Data Visualization in Population Genetics: Admixture and Phylogeny
This is just a short note to reflect on the two principal ways of visualizing population genetic data: Circular and Linear. Both phylogenetic trees and admixture proportions can be visualized this way. See below some examples (I give no references…
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,…
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….
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…
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…
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…
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,…
Typological Linguistics and Population Genetics: A Synthesis or a Controversy
Trends in Cognitive Sciences Vol 16, Issue 3, March 2012, Pages 167–173 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2012.01.007 Tools from Evolutionary Biology Shed New Light on the Diversification of Languages Stephen C. Levinson, and Russell D. Gray Computational methods have revolutionized evolutionary biology. In this paper…
A Seismic Shift in Human Origins Research, or a Downward Slide?
A new research paper is out which has created a lot of media buzz. “Evolutionary History and Adaptation from High-Coverage Whole-Genome Sequences of Diverse African Hunter-Gatherers, “ by Joseph Lachance et al. reports “archaic admixture” in three African hunter-gathering populations…
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