An international genomics study led by scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), has revealed that early Asians undertook humanity’s longest known prehistoric migration. These early humans, who roamed the earth over 100,000 years ago, are believed to have travelled more than 20,000 kilometres on foot from North Asia to the southernmost tip of South America. Published in the prestigious journal Science, this is the first time that scientists have mapped the unexpectedly vast genetic diversity of Asians, who make up more than half of the world’s population. 

These findings overturn long-held assumptions of European genetic dominance and show that native South Americans are of Asian descent. The study also sheds light on how such a vast migration and differing environments have shaped human evolution, including how populations have adapted to diseases and how their immune systems have evolved.

The skeleton of a man with a severe dislocated fracture of the knee, found in a cemetery in Lund, southern Sweden, is helping to unravel the complexities of social attitudes towards individuals with disabilities in the late medieval period. The research combines traditional osteological methods and 3D modelling - a cutting-edge technique for viewing and studying traumatic injury and related skeletal changes - with contextual information from historical texts and digitized excavation records to build a more nuanced understanding of disability and care in the past.