Gaps in archaeological metadata reporting: a meta-analysis of human paleogenomic studies in Western Eurasia

Abstract

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 While dramatically increasing our understanding of past demographic and adaptive processes, paleogeneomic research has also been criticized for a perceived disconnect between geneticists and other parties involved in the study of the past. For interdisciplinary research to be productive, contextual metadata associated with paleogenomic samples should be accessible in the same publication. Here, we examined the extent of archaeological metadata reporting in 30 peer-reviewed ancient DNA studies, based on genetic sequences from 3911 ancient humans, published between 2013 and 2024. Our findings show that the reporting of archaeological data is inconsistent across studies, and we have sought to identify the driving factors. Overall, we found no strong explanatory variables, though some metadata fields - like Geolocation - have improved in completeness over time. These inconsistencies mean that metadata reporting is often insufficient to directly investigate the relationship between patterns of cultural and genetic change on the basis of published data alone. We propose a minimum information checklist as a best-practice guideline for collecting and reporting archaeological data in the future. 34 Keywords 35 paleogenomics; archaeology; metadata; publishing standards; cultural evolution Faculty of Archaeology, Adam Mickiewicz University, ul. Uniwersytetu Poznańskiego 7/2.69, 61-614 Poznań, Poland Section for Molecular Ecology and Evolution, Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark Research Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom Department of Historical Studies, University of Gothenburg, Renströmsgatan 6, 412 55 Göteborg, Sweden Institute of Archaeology, University College London, WC1H 0PY, London, United Kingdom These authors contributed equally 1 bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.07.16.665041; this version posted July 19, 2025. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. 36