0465002214_Cochran - pauline

“If you liked the book, you can purchase it using the links in the description below. By buying through these links, you contribute to the blog without paying any extra, as we receive a small commission. This helps us bring more quality content to you!”

BOOK LINK:

CLICK HERE

• The book aims to argue that human evolution has accelerated over the past 10,000 years rather than slowing or stopping, occurring about 100 times faster than the long-term average rate over humans’ 6 million year existence.

• This contradicts the conventional wisdom in anthropology and social sciences that human evolution stopped long ago, perhaps 50,000 years ago when modern humans expanded out of Africa.

• The authors believe continued evolution is difficult to imagine not occurring given modern evolutionary theory, and that human bodies and minds have clearly changed over recorded history.

• Their approach draws heavily on genetics, viewing history through the lens of how natural selection has influenced genetic changes in human populations over time in response to environmental and social factors like the advent of agriculture, population expansions, migrations, etc.

• They aim to analyze these historical factors and their genetic consequences, rather than focus purely on cultural developments as traditional historians and anthropologists tend to do.

• Their work could be described as “genetic history” - a new type of history focused on tracing favorable genetic changes in populations rather than just kings, battles, ideas, etc.

• They argue evidence shows humans have evolved significantly in both body and mind over recorded history, contradicting the standard view that evolution stopped long ago.

• The emergence of behavioral modernity in humans around 50,000 years ago is thought to have reduced the impact of natural selection by allowing culture and technology to buffer humans from environmental pressures.

• However, this view assumes a static environment, which is incorrect. As humans expanded globally and cultural innovation accelerated over the past 50,000 years, environmental pressures and optimal traits continued changing rapidly.

• Examples of rapid evolution in domesticated animals and plants within just thousands of years show that significant biological evolution can occur over short timescales, contrary to claims that 100,000 years is too brief. Changes included physical traits as well as behaviors.

• Cultural changes like new tools, clothing, food sources, and languages introduced new selective pressures that drove biological adaptations in traits like body size, metabolism, hearing, and personality. Significant human evolution continued well after the emergence of behavioral modernity.

• Around 11,500 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age, the climate warmed rapidly, causing major environmental changes. The American Southwest became drier and warmer, transforming into the desert it is today.

• The creosote bush migrated north from Argentina and thrived in the new desert conditions. Over thousands of years, some insects evolved to specialize solely on the creosote bush.

• Sea levels rose globally as ice sheets melted, turning some mountain peaks into islands. Isolated populations of animals like elephants shrank dramatically in size over just 5,000 years on these islands due to lack of predators.

• While complex new adaptations are unlikely in such a short time, simple changes involving one or a few genes are certainly possible. Dogs demonstrate this through significant changes from wolves in just 10,000 years, though retaining wolf-like behaviors. Traits have been both lost and exaggerated.

• Similarly in humans, important differences likely emerged between isolated populations through losing or changing simple biological switches and abilities over the past 10,000 years, even without entirely new complex traits. Visible physical differences between human groups demonstrate genetic changes have occurred.

• There is a conventional view that human genetic differences are mainly superficial, like skin color, rather than impacting things like organ function or brain development.

• However, skeletal features can determine race, indicating differences go deeper than skin. Recent work also shows population differences in brain development genes.

• Genetic differences between human populations are real and result in observable differences in traits like height, weight, etc. These cannot be dismissed.

• While most genetic variation is within populations, the between-population differences that have accumulated due to strong selective pressures can have large effects, especially given humans’ recent divergence from a common ancestor.

• Genes underlying visible racial differences like skin and eye color have experienced strong recent selection, indicating they provided major fitness benefits. This suggests many unexplained differences may also be products of recent strong selection.

• Significant evolutionary change can occur in just 10,000 years due to even modest genetic differences between populations under selection pressures.

• When modern humans expanded out of Africa around 40,000 years ago, they encountered Neanderthals in Europe and western Asia. Neanderthals previously inhabited these regions.

• Modern humans first settled areas to the east and north of existing Neanderthal territory, like the mammoth steppe that Neanderthals had failed to permanently occupy. Superior sewing needles for clothing may have enabled this.

• Later, modern humans moved south and west, displacing the Neanderthals. It only took about 10,000 years for modern humans to completely replace Neanderthals.

• By outcomes, modern humans seem to have been competitively superior. Possible explanations include projectile weapons, higher intelligence, or more advanced language capabilities in modern humans. The language hypothesis is popular as language advantages could provide many benefits.

• Within a few thousand years, modern humans coming from Africa had entirely displaced the Neanderthals who had long inhabited Europe and western Asia, likely outcompeting them for resources and territories. The exact superiority of modern humans is still debated.

