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…
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…
On the Homeland of the Uralic Language Family
Per Urales ad Orientem. Iter polyphonicum multilingue. Festskrift tillägnad Juha Janhunen på hans sextioårsdag den 12 februari 2012. Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Toimituksia = Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 264. Pp. 91-101. Helsinki, 2012. Early Contacts between Uralic and Yukaghir Jaakko Hakkinen…
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…
Intense Admixture: Khoisan Clicks and Khoisan Genes in Southeastern Bantu
European Journal of Human Genetics 2012, 1-7 DOI:10.1038/ejhg.2012.192 Genetic Perspectives on the Origin of Clicks in Bantu Languages from Southwestern Zambia Chiara Barbieri, Anne Butthof, Koen Bostoen, and Brigitte Pakendorf Some Bantu languages spoken in southwestern Zambia and neighboring regions…
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…
Dene-Yeniseian Language Family: Evidence for a Back-Migration to the Old World?
The 2012 Dene-Yeniseian Workshop took place on March 24 at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Since the seminal presentation by the West Washington University linguist, Edward Vajda, of morphological and lexical evidence relating the small Yeniseian language family from Western…
Genetics and Linguistics of the Bantu Expansion
Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. B 279: 3256-3263. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2012.0318 Bringing Together Linguistic and Genetic Evidence to Test the Bantu Expansion De Filippo, Cesare, Koen Bostoen, Mark Stoneking, and Brigitte Pakendorf. The expansion of Bantu languages represents one of the most momentous…
Social Anthropology and the Bantu Expansion
Razib is now officially a fantasy science blogger. When he recently called his readers “stupid, ignorant or lazy” and put up a stringent comments policy (I bet inspired by my own) rallying them to show their “A-game,” I knew it…
Howler Monkeys, Neandertals, Pygmies, Khoisans and More: Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution 2012
As I write, Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution (SMBE) is conducting its annual meetings in Dublin, Ireland. Dienekes has many useful pullouts from the available abstracts. I will make short comments on a few of them, plus bring in…
The Stereotype of a Beringian Refugium
The new paper “Mitochondrial DNA Signals of Late Glacial Recolonization of Europe from Near Eastern Refugia” by Maria Pala et al. (2012) seemingly has nothing to do with the “peopling of the Americas.” It argues, on the basis of a…
The Pygmy Enigma: Biology, Population Genetics and Linguistics
PLoS Genetics 8 (4): e1002641. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1002641 Patterns of Ancestry, Signatures of Natural Selection, and Genetic Association with Stature in Western African Pygmies Jarvis, Joseph P., Laura B. Scheinfeldt, Sameer Soi, Charla Lambert, Larsson Omberg, Bart Ferwerda, Alain Froment, Jean-Marie Bodo,…
Phonemic Diversity and out-of-Africa Again: The Myth is Gaining a Momentum
PLoS ONE 7(4): e35289. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0035289 Dating the Origin of Language Using Phonemic Diversity Perreault, Charles, and Sarah Mathew. Abstract Language is a key adaptation of our species, yet we do not know when it evolved. Here, we use data on…
American Indian Uniqueness: Linguistics and Genetics
Journal of Linguistic Relationship 5 (2011): 130-134. Similarities among Languages of the Americas: An Exploration of the WALS Evidence Wichmann, Søren, Eric W. Holman, Dietrich Stauffer, and Cecil H. Brown. Abstract. An exploration of WALS (i.e. the World Atlas of…
American Indians, Neanderthals and Denisovans: Insights from PCA Views
Dienekes posted a SNP PCA showing the relative position of a sample of modern human populations from the Harvard HGDP along the axes formed by Chimpanzees, Denisovans and Neanderthals. On the broad-view PCA, the red dot indicates Chimpanzees, the green…
Recent Comments