Web Gems, November 22, 2013
I’ve been monitoring global web responses to Raghavan et al.’s “Upper Palaeolithic Siberian Genome Reveals Dual Ancestry of Native Americans” that appear in the comments sections on Dienekes, Gene Expression and Eurogenes sites. The Web Gem Reward of this week goes…
Ancient DNA from Mal’ta and Afontova Gora: A Full Account
Courtesy Alexander Kim, the long-awaited paper by the Eske Willerslev team became finally available to me. This is obviously not the last word on the subject of Amerindian origins, and the David Reich Lab has a different interpretation of ancient…
A Closer Look at Human and Neandertal Mitogenomes
In one of my comments on Anthrogenica.com, I mistakenly denied that Behar et al. (2012) reported the two mutations A2758G and G7146A shared between late European Neandertals and the modern human L2’3’4’5’6 clade. As a reminder, A2758G and G7146A were highlighted in…
Kunstkamera: Pseudoanthropology at Anthrogenica.com
I spent the last few days posting at a forum called Anthrogenica.com debating “archaic admixture” in mtDNA and Y-DNA, answering questions regarding viable alternatives to out-of-Africa and observing the online behaviors of “science bloggers.” As always, my counterarguments against the out-of-Africa theory…
The End of Out-of-Africa: A Copernican Reassessment of the Patterns of Genetic Variation in the Old World
Over at Anthrogenica, I’ve been having some heated (as always) but this time also productive discussions regarding the interpretation of currently available genetic evidence. In the following I will sketch out a hypothesis that increasingly makes sense to me. 1….
A Signal of Neandertal Admixture in Modern Human mtDNA?
Russian Journal of Genetics, September 2013, Vol. 49, No. 9, 975-978 Mitochondrial DNA Polymorphisms Shared Between Modern Humans and Neanderthals: Adaptive Convergence or Evidence for Interspecific Hybridization Malyarchuk, Boris A. Abstract An analysis of the variability of the nucleotide sequences in the…
The Last Common Ancestor of Modern Humans and Neandertals Still a Mystery
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, October 21, 2013 doi:10.1073/pnas.1302653110 No Known Hominin Species Matches the Expected Dental Morphology of the Last Common Ancestor of Neanderthals and Modern Humans Gómez-Roblesa, Aida, José María Bermúdez de Castroc, Juan-Luis Arsuaga, Eudald Carbonelle, and P. David…
Molecular Variance Across Genetic Systems in Modern Humans and Their Kinship Structures
Gisele Horvat has kindly pointed me to this new pre-print. This post is cross-posted at www.kinshipstudies.org. Global patterns of sex-biased migrations in humans Chuan-Chao Wang, Li Jin, Hui Li. Abstract A series of studies have revealed the among-population components of…
How Many Germans Does It Take to Classify Amerindian Languages?
In his recent presentation on correlations between genes and myths in Eurasia and North America (see video in Russian, from 53:50 on), Vladimir Napol’skikh expressed a strong opinion on Amerindian linguistic diversity and several proposals of genealogical kinship between Amerindian…
Genes and Myths: Ancient Mal’ta DNA and the Earth-Diver Mythological Motif
Earth-Diver is one of the most widely-distributed and well-studied cosmological myths. Found in mostly Uralic-speaking Eastern Europe, in Siberia, in Munda-speaking Northeast India and North America, its action is set in post-diluvial times when a demiurge sends various creatures to…
Web Gems, October 30, 2013
In my category “Web Gems” there are two items this week. Dienekes writes, “I don’t know of any anthropologically plausible African cousin of the Neandertals, but, of course, the lack of anthropological evidence does not mean non-existence (cf. Denisovans as…
Neandertal Admixture in Africans: A Back-Migration to Sub-Saharan Africa Confirmed
Genome Biology and Evolution 2013 Oct 25. Apparent Variation in Neanderthal Admixture among African Populations is Consistent with Gene Flow from non-African Populations. Shuoguo Wang, Joseph Lachance, Sarah Tishkoff, Jody Hey, and Jinchuan Xing Abstract Recent studies have found evidence of…
Kunstkamera: A Sample of Mental DNA Found among the Consumers of Online Science Content
The reports of ancient DNA from Mal’ta have taken the Web by the storm. Surprisingly, the usually hot-headed commentators, Razib Khan and Dienekes, have remained largely silent on the findings and haven’t delighted anybody with their insights. The most sensible…
Ancient Mal’ta and Afontova Gora DNA Again