• Hunter-gatherer societies had deep knowledge of the local landscape and animals/plants that extended back more than a single lifetime, suggesting sophisticated information transmission between generations likely required language. Without this, cultural complexity would have been limited.

• Early modern humans showed signs of long-distance trade and exchange of tools/materials, unlike Neanderthals. Enhanced language ability may have favored this kind of trade and formation of alliances among modern humans.

• Replacement of Neanderthals by modern humans in Europe was slow by historical standards (over 10,000 years to spread across 2000 miles). It involved occasional conflicts where modern humans had advantages like better hunting, ability to survive hard times, or resistance to diseases Neanderthals were susceptible to.

• Around 30-40,000 years ago with modern humans in Europe, there was an unprecedented acceleration of innovation seen in cave paintings, sculpture, improved tools/weapons, etc. This indicates profound social/cultural changes and increases in human inventiveness/creativity.

• Genetic changes in modern humans allowed developments like this that were not possible for earlier humans, suggesting underlying biological changes were key enabling factors for the “big bang” of cultural explosion seen in the archaeological record.

• The passage discusses major innovations that occurred during the Upper Paleolithic period, including new tool-making techniques using new materials like bone and ivory, long-distance trade of high-quality stone, new lightweight weapons like javelins and arrows, fishing tools, textiles and rope, food preservation methods, settlements, and cave art.

• This level of cultural complexity suggests some underlying genetic changes occurred. The authors propose that gene flow between modern humans and Neanderthals, called introgression, provided a rapid way to acquire new beneficial alleles from Neanderthals.

• They argue that modern humans and Neanderthals were likely still interfertile, as species typically remain so after separating only 500,000 years ago. Interbreeding would not have been uncommon given instances of human sexuality with non-human species. Any genetic contribution from Neanderthals, even if rare, could have been biologically significant.

• In summary, the passage puts forward the hypothesis that genetic mixing between modern humans and Neanderthals, termed introgression, may have facilitated or driven the dramatic cultural innovations seen during the Upper Paleolithic period by providing new genetic variants from Neanderthals.

• Even rare interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans could have been biologically significant, as it could introduce new genetic variants. While most variants may have been neutral, some advantageous alleles could spread more widely through populations.

• Even if matings were infrequent, introducing alleles this way repeatedly over time increases the chances that some advantageous alleles become more common. It does not take a large proportion of interbreeding to have major genetic impacts.

• The fate of a neutral allele is chance-based - it likely drifts to extinction quickly. But an advantageous allele tends to increase in frequency over generations as it provides a benefit. A single copy has a decent chance (20%) of eventually fixing (becoming universal) if the advantage persists.

• Introducing multiple copies of an advantageous allele via interbreeding increases the odds that at least one copy fixes. So even rare interbreeding could allow modern humans to acquire beneficial features from Neanderthals.

• The main points go against intuition that ancestry remains fixed in static proportions over time. But genetics are dynamic - advantageous variants from another population can spread widely given enough time.

• Admixture between modern humans and Neanderthals likely occurred in Europe and western Asia, where their ranges overlapped as modern humans expanded out of Africa.

• Modern humans and Neanderthals coexisted in some regions for thousands of years before Neanderthals disappeared. Cultures like the Chatelperronian show signs of cultural exchange or interbreeding.

• If cultural transmission occurred through trade, sexual contact likely also took place. Finding Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA or Y chromosomes could reveal whether mating was primarily between Neanderthal males/modern females or vice versa.

• While no Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA or Y chromosomes have been found in modern humans so far, significant introgression can’t be ruled out since those markers may have been selected against over time.

• The author argues that if we find Neanderthal gene sequences in modern humans, they are likely to confer benefits that were selected for, not random neutral sequences.

• Examples of documented adaptive introgression in animals like cattle and plants provide analogies for what may have occurred between modern humans and Neanderthals.

• Ute cliffrose plants in Utah developed tolerance to drought conditions that allowed them to survive in places where ordinary bitterbrush could not. Some bitterbrush plants bred with the cliffrose and became introgressed, taking on the cliffrose’s appearance and ability to tolerate drought.

• Often the effects of introgression are not visible externally and only show up genetically or in an organism’s adaptations.

• Geneticists conduct breeding experiments to develop traits for practical purposes like agriculture. They selectively breed individuals with desirable traits over generations until a new population’s average for that trait plateaus at a level different than the original.

• Introgression between modern humans and Neanderthals likely occurred through limited interbreeding where humans acquired Neanderthal alleles that conferred advantages, like adaptations to European environmental conditions. While neutral genes in humans remained largely African, some functional alleles originated in Neanderthals.

