Human Dispersals During the Holocene

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Beginning about 12,000 years ago, the transition from a foraging to a farming lifestyle had a huge impact on human populations, fueling major population expansions around the world. The spread of farming has been controversially associated with the spread of large language families, such as Indo-European, Bantu, and Austronesian languages. A team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, has now reviewed the genomic evidence for human migrations in Africa, Europe, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas, with an emphasis on those associated with farming-language expansions. Genomic evidence from ancient and modern human DNA indicates a complex history for human migrations.  In some cases, there is no obvious association between farming and language spread; and even when a strong case can be made for such an association, there were highly variable outcomes in the interactions between expanding farmers and resident foragers. Further research is needed to identify the demographic and social factors responsible for such variable outcomes and the overall complex history of farming and language expansions.

Publication: Mark Stoneking, et al., Genomic perspectives on human dispersals during the Holocene, PNAS (2023). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2209475119

Original Story Source: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology