MINERVA (Mineralogical Preservation of the Human Biome from the Depth of Time) is a research platform at the University of Vienna. We study the interactions of aDNA with and protection by diverse mineral phases and recover authentic aDNA from these sources.

We reconstruct various past anthromes and investigate the co-evolution of microbial and human genomes in relation to calibrated absolute time points. We focus on minerals, sediments, and bones from archaeological sites spanning from 2 million years ago to early medieval times.