On the River of History

9 - Homo sapiens (Part 1)


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This episode begins our discussion of the prehistory of Homo sapiens, the species to which we belong. Our origins are examined on the African continent and we trace the movement of our Ancestors across the world, from Asia to Australia, and from Europe and Siberia to the Americas. This episode ends with a discussion of race, how it developed as a concept, and what it means to anthropologists today.

Transcript: https://riverofhistory.tumblr.com/post/183673468776/episode-9-homo-sapiens

Links and Referenced Mentioned:

Inspiration for the dissection of

‘population’ and ‘migration’: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/plug-and-play-genetics-racial-migrations-and-human-history/

Steve Olson quote: Mapping Human History, Mariner Books

(2002)

African Multiregionalism: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959437X1730182X?dgcid=author

Borrowing of the term “Ancestor”: The Humans Who Went Extinct, Clive

Finlayson, Oxford University Press (2009)

Generalist Specialists: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326689995_Defining_the_'generalist_specialist'_niche_for_Pleistocene_Homo_sapiens_Nature_Human_Behaviour

Deep Ancestral Ties to Living

Africans: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07164-9
& https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959437X18300601?via%3Dihub

Oldest Bow-and-Arrow: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324721964_The_antiquity_of_bow-and-arrow_technology_Evidence_from_Middle_Stone_Age_layers_at_Sibudu_Cave

Access of Southwest Asia from

Africa via warm and wet corridors: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/303763801_Palaeohydrological_corridors_for_hominin_dispersals_in_the_Middle_East_250-70000_years_ago

Return movements into Africa: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325856764_Carriers_of_mitochondrial_DNA_macrohaplogroup_L3_basal_lineages_migrated_back_to_Africa_from_Asia_around_70000_years_ago

1.5-2.1% of non-African genomes are

Neanderthal: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4031459/

Neanderthal Traits in Homo sapiens: https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/dtcgenetictesting/neanderthaldna & https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28985494

Early Homo sapiens movements into Eurasia: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5164938/https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4933530/

& https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0436-8 & https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-38818-x

Toba Eruption Discussion: When Humans Nearly Vanished, Donald

Prothero, Smithsonian Books (2018) & The
Great Divide, Peter Watson, HarperCollins Publishers (2013)

Possible climate-driver for Humans

leaving Africa: https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article/45/11/1023/516677/a-climatic-context-for-the-out-of-africa-migration

Lice study and the Origin of

Clothing: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(03)00507-4?

Bone needles: https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/fashion-history-sewing-needles/

Alexander Harcourt coastal

migration reference: Humankind,
Pegasus Books (2015)

Genetic evidence for peopling of

Southeast Asia: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6397/88.long

Peopling of Sahul: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248418302136 & https://www.nature.com/articles/nature18299

& https://www.nature.com/articles/nature21416

Peopling of Eastern & Northern Asia:

https://investigativegenetics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2041-2223-4-11 & http://www.genetics.org/content/202/1/261 & http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/2/e1601877.full

Mating between Denisovans and

Ancestors: https://peerj.com/preprints/27526.pdf

Peopling of Europe: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2752585/ & https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3427117/

& https://www.newscientist.com/article/2139694-we-may-have-mated-with-neanderthals-more-than-219000-years-ago/ & https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-41033-3

Peopling of Siberia: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/693388

Peopling of the Americas: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27507099 & http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/8/eaat5473

& https://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.0030185 & https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2018/11/ancient-dna-reveals-complex-migrations-first-americans/ & https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(18)31495-7?

Discussion of Race: A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived,

Adam Rutherford, The Experiment (2017); Mapping
Human History, Steve Olson, Mariner Books (2002); https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4756148/

Development of Phenotypic Traits: http://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6365/eaan8433 & https://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674%2813%2900067-6

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On the River of HistoryBy Joan Turmelle

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