John Hawks

John Hawks

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Neandertal DNA

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
Top 10 discoveries about ancient people from DNA in 2024
New resolution is emerging of some events in ancient human populations, and a clearer view of some parts of the genome.
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John Hawks
A look at the Neanderthal from Altamura
The exceptional skeleton encased in calcite has started to yield insights about early Neanderthals.
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John Hawks
Late Neandertals: more diverse than most scientists thought
The new “Thorin” genome from Grotte Mandrin represents a previously-unknown Neanderthal deep history.
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John Hawks
Vagrant birds and ancient human habitats
People killed the Carolina parakeet. An inquiry into their historic population range helps illustrate the challenges of understanding ancient human…
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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
What color were Neandertals?
Even with whole genomes, scientists can't say very precisely what pattern of skin, hair, and eye pigmentation was in ancient populations like the…
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John Hawks
Explaining the X chromosome hole in Neandertal ancestry
Natural selection reduced the variation on human X chromosomes in populations with the most Neandertal and Denisovan mixture. It may have been meiotic…
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John Hawks
Many people have a little Neandertal in the brain. Does it matter?
Research has started to show the ways that introgressed genes from Neandertals affect brain shape in living people.
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John Hawks
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