Archaeogeneticist. Leader of the Genetic History Group at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. She studies DNA fragments of fossilized bones, tracing gene flows between descendants of hunter-gatherers and newcomers migrating from Asia to Europe.
A researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, she specializes in archeogenetics. This is a new discipline that is revolutionizing our knowledge of our own past. By studying DNA fragments extracted from the bones (sometimes already heavily fossilized) of long-lived people, we can gather knowledge about their ancestry and relatedness to other people. This allows us to trace gene flows between populations – and consequently reconstruct the history of human migrations. We can also detect traces of diseases that these people had to deal with – and trace the history of the earliest epidemics.
The research conducted by Zuzana Hofmanova and colleagues has allowed us to understand how relations between the descendants of hunter-gatherers who had inhabited Europe for tens of thousands of years B.C. and the newcomers: the first farmers who came from Anatolia and the shepherds who came from the Asian steppes were shaped over the course of several thousand years B.C. The collision of these three groups of people – and three lifestyles – led to the birth of our civilization. The research of Zuzana Hofmanova’s team has also shed new light on historical times: it has allowed us to discover the origin and spread of the Slavs.