#FINS is using a multidisciplinary approach including dermal denticle analysis and proteomics to study #marineshagreen, which is a material made from the skins of sharks and rays, to explore historic elasmobranch exploitation in the early modern period #EEA2025 @rachelmwinter.bsky.social
Interested in #palaeoproteomics, #ZooMS and human evolution? We currently have a postdoctoral position and a research position open.
Postdoc: jobportal.ku.dk/videnskabeli...
Research assistant: jobportal.ku.dk/videnskabeli...
New paper is out!
We and welkergroup.bsky.social show that proteins from resin-impregnated sediment blocks can reveal faunal diversity at the microscale.
We thank and congratulate all coauthors!
#paleoproteomics #geoarchaeology
erc.europa.eu
icarehb.bsky.social
academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...
Huge thanks and congratulations to all coauthors (including @zandraselina.bsky.social, @fridowelker.bsky.social, @veraaldeias.bsky.social) and funders (@erc.europa.eu, #msca_promise and many more) 🎉
📣Paper alert📣 Is it possible to use #palaeoproteomics to identify the taxonomy of bone fragments in resin-embedded sediment blocks, enabling study of past faunal community composition at a microstratigraphic scale? 🦴🐮 🦌 We decided to test this, and the results are now out: doi.org/10.1093/pnas...
Me giving a talk, barely visible behind a giant podium. About five minutes later, the fire alarm went off, and we all had to go outside for a while. But hey, at least the audience were awake after that! Photo by Dorothea Mylopotamitaki.
And that's a wrap on Bone Diagenesis 2025! What a lovely conference, full of kind and brilliant scientists. Also the first time my talk has been so 🔥🔥🔥 it set off the fire alarm (I'm choosing to assume that was the reason) 😅
Paris and @welkergroup.bsky.social are ready for #ESHE2025!
And @leireti.bsky.social will both be presenting a poster on Wednesday, as well as talking about "The sex(y)-ing part of enamel: estimating sex ratios in hunted ungulates from the Late Pleistocene" in the @paastacommunity.bsky.social pre-ISBA conference 🦌
On Friday @vvillaislas.bsky.social will be presenting a poster on "Extended enamel database for hominin palaeoproteomic data analysis" 💻
On Friday @zandraselina.bsky.social will talk about "Optimization of dental enamel demineralization for palaeoproteomics" at 11:35 in the Methods IV session 🦷
On Thursday at 09:30 Ragnheiður Diljá Ásmundsdóttir will be talking about "Composition variations in archaeological human bone proteomes" in the Methods II session 🦴
We have arrived in Turin for @isba11.bsky.social and are very excited for the week! Don't miss the following talks and posters from the Welker Group:
Delighted to be bringing you the following PAASTA community-led paper outlining our recommendations for best practices and open science in palaeoproteomics! Congratulations to the authors and for anyone keen to read the paper, it can be found #OpenAccess here: doi.org/10.24072/pcj...
Photo of me giving a talk in a very fancy room! Photo taken by Viridiana Villa Islas.
I very much enjoyed #SMBE2025 in Beijing - huge thanks to the organizers, and I look forward to seeing everyone in Copenhagen next year!
My poster presentation, thanks to the photographers team #SMBE2025
Parts of the Welker Group taking a boat ride around the canals of Copenhagen, all looking very happy!
For the last six months, we've had Lucas Siero from Utrecht University visiting us for an internship, working on some #palaeoproteomics method development. It was a joy to have you join our group Lucas, and good luck with the rest of your studies!
Come visit beautiful Copenhagen and enjoy this years AGPM meeting! Exciting mixture of interdisciplinary approaches to archaeozoology⬇️
It has truly been a pleasure to train and develop my PhD research on paleoproteomics about Iberia's Late Prehistory with @zandraselina.bsky.social and @welkergroup.bsky.social during my stay at Globe. Grateful for the collaborative spirit and all the inspiring discussions! See you all again soon!
Parts of the group out enjoying some Copenhagen sun and iced tea!
For the last six months, @adrianaleite.bsky.social has been visiting us from @icarehb.bsky.social. Thank you for this time Adriana, it has been a joy to have you in our group and we hope to see you again soon!
Congratulations to @dorotheamylop.bsky.social!
Now that’s what I call scientific illustration
The dog crossed the rainbow bridge (he was 15 years old), but his proteins live on forever now!
Finally, the Contaminator may no longer be with us, but we are very grateful for his research efforts as well! He did get a nice snack as a reward for his contribution.
Thank you also to our funders, the study would not have been possible without generous support from @leakeyfoundation.bsky.social, @erc.europa.eu, the MSCA and many others. #msca_promise
This study was a great collaboration of a team from both Denmark and Tajikistan - huge thanks to all coauthors, including @zandraselina.bsky.social, @vvillaislas.bsky.social, @jespervolsen.bsky.social, @mikkelwp.bsky.social and @fridowelker.bsky.social 🎉
Phylogenetic tree showing that the Khudji individual falls among Neanderthals.
Finally, we set out to answer the major question about the Khudji tooth - who did it belong to? The reconstructed sequences indicate that it is not a Denisovan, and is unlikely a modern human. That means it's most likely a Neanderthal - but direct molecular evidence is still needed in the future.
Figure showing that proteins and peptides from skin were almost entirely removed after bleach decontamination.
Also here, the bleach decontamination approach was very successful, as the vast majority of human skin proteins were removed, and the endogenous dentine proteins were left unharmed.
A map showing the location of the archaeological site of Khudji, and a photo of the analysed juvenile incisor.
We then applied the bleach decontamination to a Pleistocene hominin tooth from Khudji, Tajikistan, which was previously found to be heavily contaminated with human skin proteins, likely from the decades of handling since its discovery in 1997.
Two figures showing the abundance of the proteine lactotransferrin (LTF), a common salivary protein, in the samples after the decontamination methods. Only bleach decontamination removed all of it.
We found that while most decontamination methods had variable success, one of them removed virtually all contamination, without causing any damage to the endogenous horse proteins - a brief wash with bleach (sodium hypochlorite).
PCA showing clear separation between original and contaminated samples. Note that this was only based on the horse proteome, we did not include the dog proteome in this search!
First, we found that decontamination is really necessary, as the reconstructed horse proteome was altered after contamination, even when we did not take the dog contamination into consideration in our analyses. Additionally, low-abundance proteins and protein regions were lost after contamination!
