The 2025 Colombia study exemplifies how this collaboration can work and what it can produce.

The extraction of genome-wide data from 21 ancient Colombian individuals required years of laboratory work, the optimization of ancient DNA extraction protocols for the specific preservation conditions of Altiplano archaeological sites, and the application of bioinformatic methods to authenticate and analyze the resulting data.

The success of the effort represents not just scientific achievement but institutional and logistical accomplishment.

Cosimo Posth, the study’s senior author, is a leading ancient DNA researcher whose work spans Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

His involvement alongside Colombian and German co-authors reflects the increasingly global and interdisciplinary character of ancient genomics.