All Mythological Motifs That Back-Migrated to Africa Are Attested in the Americas
Eurasian Back-Migration: Traces in Mythology? Berezkin Yuri Y.https://doi.org/10.31857/S0869541524030094 The author examines the world distribution of mythological motifs peculiar for Northeast Africa but absent in other parts of this continent. The corresponding narratives describe the events of the time of creation,…
HOMINIDAE AND CEBIDAE ARE THE CLOSEST PRIMATE FAMILIES TO MODERN HUMANS
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, August 22, 2022, 119 (35) e2116681119, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2116681119 Signatures of adaptive evolution in platyrrhine primate genomes Byrne, Hazel , Timothy H. Webster, Sarah F. Brosnan, Jessica W. Lynch Primates of South and Central America known as platyrrhines show broad phenotypic diversity, but we…
GENOMIC EVIDENCE FOR NEANDERTHAL “ADMIXTURE” IN AFRICAN POPULATIONS
Cell 2020 Feb 20; 180(4):677-687. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.01.012. Identifying and Interpreting Apparent Neanderthal Ancestry in African Individuals Lu Chen, Aaron B Wolf, Wenqing Fu, Liming Li, Joshua M Akey Admixture has played a prominent role in shaping patterns of human genomic variation,…
World Science en Route from Out-of-Africa to Out-of-America: First Stop is Out-of-Asia
bioRxiv doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/101410 Yuan, Dejian, Xiaoyun Lei, Yuanyuan Gui, Zuobin Zhu, Dapeng Wang, Jun Yu, and Shi Huang Modern Human Origins: Multiregional Evolution of Autosomes and East Asia Origin of Y and mtDNA Recent studies have established that genetic diversities are mostly maintained…
Nostratic Debates: Khelimskii on Bomhard (and Back)
I reported on the current state of Nostratic theory here. A part of the review concerned a sharp critique of Allan Bomhard by George Starostin. George Starostin cited a review of Bomhard by a Soviet-Russian Uralist, Eugene Khelimskii (also spelled Helimski)….
Encephalization, Fatty-Acid Metabolism and Modern Human Origins
American Journal of Human Genetics 90 (2012), 809–20. doi: 10.1016/j.ajhg.2012.03.014 Genetic Adaptation of Fatty-Acid Metabolism: A Human-Specific Haplotype Increasing the Biosynthesis of Long-Chain Omega-3 and Omega-6 Fatty Acids Ameur, Adam, Stefan Enroth, Asa Johansson, Ghazal Zaboli, Wilmar Igl, Anna C.V. Johansson,…
Make Out-of-America Great Again: Humans in the New World at 24,000 YBP
PLoS ONE 12(1): e0169486. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0169486 Earliest Human Presence in North America Dated to the Last Glacial Maximum: New Radiocarbon Dates from Bluefish Caves, Canada Burgeon, Lauriane, Ariane Burke, and Thomas Higham The timing of the first entry of humans into…
Ancient Jomon DNA and the Specter of European Admixture in Amerindians
Journal of Human Genetics, advance online publication, 09/01/2016; doi: 10.1038/jhg.2016.110 A Partial Nuclear Genome of the Jomons Who Lived 3000 Years Ago in Fukushima, Japan Kanzawa-Kiriyama,Hideaki, Kirill Kryukov, Timothy A Jinam, Kazuyoshi Hosomichi, Aiko Saso, Gen Suwa, Shintaroh Ueda, Minoru Yoneda, Atsushi Tajima, Ken-ichi Shinoda, Ituro Inoue, and Naruya Saitou The Jomon period…
Peruvian Amerindians Have Strongest Genetic Ties to Archaic Hominins
Molecular Biology and Evolution (advance publication, October 18, 2016) Signatures of archaic adaptive introgression in present-day human populations Racimo, Fernando, Davide Marnettob, and Emilia Huerta-Sánchez Comparisons of DNA from archaic and modern humans show that these groups interbred, and in…
The Current State of Nostratic Theory, or a Psychoanalytic Reading of a Soviet Utopian Idea
In-between the sensible exchanges on the out-of-America hypothesis with genome blogger, Max Lushington, I read a fascinating piece of Russian web scholarship. George Starostin, the son of a famed Russian linguist, Sergei Starostin, and an accomplished long-range linguist in his own…
Amerindians Are Even More Genetically Diverse and Older Than You Thought
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.aab3884 Genomic evidence for the Pleistocene and recent population history of Native Americans Raghavan, Maanasa, Matthias Steinrücken, Kelley Harris, Stephan Schiffels, Simon Rasmussen, Michael DeGiorgio, Anders Albrechtsen, …Eske Willerslev. How and when the Americas were populated remains contentious….
In Defense of Science…В защиту науки (Contd.)