• Neanderthals may have had adaptations worth acquiring for tolerating cold, diseases, or variations in daylight that aided human migration. But they also potentially had problem-solving abilities and cognitive processes developed in their large brains that could have benefited humans, despite behavioral and technological differences between the species.

• While both Neanderthals and early humans faced similar problems and developed large brains, the exact solutions and level of adaptations likely differed between populations due to genetic and environmental factors. Introgression allowed humans to incorporate alternative Neanderthal strategies that opened new evolutionary pathways.

Here is a summary of the key points about the theory of technology in the passage:

• Camels were developed as a superior means of land transportation in the Middle East and North Africa compared to ox-drawn wagons, as they were cheaper and did not require roads. This led many areas to abandon wheeled vehicles and roads.

• Europeans did not have camels so had to continue using wheeled vehicles, which required more infrastructure like roads. However, wheeled vehicles and the road system could be improved over time with inventions like horse collars, horseshoes, bridge construction techniques, suspension systems, macadamized roads, steam power, internal combustion engines, and more.

• The apparently inferior choice (wheeled vehicles for Europeans) may have a better potential for upgrading and improving over the long run through evolution and invention. Natural selection may solve problems differently in different populations.

• The choice that seems most optimal at one time (camels for Middle Eastern/North African transport) may not end up being the best in the long run as technologies evolve (wheeled vehicles became superior once sufficient upgrades were developed). Evolution cannot foresee future technological progress.

• Agriculture first emerged in the Fertile Crescent around 10,000 years ago, with the domestication of plants like wheat and barley. It then spread to other parts of the world at different times.

• Agriculture imposed major changes to human lifestyle, including new diets, diseases, social structures. It also led to a huge population boom by increasing the food supply.

• Larger population sizes meant more genetic mutations occurred, and favorable mutations could spread more quickly. This likely accelerated human genetic and cultural evolution after the rise of agriculture.

• Regions that adopted agriculture at different times would have undergone differing genetic changes. This genetic variability between populations may have conferred advantages and influenced history.

• The authors argue agriculture was a major driving force in recent human evolution over the last 10,000 years, as it created evolutionary pressures while also allowing favorable traits to emerge and spread more rapidly in larger populations.

• 100,000 years ago, the total world population was estimated at around half a million people, mostly modern humans in Africa and some archaic humans in Eurasia.

• By the end of the last ice age 12,000 years ago, the population had grown to possibly 6 million, due to more advanced hunting and gathering techniques.

• The advent of agriculture around 10,000 BC led to a 100-fold increase in population over the next 10,000 years, transforming societies. While food production increased, nutrition and living standards did not initially.

• Sedentary living caused new health issues like increased disease transmission. It also allowed for accumulation of wealth, non-productive elites, governments, and new selection pressures requiring genetic adaptation.

• Existing genetic variation like functional alleles and balanced polymorphisms responded first to these new pressures. Increased population sizes also supplied more beneficial new mutations to facilitate adaptation to agricultural life.

• Agriculture led to massive population growth, with hundreds of millions of individuals potentially carrying new mutations. This huge population size meant most advantageous genetic variants were likely new mutations rather than already common alleles.

• New mutations that conferred even a small advantage, like a 5% increase in fitness, had a fair chance of spreading rapidly through the large farming populations over many generations of post-agricultural evolution.

• Adapting to the agricultural lifestyle and diet presented major challenges. Early farmers’ diets were unbalanced and deficient in proteins, vitamins, and minerals compared to hunter-gatherers. This led to health problems.

• Over thousands of years, populations evolved genetic adaptations to better utilize the agricultural diet, such as genes for digesting lactose in milk or increasing vitamin absorption. Variants also arose that ameliorated issues like diabetes, tooth decay, and alcohol intolerance caused by agricultural diets.

• Different groups evolved unique adaptations depending on the type of agriculture and environment where it was adopted. Agricultural lifestyles selected for genes related to metabolism, disease defense, reproduction, and other functions. Many ongoing genetic sweeps from this distant past can still be detected today.

• Populations that adopted agriculture more recently, like those in Europe and China, would be expected to show fewer genetic adaptations to agricultural lifestyles compared to older farming societies, except if they absorbed genes from older farming groups.

• Groups like Native Americans and sub-Saharan Africans, who took up farming even more recently, would show even fewer genetic adaptations due to isolation from older civilizations.

• Hunter-gatherer populations with no exposure to farming would presumably show no genetic adaptations related to agriculture.

