Wiik’s theory about the spread of Uralic into east and central Europe, and the Uralic substrate in Germanic and Balto-Slavic

I recently wrote about how Wiik’s model was wrong in supporting a Mesolithic European Vasconic-Uralic harmony – genetically based on the modern distribution of R1b vs. N1c haplogroups -, and thus also the disruption of this harmony by Indo-Europeans (supposedly a population of R1a-lineages invading central Europe from a Balkan homeland).

Romanticism does this quite frequently: it makes us believe in some esoteric fantasy, like the ethnic continuity of our ancestors in the region we live (and a far, far greater original territory that has been unfairly diminished by invaders), providing us with strong links to support our artificial … Read the rest “Wiik’s theory about the spread of Uralic into east and central Europe, and the Uralic substrate in Germanic and Balto-Slavic”

Heyd, Mallory, and Prescott were right about Bell Beakers

Sometimes it is fun to read certain “old” papers. I have recently re-read some important papers that predicted what we are seeing now in aDNA analysis with surprising accuracy:

– Harrison & Heyd (2007): “We predict that future stable isotope and ancientDNA analyses of Beaker skeletal material will support our view that immigration played an important role in the Europe-wide Bell Beaker phenomenon”. – Duh, obvious, right? Wrong. Read the whole paper. It was already becoming a classic in the study of the Bell Beaker culture before the latest research on Bell Beaker aDNA, and it will be … Read the rest “Heyd, Mallory, and Prescott were right about Bell Beakers”

Academic journals can’t be trusted to tell the scientific truth

Dutch researcher Julian Kirchherr has published an interesting article in The Guardian about the reliability of academic journals, and the consequences for the academic world that orbits around them.

Science (and more specifically the scientific publication market) is in a major crisis, and journals are publishing a large amount of articles with fake results – which cannot be replicated in other experiments -, and even false data fabricated by researchers.

The interesting aspect of Mr. Kirchherr’s opinion is that, unlike many others who criticize the shortcomings of the publishing industry, he stresses the value of performance indicators – such as … Read the rest “Academic journals can’t be trusted to tell the scientific truth”

The Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa (EAMENA) Database

A recent online database catalogues 20,000 threatened archaeological sites: The Endangered Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa (EAMENA) Database.

Researchers at the Universities of Oxford, Leicester and Durham created the database in 2015 with support from the Arcadia Fund, a non-profit that seeks to preserve endangered heritage sites. The EAMENA team wanted to build a uniform catalogue of historic locations that are facing a growing onslaught of threats, according to a University of Oxford press statement. The resource was only recently made available to the public.

Not all damage and threats to the archaeology can be prevented,

… Read the rest

Indo-European pastoralists healthier than modern populations? Genomic health improving over time

A new paper has appeared at BioRxiv, The Genomic Health Of Ancient Hominins (2017) by Berence, Cooper and Lachance.

Important results are available at: http://popgen.gatech.edu/ancient-health/.

While the study’s many limitations are obvious to the authors, they still suggest certain interesting possibilities as the most important conclusions:

In general, Genetic risk scores (GRS) are similar to present-day individuals
Genomic health seems to be improving over time
Pastoralists could have been healthier than older and modern populations

Some details and shortcomings of the study (most stated by them, bold is from me) include:

Allele selection: only some of the known

… Read the rest

Indo-European demic diffusion model, 2nd edition, revised and updated

It has been three months since I published the first paper on the Indo-European demic diffusion model.

In the meantime, important pre-print papers with samples of Bell Beaker and South-Eastern European cultures compel me to add new data in support of the model. I have taken this opportunity to revise the whole text in a new paper, Indo-European demic diffusion model, 2nd edition, and also some of the maps of Indo-European migrations, which are now hosted in this blog.

I have made changes to some of the old blogs I had, like this one, … Read the rest “Indo-European demic diffusion model, 2nd edition, revised and updated”

Indo-European Demic Diffusion – The expansion of Proto-Indo-Europeans potentially explained as the expansion of R1b subclades

I published an essay (or “dissertation”) some weeks ago, about what seems to me one of the most likely models of expansion of Indo-European-speaking peoples, based on Y-DNA haplogroups. Recently J.P. Mallory had proposed* (although he was not the first) that North-West Indo-European (the ancestor of Italo-Celtic and Germanic, and Balto-Slavic**) expanded with the Bell Beaker culture, a hypothesis that is supported by the most recent radiocarbon data (and subsequent proposal of an eastern origin of the pre-Bell Beaker culture, linked to the Yamna expansion, by Volker and Heyd). As I outline in the paper, ancient DNA samples and … Read the rest “Indo-European Demic Diffusion – The expansion of Proto-Indo-Europeans potentially explained as the expansion of R1b subclades”

Prometheus Engineer language in updated alternative version of A Grammar of Modern Indo-European

As we announced yesterday at Dnghu, our book A Grammar of Modern Indo-European, Third Edition has been revised, and the new version of the Proto-Indo-European lexicon has been added and it is available now online and printed at Amazon, without the Etymology section – it is therefore a cheaper, more handy manual.

But, more importantly, we have added a new section and published a parallel Prometheus Edition – Engineer language of the grammar, that includes unprecedented content with discussion of Prometheus’ recreated Late Proto-Indo-European dialect of the Prometheus/Alien/Predator fiction universe. There is also a printed version … Read the rest “Prometheus Engineer language in updated alternative version of A Grammar of Modern Indo-European”

Welcome back!

I have been trying to minimize contact with my own blogs, due to the huge amount of projects that I had – online as well as offline -, and the time-wasting nature of the dozen blogs I installed back in 2006-2009. They were (like this one) little more than dialectic in nature, with no particular aim.

Right now I am tired of developing new ideas without publicizing them. I think I have information on some fields where other people might be interested in, and projects whose development could be interesting to share.

For the moment, I have changed the WordPress … Read the rest “Welcome back!”