lpetrich
Contributor
The sequencing of large numbers of genes, including many whole genomes, is something that has made possible a lot of interesting and important biological discoveries, including about ourselves. Most of the populated places of our planet were discovered to already be populated by their first literate visitors, and these people's ancestors must have gotten there long ago. Usually much longer ago than any of them remember in their oral lore.
Turning from initial peopling, there is the question of how technological, stylistic, linguistic, and other cultural features spread. Did a new population come in and outbreed or push out or exterminate the previous population? Did some small but adventurous elite take over? Did people learn stuff from their neighbors without moving anywhere (cultural diffusion)?
Around the turn of the 20th cy., archeologists and paleoanthropologists rather indiscriminately postulated migrations, while in the mid 20th cy., the opposite belief became common, something that may be called "immobilism". But genetic research has made it possible to test these hypotheses, research using not only present-day people's genes, but also genes from the remains of their predecessors.
For Europe and India, there were three waves of migration. First a wave of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers. Then a wave of Neolithic farmers. Then a wave of horse-riding nomads from the steppe (grassland) belt of east Ukraine to central Asia. Then we get recorded history.
Turning from initial peopling, there is the question of how technological, stylistic, linguistic, and other cultural features spread. Did a new population come in and outbreed or push out or exterminate the previous population? Did some small but adventurous elite take over? Did people learn stuff from their neighbors without moving anywhere (cultural diffusion)?
Around the turn of the 20th cy., archeologists and paleoanthropologists rather indiscriminately postulated migrations, while in the mid 20th cy., the opposite belief became common, something that may be called "immobilism". But genetic research has made it possible to test these hypotheses, research using not only present-day people's genes, but also genes from the remains of their predecessors.
For Europe and India, there were three waves of migration. First a wave of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers. Then a wave of Neolithic farmers. Then a wave of horse-riding nomads from the steppe (grassland) belt of east Ukraine to central Asia. Then we get recorded history.