Dr Leo Speidel and Dr Garrett Hellenthal - Joint Paper

In this paper, we develop a new tool, Colate, for inferring relationships between low-coverage ancient genomes through time in the form of coalescence rates.  We additionally extend our previously developed method, Relate, which infers genealogical trees genome-wide to work with ancient genomes.  Together, these tools enable us to harness the power of genealogy-based analyses on a wider range of samples, including those of lower quality, which were previously inaccessible.

Application to data of ancient humans allows us to extrapolate their relationships into the past, where data is comparatively sparse.  We identify evidence of migrations between the major hunter-gatherer groups in the Upper Paleolithic.  We also characterise the geographic and temporal spread of a context-dependent mutation rate increase (TCC/TTC), today seen primarily in West Eurasia, which was already widespread in Late Glacial Europe and appears to be closely linked to ancestry carried by early Anatolian farmers.  

https://academic.oup.com/mbe/advance-article/doi/10.1093/molbev/msab174/6299394 .