29/10/2025 -
Across the world, a few human traits tell a remarkable story of how genes, culture, and environment have co-evolved. Two of the clearest examples are lactase persistence (the ability to digest milk sugar as adults) and light skin pigmentation. Both reflect strong natural selection linked to diet and sunlight exposure — and both trace their spread through ancient human migrations.
The Lactose Story: How Milk Changed Human Evolution
For most mammals, the gene controlling the digestion of milk sugar (lactose) switches off after weaning. Yet in some human populations, that gene stayed active — a mutation near LCT/MCM6 allows adults to keep producing lactase, the enzyme that breaks down milk sugar. This trait, called lactase persistence (LP), became highly advantageous where...
See more
26/10/2025 -
Among the forests and rivers of the central Volga-Kama region of Russia lives a small but remarkable population — the Udmurts. With only around 500,000 people today, they speak a Finno-Ugric language related to Hungarian and Finnish, yet their genetic and physical traits tell a much more complex story.
A Genetic Puzzle Between Europe and Siberia
Modern genetic data show that Udmurts are a blend of Eastern European and Siberian ancestries.
Using G25 coordinates, they plot between Northern Europeans and Volga-Ural populations, suggesting ancient contact zones between Indo-European and Uralic speakers.
Copy to clipboard
Udmurt,0.107841,-0.020702,0.079718,0.066315,-0.03057,0.008875,0.008617,0.010716,-0.011055,-0.035615,0.021186,-0.005995,0.015072,-0.03088,-0.010391,-0.005453,-0.00...
See more
21/10/2025 -
Language and genes often tell different stories. Archaeogenetics shows that while migrations shape populations, cultural and political shifts can transform language far beyond their genetic footprint. From Gaul to the British Isles, from the Urals to North Africa, history offers many examples where tongues moved faster than chromosomes.
1. France – Latin Speech, Celtic Genes
After the Roman conquest, Gaul adopted Latin, which evolved into French and other Romance languages. Yet genome-wide studies reveal deep continuity between Iron Age Gauls and modern French. In the Fisher et al., 2022 study (Cell Reports), the PCA shows Iron Age and modern French individuals clustering almost identically, proving that Romanization was cultural, not genetic.
Reference: Fern...
See more
08/10/2025 -
Recent ancient DNA discoveries are reshaping our understanding of Roman and early medieval Britain. Far from being an isolated island after the fall of Rome, Britain was home to people of remarkably diverse origins. New genomic analyses of burials from Kent and Dorset reveal that individuals of African ancestry lived and integrated within Anglo-Saxon communities more than 1,300 years ago.
1) EAS003 – A Young Man from Kent with African Roots
The genome England_Saxon_oAfrica:EAS003.SG comes from a young man buried in Kent in the early 7th century CE. His DNA, studied in the 2024 paper
“West African ancestry in seventh-century England”, revealed a striking mixture: roughly half of his ancestry was West African, the rest Northern European.
Isotopic analysis show...
See more
03/10/2025 -
23andMe has released its 2025 ancestry update, and overall the results are excellent. In our community, the improvements are clear: more precise regional assignments, better separation of closely related populations, and refinements driven by larger, better-curated reference datasets.
Why Results Change Over Time
Your raw DNA does not change after you test. What changes is the reference panel—the database of people from known populations that your DNA is compared against. As new and richer reference data are added, the algorithm can distinguish, for example, Northern French from Belgian ancestry, or Spanish from Portuguese, with greater confidence. Sometimes this means a region you previously had may shrink, disappear, or be split more finely. That is not your family history changi...
See more
