Inferring Kinship in Ancient Populations: Advances Using Paleogenomic Techniques

• Rosa Fregel ^[1]
  1. [1] Universidad La Laguna
• Localización: A social archaeology of kinship in Iberia and beyond: Recent multistranded approaches from aDNA to household archaeology / coord. por Antonio Blanco González, Eva Alarcón García, 2025, ISBN 978-94-6426-406-7, págs. 73-91
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • In the last decade, paleogenomics has been demonstrated to be a useful tool for studying the past, especially when applied within multidisciplinary research projects. One of the aspects of human populations that can be explored in detail using ancient DNA is “biological kinship” and social structure. Examples of the outcomes of this approach are the studyof large extended family within a Neolithic mass grave in Koszyce (Poland) or the genetic characterization of entire necropolis, with relatives connected over several generations, such as the ones performed in the Avar (Carpathian Basin) and the Argar (Iberian Peninsula) societies. Because paleogenomic analyses should be performed in multidisciplinary teams, it has become necessary for researchers working in other disciplines to be familiar withconcepts related to kinship inference. In this chapter, I present a brief review of how ancient DNA is recovered from human remains, what limitations palaeogenomic analyses have, and how DNA can be used for estimating kinship.