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The Twinning application NEOMATRIX was just granted by the European Commission. NEOMATRIX (Mapping The Neolithic Expansion In The Mediterranean: A Scientific Collective To Promote Archaeogenomics And Evolutionary Biology Research In Turkey) is a joint network project in which the Middle East Technical University (coordinating partner in Turkey), Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (Greece), Stockholm University (Sweden), and Université de Paris – CNRS – Institut Jacques Monod (France) participates. Although the subject is the Neolithisation of the Mediterranean area, the support is mainly for travelling, education and collaboration between the four beneficiaries. Further, it is the first major EC funded network that CPG participates in.

Anders Götherström has been awarded a 50M SEK research grant from the Swedish Research Council. The project, titled “Prehistoric microbes and human interaction”, aims to explore microbiotas dependent upon prehistoric societies and actions. A large amount of ancient DNA shotgun data has already been produced in Stockholm and in other places, but in most cases only the mammalian DNA has been analyzed from these bones and teeth. By analyzing the ancient microbial genomes in the raw data, we will study pathogenic outbreaks, how the pathogens moved within societies and between societies and even between species. In some cases we will also explore the evolution of specific microbes, and how their phenotypes have changed over time.

The last week has been full of news regarding wolves and dogs. A specimen that Dave Stanton is working on, the 18,000 year old puppy named Dogor, has been making headlines all over the world. This included coverage on BBC News, CNN and Washington Post. In addition, on Wednesday last week, Tatiana Feuerborn published her study on Arctic sledge dogs in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, with the title “Specialized sledge dogs accompanied Inuit dispersal across the North American Arctic“.

This is the launch of the official webpage for the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm. Here, you will find updates on our publications and other news, as well as information about the researchers working at CPG and the projects they are working on.

We are now only weeks away from moving into our new offices and laboratories! The builders are working almost around the clock to finish the last details. Once everything is ready, CPG will feauture office space for up to 40 researchers, and 250 m2 of completely refurbished laboratories dedicated to work on ancient and extremely degraded DNA.

Also, we are very excited about our MSc course that starts next week, titled “Paleoecology, Genetics and Human Prehistory”. The course will run for 10 weeks, and features several invited world-leading researchers who will give lectures, including Ludovic Orlando, Katerina Duoka, Adrian Lister and Carina Schlebusch.