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Stanislav Grigoriev's "Ancient Indo-Europeans"

I had seen bits and pieces of SA Grigoriev's ideas in various publications, but it's nice to see this work in its entirety (although the reproduction of the maps doesn't seem to be very good). From the conclusion: The Indo-European problem is a complex one, combining linguistic and archaeological evidence. Show More Summary

‘Islam is not a monolith’ – Mohsin Hamid

It is somewhat depressing to have to say this, but in the light of the reaction to the Woolwich attack (see this article, contains today’s Guardian frontpage), and the fact that the attackers were promptly tagged as Islamic terrorists, it probably needs to be said over and over again: There [...]

Jason Richwine, Scientist?

Uruk migrants in the Caucasus

From the paper: The period between the 4th and 3rd millennia B.C. was the time of great cataclysmic events in the Caucasus; its cultural advances were influenced by changes within its boundaries as well as interactions with the outside...Show More Summary

One research I’d love to do

Ethnographic research with African traders and migrants in China. Research appetite adequately whetted by: Ghanaian merchant Ben Owusu-Achiaw said many of the African companies he works with have moved away from simple import-export operations because of competition from Chinese merchants. Show More Summary

Cosmic impact event ~12.8kya caused the Younger Dryas

PNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1301760110 Evidence for deposition of 10 million tonnes of impact spherules across four continents 12,800 y ago James H. Wittke et al. Airbursts/impacts by a fragmented comet or asteroid have been proposed at the...Show More Summary

More population structure in the Netherlands (Lao et al. 2013)

There was a recent article on the topic by Abdellaoui et al., and here is another one. Investigative Genetics 2013, 4:9 doi:10.1186/2041-2223-4-9 Clinal distribution of human genomic diversity across the Netherlands despite archaeological...Show More Summary

“1 + 1”: More than an Equation

Review on germline mutation rate in humans (Campbell and Eichler 2013)

This is a nice little review of the state of the art in germline mutation rate estimation in humans. This was previously estimated using paleontological calibrations (especially the human/chimp split), but a slower mutation rate emerged on the basis of whole genome data from humans. Show More Summary

Practical Training for the Digitally Il/literate Anthropologist

Most graduate programs in anthropology require us to take a course in methods to prepare us to “do anthropology” on our own. In class, we discuss what makes a good research question, the tradeoffs between qualitative and quantitative data, and the importance of taking good field notes. Sometimes we even get to conduct research and […]

Summer reading…

The semester is over and grades are in. My family just moved to a bigger place –one block down the street, actually — thanks to my wife’s tenure promotion. And the stress of the two combined, plus Herculean applications of caffeine and alcohol (I thought they were supposed to cancel each other out, no?) has […]

More thoughts. The evolution of a word

Are you assaulting me because I’m White ? How do you react to this poster? Is it antiracist or racist? Why? The word “racist” is so common today that you may have trouble imagining a time when neither the word nor the concept existed. Show More Summary

The All-Time Stupidest Question to Ask a Language Learner: Did You Understand what He/She said????!!!!” (Repeated loudly)

An avalanche of Tibetan genetic data (Qi et al. 2013)

A very impressive data dump on Tibetan genetic variation gives us an excellent picture on both the Y-chromosome and mtDNA side. There are two interesting things about Tibetans -at least to me. First, their mtDNA is dominated by haplogroup...Show More Summary

Does PCA Have Politics?

Evolutionary history of Uralic languages (Honkola et al. 2013)

Journal of Evolutionary Biology DOI: 10.1111/jeb.12107 Cultural and climatic changes shape the evolutionary history of the Uralic languages T Honkola et al. Quantitative phylogenetic methods have been used to study the evolutionary relationships...Show More Summary

Toba eruption did not cause volcanic winter in Africa ~75ka

PNAS May 14, 2013 vol. 110 no. 20 8025-8029 doi: 10.1073/pnas.1301474110 Ash from the Toba supereruption in Lake Malawi shows no volcanic winter in East Africa at 75 ka Christine S. Lane et al. The most explosive volcanic event of the Quaternary was the eruption of Mt. Show More Summary

Chimp’s photos of Moscow could earn serious cash at Sotheby’s auction

The monkey — once a popular performer at the Moscow Circus — was taught by contemporary artists Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid how to snap his first Polaroid when he was 15.He eventually graduated to a regular camera, and then, an...Show More Summary

Oldest Evidence of Split Between Old World Monkeys and Apes Discovered

The oldest ape and Old World monkey fossils have been unearthed in a riverbed in Tanzania, a new study reports.Researchers found a tooth from the newfound species Nsungwepithecus gunnelli, the oldest member of the primate group that contains Old World monkeys (cercopithecoids). Show More Summary

Test Scores, Inequality, and “Goodnight Moon Time”