Session: #344

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Paleogenomic data are produced at an ever faster rate and with unprecedented quality due to methodological and technological improvements. As a result, paleogenomic inference is addressing archaeological questions spanning a large range of periods and geographic regions. Recently, various ancient DNA studies clarified large, continental ancestry issues, particularly in humans. In many cases, this has led to spectacular findings, although rather anthropological than historical in nature. The actual (pre)historical questions and the available detailed archaeological knowledge sometimes remained in the background. The aim of this session is to identify ways how palaeogenomic inference can be used to identify demographic processes at the level of regions, settlements, clans, and families by fully profiting from the available archaeological knowledge and the informational content of ancient genomes. This probably can not be done on a descriptive level alone and requires advanced statistical inference or demographic modeling techniques, ideally on the basis of full ancient genomes. Especially when dealing with closely related populations and complex demographies, this endeavor is not trivial and requires more effort than the de riguer techniques of statistical genomics. For this session, we thus welcome papers that present methodological and statistical advances towards this goal and that demonstrate how these new approaches are better suited to integrate archaeological questions and genomic inference than conventional ones. We hope to discuss future prospects how the fields can further converge. Therefore, we invite researchers from both fields to bring in ideas how to combine genomic and archaeological information in one coherent framework.

Session: #344

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