Press Releases 2017

DNA analysis of present-day populations in the Chachapoyas region of Peru indicates that the original inhabitants were not uprooted en masse by the Inca Empire’s expansion into this area hundreds of years ago. more

Technological advances and multidisciplinary research teams are reshaping our understanding of when and how humans left Africa – and who they met along the way more

The plague-causing bacterium Yersinia pestis may have first come to Europe with the large-scale migration of steppe nomads in the Stone Age, millennia before the first known historical epidemics. more

In comparison to central and northern Europe, the Iberian Peninsula saw a faster fusion of early farmer populations, who migrated to the region from the Near East, and local hunter-gatherers. The study, by an international research team including researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, analyzed mitochondrial DNA from the Neolithic and early Bronze Age (5500-1500 BC). more

New research shows that early farmers who migrated to Europe from the Near East spread quickly across the continent, where they lived side-by-side with existing local hunter-gatherers while slowly mixing with those groups over time. more

The orientation of strokes within letters reveals surprising patterns that hardly changed in 3000 years more

Languages do not share a single history but different components evolve along different trajectories and at different rates. more

The partners of the new Max Planck-Harvard Research Center are investing a total of five million Euros in order to understand the key processes that shaped human history in the ancient Mediterranean by using cutting-edge scientific approaches. more

Genetic analyses uncover lost human populations and surprising relationships, revealing a complex history of population movements in ancient Africa. more

Study conducted at the Wolf Science Center in Vienna shows that dogs seem to have lost some problem solving abilities when they were domesticated. more

The Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History welcomes 300 participants from around the globe to Jena to introduce a unique forum for evolutionary research: the Cultural Evolution Society. The Society’s inaugural conference takes place from September 13^th to 15^th and is organized by the Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution at the Max Planck Institute.     more

4000 years ago, European women traveled far from their home villages to start their families, bringing with them new cultural objects and ideas. more

A large-scaled study of creole languages sheds light on the robustness of language transmission. more

New technologies provide evidence in the debate on when and how Asian fauna was introduced to Africa. more

Tens of thousands of years of controlled burns, forest management and clear-cutting have implications for modern conservation efforts – and shatter the image of the “untouched” tropical forest. more

The mysterious Minoans descended primarily from local Stone Age farmers, as did their cultural counterpart, the Mycenaeans – and their descendants still inhabit Greece today. more

A wooden container found in an ice patch at 2,650m in the Swiss Alps could help archaeologists shed new light on the spread and exploitation of cereal grains following a chance discovery more

Advances in methods and data reveal the broad patterns of cultural evolution more

by Michael Gavin more

Mitochondrial DNA from Neanderthal individual who died in Swabian Jura in modern-day southwest Germany suggests that Neanderthals received genetic contribution from Africa by hominins that are closely related to modern humans more than 220,000 years ago. more

Study finds that ancient Egyptians were most closely related to ancient populations from the Near East. more

A new study reveals a genetic continuity and adds new aspects to the debate on the diffusion of the Indo-European languages. more

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MPI research suggests that nomadic horse culture can trace its roots back more than 3000 years in the eastern Eurasian Steppes, in the territory of modern Mongolia. more

The Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena (Germany) is pleased to announce its role as an official partner with the March For Science. more

DNA in hair samples collected from Aboriginal people across Australia in the early to mid-1900s has revealed that populations have been continuously present in the same regions for up to 50,000 years – soon after the peopling of Australia. more

Foraging lifestyles persisted in New Guinean tropical forest environments even after the advent of farming 8,000 years ago more

Latest study reveals 89% success-rate of computational detection of word relationships across language families more