race/history/evolution notes

Ahnenkult: An Uyghur redhead

Peter Frost: Big Other? "It is even doubtful whether the east-west flow of ideas explains the rise of the European world to global dominance between 1500 and 1900—the main theme of Diamond’s book. This rise to dominance was fueled by a technological revolution that occurred largely in northwestern Europe [. . .] Europe took off economically and geopolitically only when it developed its own intellectual resources."

John Hawks: Where did Neanderancestors live? "I discussed this exact issue with David Reich last week. There is no strong fossil argument for an African ancestor at that time, Europe and West Asia are anatomically and archaeologically just as plausible. My inclination is to suspect Africa because of the deep genetic variation still retained in that population, but that variation could have been retained in other ways -- particularly since every scenario of human origins now must involve population mixture." Apparently continuing a twitter conversation: "With Ngandong date change last week, no H. erectus fossil is late enough to be part of a Denisovan population. [. . .] The hinge point in paleoanthropology right now is the European Middle Pleistocene. Neandergenes don't fit fossil record. That is, Neandergene analysis seems to rule out substantial Neandertal ancestry from Atapuerca et al. Instead, Neandergenes appear to derive from Africa after 250-400 kya. Is Atapuerca/Petralona/Arago a dead end? Or can we find a model that fits data and allows some substantially deeper Neandertal local ancestry? And while we're at it, can we get any Denisovan ancestry to be consistent with Asian Homo erectus? The Denisovan genome analysis seems to rule out any substantial mixture with Neandertals... ...but Okladnikov is literally 3 days' walk. There's simply no biogeographic barrier. The populations need not have been here at same time, but if not where were they? If we can't resolve the European Mid Pleistocene problem, fossils may never help with Denisovan problem."

Arthur R. Jensen and Frank Miele: Ratio Scale Measurement of Mental Processes by Means of Mental Chronometry (mp4 video)

Why is Google keeping a list of Jewish names? Anti-semitism, no doubt.

Tribe on Papua New Guinea meets white man for the first time