The Library · Human Health
What ancient genomes teach us about health
Evolutionary medicine through the lens of ancient DNA: how selection on diet, pathogens, and environment over the last ten millennia shaped the disease risks, immune responses, and metabolic traits people carry today.
Curated starter reading
The genetic history of Ice Age Europe
Fu et al. · 2016 · Nature
Shows how selection and population turnover across 35,000 years shaped variants, including pigmentation and immunity, still carried today.
doi:10.1038/nature17993
Genetic adaptation to pathogens and increased risk of inflammatory disorders in post-Neolithic Europe
Kerner et al. · 2021 · Cell Genomics
Ancient DNA reveals that past selection for infectious-disease resistance raised present-day susceptibility to inflammatory disease.
doi:10.1016/j.xgen.2021.100005
Harnessing ancient genomes to study the history of human adaptation
Marciniak & Perry · 2017 · Nature Reviews Genetics
The definitive review of how time-series ancient DNA turns natural selection on health-related traits into a directly observable process.
doi:10.1038/nrg.2017.65
Genome-wide patterns of selection in 230 ancient Eurasians
Mathieson et al. · 2015 · Nature
The first genome-wide scan of selection using ancient samples: lactase persistence, skin pigmentation, and immunity loci under recent selection.
doi:10.1038/nature16152
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