Peopling of Europe book

Jean M.'s book (revised and expanded from her Peopling of Europe website) is now available for pre-order, though it's not scheduled to ship until September or October. I don't necessarily agree with her on every detail, but there's little doubt that on the whole she'll come vastly closer than Sykes, Oppenheimer, or Wells were able to giving an accurate account of the genetic origins of Europeans.

Description and table of contents:

Ancestral Journeys
The Peopling of Europe from the First Venturers to the Vikings
Jean Manco (Author)

Incorporates the latest discoveries and theories from archaeology, genetics, history, and linguistics to paint a spirited history of European settlement

Who are the Europeans and where did they come from? In recent years scientific advances have released a mass of data, turning cherished ideas upside down. The idea of migration in prehistory, so long out of favor, is back on the agenda. New advances allow us to track human movement and the spread of crops, animals, and disease, and we can see the evidence of population crashes and rises, both continent-wide and locally. Visions of continuity have been replaced with a more dynamic view of Europe’s past, with one wave of migration followed by another, from the first human arrivals in Europe to the Vikings.

Ancient DNA links Europe to its nearest neighbors. It is not a new idea that farming was brought from the Near East, but genetics now reveal an unexpectedly complex process in which farmers arrived not in one wave, but several. Even more unexpected is the evidence that the European gene pool was stirred vigorously many times after farming had reached most of Europe. Climate change played a part in this upheaval, but so did new inventions such as the plough and wheeled vehicles. Genetic and linguistic clues also enhance our understanding of the upheavals of the Migration Period, the wanderings of steppe nomads, and the adventures of the Vikings.

Book Details
Hardcover
Forthcoming October 2013
ISBN 978-0-500-05178-8
6.3 × 9.5 in / 304 pages
Territory Rights: USA and Dependencies, Philippines and Canada.

Preface

Abbreviations

European Timeline

1: Who are the Europeans?
2: Migration: principles and problems

Scientific techniques

Radiocarbon databases and palaeobotany

Isotopes

DNA: the basics

DNA: making sense of the data

Language

Dating

Language shift

Place-names

Ethnonyms

Types of migration

3: The first Europeans

Early DNA Evidence
Hardy hunters

Prehistoric transport 1: People power

Neanderthals

Debate over archaic admixture

The Ice Age

4: Mesolithic hunters and fishermen

Prehistoric transport 2: Floating along

Pottery and climate
Mesolithic DNA
Saami
Uralic languages
DNA from Pitted Ware sites

5: The first farmers

The pace of change

Early experiments

Prehistoric transport 3: Out to sea

Farming starts to spread
Crisis forces movement
Languages and Y-DNA
Routes into Europe
Spread by ideas or people?
Genetic evidence

6: Dairy Farming

Northern Europe
Short and long-term impact of the first waves of farmers on Europe's population

7: The Copper Age

The urban Near East
The Secondary Products Revolution
Copper Age Europe
The Basques

8: The Indo-European family

Prehistoric transport 4: rolling along
Prehistoric transport 5: horse power

Tocharians
Yamnaya horizon

Prehistoric transport 6: speeding along

The Indo-Iranians
Scythians, Sarmatians and Amazons
Herders to Hellenes

9: Indo-Europeans and genetics

Y-DNA R1
Genetic fellow-travellers
Mitochondrial DNA
Lactase persistence

10: Beaker Folk to Celts and Italics

Stelae People
Who Were the Celts?
Celts arrive in the British Isles

11: Minoans and Mycenaeans
12: Iron Age traders and warriors

Phoenicians and Iberes
Cimmerians and steel
Hallstatt and La Tène Cultures

13: Etruscans and Romans

Slavery

14: The Great Wandering

Engines of change
The Germani
Germanic genetic mix
Proto-Germanic
Branches of the Germanic tree
Goths and Vandals
Ostrogoths and Visigoths
Franks and Anglo-Saxons

15: Enter the Slavs

The Slavic expansion
Slavic genetic mix

16: Bulgars and Magyars
17: Vikings

Prehistoric transport 7: Scandinavian sea-power

Genetics
Highlands and Islands
Ireland
The rich lowlands
The Great Army
The Far North West
Kievan Rus

18: Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Sources of illustrations
Index