SESSION 48

Palaeogenomics of the Indo-Pacific Region

Anthropology Department, University of Maryland

For the last several decades, archaeological and palaeoanthropological data has proven that the Indo-Pacific region is one a vast importance and relevance for the understanding of early human movement and settlement patterns once humans left Africa to colonise the world. However, genetic and palaeogenomic (ancient DNA) data from the region has been greatly lacking, and has thus played only a minor role in telling the story of early humans; a story that is best told from complementing datasets across the subfields of anthropology. This palaeogenomic panel will present new research, detail the molecular methods employed, and inform on new genetic data (both modern and ancient) from the Indo-Pacific region. This new data is only just beginning to inform on the process and patterns of human arrival to the region, human settlement, and newly discovered inter-hominin relationships.