted to Collections are peer reviewed in line with the journal’s standard peer review policy and are subject to all of the journal’s standard editorial and publishing policies. This includes the journal’s policy on competing interests. 

The Guest Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Guest Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editor or Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.