Some of you have asked me about a new paper on East Africa, Ancient DNA reveals a multistep spread of the first herders into sub-Saharan Africa.The reality is some of […]
The trait of lactase persistence (lactose tolerance) is probably one of the better schoolbook examples of natural selection in human populations. The reasons for this are probably two-fold. There is […]
Most people are aware that altitude imposes constraints on individual performance and function. Much of this is flexible; athletes who train at high altitudes may gain a performance edge. But […]
One of the primary concerns/questions I had about Luca Pagani’s paper on the genetic origin of Ethiopians is that he found that their West Eurasian ancestor was closer to Levantine […]
In the open thread someone asked: “Any recent stuff on the genetics of Ethiopians.” That prompted me to look around, because I’m curious too. Poking around Wikipedia I couldn’t find […]
Septimius Severus is important because he brought the Roman Empire back from the chaos ushered in by the assassination of Commodus. He was born in 145 AD and so grew […]
A weakly structured stem for human origins in Africa: While it is now broadly accepted that Homo sapiens originated within Africa, considerable uncertainty surrounds specific models of divergence and migration […]
In my Substack post Under pressure: the paradox of the diamond I said this: The implication of these DNA results is that Yemeni Jews are by and large descended from […]
Is it my imagination, or is Charles Murray’s new book, Facing Reality: Two Truths about Race in America getting more traction than his previous book? Probably due to the engagement […]
A new massive preprint on the Middle East is out. I’ve edited the first figure to give people a general sense of the broad results and populations sampled. First, you […]