Center for the Human Past

Ideas that change the world.

Mika Norling

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Human Evolution was the focus of the latest episode (Season 6, Ep. 112) in the Nobel Prize Museum’s podcast series, Ideas that change the world, with Mattias Jakobsson.

We all carry the entire history of humanity in our genes. When researchers examine the DNA of people living today and compare it with the genetic material of those who lived tens of thousands of years ago, a new picture of human evolution emerges – a picture characterised by variation, mixture and diversity.

Geneticist Mattias Jakobsson explains how the technology for which Svante Pääbo received the Nobel Prize is being used to understand how we humans became who we are.

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    Diachronic reuse of Neolithic burial monuments by Bronze Age newcomers in Southwestern Britain

    A new paper, co-authored by Nikola Vuković, Carolina Bernhardsson and Mattias Jakobsson, from the Human Evolution Program at Uppsala University, in close collaboration with British archaeologists, has recently been published in Scientific Reports:Vuković, N., Bernhardsson, C., Edlund, H., Delbarre, G., Smith, M., Darvill, T., … & Jakobsson, M. (2026). Diachronic reuse of Neolithic burial monuments…

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    In June 2026, Mattias Sjölander visited Utrecht University to host a brainstorming session on integrating subfossil insect and pollen data in future analyses. The visit, a so-called Short-Term Scientific Mission within Open Palaeoecological Data (PalaeOpen), was funded by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST). During my ongoing postdoctoral project at the Center for the Human…

  • The Tie That Binds Us?

    The Tie That Binds Us?

    A new article discussing ancient DNA, kinship studies and human connection across time, co-authored by one of our former Human Past SCAS Fellows, Mehmet Somel, has just been published in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal. Moots, H. M., Tsosie, K. S., & Somel, M. (2026). The Tie That Binds Us? Challenging the Primacy of DNA in Kinship Studies…