Scientific Forum: Professor Fox on New Ways from Old Bones

Through analysis of genetics, archaeologists today are solving a decades-long debate about human migration since ancient times, Carles Lalueza Fox,PhD said at today's scientific forum at the University of Montenegro.

"Today, we understand the geographical and temporal shifts of European ancestors," he added, stating that archaeologists' scientific research can provide information about past social structures, family ties.

"We are now moving from populations to certain individuals. "Soon we will be able to connect individuals from the past with contemporary individuals, through ancestral ties," Professor Fox said.

Professor Fox is a researcher at the Institute for Developmental Biology (CSIC-UPF) in Barcelona, ​​Spain. At the tribune, he went through previous research on paleogenetic, which he has been doing for 25 years, and which, as he said, can often surprise due to unusual combinatorics on European spaces, and the task of scientists was to discover genes responsible for a lighter or darker skin, eye color.

The professor has published more than a hundred papers in international journals, which mainly deal with the genetic analysis of previous human populations for the reconstruction of ancient migrations, inclinations and population adjustment. His works include the first complete mitochondrial genome of an extinct species (Nature 2001), the first functional analysis of an ancient gene (Science 2006), the first Mesolithic human genome (Nature 2014).

Introducing him, Predrag Miranović, PhD, said that his research since 2004 has focused on Neanderthal genomics, mainly in collaboration with the Neanderthal family group from the EI Sidron site in Asturias (Spain) (PNAS 2006, 2011).

One of the results of his work is return of specific nuclear genes from Neanderthals, including hair pigmentation (Science 2007) and speech-related genes (Current Biology 2007). He also collaborated on the Neanderthal Genome project, led by Professor Svante Paabo. He was awarded the Ciutat de Barcelona Prize in 2007 for his research.

In addition to research, he has published 11 popular scientific books, mainly on topics in the field of human evolution, archaeogenetic and modern human diversity.

The last book he published was The Gene Forge of Europe - La forja genetica de Europa (2018).

He has been awarded numerous prestigious prizes for his scientific research.

Today's scientific forum was organized on the basis of the Agreement on Scientific and Artistic Cooperation between the Montenegrin Academy of Sciences and Arts and the University of Montenegro.