Nature Genetics review synthesises insights into human adaptation from ancient DNA

A review published in Nature Genetics (Springer Nature, 28 April 2026) synthesises findings from ancient DNA research to examine patterns of human adaptation over the past tens of thousands of years. The work draws on the rapidly expanding corpus of ancient genomic data — now numbering in the tens of thousands of sequenced individuals — to identify loci showing signatures of positive selection in different populations and time periods.

The review covers well-documented examples such as adaptations related to diet (including lactase persistence and amylase copy number variation), immune function, and responses to infectious disease, as well as more recent findings relating to pigmentation, altitude adaptation, and metabolic traits. The authors discuss methodological advances that have allowed researchers to distinguish genuine selection signals from demographic confounds such as population bottlenecks and admixture.

The synthesis is relevant to researchers working in population genetics, anthropological genomics, and evolutionary medicine. For educators, it provides an up-to-date framework for teaching human evolutionary genetics with empirical grounding. For genealogists interested in ancestry and population history, the review contextualises how and when specific variants rose to high frequency in ancestral groups.