Tag: health

How to interpret past human mobility patterns

celtic-europe-national-geographic

New paper (behind paywall), Interpreting Past Human Mobility Patterns: A Model, by Reiter and Frei Eur J Archaeol (2019).

Interesting excerpts (modified for clarity; emphasis mine):

Present investigations of mobility can be divided into two main groups: 1) individual mobility, and 2) group mobility.

Research approach

(…) it is arguable that, ‘the reality of a mobile existence is far more complex than the ordering principles used to describe it’ (Wendrich & Barnard, 2008: 15). It seems that the most accurate means of modelling mobility is through a thorough examination of a variety of phenomena in combination with archaeological context.

… Read the rest “How to interpret past human mobility patterns”

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

genetic-risk

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 pastoralists healthier than modern populations? Genomic health improving over time”