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Europeans raced across oceans and continents during the Age of Exploration in search of territory and riches. But when they reached the South Pacific, they found they had been beaten there by a more humble traveler: the sweet potato. Now, a new study suggests that the plant's genetics may be the key to unraveling another great age of exploration, one that predated European expansion by several hundred years and remains an anthropological enigma. Humans domesticated the sweet potato in the Peruvian highlands about 8000 years ago, and previous generations of scholars believed that Spanish and Portuguese explorers introduced the crop...

Will Dunham October 23, 2014 They lived on a remote dot of land in the middle of the Pacific, 2,300 miles (3,700 km) west of South America and 1,100 miles (1,770 km) from the closest island, erecting huge stone figures that still stare enigmatically from the hillsides. But the ancient Polynesian people who populated Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, were not as isolated as long believed. Scientists who conducted a genetic study, published on Thursday in the journal Current Biology, found these ancient people had significant contact with Native American populations hundreds of years before the first Westerners reached the...

In the 1200’s in Europe something began to change. Most of the wealth of Europe came from the produce of land. Pollen evidence, as well as glacial evidence, prove that from 750 AD to 800 AD, and again two hundred years later from 1150 AD to 1200 AD, Europe’s weather suddenly starting warming, known as the “Medieval Warm”. Pollen studies of the beech forests along the Fernau glacier and in the Ardenes region of Northern France prove that these forests started to expand their borders during the late Eight Century from their A.D. 200 borders, and we discover that Alpine...

Medieval DNA, Modern Medicine Volume 60 Number 6, November/December 2007 by Heather Pringle Will a cemetery excavation establish a link between the Black Death and resistance to AIDS? Beneath Eindhoven's modern skin of brick and asphalt lie the bones of its medieval townspeople. Studying their DNA may reveal the origin of the genetic resistance to AIDS. (Courtesy Laurens Mulkens) From the start, Nico Arts sensed that the frail remains of a child buried in front of a medieval church altar had an important story to tell. Arts is the municipal archaeologist in Eindhoven, a prosperous industrial city in the southern...

An international team of scientists has discovered that two of the most devastating pandemics in human history -- responsible for killing as much as half the population in Europe at the time -- were caused by strains of the same bacterium. The researchers announced Monday that the Plague of Justinian and the Black Death were caused by distinct strains of the same pathogen, and warned that similar pandemics can strike again. The Plague of Justinian struck in the 6th century and is estimated to have killed between 30 and 50 million people -- virtually half the world’s population as it...

How The Bubonic Plague Actually Saved Europe In The 14th Century Sam Ro May 15, 2013, 1:31 PM Studying the history of financial crises can be quite enlightening. Deutsche Bank's Peter Hooper just published an interesting report considering crises going back to the Middle Ages. Referring to the work of Juesus Huerta de Soto, Geld, Bankkredit und Konjunkturzyklen, and Stuttgart, Hooper summarizes what happened during the European credit crisis of the 14th century. What's interesting is how the country got out of the crisis. From Hooper's note (emphasis added): In the early 14th century banks in Florence engaged in a...

A team of German and Canadian scientists has shown that today's plague pathogen has been around at least 600 years. The Black Death claimed the lives of one-third of Europeans in just five years from 1348 to 1353. Until recently, it was not certain whether the bacterium Yersinia pestis -- known to cause the plague today -- was responsible for that most deadly outbreak of disease ever. Now, the University of Tübingen's Institute of Scientific Archaeology and McMaster University in Canada have been able to confirm that Yersinia pestis was behind the great plague... Previous genetic tests indicating that the...

Scientists Discover Why Plague Is So Lethal ScienceDaily (May 5, 2008) — Bacteria that cause the bubonic plague may be more virulent than their close relatives because of a single genetic mutation, according to research published in the May issue of the journal Microbiology.Yersinia pestis, direct fluorescent antibody stain (DFA), at 200x magnification. (Credit: CDC / Courtesy of Larry Stauffer, Oregon State Public Health Laboratory) "The plague bacterium Yersinia pestis needs calcium in order to grow at body temperature. When there is no calcium available, it produces a large amount of an amino acid called aspartic acid," said Professor Brubaker...

Oxford Journals, Genome Biology and EvolutionBurial site and skeletal remains of the St. Helena marine forager, who was at least 50 years old when he died DNA from a 2,300-year-old skeleton suggests that the earliest known group of modern humans to branch off from the wider genetic population survived until astonishingly recently. The finding supports the case that southern, rather than eastern, Africa is humanity's ancestral home.Mitochondrial DNA, passed on only from the mother, demonstrates that all humanity is descended from a single ancestor around 200,000 years ago. Archaeological evidence points to the Omo Valley, where fossil evidence suggests that Homo sapiens roamed Africa 195,000...

