🙃 I really don't know why I thought I'd be able to finish this piece before midnight, on our mythmaking about early humans, and how those narratives have changed (but not enough) with recent anthropological research.
I'm not going to post anything that's still underbaked, just to meet an arbitrary cut-off I set for myself in a VERY prolific writing schedule, so it'll go up early tomorrow morning instead... but gosh darn it:
Someone remind me to choose a SMALLER, SIMPLER topic next week, eh?
@MLClark 😲
So is this all Home Sapiens or are you including all 'Homo' species?
I ask mostly since one of the two DNA tests I sent off have come back and I'm intrigued by things like %ages of Neanderthal in people. Does that tie in with the kind of research you're referencing?
It does, but there was a wonderful recent Substack that delved into technical details so beautifully that I saw no point in repeating its discussion. I link it in the free-to-read section, and spend my time talking about the roles served by alt- and early humans in religious and scientific contexts - and how we're still struggling with a full paradigm shift in storytelling about them and us.
Here's that technical read I mentioned: I think you'll enjoy it!
https://stetson.substack.com/p/a-brief-genetic-history-of-europe
@MLClark @BillyBones where do native americans fit into this chart?
Different story, Museek!
You've probably already encountered this, but recent analyses show some pretty interesting histories - including clear signs of two-way gene flow along the Bering Strait long after the loss of the land bridge.
This beautifully undermines the idea of ancient peoples arriving and getting caught in cultural amber. You know how much migration is part of many Native cultures; genetics now expands the range of early movements.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ancient-dna-evidence-charts-native-american-migrations-back-across-the-bering-sea-180981435/
@MLClark @Museek @BillyBones you say ceviche and I say sushi ...
@CanisPundit
😅 Exactly.
It's a wonderful reframe, because the more we learn about the fluidity of stone-age, bronze-age, and common-era cultures, the more we chip away at rigid narratives of how "civilization" had to come about.
There's a fatalism to many of our stories of violent conquest, but if you can point to more cultures fluidly migrating and living well together at the same time that others were slaughtering/enslaving, that myth of inevitability falls apart!
@Museek @BillyBones