Category Archives: Ancient DNA

A quest to determine whether human remains salvaged from the wreck of the Whydah pirate ship are those of its captain, Samuel “Black Sam” Bellamy, brought an investigator for the project across the Atlantic Ocean to gather DNA from Bellamy’s descendant and visit the pirate’s birthplace.

When humans were walking around the west coast of current day Canada 13,000 years ago, they left behind footprints.
That’s according to a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE that outlines the discovery of 29 human footprints found at the shoreline of Calvert Island in British Columbia.

A study of ancient DNA has shed light on the epic journeys that led to the settlement of the Pacific by humans.

Fueled by advances in analyzing DNA from the bones of ancient humans, scientists have dramatically expanded the number of samples studied­­ – revealing vast and surprising migrations and genetic mixing of populations in our prehistoric past.

WEST YARMOUTH, Mass. — A human bone freed from a mass of sediment found in the area of the sunken Whydah pirate ship could hold enough DNA to help scientists determine whether it belonged to the pirate captain Samuel “Black Sam” Bellamy.

A recent facial reconstruction of a 10,000-year-old skeleton called the “Cheddar Man” has revealed a man with bright blue eyes, slightly curly hair, and dark skin.
“It might surprise the public, but not ancient DNA geneticists,” says Mark Thomas, a scientist at the University College London.

An ancient jawbone uncovered from a collapsed cave on the coast of Israel is at least 175,000 years old, and it belonged to a member of our own species. Sophisticated stone tools were discovered nearby.

A pair of ancient Egyptian mummies, known for more than a century as the Two Brothers, were actually half brothers, a new study of their DNA finds.

This year has been a good one for skeletons. Bioarchaeological and forensic research continues to be published in a growing number of specialty and general academic journals, and it’s also being covered by mass media news outlets — from the well-known National Geographic and LiveScience to the up-and-coming SAPIENS. But these are the five most fascinating skeletons that I covered here at Forbes in 2017:

The Chachapoyas, the “Warriors of the Clouds,” were a people that lived in the northern elevations of Peru, and put up a long-running struggle against the Inca Empire, which they eventually lost. Traditional tales told to the first Spanish conquerors of the New World about a century after their final defeat held that the Inca forcibly relocated the Chachapoyas to the corners of the massive empire, so they could never again pose a threat.