More on why we perhaps shouldn’t make sweeping claims on language from aDNA:
A couple of big science papers using ancient DNA to track linguistic changes are making the rounds this week. I found they were much more useful if you ignore the language stuff completely. I refer you to the feed of @boothicus.bsky.social for links, and the metacomment on it all below
🧪🏺🗃️ the twinned paper, this time on Celtic languages and their link to migrations in Iron Age Europe. I was a bit critical commenting in this piece as many of the population movements they detect have been found by other people previously. But also…
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
November 5, 2026 at 10:19 AM
More on why we perhaps shouldn’t make sweeping claims on language from aDNA:
November 1, 2026 at 5:03 AM
Late antique and early medieval historians are going to have to work hard to show how this kind of aDNA research does not, in fact, undermine recent historiographical insights, but enriches them.
In 550 CE, a Gothic historian claimed his distant forefathers crossed the sea from "Scandza" and rampaged south across Europe before conquering Rome itself. The idea of Gothic migration was dismissed as myth – but new ancient DNA studies show the story might have been true all along. @science.org
A barbarian tribe’s mythic origin story is true, ancient DNA reveals
Skeletons across Europe confirm the Goths surged out of Scandinavia before sacking Rome
www.science.org
November 4, 2026 at 6:52 PM
Late antique and early medieval historians are going to have to work hard to show how this kind of aDNA research does not, in fact, undermine recent historiographical insights, but enriches them.
Lot of #aDNA 🏺🧬 news these days. Which, don't get me wrong, is a pretty cool thing! 🙌
In 550 CE, a Gothic historian claimed his distant forefathers crossed the sea from "Scandza" and rampaged south across Europe before conquering Rome itself. The idea of Gothic migration was dismissed as myth – but new ancient DNA studies show the story might have been true all along. @science.org
A barbarian tribe’s mythic origin story is true, ancient DNA reveals
Skeletons across Europe confirm the Goths surged out of Scandinavia before sacking Rome
www.science.org
November 5, 2026 at 6:08 PM
Lot of #aDNA 🏺🧬 news these days. Which, don't get me wrong, is a pretty cool thing! 🙌
What I love about this is that it provokes us to look & think more about women in the Iron Age: aDNA, artefacts - even historical sources - tell us they were there & doing incredible things in all strata of IA society.
It really is time we started telling their stories more...
#Archaeology 🏺
It really is time we started telling their stories more...
#Archaeology 🏺
November 5, 2026 at 6:44 AM
What I love about this is that it provokes us to look & think more about women in the Iron Age: aDNA, artefacts - even historical sources - tell us they were there & doing incredible things in all strata of IA society.
It really is time we started telling their stories more...
#Archaeology 🏺
It really is time we started telling their stories more...
#Archaeology 🏺
I see (and often review) so many papers that make these comparisons between modern and historical genomes and estimate large shifts in diversity on short timescales (~10-20 generations) that simply are not possible based on basic pop gen and are screaming of batch effects due to aDNA degradation.
I'm a bit puzzled by these large declines in diversity in common species. Yes, there numbers have declined but losing 40% of species diversity in 20 generations would imply Ne's on the order of 10s.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Genomic erosion across avifauna in a biodiversity hotspot sounds a conservation alarm
Loss of biodiversity can have a hidden dimension—the cryptic erosion of genetic diversity even in the face of apparent species resilience. We quantified changes in genetic diversity by comparing histo...
www.science.org
November 3, 2026 at 12:40 AM
I see (and often review) so many papers that make these comparisons between modern and historical genomes and estimate large shifts in diversity on short timescales (~10-20 generations) that simply are not possible based on basic pop gen and are screaming of batch effects due to aDNA degradation.
Right, pop science wants aDNA to be dispositive and not a data point.
November 5, 2026 at 7:11 AM
Right, pop science wants aDNA to be dispositive and not a data point.
