Exploring the deep history of humans in Africa

Congratulations! How does it feel to have become a professor?

“Thanks, it feels great! I could not have imagined that I would become a professor at Uppsala University when I came here 14 years ago as a young postdoc. It's incredible fun. I'm just happy to have landed in something that I really enjoy doing, it's great to work on something that you feel passionate about.”

What is your research about?

“I'm a population geneticist and I use genetics to investigate human history. What I am passionate about is investigating the history of our species and how we became the species we are today. My particular focus is Africa, which is also because I am from Africa. In addition, African populations have the greatest genetic variation in the human family tree.

“What also interests me is the population expansions that have occurred over the last 2-12,000 years on all continents of the world. As the climate warmed, people adopted new lifestyles, started farming and developed new technologies. I want to understand the driving forces behind the groups that replaced or absorbed other populations, such as hunter-gatherer groups. What were the interactions between local and migrant groups? And what effects did migration have on population history?

“I also want to investigate how the genomes of African populations adapted to changing diets, epidemics and pathogens in the past, as there is no written record of this before the 17th century.”

You grew up in South Africa and studied at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg - do you collaborate with universities in Africa today?

“Yes, I often travel to Africa for networking, conferences or fieldwork. I work with both modern populations and ancient DNA, where my research team and I meet with people in museums, universities and elsewhere to discuss our research. In the field, we talk to local people and ask if they are interested in participating in our studies. We then carry out population sampling, which involves collecting saliva in tubes. We analyse these samples in Uppsala. We have done a lot of work in South Africa, where I have many contacts, but also in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where my linguist colleagues have had projects.”

Your research group is also active at the relatively new Centre for the Human Past - what will you be working on there?

“It's an interdisciplinary centre where geneticists work with both linguists and archaeologists to get a comprehensive picture of human evolution over the last 10,000 years. We have a lot of ideas about what we want to do, including plans to supervise students together. I think these kinds of research initiatives between different fields will become more common, which is good because we have a lot to learn from each other.”

Anneli Björkman