I was hoping that the Covid-19 pandemic wouldn't have an immediate impact on the publication of ancient DNA papers and new data, but considering how much things have slowed down in this respect, it seems that I was fooling myself.
So let's take a break until early next year, and then see what happens.
Trust me, we've got a lot to look forward to in the post-Covid-19 world. Based on what I've heard from various sources, here are some predictions about what we might see:
- the search for the Proto-Indo-European homeland will shift west to the North Pontic steppe
- on the other hand, the search for the Proto-Uralic homeland will move deep into Siberia
- the key role of the Single Grave (westernmost Corded Ware) culture in the population history of Western Europe will finally get some attention
- following on from the above, Y-haplogroup R1b-L51 will be revealed as a Single Grave marker
- the idea that the Pontic-Caspian steppe was colonized by migrants from Mesopotamia during the Bronze Age will be forgotten, and, ironically, we'll instead learn that there was a significant influx of steppe ancestry into ancient Mesopotamia
- Old Kingdom Egyptians will come out less Sub-Saharan African than present-day Egyptians.
I probably shouldn't blab everything out, so that's all you're getting from me for now. You'll just have to wait for the rest until next year, or perhaps even the year after that.
See also...