…reaching a ceiling of the what these traditional aDNA studies involving sophisticated intense genetic analysis but relatively superficial integration of the archaeological/linguistic evidence can tell us. Can a migration/interaction between groups that results in a 5% shift in ancestry be …
November 4, 2026 at 7:12 PM
…reaching a ceiling of the what these traditional aDNA studies involving sophisticated intense genetic analysis but relatively superficial integration of the archaeological/linguistic evidence can tell us. Can a migration/interaction between groups that results in a 5% shift in ancestry be …
Friends, may I offer you the section on ethnicity and aDNA from our paper on the "Fall" of the Roman Empire in this troubling time?
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Towards and beyond the ‘Fall’: rethinking Rome’s end | The Journal of Roman Studies | Cambridge Core
Towards and beyond the ‘Fall’: rethinking Rome’s end
www.cambridge.org
November 5, 2026 at 9:11 AM
Friends, may I offer you the section on ethnicity and aDNA from our paper on the "Fall" of the Roman Empire in this troubling time?
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Overall, given the wider evidence we now have from aDNA science (EIA Celts in France as matrifocal, EIA Germany/N Italy as matrilineal, MIA Wetwang and LIA Dorset as matrilineal); LIA women in combat in the osteology; the texts for leadership and combat. Then it certainly wouldn’t be surprising.
November 5, 2026 at 6:56 AM
Overall, given the wider evidence we now have from aDNA science (EIA Celts in France as matrifocal, EIA Germany/N Italy as matrilineal, MIA Wetwang and LIA Dorset as matrilineal); LIA women in combat in the osteology; the texts for leadership and combat. Then it certainly wouldn’t be surprising.
Super excited to share our two papers published in Nature today! 🧬 We use ancient genomics to explore how Germanic and Celtic languages spread across Europe.
Here's a video of our findings, produced by Nicolas Delgado Clausen!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyxA...
#adna
Here's a video of our findings, produced by Nicolas Delgado Clausen!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyxA...
#adna
Tracing the Spread of Celtic and Germanic Languages Using Ancient Genomics
YouTube video by GeoGenetics
www.youtube.com
November 4, 2026 at 4:35 PM
Super excited to share our two papers published in Nature today! 🧬 We use ancient genomics to explore how Germanic and Celtic languages spread across Europe.
Here's a video of our findings, produced by Nicolas Delgado Clausen!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyxA...
#adna
Here's a video of our findings, produced by Nicolas Delgado Clausen!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyxA...
#adna
100% agree with Charles here. It's long overdue for the narrative around aDNA and other studies of historical genetic evidence to move beyond simplistic stories about 'overturning old ideas'. It's such a naive and vapid way to think about the contribution these studies can actually make.
Late antique and early medieval historians are going to have to work hard to show how this kind of aDNA research does not, in fact, undermine recent historiographical insights, but enriches them.
In 550 CE, a Gothic historian claimed his distant forefathers crossed the sea from "Scandza" and rampaged south across Europe before conquering Rome itself. The idea of Gothic migration was dismissed as myth – but new ancient DNA studies show the story might have been true all along. @science.org
November 4, 2026 at 10:17 PM
100% agree with Charles here. It's long overdue for the narrative around aDNA and other studies of historical genetic evidence to move beyond simplistic stories about 'overturning old ideas'. It's such a naive and vapid way to think about the contribution these studies can actually make.
In the same way that we need archaeologists to work with Classicists, we need geneticists to work with archaeologists. Rather than reverting to diffusionism, and tying aDNA to language (without first modelling that process in the archaeology) - we now need genuine transdisciplinary thinking.
November 5, 2026 at 7:36 AM
In the same way that we need archaeologists to work with Classicists, we need geneticists to work with archaeologists. Rather than reverting to diffusionism, and tying aDNA to language (without first modelling that process in the archaeology) - we now need genuine transdisciplinary thinking.
The way that pop. science frames the complex modelling which emerges from aDNA analyses as confirming or refuting equally complex historiographical positions in long running disputes over disparate and fragmentary evidence has been absolutely disastrous for scientific communication and understanding
November 5, 2026 at 7:07 AM
The way that pop. science frames the complex modelling which emerges from aDNA analyses as confirming or refuting equally complex historiographical positions in long running disputes over disparate and fragmentary evidence has been absolutely disastrous for scientific communication and understanding
its was a serious blast watching! so glad you enjoyed. youre such a great personality for streaming adna :D
November 5, 2026 at 10:24 AM
its was a serious blast watching! so glad you enjoyed. youre such a great personality for streaming adna :D
Extrapolating this relationship to the historical samples (orange) suggests that insert size alone can explain much (though not all) of these differences in heterozygosity. Perhaps other aDNA issues are explaining the rest of these differences.
