A 2025(!) reminder to submit an abstract to Session 25 "The ancient DNA revolution in Africa: New data, broader applications, and evolving research practices” @ the upcoming SAfA meeting (w/ a virtual option). Deadline Jan 31. Write to me at kendra_sirak[at]fas.harvard.edu if you want more details!

A huge thank you to Nada Salem for translating our abstract into Arabic, which helped us share results with people on Soqotra (more of this to come!) (11/n)

This National Geographic project would not have happened without the amazing men & women on Soqotra who contributed to this collaboration. Thank you to GOAM especially for permitting this study. I’m incredibly proud of the community engagement aspect of this work. (10/n)

A longstanding question in Soqotri archaeology asks if burial tafoni were segregated by sex? We show that 7/13 tafoni included individuals of both sexes & provide evidence of matrilineal & patrilineal relationships among people buried together. (9/n)

The medieval Soqotri gene pool is best modeled as deriving ~86% ancestry from people from the Hadramawt, with the remaining ancestry well-proxied by an Iranian related source with up to 2% ancestry from the Indian sub-continent. (4/n)

We observe this same pattern in only one other group - present-day people from the Hadramawt region of present-day Yemen - which represents a likely source for the peopling of Soqotra. Genetic connections between these regions are extremely strong.(3/n)

Most modern Arabians can be modeled as deriving all of their Levantine/Anatolian-related ancestry from a Neolithic farmer-related source; however, the medieval Soqotri had relatively more ancestry from ancient groups closer to Natufian hunter-gatherers (2/n).

#ISBA10 feels like a good time to kick off some activity in this new blue place 💀🧬🦠

I’m excited to share and consume science in this space!