Decoding Diversity and Power at Machu Picchu
New DNA analysis has revealed surprising diversity among remains from burial sites in Peru. A genetic anthropologist explains what this suggests about the 15th century Inca palace. This…
Tag: genetics
The Hidden Ancestry Extracted From an Ancient Pendant
An anthropologist explains how new forensics tools offer unprecedented answers to questions about who likely held or wore Stone Age objects. This article was originally published at The Conversation …
Navigating the Ethics of Ancient DNA Research
Paleogenomic research has expanded rapidly over the past two decades, igniting heated debates about handling human remains. Who gives consent for the ancient subjects of studies—and who should…
Did Humanity Really Arise in One Place?
New evidence is prompting researchers to rethink Homo sapiens’ origin story—and what it means to be human. ✽ As a university student in the early 2010s, I recall…
Is a “Sweet Tooth” Genetic?
An anthropologist explains the evolutionary origins of why so many people seem practically programmed to love sugar. This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been…
How Diverse Was Medieval Britain?
An archaeologist explains how studies of ancient DNA and objects reveal that expansive migrations led to much greater diversity in medieval Britain than most people imagine today. This…
Will a Nobel Prize Make Paleogenomics More Accountable?
An anthropologist offers possible directions for ancient DNA studies moving forward—especially regarding the field’s complex histories with Indigenous communities and public education. This article w…
Resurrecting a wolf for conservation?
Many herders, especailly in the Sub-Arctic, are threatened by the increased number of wolves, eating entire reindeer herds. In Australia they go the opposite way now: they try…
The Cosmic Serpent
Most Carnival celebrations in Brazil have been canceled again in 2022 due to the resurgence of COVID-19, though larger cities like Rio and São Paulo are holding scaled-down…
Athletics, IQ, Health: Three Myths of Race
Our recent book, Racism, Not Race, tackles a big lie: The idea that human beings have biological races. Biological races do not exist in humans. Why, then, do…
What Ancient DNA Reveals About Life in Africa 20,000 Years Ago
Kondoa Irangi rock art in present-day Tanzania features the cultural expressions of hunter-gatherers and pastoralists over a 2,000-year span. Nina R/Wikimedia Commons This article was ori…
A Genetic Chronicle of the First Peoples in the Americas
Beringia National Park in present-day Russia is part of what was once a vast refuge that allowed ancestors of Native Americans to cross into North America and survive…
Does DNA Simplify or Complicate Repatriation Claims?
University of Cape Town archaeologist Simon Hall leads a visit to the farm in Sutherland, South Africa, from which the remains of several individuals were taken a century…
The Humans We Haven’t Met Yet
At the Sima de los Huesos (“Pit of the Bones”) archaeological site in Spain, researchers recovered DNA from 417,000-year-old hominin fossils that may be the ancestors of Neanderthals.…
Five Breakthrough Signs of Early Peoples in the Americas
A lot of ink has been spilled in archaeological debates about the human occupation of the continents known today as North and South America. When did people arrive?…
What Indigenous Languages Reveal About Bear Genetics
[no-caption] Alh1/Flickr This article was originally published at Hakai Magazine and has been republished with permission. Along the central coast of British Columbia, grizzly bears go by…
Culture—Not Genetics—Was More Salient for Anglo-Saxons
An Anglo-Saxon burial mound rises in Taplow Court, England. Shutterstock This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republished under Creative Commons. Scholar…
Who is the Nesher Ramla Homo?
This article was originally published at The Conversation and has been republished under Creative Commons. An international group of archaeologists has discovered a missing piece in the story…
How to Improve Consumer DNA Tests
Direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests offer tantalizing yet speculative promises to connect us with our distant past and live a healthier life. Consequently, by February 2019, an estimated 26…
Ten Things Archaeology Tells Us about Neanderthals
Rebecca Wragg Sykes is an archaeologist and author of the critically acclaimed bestseller Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art. An honorary fellow at the University of Liverpool,…
The Racial Thinking behind ALS Diagnosis
Beliefs about which bodies can and cannot develop certain diseases risk rebiologizing race in genomic research and care. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease that typical…
Of Maps, Ancestors, and Genes
How the conceptual heritage of the new and old world pervades today’s racial economy of genetics. On a former occasion I wrote to you at some length…
The Next Piece of Our Big Genetic Puzzle
Around 50,000 years ago, Neanderthals contributed their DNA to modern humans. But the genes also flowed the other way, hundreds of thousands of years before. In 1856, in…
Bovine Bloodlines
Selective breeding for milk and muscle has corroded cattle health and genetic diversity. Heritage breed farmers are pushing back. That old cow out there, she’s 18, and she’s…