A study of genetic drift on the X chromosome indicates that men significantly outnumbered women on the migration “Out of Africa” some 60,000 years ago. Alon Keinan of the Harvard Medical School says that his team’s findings are “in line with what anthropologists have taught us about hunter-gatherer populations in which short distance migration is primarily by women and long distance migration primarily by men.”

Neurogeneticist Patrick Chinnery at Newcastle University compared Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA with that found in modern humans. He thinks that Neanderthal bodies may have produced excess heat, which would have been an advantage in an ice age, but a disadvantage as the earth warmed. “It is difficult to get a definitive answer, as it is rather like looking through a misty window. We can only get clues to what went on,” he said.   

Biochemical profiles of tooth enamel taken from Peru’s Nasca trophy heads and from intact skeletons suggest that the Nasca obtained the heads from the local population, and not from enemy warriors.  

A Punjab and Haryana high court directive has asked the Archaeological Survey of India to clear a village of 3,500 people living on top of a 2,000-year-old site. The residents have responded, “We will not allow this to happen at any cost and counter any move to displace us.”  

Take a look at 16 photographs of the two tombs discovered at Saqqara in the slideshow accompanying this article. Much of the text is repeated from yesterday.   Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt’s antiquities department, takes viewers on a short tour of the tombs in this video at BBC News.  

Seven 4,000-year-old tombs were found in Vietnam during dam construction.

Happy Holidays Everyone!  The News will return on Monday, December 29.

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Tuesday, December 23, 2008. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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