When we study ancient DNA, we are not just uncovering who people were or where they came from. We are exploring how biology itself changes through time. Each ancient genome, human or microbial, records the outcomes of natural selection, mutation, and chance. The same processes you learn about in biology class are still shaping every living organism today, from bacteria to humans.
What Ancient DNA Can Reveal
Ancient DNA lets us zoom in on many levels of life at once. When we compare genomes from individuals buried in the same community, we can see who was related to whom and how genes were passed down across generations. On a larger scale, we can track migrations and mixing between populations, watching how genetic diversity spread or shrank over time.
We are not limited to human DNA. In some cases, we recover the DNA of pathogens that once infected people and parts of the microbiome that lived in and on them.
