Cro-Magnon artists painting woolly mammoths in Font-de-Gaume, AMNH, by Charles R. Knight (1920). Made public in 1920, according to the book Charles R. Knight: the Artist Who Saw Through Time/Wikimedia Commons
Our understanding of our distant ancestors and their clans was formed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and back then, there were no significant breakthroughs or discoveries. Skulls, jaws, and, more commonly, phalanges and teeth filled museums, prompting only subdued excitement in the specialized academic press. However, in the 2000s, everything changed with the emergence of a new science—paleogenetics. This discipline gave a voice to long-muted remains, unveiled previously undiscovered human species, and provided unparalleled insight into the lives of our ancestors, whose legacy had been preserved solely through bone fragments. Professor Alexander Markov recounts the incredible discoveries made in the last decade.