"The following review of the archeological and document evidence indicates that three events occurring in the first half of the first millennium BC trigger the emergence of a specialized and integrated classical economy after 500 BC: (i) growth in demand for silver as a medium of exchange in economies in the Near East; (ii) technical breakthroughs in hull construction and sailing rig in merchant shipping of the late Bronze Age; (iii) perfection of ferrous metallurgy into the European hinterland."
"The Syriac language has, among all the Aramaic varieties, by far the largest number of terms for ‘comet’ or ‘meteor’. Is there a simple explanation for this fact?"
🇲🇳 " We observed that our studied Mongolians were structured into three distinct genetic clusters possessing different genetic affinity with previous studied Inner Mongolians and Mongols and various Eastern and Western Eurasian ancestries: two subgroups harbored dominant Eastern Eurasian ancestry from Neolithic millet farmers of Yellow River Basin; another subgroup derived Eastern Eurasian ancestry primarily from Neolithic hunter-gatherers of North Asia."
🇮🇷 "The results show an autochthonous but non-homogeneous ancient background mainly composed by J2a sub-clades with different external contributions. The phylogeography of the main haplogroups allowed identifying post-glacial and Neolithic expansions toward western Eurasia but also recent movements towards the Iranian region from western Eurasia (R1b-L23), Central Asia (Q-M25), Asia Minor (J2a-M92) and southern Mesopotamia (J1-Page08)."
Does anyone need a #Bluesky code? I have a few & would love to give them to critical academics or #vegan, #environmentalist, pro-#Palestine comrades… maybe you know people who fit that bill and are still stuck on Xitter?
(I love Mastodon but I think BSky is attracting more former chronic #Xitter users to switch over, and really, whatever works at this point)
"The investigation shows that the Kvens constituted a group of Finnish speaking people existing in continuity from the Viking Age. Their core territory was situated in the upper Gulf of Bothnia area. When this was integrated into the Swedish kingdom the inhabitants were designated Finns by the Swedes."
"Here we analyze historical and recent observations to show that ocean heat uptake has accelerated dramatically since the 1990s, nearly doubling during 2010–2020 relative to 1990–2000."
"We present 14 new ancient mitogenome sequences from pre-Phoenician (~1800 BCE) and Phoenician (~700–400 BCE) samples from Lebanon (n = 4) and Sardinia (n = 10) and compare these with 87 new complete mitogenomes from modern Lebanese and 21 recently published pre-Phoenician ancient mitogenomes from Sardinia to investigate the population dynamics of the Phoenician (Punic) site of Monte Sirai, in southern Sardinia."
🚨 FAO UK academics concerned about academic freedom and/or #Palestine:
Tory minister Michelle Donelan is trying to intimidate UKRI into silencing #academics who have expressed legitimate criticism of the genocide in #Gaza. She appears to be succeeding.
If you want UKRI to stand up for us, please sign this open letter.
"Here, using an experimental paradigm able to separate variation within a language from variation between languages, we tested the use of spatial demonstratives—the most fundamental and frequent spatial terms across languages."
#Image attribution: naturalearthdata.com, offered to the Public Domain per Terms of Use, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:World_map_geographical_(drab).png
"We have combined a detailed, high-resolution mitogenome analysis with summaries of autosomal data and Y-chromosome lineages to establish a settlement chronology for the Indian Subcontinent."
"In the context of European populations, and particularly in Iberia, this haplogroup stands out for its high frequency and its demographic history. Current evidence indicates that the diffusion of this haplogroup is related to the population movements that mark the cultural Bronze Age transition, making it remarkably interesting for population geneticists."
"Here, we survey the genomic evidence for human dispersals during the Holocene in various geographic regions of the world, focusing on proposed expansions linked to agriculture."
"Here we employ a sample of ancient Near Eastern cities dated between about 6000 BC and AD 1000 using settled area as a proxy for city population and relate this to estimates of regional population and prevailing climate to examine their long-term relationship."
"Our study demonstrates a direct genetic link between Mediterranean and Central European early farmers and those of Greece and Anatolia, extending the European Neolithic migratory chain all the way back to southwestern Asia."
"We analyzed a comprehensive autosomal and Y-chromosome dataset of Eurasian and African populations identifying genetic signals of regional LGP population isolation, and contrasted expansion time estimates and dispersal routes in the region with archaeological, palaeontological, palaeobotanical, and climate data."
🇩🇰 "We propose that the interdependent relationships between mobility, pastoralism and barrow-building in the third millennium BC produced a cosmological complex which endured as the social backbone of the Nordic Bronze Age (c. 1700–500 BC) in western Jutland."
"In this article, after briefly describing the meaning of the notion of truth, I have tried to analyse the relation between value and science in detail and provide an explanation for the present-day hypertrophic, rigid, and not reality-bound value system and its ideological penetration into science and medicine."
"Friction determines whether liquid droplets slide off a solid surface or stick to it. Surface heterogeneity is generally acknowledged as the major cause of increased contact angle hysteresis and contact line friction of droplets. Here we challenge this long-standing premise for chemical heterogeneity at the molecular length scale."
"We propose that this process of lithosphere growth—with diamonds attached to the supercontinent keel by the diapiric uprise of depleted buoyant material and pieces of slab crust—could have enhanced supercontinent stability."