Department of Archaeogenetics at Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

The Institute unites scientists with various backgrounds whose aim is to investigate the history of humankind from an interdisciplinary perspective with the help of comparative analyses of genes, cultures, cognitive abilities, languages and social systems of past and present human populations as well as those of primates closely related to human beings.

Led by Johannes Krause, the Department of Archaeogenetics utilizes the recent advances in molecular approaches on biomolecules, such as stable isotope research and genome wide DNA sequencing, to uncover an entirely new spectrum of information that can be retrieved from sample repositories such as anthropological and archaeological collections. It is now possible to obtain detailed information about genetic relationships, geographical origin, selective processes or genetic structure of historical and prehistorical human, plant, animal or even pathogen populations using only miniscule samples.