November 3, 2026 at 12:40 AM
Extrapolating this relationship to the historical samples (orange) suggests that insert size alone can explain much (though not all) of these differences in heterozygosity. Perhaps other aDNA issues are explaining the rest of these differences.
New aDNA analyses show that a man who was buried near the North Sea coast in the 5th century with remarkable grave goods, originated from the Danube region. He was infected with a leprosy pathogen that had not previously been detected in Europe. More 👇
@nihk-wilhelmshaven.bsky.social
#aDNA 🏺
@nihk-wilhelmshaven.bsky.social
#aDNA 🏺
Human and Disease Mobility in Late Antiquity
A study funded by the ROOTS Cluster of Excellence has identified a leprosy pathogen – previously undetected in Europe – in a 5th-century burial ground on the North Sea coast.
www.uni-kiel.de
November 3, 2026 at 3:43 PM
New aDNA analyses show that a man who was buried near the North Sea coast in the 5th century with remarkable grave goods, originated from the Danube region. He was infected with a leprosy pathogen that had not previously been detected in Europe. More 👇
@nihk-wilhelmshaven.bsky.social
#aDNA 🏺
@nihk-wilhelmshaven.bsky.social
#aDNA 🏺
OOOOMFFFFFFF ON THAT ADNA????? I HOPE YOU'VE BEEN HAVING SOOO MUCH FUN WITH IT (omg hi piamy.. piamat... love...)
November 3, 2026 at 12:24 PM
OOOOMFFFFFFF ON THAT ADNA????? I HOPE YOU'VE BEEN HAVING SOOO MUCH FUN WITH IT (omg hi piamy.. piamat... love...)
It’s not a podcast unless you’ve got a lapel mic to throw. WILL #adna #archaeologist @boothicus.bsky.social storm off?? Find out on tomorrow’s brand new episode, our biggest yet! youtube.com/playlist?lis...
November 3, 2026 at 9:02 AM
It’s not a podcast unless you’ve got a lapel mic to throw. WILL #adna #archaeologist @boothicus.bsky.social storm off?? Find out on tomorrow’s brand new episode, our biggest yet! youtube.com/playlist?lis...
But, as we see so often (I was talking about this in a paper on the A-S migration & aDNA yesterday), these studies move between so many different analytical scales so hurriedly that half the battle is simply to disentangle what has actually been empirically proven from what is claimed to have been.
November 5, 2026 at 6:29 AM
But, as we see so often (I was talking about this in a paper on the A-S migration & aDNA yesterday), these studies move between so many different analytical scales so hurriedly that half the battle is simply to disentangle what has actually been empirically proven from what is claimed to have been.
October 28, 2026 at 5:01 PM
Blows my mind how they think aDNA can tell them anything about how people *spoke*, and it honestly feels just a tad tiny little bit like, hmmm, eugenics? English is my second language, but I'm basically a native english speaker by this point. By their logic, do I now have that written into my dna?
November 5, 2026 at 10:45 AM
Blows my mind how they think aDNA can tell them anything about how people *spoke*, and it honestly feels just a tad tiny little bit like, hmmm, eugenics? English is my second language, but I'm basically a native english speaker by this point. By their logic, do I now have that written into my dna?
* EIA matrifocal France is from the archaeology, not the aDNA (not had my coffee yet). You can find the argument for that here: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Re-approaching Celts: Origins, Society, and Social Change - Journal of Archaeological Research
This work re-approaches the origins of “the Celts” by detailing the character of their society and the nature of social change in Europe across 700–300 BC. A new approach integrates regional burial ar...
link.springer.com
November 5, 2026 at 7:39 AM
* EIA matrifocal France is from the archaeology, not the aDNA (not had my coffee yet). You can find the argument for that here: link.springer.com/article/10.1...