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….
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…
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…
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…
Out-of-Africa as Ghost Science
PNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1212380109 The Great Human Expansion Brenna M. Henn, Luca L. Cavalli-Sforza, and Marcus W. Feldman Genetic and paleoanthropological evidence is in accord that today’s human population is the result of a great demic (demographic and geographic) expansion that…
The Diversity of Tasmanian Languages
Proceedings of the Royal Society, B Biological Sciences, 2012 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2012.1842 The Riddle of Tasmanian Languages Claire Bowern Recent work which combines methods from linguistics and evolutionary biology has been fruitful in dis- covering the history of major language families…
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…
Clicks and Genes: Linguistic and Genetic Perspectives on Khoisan Prehistory
Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1227721 Genomic Variation in Seven Khoe-San Groups Reveals Adaptation and Complex African History Carina M. Schlebusch, Pontus Skoglund, Per Sjödin, Lucie M. Gattepaille, Dena Hernandez, Flora Jay, Sen Li, Michael De Jongh, Andrew Singleton, Michael G. B. Blum,…
A High Coverage of the Denisovan Hominin
Science 30 August 2012 DOI: 10.1126/science.1224344 A High-Coverage Genome Sequence from an Archaic Denisovan Individual Matthias Meyer, Martin Kircher, Marie-Theres Gansauge, Heng Li, Fernando Racimo, Swapan Mallick, Joshua G. Schraiber, Flora Jay, Kay Prüfer, Cesare de Filippo, Peter H. Sudmant,…
The Caucasus is the Americas of Western Eurasia: Intragroup-Genetic and Linguistic Diversity Are Inversely Correlated
Dienekes continues to refute himself and adopt my ideas. In his latest ADMIXTURE experiment he announces “The most salient point about this analysis is the central position of the Caucasus component vis-a-vis the others, consistent with my womb of nations…
The Evolution of Language and Music
Cognition 100 (2006): 173-215 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2005.11.009 The Biology and Evolution of Music: A Comparative Perspective Fitch, W. Tecumseh. Studies of the biology of music (as of language) are highly interdisciplinary and demand the integration of diverse strands of evidence. In this…
Web Gems: August 3, 2012
This is a new post genre on this weblog. “Web Gems” will feature smart thinking from the Comments sections of various other blogs followed by my no less bright commentary. This week I have three good ones: Andrew Oh-Willeke surprised…
A Three-Wave Model for the Peopling of the Americas, or a Three-Wave Back-Migration from the Americas to the Old World
Nature (2012) doi:10.1038/nature11258 Reconstructing Native American population history Reich, David, et al. The peopling of the Americas has been the subject of extensive genetic, archaeological and linguistic research; however, central questions remain unresolved. One contentious issue is whether the settlement occurred…
The Pontic Steppe vs. the Bactrian Homeland of the Indo-Europeans
Dienekes, the confused blogger from my previous post, continues to be confused and confusing. In the comments section of Razib’s Discover Blog, he concedes: “As of late, I am rather more willing to give even Johanna Nichols’ 1997 model of…
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