The frequency of infectious disease emergence has increased over the last few decades, a phenomenon attributed to modern global sociodemographic and environmental changes. However, major transformations of human mobility, lifestyles and technologies associated with large-scale repercussions on the planet's ecosystems have occurred since prehistory. Recent advances in the field of paleogenetics have opened promising perspectives to measure the impact of these dynamics on the epidemiology and evolution of pathogens in the past, by allowing the identification and genomic characterisation of various disease-causing agents from archaeological remains. The ERC-StG EpidemioCene project will leverage ancient DNA data generated from massive cohorts of ancient individuals to undertake large-scale paleoepidemiological and phylogenomic investigations. In this context, this PhD project will focus on the analysis of ancient DNA virus genomes to reconstruct past viral dynamics and evolution in relation to human migrations and socio-environmental changes throughout the Holocene.
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