Ancient DNA and Anthropogeny

The first Neandertal DNA was recovered 25 years ago, and since then, ancient DNA has provided many surprising insights into human evolutionary history. Among these are the discoveries of the multiple admixture events among late Pleistocene humans and the remnants of archaic DNA in our own genomes. How does ancient DNA research contribute to the future of anthropogeny? In this talk, I will reflect on the findings of last quarter century of ancient DNA research about archaic humans and their environment as well as examine potential questions that the next quarter century might answer.