2025 in a nutshell


The activities

Talks of the Past open seminars

with invited speakers: Ester Oras, Jenny Hagenblad, Outi Vesakoski, Mehmet Somel, Tanya Uldin, Hugo Reyes-Centeno & Julia Sturm

Mini-Seminars

with guest researchers Joakim Wehlin, Yair Sapir, Samuli Simelius & Julia Velkova

Journal Club discussion meetings

with guest speakers and/or moderators: Noel Amano, Luciana G. Simoes, Anthony Jakob, Hugo Reyes Centeno, and others

The first Human Past Interdisciplinary Retreat

with 23 senior and junior researchers and PhD students at Sigtuna Stiftelsen.

The people

Axel Palmér joined the Center as a new Assistant University Lecturer (known as BUL, in Swedish) in linguistics.

Francesco Giannelli is the second postdoctoral researcher in the Center (Mattias Sjölander, the first postdoc, has been with us since October 2024).

We also had the pleasure of working with the Human Past SCAS fellows: Axel Palmér, Mehmet Somel, Hugo Reyes Centeno and Anthony Jakob this year.


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

    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…

  • Matte Sjölander’s STSM Experience in Utrecht 2026

    Matte Sjölander’s STSM Experience in Utrecht 2026

    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…