The History and Geography of Human Genes

The History and Geography of Human Genes

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L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza and his collaborators Paolo Menozzi and Alberto Piazza have devoted fourteen years to one of the most compelling scientific projects of our time: the reconstruction of where human populations originated and the paths by which they spread throughout the world. In this volume, the culmination of their research, the authors explain their pathbreaking use of genetic data, which they integrate with insights from geography, ecology, archaeology, physical anthropology, and linguistics to create the first full-scale account of human evolution as it occurred across all continents. This interdisciplinary approach enables them to address a wide range of issues that continue to incite debate: the timing of the first appearance of our species, the problem of African origins and the significance of work recently done on mitochondrial DNA and the popular notion of an African Eve, the controversy pertaining to the peopling of the Americas, and the reason for the presence of non-Indo-European languages--Basque, Finnish, and Hungarian--in Europe.The authors reconstruct the history of our evolution by focusing on genetic divergence among human groups. Using genetic information accumulated over the last fifty years, they examined over 110 different inherited traits, such as blood types, HLA factors, proteins, and DNA markers, in over eighteen hundred, primarily aboriginal, populations. By mapping the worldwide geographic distribution of the genes, the scientists are now able to chart migrations and, in exploring genetic distance, devise a clock by which to date evolutionary history: the longer two populations are separated, the greater their genetic difference should be. This volume highlights the authors' contributions to genetic geography, particularly their technique for making geographic maps of gene frequencies and their synthetic method of detecting ancient migrations, as for example the migration of Neolithic farmers from the Middle East toward Europe, West Asia, and North Africa.Beginning with an explanation of their major sources of data and concepts, the authors give an interdisciplinary account of human evolution at the world level. Chapters are then devoted to evolution on single continents and include analyses of genetic data and how these data relate to geographic, ecological, archaeological, anthropological, and linguistic information. Comprising a wide range of viewpoints, a vast store of new and recent information on genetics, and a generous supply of visual elements, including 522 geographic maps, this book is a unique source of facts and a catalyst for further debate and research.

 

Olduvai Gorge: Volume 3, Excavations in Beds I and II, 1960-1963

Olduvai Gorge: Volume 3, Excavations in Beds I and II, 1960-1963

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Olduvai Groge is a valley in the Serengeti Plains at the western margin of the Eastern Rift Valley in northern Tanzania. The formations discussed in this volume, Beds I and II, were deposited in the Lower and Middle Pleistocene and have yielded large quantities of the remains of early man, in the form of bones and stone tools and evidence of the environment in which they lived. Bed I, in which remains of Australopithecus boisei and Homo habilis have been found, is firmly dated between 1.9 million years for the lowest level and 1.65 million years for a level below the top. This third volume describes the excavations. In Part I, starting with the lowest levels and devoting a chapter to each main level, Dr Leakey describes the actual process of excavation and the finding of the principal remains. In Part II, Dr Leakey describes the circumstances of the discovery of the hominid skeletal remains. These range from purposive excavation to accidental discovery while collecting small stones for mixing in concrete. Finally, mammalian bones, as tools and as food remains are discussed.

 

Silent Witness: How Forensic Anthropology is Used to Solve the World's Toughest Crimes

Silent Witness: How Forensic Anthropology is Used to Solve the World's Toughest Crimes

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Praise for the first edition: This book should be of considerable interest to a broad range of general readers ... recommended. --Choice An important introduction to the science of forensic anthropology. --Kliatt
Silent Witness
takes readers behind the scenes on real crime cases requiring the skills and expertise of a forensic anthropologist. It describes the techniques they use, how they locate a body and uncover evidence, and how the unique characteristics of each body bear silent witness to age, sex and cause of death as well as clues leading to who or what was responsible.Following a foreword and case study by world-renowned forensic anthropologist Cyril Wecht, the book opens with a review of the science of forensics--how bones talk. Eight chapters organize 350 color photographs and illustrations to focus on such topics as the history of forensic anthropology what bones tell us types of interment and exhumation body decomposition, facial reconstruction air disasters fires and explosives and massacres.The book uses 32 real-life case studies to illustrate the techniques used. They include the notorious (Ernesto Che Guevara, Jeffrey Dahmer) the tragic and explosive (American Airlines Flight 191, the Hinton Rail Collision) the horrific (dirty wars, genocide) and the wretched (bank robber and circus exhibit Elmer McCurdy).Since it was first published,
Silent Witness
has been used in high school and college classrooms across North America as a required text or recommended reading.

 

Race Critical Theories: Text and Context

Race Critical Theories: Text and Context

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Race Critical Theories brings together many of the key contributors to critical theorizing about race and racism over the past twenty years. Each previously published text is accompanied by a fresh statement - in most cases written by the authors themselves - regarding the political context, implications and effects of the original contribution.

 

Theory from the South: Or, How Euro-America is Evolving Toward Africa (The Radical Imagination)

Theory from the South: Or, How Euro-America is Evolving Toward Africa (The Radical Imagination)

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As nation-states in the Northern Hemisphere experience economic crisis, political corruption and racial tension, it seems as though they might be 'evolving' into the kind of societies normally associated with the 'Global South'. Anthropologists Jean and John Comaroff draw on their long experience of living in Africa to address a range of familiar themes - democracy, national borders, labour and capital and multiculturalism. They consider how we might understand these issues by using theory developed in the Global South. Challenging our ideas about 'developed' and 'developing' nations, Theory from the South provides new insights into key problems of our time.

 

Where Are We Heading?: The Evolution of Humans and Things (Foundational Questions in Science)

Where Are We Heading?: The Evolution of Humans and Things (Foundational Questions in Science)

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In this engaging exploration, archaeologist Ian Hodder departs from the two prevailing modes of thought about human evolution: the older idea of constant advancement toward a civilized ideal and the newer one of a directionless process of natural selection. Instead, he proposes a theory of human evolution and history based on “entanglement,” the ever-increasing mutual dependency between humans and things.   Not only do humans become dependent on things, Hodder asserts, but things become dependent on humans, requiring an endless succession of new innovations. It is this mutual dependency that creates the dominant trend in both cultural and genetic evolution. He selects a small number of cases, ranging in significance from the invention of the wheel down to Christmas tree lights, to show how entanglement has created webs of human-thing dependency that encircle the world and limit our responses to global crises.

 

The Origins of the English (Debates in Archaeology)

The Origins of the English (Debates in Archaeology)

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National origins remain as important as they have ever been to our sense of identity. Accounts of the early history of the peoples of Europe, including the English, are key tools in our construction of that identity. National identity has been studied through a range of different types of evidence - historical, archaeological, linguistic and most recently genetic. This has caused problems of interdisciplinary communication. In this book Catherine Hills carefully and succinctly unravels these different perceptions and types of evidence to assess how far it is really possible to understand when and how the people living in south and east Britain became 'English'.