Month: September 2018
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The Munda arrived in India 4,000 years ago (probably)
I didn’t plan to talk about the Munda any time soon, in part because I recently wrote a post, The Munda as upland rice cultivators, which outlined my views. But there is a new preprint with new samples which attempts to estimate admixture times using genome-wide data. You can see the results above, and, also…
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Indic civilization came to Southeast Asia because Indian people came to Southeast Asia. Lots of them
Reading Indonesia: Peoples and Histories. I selected it because unlike many books it wasn’t incredibly skewed to the early modern and postcolonial period. The author makes the interesting point that the Islamicization of western Indonesia and the rise of the great Javanese Hindu kingdom of Majapahit occurred around the same time. This, in contrast to…
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The Chinese eradication of extreme poverty in one generation
There have been write-ups in the media of the decline of extreme poverty due to a World Bank data release in the past few days. This is kind of a pretty big deal, and one of the reasons that books like Enlightenment Now are still worth writing: much of the American public is unaware of the “good…
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Upward nobility in India by geography
The above figure is from Intergenerational Mobility in India: Estimates from New Methods and Administrative Data. Since everyone is talking about the caste results, I wanted to highlight geography.
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David Burbridge’s 10 questions for A. W. F. Edwards In 2006
A few years ago I watched a documentary about the rise of American-influenced rock music in Britain in the 1960s. At some point, one of the Beatles, probably Paul McCartney, or otherwise Eric Clapton, was quoted as saying that they wanted to introduce Americans to “their famous people.” Though patronizing and probably wrong, what they…
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The Insight Show Notes — Season 2, Episode 2: The Greatest Human Journey
This week on The Insight (Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Google Play) we touched upon arguably one of the greatest human journeys of humankind, the expansion of the Polynesians across the Pacific.Bishop MuseumSpencer discussed his visit to the Bishop Mus…
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The Greatest Human Journey
This week, Razib and Spencer discuss the genetics and peopling of Hawaii Show notes: https://pxlme.me/HB8t-6GG
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Hawaii: complicated a journey to paradise
The extent of Austronesian DiasporaAsk any American what they think when you say the word “Hawaii,” and certain words will no doubt reoccur from person to person. That’s because certain images, feelings, come to mind. A gentle breeze, beaches, and volc…
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Learning from cultural anthropology as opposed to unlearning from cultural anthropology
On my other weblog one of the commenters, who I have nicknamed Syme (others call him Bentwig), proudly boasts about his training anthropology. Those who know me personally are aware that for me this is often a red flag for an individual who is willing to furiously declare that up is down if Edward Said…
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On the whole genomics will not be individually transformative…for now
A new piece in The Guardian, ‘Your father’s not your father’: when DNA tests reveal more than you bargained for, is one of the two major genres in writings on personal genomics in the media right now (there are exceptions). First, there is the genre where genetics doesn’t do anything for you. It’s a waste…
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The Philippines as a postcolonial exemplar: out of wedlock birthrates
Edward Said’s Orientalism was a book I first read in the fall of 2001. I recall not being too impressed and finding simple historical errors in it. But mostly it bore me. I am now rereading it because in 2018 the book is far more relevant to our current American culture, if not the world…
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Open Thread
Please keep the other posts on topic. Use this for talking about whatever you want to talk about.
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Open Thread, 9/17/2018
There are lots of things from Imperial China 900–1800 that I learned, though more often it simply deepened my knowledge. At this point, I am curious about something that is more like economic history (yes, I’ve read The Great Divergence). Recommendations? Here is a fact I learned from Imperial China 900–1800 that might be of interest: in the…
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Results of 2018 Reader Survey
There was a comment below about who the readers are of this weblog. One thing that is clear is that people who comment are not necessarily representative. Limiting the sample to those who have American (USA) nationality: Limited the sample to S…
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Between the saffron and scimitar
On my other weblog I have a post, On The Instrumental Uses Of Arabic Science, which reflects on the role that the idea of science, the Islamic world, and cultural myopia, play in our deployment of particular historical facts and dynamics. That is, an idea, a concept, does not exist on an island but is…
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Sequence them all and let God sort it out!
Researchers reboot ambitious effort to sequence all vertebrate genomes, but challenges loom: In a bid to garner more visibility and support, researchers eager to sequence the genomes of all vertebrates today officially launched the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP), releasing 15 very high quality genomes of 14 species. But the group remains far short of raising…
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Avars across a sea of grass
That sound you hear is the rumbling of the earth caused by the rippling tsunami that’s coming. The swell of ancient DNA papers focused on historical, rather than prehistorical, time periods. Some historians are cheering. Some are fearful. Others know not what to think. It will be. The illiterate barbarians of yore shall come out…
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Gods and wizards in fantasy
A reader in the comments pointed me to Vice and Fire (though I’d already seen it on Twitter), a rumination on 20th century and 21st century fantasy literature by Peter Hitchens in First Things. Hitchens is the religious and politically conservative brother of the late Christopher Hitchens. The piece is curious because it reflects more about Hitchens…
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The genetics of Afrikaners (again)
I personally get asked about the genetics of Afrikaners, because I’ve written about/analyzed the issue before. The main outlines seem to be established, but I thought I might go and revisit it again. The main reason is that we have ancient South African DNA, and I’ve been adding it to my personal analyses for…
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On the instrumental uses of Arabic science
A new piece in Aeon, Forging Islamic science: Fake miniatures depicting Islamic science have found their way into the most august of libraries and history books. How? is quite rich food for thought. The nuts & bolts of the story are interesting enough, but perhaps the bigger picture is the emergence of (to borrow a phrase)…