Humans Have Spread Globally, and Evolved Locally

Humans Have Spread Globally, and Evolved Locally

Another interesting anthropological article, this time from today’s New York Times. It’s based on kind of a ‘duh’ premise, which is that

Historians often assume that they need pay no attention to human evolution because the process ground to a halt in the distant past. That assumption is looking less and less secure in light of new findings based on decoding human DNA.

I’m not really sure that strawman is at all valid, but it makes a good setup for the rest of the article’s premise. Either way, the thing that I found most interesting was the little map of human DNA geographic distribution. Here’s a small version which, if you click it, will, in fact, enlarge!

It’s interesting to see how this map also correlates to language distribution (aside from the obvious migration patterns that made extinct certain languages and ethnic groups).