Best poster prizes at ‘Reconstructing the human past: using ancient and modern genomics’

This web article reports the winners and publishes the abstracts of the best poster prizes awarded at the EMBO | EMBL Symposium 'Reconstructing the human past: using ancient and modern genomics' (17–20 September 2024, EMBL Heidelberg). The content includes three poster abstracts: 1st place: "Archaeogenetics of the iron age burial ground of Phaleron in Athens" (Presenter: Eirini Skourtanioti) Abstract: Located on the southern coast of Attica in Greece, Phaleron served as one of the principal ports of Athens in ancient times. Excavations have revealed a burial ground comprising approximately 2,000 burials, spanning the late 8th to the 4th century BCE. This extensive cemetery offers insights into the burial practices, social structures and political changes in Athens at a pivotal moment for the rise of democracy and the associated social and political conflicts. With a wide variety of burial types from elaborate funerary monuments, to simple pit and jar burials, and ‘deviant’ burials of violent deaths, the site provides a unique opportunity to study the transition from the Geometric to the Archaic and Classical period in Athens through the study of the health, diet, lifestyles and genetics of the ancient population. The exceptional data recovered from Phaleron has now been enlarged by new ancient DNA analysis. By applying state of the art, highly specific enrichment protocols, we have generated genome wide data from more than 100 individuals sampled from diverse burial contexts within a sector of the burial ground. Our analyses reveal a unprecedented rate of individuals with ‘non local’ ancestry showing no association with distinctive burial type features. In contrast to earlier Bronze Age Aegean sites, where ancestry outliers reflect population migration from Anatolia and later the Eurasian steppe, in Phaleron, the non local ancestry predominantly belongs to the broader Central and Eastern Mediterranean gene pool, but also Central Asia and Europe. In addition, when analyzing individuals with ancestry typical in the Aegean, we find genetic continuity since the Late Bronze Age suggesting that the transition sometimes referred to as ‘Greek Dark Ages’ was not accompanied by major admixture events into the Aegean. Finally, to estimate relatedness, we employed the method Identical By Descent which indicated that the individuals were distantly and sporadically related, rather than being members of biological families. Combined with the evidence for continuing the practice of consanguineous endogamy although more moderately our analyses suggest that the Phaleron cemetery reflected a large and diverse population as well as local communities of extended families. (Note: Due to the confidentiality of the unpublished data, the poster cannot be shared.) 2nd place (ex aequo): "Reconstructing the genomic history of Eastern Polynesians: insights into phenotypic variation in the Pacific" (Presenter: Dang Liu) Abstract: Reconstructing the genomic history of human populations provides insights into their demographic past and the evolutionary forces shaping phenotypic variation. Polynesians are thought to have experienced strong founder events and extensive admixture and present some of the highest prevalences of metabolic disorders worldwide. The study generated whole genome sequences (WGS) from 1,881 individuals across 24 islands from Western and Eastern Polynesia and the Outliers. Analyses of a 30× WGS subset (123 individuals) combined with global genomic datasets estimated that all Polynesians descend from a major admixture event between East Asian and Papuan related groups dated to ~2,100 years ago, supported simultaneous radiation of Polynesian groups, followed by strong bottlenecks in Eastern and Outlier groups, and a later radiation within Western and Eastern Polynesia over the last ~1,000 years. Analysis of 10× WGS from 1,770 Eastern Polynesians with phenotypic data revealed ancestry associations with BMI, HbA1c, and lipid traits and identified novel variants associated with metabolic traits, including some private to Pacific groups. There was no evidence for strong selective sweeps on these variants, suggesting a predominant role of genetic drift in explaining higher genetic risk for metabolic disorders in the region. A link to view the poster (EMBL24_poster.vFinal_compressed.pdf) is provided. 2nd place (ex aequo): "Pan African model explains homo sapiens genetic and morphological evolution" (Presenter: Cecilia Padilla Iglesias) Abstract: Emerging archaeological, paleoanthropological and genetic evidence challenge the traditional single-region origin of Homo sapiens in Africa. Instead, multiple geographically distinct African populations that intermittently exchanged genes and culture are proposed. The study employs a Climate Informed Spatial Genetic Modelling (CISGeM) framework integrating species distribution models from African hunter-gatherer archaeological assemblages and paleoclimatic reconstructions with contemporary and ancient African hunter-gatherer genomes. Using Approximate Bayesian Computation to assess demographic parameters and craniometric data from 45 fossils (Middle Pleistocene to present), the framework reconstructs genetic and morphological diversity through time, suggesting climatic influences on population dynamics explain temporal patterns of African genetic and morphological diversity without requiring introgression from ghost populations. The study identifies environmental factors shaping gene flow between African regions and outlines historical geographical ranges of ancient hunter-gatherer populations. (Note: Due to the confidentiality of the unpublished data, the poster cannot be shared.)