Center for the Human Past
interdisciplinary research
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Call for the Human Past Fellowships 2026-27 is open
Read more →: Call for the Human Past Fellowships 2026-27 is openThe Fellowships are a joint initiative of the Center for the Human Past (CHP) and the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS). Deadline for applications: 2 June 2025. The fellowship aims to attract researchers interested in the human past, combining methods and materials from different disciplines. The primary focus is research on three major migration…
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Carina Schlebusch is the Editor-in-Chief of the HPGG journal
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Read more →: Carina Schlebusch is the Editor-in-Chief of the HPGG journalJoshua Akey, Professor, Lewis-Sigler Institute, Princeton University, USA, and Carina Schlebusch, Professor, Human Evolution, Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University, Sweden, are the Editors-in-Chief. The Human Population Genetics and Genomics Journal (HPGG; ISSN 2770-5005) is an international peer-reviewed Open Access journal published quarterly by Pivot Science Publications. This journal aims to publish discoveries and recent breakthroughs…
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Mini-Seminar: Graves & Grammar. Interdisciplinary approaches to changes in material culture, burial practice and language in Upper Dalarna 500-750 CE, with Joakim Wehlin and Yair Sapir
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Read more →: Mini-Seminar: Graves & Grammar. Interdisciplinary approaches to changes in material culture, burial practice and language in Upper Dalarna 500-750 CE, with Joakim Wehlin and Yair SapirSpeakers: Yair Sapir, PhD of Scandinavian Languages, Senior Lecturer of Swedish, Kristianstad University Joakim Wehlin, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, Archaeology, Uppsala University Summary Recent archaeological studies demonstrate changes in the material culture and burial practice in Upper Dalarna around 500-750 CE. The material culture and burial practice go from a previously locally distinctive tradition with influences…
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SCAS SEMINAR – Genetic Insights into Social Organisation of Neolithic Societies in Anatolia: Kinship and Gender Roles, speaker Mehmet Somel
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Read more →: SCAS SEMINAR – Genetic Insights into Social Organisation of Neolithic Societies in Anatolia: Kinship and Gender Roles, speaker Mehmet SomelMehmet Somel is a professor of biology at the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey, and the Human Past Senior Fellow 2024-25. The abstract will follow.
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Talks of the Past (ToP) Open Seminar, 7th May, 2025: Discussing mobility and cultural change in the context of Aegean Neolithization, speaker Mehmet Somel
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Read more →: Talks of the Past (ToP) Open Seminar, 7th May, 2025: Discussing mobility and cultural change in the context of Aegean Neolithization, speaker Mehmet SomelAbstract Mehmet Somel will present some recent results on the first steps of the Neolithic expansion westward, “out-of-Anatolia”. For this study, his group generated 30 new paleogenomes from six settlements in West and Central Anatolia dating to c.10,000-8,000 years ago. The researchers further compiled a digitalized material culture dataset comprising 58 cultural elements, from architecture…
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Talks of the Past (ToP) Open Seminar, 2nd Apr 2025: Uralic spread, Seima-Turbino and flower pots, speaker Outi Vesakoski
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Read more →: Talks of the Past (ToP) Open Seminar, 2nd Apr 2025: Uralic spread, Seima-Turbino and flower pots, speaker Outi VesakoskiAbstract The seminal paper by Grünthal et al. (2022) advances a new scenario of Proto-Uralic disintegration and spread. They suggest a rapid spread of Uralic languages through Common Uralic, a dialect continuum whose breakup formed the Finno-Ugric language families. They suggest that the vector for Uralic spread was the Seima-Turbino trading network (ST), within which…
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Talks of the Past (ToP) Open Seminar, 5th Mar, 2025: Prehistoric plant DNA and the agricultural history of the Canary Islands, speaker Jenny Hagenblad
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Read more →: Talks of the Past (ToP) Open Seminar, 5th Mar, 2025: Prehistoric plant DNA and the agricultural history of the Canary Islands, speaker Jenny HagenbladAbstract The intimate relationship between humans and crop plants means that traces of human cultural practices become embedded in the crop genome. Aspects of past cultures not documented in written records can consequently be studied with genetic analyses of archaeological crop remains. Such analyses, however, come with their own particular set of challenges, not the…
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SCAS SEMINAR – Pastoralists and Agriculturalists in the Rigveda and Beyond, speaker: Axel Palmér
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Read more →: SCAS SEMINAR – Pastoralists and Agriculturalists in the Rigveda and Beyond, speaker: Axel PalmérOur Human Past Fellow Axel Palmér will deliver a talk on his current research project at one of the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS) seminars. Welcome!
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Extended Wallenberg Fellowship for Carina Schlebusch
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Read more →: Extended Wallenberg Fellowship for Carina SchlebuschCarina’s project, “Prehistoric DNA reveals the spread of agriculture,” will continue thanks to the prolonged Knut and Alice Wallenberg Academy grant. Carina Schlebusch is analyzing the DNA of prehistoric farmers from different parts of Africa to map how cultivation and herding technology spread south of the Sahara. According to Carina, “Genetics is a fantastic tool…