Blog Profile / Dienekes' Anthropology Blog
| URL : | http://dienekes.blogspot.com/ | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | Academics / Anthropology | |
| Posts on Regator: | 1962 | |
| Posts / Week: | 7.3 | |
| Archived Since: | March 13, 2008 | |
Blog Post Archive
Horse Y chromosomes
PLoS ONE 8(4): e60015. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0060015 Identification of Genetic Variation on the Horse Y Chromosome and the Tracing of Male Founder Lineages in Modern Breeds Barbara Wallner et al. The paternally inherited Y chromosome displays the population genetic history of males. Show More Summary
Polynesian mtDNA in extinct Amerindians from Brazil
From the paper: In 1808 the Portuguese Crown declared “Just War” (Bellumiustum) against all Indian tribes that did not accept European laws (23). The fierce Botocudo were targeted in such wars and, in consequence, became virtually extinct by the end of the 19th century (24). Show More Summary
Direct dating of El Sidrón Neandertals: 48.4+/-3.2ky BP
I sometimes wonder what will be left of the "long co-existence between AMH and Neandertals in Europe" once all the radiocarbon redating dust settles. The more interesting question is: how did AMH wipe out the Neandertals? Love or War?...Show More Summary
More asymmetric migration (Sundqvist et al. 2013)
A day after the paper by Peter and Slatkin, a new paper has appeared on the arXiv dealing with the problem of detecting directionaliy in human migration patterns. This seems to be purely methodological, so no new insights on human history...Show More Summary
Directionality index for detecting origin of range expansions
This appears to be an interesting methodology for detecting directionality in genetic datasets. I am not sure how it might perform in the presence of admixture, a topic that was not discussed. Interestingly, the San appear as the only...Show More Summary
Greece and Asia in the Late Bronze Age: The Historical Background of Homer's Iliad
An interesting recent talk by Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier.
Morphological and mtDNA analysis of Mezzena mandible
I've written about late Neandertals becoming more AMH-like, and a new study on an Italian specimen that postdates the arrival of AMH in Europe lends some further support to that idea. The Mezzena jaw has Neandertal mtDNA and shares a...Show More Summary
Refined IBD in Beagle 4
The Beagle page doesn't show version 4 yet, but I'm sure it will eventually turn up there since this paper has just been published. Genetics doi: 10.1534/genetics.113.150029 Improving the Accuracy and Efficiency of Identity by Descent Detection in Population Data Brian L. Show More Summary
Was Homo floresiensis a cretin?
From the paper: We are therefore disturbed that Brown (2012), though selecting those features that imply to him that LB1 could not be a cretin, does not also cite the many features in those same publications that imply cretinism, nor...Show More Summary
Population structure in the Netherlands
The three PCs are color-coded in panels b,c,d. Also of interest:
The North–South PC, however, showed a moderate but significant correlation with F (inbreeding coefficient, a measure for genome-wide homozygosity) of 0.245 (P
EuropeanShow More Summary
Admixture and pigmentation in Cape Verde
The interesting thing about this paper is that it shows that one can explain skin color in people from Cape Verde better if one uses their proportion of African/European admixture, rather than by looking at individuals' genotypes at loci associated with the trait. Show More Summary
Y chromosomes and mtDNA from the Maldives
Of interest from the paper: The haplogroup J(M304) Y chromosomes are all in subgroup J2(M172). ... However, Eaaswarkhanth et al. (2010) report that Muslims and non-Muslims in India largely have the same Y-haplogroup frequency distribution,...Show More Summary
Revised timescale of human mtDNA evolution (Fu et al. 2013)
An important new paper has just appeared in Current Biology. It is very exciting for a couple of reasons: The paper uses the idea of branch shortening to infer dates for the mtDNA phylogeny. Briefly, if one counts differences between...Show More Summary
Abnormalities in Pleistocene Homo
An excess of congenital defects is certainly compatible with high levels of inbreeding, and the publication of the Denisova genome clearly suggested "extremely low" genetic diversity in that Pleistocene human. It'll be interesting to...Show More Summary
High-quality Neandertal genome online
The Max Planck institute has posted their high-coverage Neandertal genome on their site. The data can be downloaded from here. They had done the same with the high-quality Denisova genome, and it's great that they're making data available...Show More Summary
New Neandertal remains from Mani
The age and cave origin of these remains may conceivably make them useful for ancient DNA studies. Journal of Human Evolution doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2013.02.002 New Neanderthal remains from Mani peninsula, Southern Greece: The Kalamakia...Show More Summary
Thesis of Oleg Balonovsky
is available here as pdf. Lots of interesting information, and a few striking maps. Hopefully, the fact that it's all in Russian won't be much of a problem in this day and age. I will highlight a few pieces of information. First, a distribution...Show More Summary
Millet use ~11 thousand years ago in northern China
PNAS March 6, 2012 vol. 109 no. 10 3726-3730 Early millet use in northern China Xiaoyan Yang et al. It is generally understood that foxtail millet and broomcorn millet were initially domesticated in Northern China where they eventually became the dominant plant food crops. Show More Summary
Admixture in Southern Africa (Petersen et al. 2013)
Related: The genetic prehistory of southern Africa Genomic Variation in Seven Khoe-San Groups Reveals Adaptation and Complex African History PLoS Genet 9(3): e1003309. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1003309 Complex Patterns of Genomic Admixture within Southern Africa Desiree C. Show More Summary
Genomewide structure of populations from European Russia (Khrunin et al. 2013)
Notice: The intermediate position of Estonians between Balts and Finns The intermediate position of some Russian groups between Komi and the main body of Europeans. PLoS ONE 8(3): e58552. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0058552 A Genome-Wide Analysis of Populations from European Russia Reveals a New Pole of Genetic Diversity in Northern Europe Andrey V. Show More Summary