Beyond bones & stones
If you have been following this blog along with others, like GNXP, you can tell that the field of ancient DNA and population genetics is chaotic. It seems like every week we are adding more layers of genetic data in attempt to uncover the relentless and complex pattern on how we peopled the Earth. A... Continue Reading →
Tony Capra of Vanderbilt University in Nashville hypothesized last week at the annual meeting of The American Society of Human Genetics that genes we have considered to variant of Neanderthals and inherited to modern humans outside of Africa are not particularly Neanderthal genes, but rather, represent ancestral humans. In other words, we can thank Neanderthals... Continue Reading →
In the November issue of Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy, researchers examining the Saudi Arabian desert have found around 400 unreported stone structures likely built by nomadic tribes thousands of years ago. Most of them are clustered in Harrat Khaybar, a region in west-central Saudi Arabia known for its now-extinct volcanic domes. Neurologist Abdullah Al-Saeed, who now leads... Continue Reading →
Shanidar 1 is a 50,000 years Neandertal which was discovered in by Ralph Solecki in 1957 during excavations at Shanidar Cave in Iraqi Kurdistan. Shanidar 1 had a rough life. Prior studies noted multiple injuries to Shanidar 1; such as a sustained a serious blow to the side of the face, fractures and the eventual... Continue Reading →
A new study in Current Biology analyzed the entire genome of the Tianyuan man who was found near Beijing, China and lived around 40,000 years ago. The Tianyuan man's genome marks the earliest ancient DNA from East Asia, but this is not the first time we have studied Tianyuan's genes. In 2013 paper in PNAS,... Continue Reading →
Most associate dark skin with African peoples, but there are a wide variety of populations who represent an even wider array of skin tones, from the light beige skin of the San to the deep black skin of the Dinka. A new study published online this week in Science, identifies a handful of new gene variants responsible... Continue Reading →
Two new, fascinating papers on Neanderthal genetic introgression and the sequencing of an entire Neanderthal's genome came out this last week. Before these new studies, only one (Altai, Siberia 125ka) of four Neanderthal specimens have had their entire genomes sequenced with sufficient quality to compare to modern humans. This new genome comes from a 52,000... Continue Reading →
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