Now that Michael Balter’s news piece is out, I can retrieve my original post written in the wake of Eske Willerslev’s presentation at the Paleoamerican Odyssey conference in Santa Fe. Eske Willerslev‘s paper was on ancient DNA from the Mal’ta and Afontova…
Snippets: Mongolia and the New World
I’m announcing a new category of blog posts on this website. Snippets will contain bite-size information on topics related to the New World-Old World contacts and connections. As I’m traveling back from Santa Fe, I have a little bit of…
Paleoamerican Odyssey Conference: Ancient Mal’ta DNA, Ice-Free Corridor, Back Migrations to the Old World, Craniofacial Diversity in the New World and Pre-Clovis
My complete paper delivered yesterday at the Paleoamerican Odyssey Conference in Santa Fe is now available here. I will keep updating this post as more information comes in. I’m keeping the news of Eske Willerslev’s ancient DNA analysis of Mal’ta…
Out-of-America at the Paleoamerican Odyssey Conference (October 17-19, 2013)
An email from Michael Waters, Director at the Center for the Study of the First Americans at Texas A&M University, confirms that I’m going to be presenting at the upcoming Paleoamerican Odyssey Conference in Santa Fe, New Mexico. These days, I rarely…
Reader Questions 1: In Search of Archaic Hominin Survivals in Eurasia. Tutkaul Culture
This is a new category of posts on this weblog. Every now and then a reader sends me a question and sometimes I get interested and try to answer. There seems to be a steady interest on the part of…
Comparative Mythology and the Origin of Na-Dene
От бытия к инобытию: фольклор и погребальный ритуал в традиционных культурах Сибири и Америки: сборник статей. Санкт-Петербург: МАЭ РАН: Кунсткамера, 2010. C. 7-49. Yuri Berezkin The Mythological Explanations of Human Mortality and the Problem of the Origin of Na-Dene/Мифологические объяснения…
Y-DNA hg C3* in South America and Putative Ancient Transpacific Contacts
PLoS Genet 9(4): e1003460. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1003460 Continent-Wide Decoupling of Y-Chromosomal Genetic Variation from Language and Geography in Native South Americans Lutz Roewer, Michael Nothnagel, Leonor Gusmão, Veronica Gomes, Miguel González, Daniel Corach, Andrea Sala, Evguenia Alechine, Teresinha Palha, Ney Santos, Andrea…
The Toca da Tira Peia Site and the End of an Ice Age in American Archaeology
Journal of Archaeological Science 40 (2013), 2840-2847 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2013.02.019 Human Occupation in South America by 20,000 BC: The Toca da Tira Peia Site, Piauí, Brazil Christelle Lahaye, Marion Hernandez, Eric Boëda, Gisele D. Felice, Niède Guidon, Sirlei Hoeltz, Antoine Lourdeau, Marina…
An Out-of-America Signal as Seen Through Human Regulatory Genes
PLoS Genet 9(4): e1003404. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1003404 Balancing Selection on a Regulatory Region Exhibiting Ancient Variation That Predates Human–Neandertal Divergence Omer Gokcumen, Qihui Zhu, Lubbertus C. F. Mulder, Rebecca C. Iskow, Christian Austermann, Christopher D. Scharer, Towfique Raj, Jeremy M. Boss, Shamil…
Congenital Anomalies, Kinship Systems and Pleistocene Demography
PLoS ONE 8(3): e59587. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0059587 An Enlarged Parietal Foramen in the Late Archaic Xujiayao 11 Neurocranium from Northern China, and Rare Anomalies among Pleistocene Homo Xiu-Jie Wu,Song Xing, and Erik Trinkaus. We report here a neurocranial abnormality previously undescribed in…
Out-of-America Theory and the Race Debate
The topic outlined in the title of this post is huge and I can’t give justice to it at this moment. But considering how dramatic of a revision of modern human evolutionary history the out-of-America theory is offering, it is…
Is Taiwan to Austronesians what America is to Modern Humans?
American Journal of Physical Anthropology 150 (4): 551–564, April 2013 Ascertaining the Role of Taiwan as a Source for the Austronesian Expansion Sheyla Mirabal, Alicia M. Cadenas, Ralph Garcia-Bertrand, and Rene J. Herrera. Taiwanese aborigines have been deemed the ancestors…
Archaic Admixture in Africa, a Final Solution for Cultural Anthropology and the New World Roots of the Oldest Dog: News from Around the Web
I haven’t been blogging for a while because of a new demanding leadership job. It will keep me busy, so I’m shifting to more of a bite-size blog post format. In the meantime, I’ve been active on Gisele Horvat’s Human…
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