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…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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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