A street fight is raging on (here and here) in the Russian academe between scientists and pseudoscientists. It’s increasingly difficult to tease apart the former from the latter. It’s all one bloody mess. It appears the most recent comments of an independent observer such as…
The Hypothesis of “Boreal” Metarace: A Critique of Alexander Kozintsev
Every now and then I introduce the English-only readers of this blog to notable developments in human origins research taking place among Russian academics. I previously aspects of Yuri Berezkin‘s comparative mythology project, Vladimir Napol’skikh‘s peculiar linguistic opinions and surprising…
The Best Kept Secret in Populaton Genetics, or Truth about African Genetic Diversity
Nature (2014) doi:10.1038/nature13997 The African Genome Variation Project Shapes Medical Genetics in Africa Gurdasani, Deepti, Tommy Carstensen, Fasil Tekola-Ayele, Luca Pagani, Ioanna Tachmazidou, Konstantinos Hatzikotoula, Savita Karthikeyan, Louise Iles, Martin O. Pollard, Ananyo Choudhury, Graham R. S. Ritchie, Yali Xue, Jennifer Asimit, Rebecca N. Nsubuga, Elizabeth H. Young, Cristina Pomilla, Katja Kivinen, Kirk…
Pittfalls of Multidisciplinarity: Vasil’ev et al. (2014)
Cultural Developments in the Eurasian Paleolithic and the Origin of Anatomically Modern Humans: Proceedings of the International Symposium “Cultural Developments in the Eurasian Paleolithic and the Origin of Anatomically Modern Humans” (July 1–7, 2014, Denisova Cave, Altai), edited by А.P. Derevianko, М.V. Shunkov. Pp. 165-171. Novosibirsk: Publishing…
Human Kinship Systems and Human Origins: A Powwow Highway from AAA to AAPA Meetings
I recently returned from the American Anthropological Association Meetings in Washington DC where I presented a paper on kinship, enjoyed the company of other members of the interdisciplinary “Kinship Circle” group led by Dwight Read and Fadwa El-Guindi, socialized with my…
Ancient Kostenki 14 (Markina Gora) DNA: A Glimpse into a Population on Its Way from America to Africa
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa0114 Genomic Structure in Europeans Dating Back at Least 36,200 Years Andaine Seguin-Orlando, Thorfinn S. Korneliussen, Martin Sikora, Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas, Andrea Manica, Ida Moltke, Anders Albrechtsen, Amy Ko, Ashot Margaryan, Vyacheslav Moiseyev, Ted Goebel, Michael Westaway, David Lambert,…
Kunstkamera: News from Around the Web
1. Patagonian Monsters. A new website run by Argentina-based Austin Whittall is a wealth of sharp analyses of human genetic variation from an intellectual point of view that’s close to out-of-America II. Whittall is critical of the mainstream interpretations of human…
Ancient Ust’-Ishim DNA as Seen From the Americas
Nature 514, 445–449 (23 October 2014) doi:10.1038/nature13810 Genome sequence of a 45,000-year-old modern human from western Siberia Qiaomei Fu, Heng Li, Priya Moorjani, Flora Jay, Sergey M. Slepchenko, Aleksei A. Bondarev, Philip L. F. Johnson, Ayinuer Aximu-Petri, Kay Prufer, Cesare de Filippo,…
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…
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….
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…
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…
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…
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…
Yuzhnyi Olenii Ostrov: Ancient mtDNA Evidence for Amerindian Admixture in Europe
Ph.D. dissertation, University of Adelaide, School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Australian Centre for Ancient DNA Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, 2011 Mitochondrial DNA in Ancient Human Populations of Europe Clio Der Sarkissian Abstract. The distribution of human genetic variability is…
The Uto-Aztecan Premolar and a Back-Migration of American Indians to the Old World
American Journal of Physical Anthropology 143 (4): 570-578, 2010 DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.21351 The Uto-Aztecan Premolar Among North and South Amerindians: Geographic Variation and Genetics Miguel E. Delgado-Burbano, G. Richard Scott, and Christy G. Turner II The Uto-Aztecan premolar (UAP) is a dental…
A Major Division in Worldwide Dental Patterns and the Progressive Decline of Shoveling
Quaternary International, 2011 Reconstructions in Human History by Mapping Dental Markers in Living Eurasian Populations Vera F. Kashibadze, Olga G. Nasonova, and Dmitry. S. Nasonov On the base of advantages in gene geography and anthropophenetics the phenogeographical method for anthropological…
Stability vs. Diversity: A Novel Method for Analyzing Worldwide Linguistic Structures
PLoS ONE 7(9), 2012: e45198. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0045198 Abstract Profiles of Structural Stability Point to Universal Tendencies, Family-Specific Factors, and Ancient Connections between Languages Dan Dediu, and Stephen C. Levinson Language is the best example of a cultural evolutionary system, able to…
mtDNA from the South Cone of South America
PLoS ONE 7(9): e43486. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0043486 An Alternative Model for the Early Peopling of Southern South America Revealed by Analyses of Three Mitochondrial DNA Haplogroups Michelle de Saint Pierre, Claudio M. Bravi, Josefina M. B. Motti, Noriyuki Fuku, Masashi Tanaka, Elena…
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