Marco Capodiferro

We're excited to be recruiting an NSF funded postdoc to work in the Villanea lab at CU Boulder. We're specifically interested in candidates who want to work at the intersection of population genetics, ancient DNA, and computer modeling. Please RT

jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...

Evidence of sheeppox in 17th-19th century France: a multi-disciplinary investigation of a sheep mass mortality assemblage Epizootic outbreaks posed major threats to food security, economic stability, and animal welfare in past communities. While these events and their impacts are well documented in historical records, ve...

Despite my insomnia, I'm very happy to share our preprint: a multi-disciplinary assessment of a sheep mass mortality event from ~18th century France. We report the first ancient sheeppox virus (think smallpox) and the Taenia hydatigena (nasty roundworm) genomes.
#aDNA

Lovely is the right adjective. Writing this was so enjoyable in the company of @acstone.bsky.social @blevinske.bsky.social and Verena Schuenemann. Hope you enjoy.

Homo sapiens-specific evolution unveiled by ancient southern African genomes - Nature The genomes of 28 ancient southern African individuals dated to between 10,200 and 150 years before present offer insights into the evolution of Homo sapiens.

Our new ancient DNA paper has just been published!
We present 28 new genomes from southern Africa - several of them high-coverage whole genomes.
Exciting to be moving towards population-level representation of ancient southern African genetic diversity!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

So happy to see this out! Amazing science and amazing people behind it. Well done!!!

An early East Asian lineage with unexpectedly low Denisovan ancestry Yang et al. study Denisovan ancestry in ancient and present-day humans. In contrast to other East Asians, genomic comparisons suggest that the Jomon derived most of their ancestry from a deep lineage…

If you need more exciting news about Denisovans, check out our paper on Denisovan ancestry in modern humans through time, out today in Current Biology: www.cell.com/current-biol...! #Denisovan #ancientDNA

An early East Asian lineage with unexpectedly low Denisovan ancestry Yang et al. study Denisovan ancestry in ancient and present-day humans. In contrast to other East Asians, genomic comparisons suggest that the Jomon derived most of their ancestry from a deep lineage ...

In a new paper led by Jiaqi Yang we trace the distribution of Denisovan introgressed DNA in ancient modern human genomes over time.

www.cell.com/current-biol...

Retweet this picture so many times that when someone googles FIFA, this picture shows up.

🇵🇸 Amazing! 180 civil society organisations have endorsed our National March for Palestine. Join us, 12.30pm. We march for sanctions on apartheid Israel and to show our unbreakable solidarity with our Palestinian sisters and brothers. All out! #FreePalestine #SanctionsNow 🇵🇸

Join us on 31st October to celebrate Día de los Muertos with some #ancientDNA from Mexico! Two very exciting talks on 🦣 and 🪴, by Federico Sánchez-Quinto and Marcela Sandoval-Velasco of LIIGH UNAM.

Note the later 3pm London time!

#aDNA @aarc-community.bsky.social

Old Goats: 3,000 years of genetic connectivity of the domestic goat in Ireland The domestic goat likely first arrived to the island of Ireland as part of the introduction of agriculture approximately 5,900 years ago, and remains a part of the island's biocultural heritage. Howev...

Very happy to see our pre-print on ancient Irish goat genetics on bioRxiv #aDNA #spiergorm

I want to acknowledge this was only possible through the work of the late Dr. Judith Findlater, along with Prof. Eileen Murphy at @qubelfastofficial.bsky.social.

Evolutionary history and recurrent host adaptation in ancient Salmonella enterica Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica is an extremely diverse bacterial pathogen causing frequent infections and foodborne disease among human populations. More than 1500 different bacterial strains (se...

🦠💀🦠 Happy to share our (with @gunnar-u-neumann.bsky.social) new preprint on ancient Salmonella enterica genomes! We analysed 53 new genomes along with published ancient and modern datasets to learn about lineage replacements and host adaptation in prehistory: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

I was tagged (and accused) by mistake. It’s ‘Caputo’ at the end, not ‘Capo.’ Would you mind untagging me?

The genetic history of Portugal over the past 5,000 years - Genome Biology Background Recent ancient DNA studies uncovering large-scale demographic events in Iberia have presented very limited data for Portugal, a country located at the westernmost edge of continental Eurasi...

🇵🇹Our paper on Portugal's genetic history is now published in Genome Biology. We present Portugal’s largest ancient genome collection, with deeper analyses than our pre-print, revealing migrations, admixture & continuity shorturl.at/TcErC
@acadresearch.bsky.social @dnatimetravel.bsky.social

Congrats to @fravasini.bsky.social, @beniamino77.bsky.social and all the coauthors! 🎉

Second craziest thing you'll read today: from 2026 I will be leading an @erc.europa.eu Starter Grant project. HERDPATH will explore how livestock and their pathogens co-evolved during the last 10,000 years. PhD advertisements to come!

Press release below with one of the few good photos of me.

Palaeoproteomic and genetic insights into millennial-scale dairy consumption in Armenia Dairy products are a key component of the diet in Armenia today, yet the origins of milk consumption, its historical development, and genetic adaptations related to milk digestion in the region remain...