Last month, I read a truly fascinating book, written by John Entine, titled: "Abraham's Children: Race, Identity, and the DNA of the Chosen People". Entine is a genetics expert, and a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute. http://www.amazon.com/Abrahams-Children-Identity-Chosen-People/dp/0446580635 It mentions that Jews have genetic markers, that can be detected by DNA tests. Of course, genetic markers also exist for Irishmen, Chinese people, Indians, etc. The Mizrahi Jews from the Middle East and the Ashkenazi Jews from Europe, have very similar genes. Genetics research and Archaeology are proving that many of the accounts in the Old Testament are true. Jews have...

A team of Spanish researchers have obtained the first partial genome sequence of an ancient pig. Extracted from a sixteenth century pig found at the site of the Montsoriu Castle in Girona, the data obtained indicates that this ancient pig is closely related to today's Iberian pig. Researchers also discard the hypothesis that Asian pigs were crossed with modern Iberian pigs. The study, published in Heredity, sheds new light on evolutionary aspects of pig species, and particularly on that of the Iberian breed, considered to be representative of original European Mediterranean populations... The sample dates approximately from the years 1520...

In the genetic history of our species, the mamas outnumber the papas. A new study in Investigative Genetics reports that females have made a bigger contribution than men. By studying the DNA of 623 males from 51 populations, the researchers found more genetic diversity in the DNA inherited from mothers than they did in the DNA inherited from fathers. At first glance, these results could be taken to mean that there used to be more women than men. But if you know anything about history, it makes more sense to blame reproductive habits: In many cultures, more women reproduced than...

Missouri Cherokee Tribes proclaim Jewish Heritage by Staff February 7, 2003 The Northern Cherokee Nation of the Old Louisiana Territory has recently shocked the world by claiming their ancient Oral legends tell of a Cherokee migration made to America from the area known as Masada. This startling evidence is being offered to the public by Beverly Baker Northup whom is the spokesperson for their organization. The evidence offered in support of this connection to Cherokees escaping the mountain fortress of Masada is based in part of what Northup claims is stories passed down from elders and the similarity between ancient...

LYNNWOOD -- The unassuming instructor with the soft voice holds a phone to each ear, juggling cell and land lines. The desktop in his office pings with endless incoming e-mails. One may laud him as intellectual dissident, another rip him as religious heretic. He apologizes for the interruptions. "The phone hasn't stopped ringing," says Thomas Murphy, the cultural anthropologist whose challenge of Mormon doctrine has landed him in hot water with his church and thrown his name into headlines across the country.Not that it has cramped his style. "I think it's fair to conclude that the Book of Mormon is...

Did the Welsh discover America? 26/8/2002 A team of historians and researchers announced today that Radio Carbon dating evidence, and the discovery of ancient British style artefacts and inscriptions in the American Midwest, provide the strongest indications yet" that British explorers, under the Prince Madoc ap Meurig, arrived in the country during the 6th Century and set up colonies there. Research team members have known the location of burial sites of Madoc's close relatives in Wales for some time, it emerged today; but they have decided to break their self-imposed silence in order that their research be fully known and...

From the time he was a child in Peru, the Mormon Church instilled in Jose Loayza the conviction that he and millions of other Native Americans were descended from a lost tribe of Israel that reached the New World more than 2,000 years ago. "We were taught all the blessings of that Hebrew lineage belonged to us and that we were special people," said Loayza, now a Salt Lake City attorney. ... Loayza said, his faith was shaken and his identity stripped away by DNA evidence showing that the ancestors of American natives came from Asia, not the Middle East....

... Pigmentation genes carried by the hunters and farmers showed that, while the dark hair, brown eyes and pale skin of the early farmer would look familiar to us, the hunter-gatherers would stand out if we saw them on a street today. "It really does look like the indigenous West European hunter gatherers had this striking combination of dark skin and blue eyes that doesn't exist any more," Prof Reich told BBC News.

The modern European gene pool was formed when three ancient populations mixed with one another within the last 7,000 years, Nature journal reports. Blue-eyed, swarthy hunters mingled with brown-eyed, pale skinned farmers as the latter swept into Europe from the Near East. But another, mysterious population with Siberian affinities also contributed to the genetic landscape of the continent. The findings are based analysis of the genomes of nine ancient Europeans.

The modern European gene pool was formed when three ancient populations mixed within the last 7,000 years, Nature journal reports. Blue-eyed, swarthy hunters mingled with brown-eyed, pale skinned farmers as the latter swept into Europe from the Near East. But another, mysterious population with Siberian affinities also contributed to the genetic landscape of the continent. The findings are based on analysis of genomes from nine ancient Europeans. Agriculture originated in the Near East - in modern Syria, Iraq and Israel - before expanding into Europe around 7,500 years ago. It really does look like the indigenous West European hunter gatherers...

Instapundit: "The Army Corps of Engineers sure didnÂ’t want this researched, and continues to interfere today. Why? " Why? It blows the native "indians" narrative of 'we were here first' out of the water. Land claims and free money is g-o-n-e gone: As work progressed, a portrait of Kennewick Man emerged. He does not belong to any living human population. Who, then, are his closest living relatives? Judging from the shape of his skull and bones, his closest living relatives appear to be the Moriori people of the Chatham Islands, a remote archipelago 420 miles southeast of New Zealand, as...