Demographic history and genetic adaptation in the Himalayan region

Open access Demographic history and genetic adaptation in the Himalayan region inferred from genome-wide SNP genotypes of 49 populations, by Arciero et al. Mol. Biol. Evol (2018), accepted manuscript (msy094).

Abstract (emphasis mine):

We genotyped 738 individuals belonging to 49 populations from Nepal, Bhutan, North India or Tibet at over 500,000 SNPs, and analysed the genotypes in the context of available worldwide population data in order to investigate the demographic history of the region and the genetic adaptations to the harsh environment. The Himalayan populations resembled other South and East Asians, but in addition displayed their own specific

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Reconstructing the genetic history of late Neanderthals

New paper (behind paywall) Reconstructing the genetic history of late Neanderthals, by Mateja Hajdinjak, Qiaomei Fu, Alexander Hübner, et al. Nature (2018).

Abstract (edited):

Although it has previously been shown that Neanderthals contributed DNA to modern humans, not much is known about the genetic diversity of Neanderthals or the relationship between late Neanderthal populations at the time at which their last interactions with early modern humans occurred and before they eventually disappeared. Our ability to retrieve DNA from a larger number of Neanderthal individuals has been limited by poor preservation of endogenous DNA and contamination of Neanderthal skeletal remains

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Two sources of archaic Denisovan ancestry in East Asia, one possibly after the isolation of Native Americans

Open access paper Analysis of Human Sequence Data Reveals Two Pulses of Archaic Denisovan Admixture, by Sharon L. Browning, Brian L. Browning, Zhou, Tucci, & Akey, Cell (2018).

Summary:

Anatomically modern humans interbred with Neanderthals and with a related archaic population known as Denisovans. Genomes of several Neanderthals and one Denisovan have been sequenced, and these reference genomes have been used to detect introgressed genetic material in present-day human genomes. Segments of introgression also can be detected without use of reference genomes, and doing so can be advantageous for finding introgressed segments that are less closely related to the

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Neanderthals did paint caves after all

U-Th dating of carbonate crusts reveals Neandertal origin of Iberian cave art, by Hoffmann et al. Science (2018) 359(6378):912-915.

Neandertal cave art
It has been suggested that Neandertals, as well as modern humans, may have painted caves. Hoffmann et al. used uranium-thorium dating of carbonate crusts to show that cave paintings from three different sites in Spain must be older than 64,000 years. These paintings are the oldest dated cave paintings in the world. Importantly, they predate the arrival of modern humans in Europe by at least 20,000 years, which suggests that they must be of Neandertal origin. The

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Neanderthal language revisited: speech old and shared with archaic humans

Neanderthal language revisited: not only us, by Dediu and Levinson, Curr Opin Behav Sci (2018) 21:49–55.

Abstract:

Here we re-evaluate our 2013 paper on the antiquity of language (Dediu and Levinson, 2013) in the light of a surge of new information on human evolution in the last half million years. Although new genetic data suggest the existence of some cognitive differences between Neanderthals and modern humans — fully expected after hundreds of thousands of years of partially separate evolution, overall our claims that Neanderthals were fully articulate beings and that language evolution was gradual are further substantiated by

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Earliest modern humans outside Africa and ancient genomic history

Interesting new paper at Science, The earliest modern humans outside Africa, by Hershkovitz et al., Science (2018) Vol. 359, Issue 6374, pp. 456-459

Introduction:

Recent paleoanthropological studies have suggested that modern humans migrated from Africa as early as the beginning of the Late Pleistocene, 120,000 years ago. Hershkovitz et al. now suggest that early modern humans were already present outside of Africa more than 55,000 years earlier (see the Perspective by Stringer and Galway-Witham). During excavations of sediments at Mount Carmel, Israel, they found a fossil of a mouth part, a left hemimaxilla, with almost complete dentition.

The sediments

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Optimal Migration Routes of Initial Upper Palaeolithic Populations to Eurasia

Ecological_Niche_and_Least-Cost_Path_Anatolia

Ecological Niche and Least-Cost Path Analyses to Estimate Optimal Migration Routes of Initial Upper Palaeolithic Populations to Eurasia, by Kondo et al. (2018), from The Middle and Upper Paleolithic Archeology of the Levant and Beyond, Replacement of Neanderthals by Modern Humans Series. Chapter downloadable at Academia.edu.

Abstract:

This paper presents a computer-based method to estimate optimal migration routes of early human population groups by a combination of ecological niche analysis and least-cost path analysis. In the proposed method, niche probability is predicted by MaxEnt, an ecological niche model based on the maximum entropy theory. Location of known

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Two more studies on the genetic history of East Asia: Han Chinese and Thailand

A comprehensive map of genetic variation in the world’s largest ethnic group – Han Chinese, by Charleston et al. (2017).

It is believed – based on uniparental markers from modern and ancient DNA samples and array-based genome-wide data – that Han Chinese originated in the Central Plain region of China during prehistoric times, expanding with agriculture and technology northward and southward, to become the largest Chinese ethnic group.

Abstract:

As are most non-European populations around the globe, the Han Chinese are relatively understudied in population and medical genetics studies. From low-coverage whole-genome sequencing of 11,670 Han Chinese women we

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My European Family: The First 54,000 years, by Karin Bojs

I have recently read the book My European Family: The First 54,000 years (2015), by Karin Bojs, a known Swedish scientific journalist, former science editor of the Dagens Nyheter.

It is written in a fresh, dynamic style, and contains general introductory knowledge to Genetics, Archaeology, and their relation to language, and is written in a time of great change (2015) for the disciplines involved.

The book is informed, it shows a balanced exercise between responsible science journalism and entertaining content, and it is at times nuanced, going beyond the limits of popular science books. It is not written for … Read the rest “My European Family: The First 54,000 years, by Karin Bojs”