Neanderthal culture: Old masters

The last Neanderthal.

The mechanism of the Neanderthal extinction and their replacement by modern humans of African origin is one of the most discussed issues in paleoanthropology. Central to this discussion are the questions of the chronological overlap between Neanderthal populations and modern humans in Western Eurasia and the precise geographical circumstances of this overlap. For a long time, the Vindija (Croat...

Route masters

Many turtle species are endangered through a variety of human activities, from beach development, boating and shipping, and fishing. Awareness of the problems has mostly focused on protection of beaches used for breeding as individuals return to highly specific sites where they are particularly vulnerable. Apart from their breeding sites, much less is known about their long and complex movement...

From Neanderthal to Homo sapiens

Project background During the course of evolution, the human brain has undergone tremendous expansion. This has led to the development of complex neurocircuits of unmatched complexity, highly social behaviour, expanded language use and cognitive superiority. A small number of infants, however, are born with significantly smaller brains, a condition called primary microcephaly (PM). Infants with...

External masters

Novel Denisovan and Neanderthal Retroviruses

Following the recent availability of high-coverage genomes for Denisovan and Neanderthal hominids, we conducted a screen for endogenized retroviruses, identifying six novel, previously unreported HERV-K(HML2) elements (HERV-K is human endogenous retrovirus K). These elements are absent from the human genome (hg38) and appear to be unique to archaic hominids. These findings provide further evide...