Thursday, August 31, 2023
The story of the Khvalynsk people
I'm totally serious when I say that this video is more objective, informative and accurate than any peer-reviewed paper published to date when it comes to the genetic origins of the Khvalynsk people.
However, that's not to say it's perfect. I think it misses some important details. See here...
The Caucasus is a semipermeable barrier to gene flow
Dear David, Nick, Iosif...let's set the record straight
Understanding the Eneolithic steppe
Saturday, August 12, 2023
Indo-European crackpottery
I've now had the chance to read and digest the following two papers in Science about the origin of Indo-European languages:
Language trees with sampled ancestors support a hybrid model for the origin of Indo-European languages, Heggarty et al. The genetic history of the Southern Arc: A bridge between West Asia and Europe, Lazaridis, Alpaslan-Roodenberg et al.The Heggarty et al. paper is pure fluff. It offers nothing useful or even remotely interesting. For instance, the authors derive some Indo-European languages in Europe from Anatolian farmers and others from Caucasus hunter-gatherers (see here). This is not just exceedingly far fetched, but also obviously forced. Wolfgang Haak and Johannes Krause, you should be deeply ashamed of yourselves. I've already commented extensively about the Lazaridis, Alpaslan-Roodenberg et al. paper (for example, see here). But the one thing I need to add is that this paper is what it is due to the inherent bias of some of the lead authors to push the Indo-Anatolian homeland into West Asia. I won't even bother mentioning their names, because we all know who they are. See also... Crazy stuff Dear David, Nick, Iosif...let's set the record straight The story of R-V1636