Science and Ideas Group
Out of Africa III: Early human migrations into Europe How language and genetic studies contribute to our understanding about prehistoric human migrations into Europe
This talk will pick up from our previous two talks: Out of Africa I and II: migrations from Africa to Australia and to Asia and the Pacific. In this talk we will discuss Neanderthals, CroMagnons and other early hunter/gatherer cultures; the migration into Europe of farming societies from Asia Minor; and the rise of the Indo-European speakers on the steppe of southern Ukraine and Russia and their spread into western Europe and as far east as India. Dramatic new discoveries in prehistoric DNA and comparative linguistics have greatly supplemented archaeological evidence of prehistoric migrations. Out of Africa 1, Earliest Human Migrations https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDVH1FmX-oA Out of Africa 2, Earliest Migrations to East Asia and the Pacific https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvRx5Lf9GXk Two books that give us background in this field are: David Anthony: The Horse, The Wheel and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World 2007 David Reich: Who We Are and How We Got Here, Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past. 2019 An older book which underlies this field is Marija Gimbutas: The Civilization of the Goddess. 1991 For a brief summary as of 2015, check out this article in The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/a-handful-of-bronze-age-men-could-have-fathered-two-thirds-of-europeans-42079 Roger Newman is a retired anthropology and history instructor, most recently at Berkeley City College. He is a founding member of AV's Science and Ideas interest group. He has taught all the major subfields of anthropology: human evolution, archaeology, linguistics, and human cultural variation.