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Speakers: Yair Sapir, PhD of Scandinavian Languages, Senior Lecturer of Swedish, Kristianstad University Joakim Wehlin, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor, Archaeology, Uppsala University Summary Recent archaeological studies demonstrate changes in the material culture and burial practice in Upper Dalarna around 500-750 CE. The material culture and burial practice go from a previously locally distinctive tradition with influences…
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Mehmet Somel is a professor of biology at the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey, and the Human Past Senior Fellow 2024-25. The abstract will follow.
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Abstract Mehmet Somel will present some recent results on the first steps of the Neolithic expansion westward, “out-of-Anatolia”. For this study, his group generated 30 new paleogenomes from six settlements in West and Central Anatolia dating to c.10,000-8,000 years ago. The researchers further compiled a digitalized material culture dataset comprising 58 cultural elements, from architecture…
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Abstract The seminal paper by Grünthal et al. (2022) advances a new scenario of Proto-Uralic disintegration and spread. They suggest a rapid spread of Uralic languages through Common Uralic, a dialect continuum whose breakup formed the Finno-Ugric language families. They suggest that the vector for Uralic spread was the Seima-Turbino trading network (ST), within which…
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Abstract The intimate relationship between humans and crop plants means that traces of human cultural practices become embedded in the crop genome. Aspects of past cultures not documented in written records can consequently be studied with genetic analyses of archaeological crop remains. Such analyses, however, come with their own particular set of challenges, not the…
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Our Human Past Fellow Axel Palmér will deliver a talk on his current research project at one of the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS) seminars. Welcome!
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Carina’s project, “Prehistoric DNA reveals the spread of agriculture,” will continue thanks to the prolonged Knut and Alice Wallenberg Academy grant. Carina Schlebusch is analyzing the DNA of prehistoric farmers from different parts of Africa to map how cultivation and herding technology spread south of the Sahara. According to Carina, “Genetics is a fantastic tool…
Wellcome Connecting Science is the organizer of the conference, with Carina Schlebusch in the scientific programme committee. It’s mission is to enable everyone to explore genomic science and its impact on research, health and society. Recent archaeological and palaeontological discoveries and the application of genomic analysis are reshaping the understanding of human evolution and history.…
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Abstract The approximately 7,000 languages of the world is currently divided into no less than 422 lineages (= families + isolates) by the orthodox evidential criteria of Glottolog (glottolog.org). Should we believe this number? To what extent is it subjective, consistent in meta-properties and dependent on the amount of research and documentation? The time-depth of…