Natural selection continues (in the Viking world)
Nature has published a new Viking genomics paper. This morning I didn’t even bother to check it out, as I had other things going on, and there’s been so much ancient DNA from Scandinavia that my thought was “what else could we learn?” Well, it turns out I should have checked it out. The sample […]
Humanity on the edge of the world
Nordic “Northern Lights”One of the most curious aspects of our species, in particular, modern humanity, is our tendency to wander, to push the limits of habitation beyond reason for rhyme. Humans have been using tools for millions of years, and Neander…
Ancient Europeans: isolated, always on the edge of extinction
A few years ago I suggested to the paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer that the first modern humans who arrived in Europe did not contribute appreciable ancestry to modern populations in the continent (appreciable as in 1% or more of the genome).* It seems I may have been right according to results from a 2016 paper, The […]
The genetic complexity of prehistoric Sweden
Thanks to the fact that northern Europe is cool and archaeological research is rather well developed in the region due to quirks of history, there are lots of findings from ancient DNA which are answering long-standing questions. In particular Scandin…