The exhibition is extended until 31.08.2016

The Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, in association with the Democritus University of Thrace, presents the temporary exhibition: "Ancient DNA. Window to the past and the future". The exhibition will be inaugurated on Thursday 30 July 2015 and will last until 31 May 2016.

The exhibition presents modern research on palaeogenetic material (ancient DNA) and its important contribution to our understanding of the biological history of human beings.

The exhibition is part of the "Aristeia II" project, of the General Secretariat of Research and Technology, funded by the E.U., entilted: "From Neolithic farmers to the first urban societies: the origins of the palatial civilisations of the Aegean from a genetic point of view". Scientific advisor of the programme is the assistant professor of History and Ethnology of the University of Thrace, Dr Christina Papageorgopoulou.

The exhibition, hosted in one of the museum's temporary exhibition halls, aims to present in a concise and accessible manner the successive stages of palaeogenetic research, i.e. the collection and sampling of the material, the laboratory tests, the processing and interpretation of the data, as well as the entire variety of results it can offer. It includes rich accompanying material, a film projection and the display of artefacts and tools used in the lab to examine ancient DNA. In order to offer a more complete presentation, the above material is enhanced by the display of ancient artefacts from the same sites of northern Greece as the skeletal material used in the study of the University of Thrace. In this way, the exhibition aims to unite two categories of material, the archaeological and the skeletal-anthropological, presenting all the latest scientific advances in palaeogenetic research.