UPDATE | Harvard Gazette Explores Two Major Research Publications Featuring Work of Christina Warinner

The Department of Anthropology at Harvard University is pleased to share that The Harvard Gazette has released two new stories featuring the work of Harvard Anthropology Professor Christina Warinner recently published in Nature.

The first, "Tracking entwined histories of malaria, humans," explores a new study of ancient genomes that tracks the disease over 5,500 years, including factors in its spread, such as trade, warfare, colonialism, and slavery. 

“By reconstructing these ancient Plasmodium genomes and comparing the genetic relationships between ancient and modern parasites, we’re finally able to place malaria in its evolutionary and human history context.”

- Christina Warinner, the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences

 

The second article, titled "History of Chichén Itzá written in DNA," provides a look into research using a new method that upends the narrative on ritual sacrifices, and yields discovery on resistance built to colonial-era epidemics.

Chichén Itzá rose to prominence around 800 A.D., remaining powerful and populous for more than two centuries and serving as a destination for pilgrimages through and after the Spanish colonial period. 

...

The community was thrilled by these findings, he added, given the prevalence of racism against Indigenous populations in Mexico today. Now they can claim ancestral ties to the people who built the great city of Chichén Itzá.

 

Our sincere thanks to The Harvard Gazette team and writer Christy DeSmith for their special coverage of this fieldwork and groundbreaking research.