Our new paper shows how a multidisciplinary approach (ancient proteins + DNA) reveals the long history of dairy in Armenia! 🥛🐄

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The MUC19 gene: An evolutionary history of recurrent introgression and natural selection We study the gene MUC19, for which some modern humans carry a Denisovan-like haplotype. MUC19 is a mucin, a glycoprotein that forms gels with various biological functions. We find diagnostic variants ...

An extraordinary story of archaic introgression🧬: a Denisovan haplotype, introgressed through Neanderthals, selected in the Americas, and linked to an expanded copy number of a tandem repeat.
Congrats to @david-peede.bsky.social, Emilia, and the whole team!
👉 Enjoy the read: doi.org/10.1126/scie...

Are you interested in doing a PhD in Copenhagen? Interested in studying Neanderthals and Denisovans which live on in our genomes?
Than you are more than welcome to apply to join my group starting Jan 2026 :)

candidate.hr-manager.net/ApplicationI...

Please reach out if you have any questions!

Columbian mammoth mitogenomes from Mexico uncover the species’ complex evolutionary history Paleogenomic studies suggest that Mammuthus columbi derives from an ancient hybridization between Mammuthus primigenius and Mammuthus trogontherii. While its habitat spanned from North to Central Amer...

Thrilled to share our study sequencing genetic data from tropical mammoths 🏝️🦣. First DNA recovered from Columbian mammoths southern than USA shorturl.at/xjIvy. Thanks to all collaborators, you were key to this success! See below a fantastic note covering the paper by the great @rpocisv.bsky.social 👇

A very special paper where we did something NEW! 🔥combining a large genetic dataset 🧬, a large linguistic dataset 💬, and Bayesian multilevel logistic regressions 📈, counting the effects of areal contact (geographic constrains) 🌎. Genetic admixture explains higher levels of linguistic exchanges...

The MUC19 gene: An evolutionary history of recurrent introgression and natural selection We study the gene MUC19, for which some modern humans carry a Denisovan-like haplotype. MUC19 is a mucin, a glycoprotein that forms gels with various biological functions. We find diagnostic variants ...

Our paper on the evolution of MUC19 in humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans is finally out today in Science!

This has been a six-year effort by 13 authors to weave together 3 separate but related evolutionary stories around this one gene (more on thread 🧵).

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A new perspective on the arrival of the Eastern Mediterranean genetic influx in Central Italy before the onset of the Roman Empire Abstract. Italian genetic history was profoundly shaped by the Romans. While the Iron Age Central Italian gene pool was comparable to that of other coeval

🚨 New paper out in Genome Biology and Evolution!
We present new ancient DNA evidence from Central Italy suggesting that Eastern Mediterranean genetic influence predates the Roman Empire.
@beniamino77.bsky.social @fravasini.bsky.social

🧵👇
🔗 doi.org/10.1093/gbe/...

1/

Don't miss the AaRC pre-ISBA event on the 26th of August - anyone interested in ancient DNA in animals is welcome to come along.

And if you didn't get a talk at ISBA itself, submit an abstract here!

It’s UNREAL 🤯 what imputation can reveal about archaic Introgression across space 🌎 and time ⏳, and I'm personally STOKED 🤩 to see what the imputation era of archaic introgression will uncover 👀

Archaic ancestry inference in imputed ancient human genomes When modern humans expanded from Africa into Eurasia, they interbred with archaic hominins such as Neanderthals and Denisovans. This groundbreaking discovery, made in part possible through the genomic...

Interesting new approach developed by @marcocapo.bsky.social and Emilia Huerta-Sanchez to gain new insight into introgression events: Archaic ancestry inference in imputed ancient human genomes 🧪🧬

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Archaic ancestry inference in imputed ancient human genomes When modern humans expanded from Africa into Eurasia, they interbred with archaic hominins such as Neanderthals and Denisovans. This groundbreaking discovery, made in part possible through the genomic...

Turns out imputation of introgressed archaic regions in aDNA works really well — sometimes even better than for the rest of the genome. More on this (and other cool results) in our new preprint 👇 #aDNA #ArchaicIntrogression #imputation
doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Genetic transitions in the Neolithic and Bronze Age at Mas d’en Boixos (Catalonia, Spain) Human genetics; Biological sciences; Paleobiology

🚨 New paper!
🧬 We explore ancestry shifts, kinship ties & Mediterranean links at Mas d’en Boixos (Catalonia), from the Neolithic to the Iron Age.
👨🏻‍🔬A long journey since my master’s! Huge thanks to Cristina, Assumpció & @dnatimetravel.bsky.social! @acadresearch.bsky.social
shorturl.at/B8TlB

Seeking a few Postdoctoral Researchers at Mathematical Genomics RIKEN ECL Research Unit (25-695)

Postdoc position in my group in Tokyo!
Please get in touch if you are interested.

And happy to discuss projects - these would range from developing new methods to analysis of new genomes that we are now sequencing in the lab.

Job Ad: www.riken.jp/en/careers/r...
Lab page: speidellab.github.io

We’re excited to share more about the 1st Annual HAAM Meeting — a hybrid pre-ISBA event!
📅 Aug 26 | 🏛️ Turin & 💻 online
🧬 HAAM updates
💼 Career panel w/ Lehti Saag, Monica Kelly, Éadaoin Harney & Zuzana Hofmanová
⚡ Flash talks — submit your abstract by July 11 (extended deadline‼️)
👉 shorturl.at/8LZsr