John Hawks

John Hawks

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introgression

A shorter, sharper Out-of-Africa story is emerging
A new study of genomic ancestry in Papua New Guinea supports a short timeline for the dispersal of modern people
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John Hawks
12
The gene from Denisovan to Neanderthal to modern mucus
A “genetic sandwich” reveals how a block of DNA entered several populations successively and was affected by natural selection.
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John Hawks
12
Denisovan HLA and its role in immunity
Today's people have inherited several immune alleles from archaic people. Understanding what difference they made is a continuing challenge.
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John Hawks
The humanity of a new Denisovan
Identification of the Harbin skull by mtDNA and proteins and what it means to be Homo sapiens.
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John Hawks
5
Lactase and the Neandertals
New research shows that a common gene variant that may explain some lactase persistence in East Asia is introgressed from Neandertals.
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John Hawks
A hard ceiling on modern human dispersal
Neandertal DNA in some of the oldest modern human genomes establishes a short timeline of 50,000 years for the out-of-Africa founder event.
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John Hawks
Tracing the signature of African-to-Neandertal gene flow
A new study of African genetic variation yields a more accurate picture of the genetic exchanges between ancient Africans and Neandertals 250,000 years…
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John Hawks
Interaction and mixture: big picture and small
From the level of function of a single gene up to the movements of entire populations, our evolution was built from mixture.
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John Hawks
When did human chromosome 2 fuse?
More and more, it looks like this event happened shortly before a million years ago, in the common ancestors of Neandertal, Denisovan, and African…
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John Hawks
Climate models, Neandertals, and Denisovans
A new paper on biogeography of Neandertals and Denisovans raises ideas about the interactions of these groups.
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John Hawks
Tracing the genetic histories of ghost apes
The footprints of extinct lineages are the closest we have to a fossil record of the African apes.
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John Hawks
Ghostbusters of human origins
Humans tend to mix and interact with each other. Geneticists are once again starting to take that seriously, changing their view of our origins.
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John Hawks
© 2025 John Hawks
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