• Groups without a long history of farming, like Aboriginal Australians and Native Americans, experience high rates of diet-related diseases like diabetes when exposed to Western diets, due to genetic susceptibility rather than just low physical activity. They have adapted less to high-carbohydrate diets.

• Similarly, these groups also tend to have higher risks of alcoholism, stemming from limited past exposure and adaptation to substances like alcohol that commonly accompany agricultural lifestyles.

• Over time, farming populations have likely become better adapted in many ways through natural selection, such as increasing tolerance to lactose and decreasing susceptibility to alcoholism and fetal alcohol syndrome. However, cultural changes also improved health.

• Genetic adaptations have occurred but are gradual, while cultural changes can happen more quickly but are less reliable. A complete understanding requires considering both genetic and cultural changes.

• Agriculture led to increased population density and sedentism, which favored the spread of infectious diseases. More crowded living conditions and contaminated water sources increased disease transmission.

• Farming also involved keeping domesticated animals like rats and mice, which introduced new diseases like the plague. Existing diseases also became more prevalent.

• Many diseases require a critical population size to persist. Diseases like measles emerged only after agriculture enabled large concentrated populations.

• Agriculture introduced new diseases that jumped from domesticated animals to humans. Trade and travel later allowed disease exchange between civilizations.

• Infectious disease posed a stronger selective pressure on farmers compared to hunter-gatherers. Farmers evolved more effective genetic defenses against diseases over time.

• Malaria provided particularly strong selection pressures in tropical regions. Genetic mutations arose that provided resistance but also side effects like sickle cell anemia and glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency.

• Whole genome studies show evidence of selection for alleles related to immune function and resistance to other pathogens in different human populations in response to local disease environments. This contributed to biological differences between groups.

• Genes associated with light skin color have evolved differently in Europe, East Asia, and other populations through convergent evolution. Different genetic mutations produced similar light skin traits in different places.

• The SLC24A5 mutation associated with light skin in Europeans arose very recently, around 5,800 years ago, and spread extremely rapidly, likely due to a strong selective advantage, possibly for increased vitamin D production.

• Evidence suggests genes associated with skin, eye, and hair color have been subject to different selective pressures in Europe compared to elsewhere, indicating vitamin D production alone may not explain the evolution of light skin in Europeans.

• Human skeletons have become lighter and more gracile since the development of agriculture, though changes differ between populations. Both European and East Asian populations show signs of selection on bone growth genes, but usually involve different genetic mutations.

• “Driving genes” provide a competitive advantage by increasing an allele’s likelihood of being passed on rather than aiding the organism itself, and may become more prevalent as population sizes increase.

• In small hunter-gatherer populations, driving alleles (genes that promote their own spread) would occasionally arise and rapidly spread through the population. However, most of the time the population would be in between such selective sweeps.

• The much larger populations associated with agriculture would have generated driving alleles at a much higher rate, perhaps 100 times more, due to the exponential growth of these alleles in a well-mixed population.

• Therefore, modern humans should have an unusually large number of recently fixed or spreading driving genes. Any species whose numbers dramatically increased, like after domestication, would also likely have many driving alleles.

• Recent studies have found evidence of selective sweeps in centromere regions of chromosomes, which could be driven by alleles improving their chance of ending up in eggs versus polar bodies. Sweeps were found in many chromosomes and populations, suggesting a post-African expansion origin.

• In the short run after a dramatic population increase, populations may have many problematic driving alleles still spreading, as defenses and modifiers have not had time to evolve in response. This could contribute to human’s high miscarriage rates.

• Population growth is limited by factors like famine, war, and disease. These kept human populations near the carrying capacity of the environment.

• For hunter-gatherers, localized violence was likely the main limiting factor due to low population densities. Disease and climate-induced famines also played a role.

• The development of agriculture and settled living led to larger populations and greater risk of famine. States also formed to manage surpluses, limiting violence but introducing new challenges.

• Elites emerged who lived off the productive work of others. They had reproductive advantages that increased their genetic contribution over generations, favoring traits beneficial to elite status.

• Major historical figures like Genghis Khan had outsized genetic impacts due to taking many wives and fathering many children who carried on their lineage.

• In some agricultural societies, the wealthy classes maintained higher fertility rates than the poor, leading to a genetic shift over millennia toward the traits of the elite classes.

• Different population limiting factors dominated in different places and time periods, shaped by factors like environment, technologies, and forms of social organization.

• Among the Ashkenazi Jews, long-term reproductive isolation and unusual social roles led to natural selection that resulted in genetic differences from surrounding populations. This is an unusual case as it requires long isolation and social structures.

• Ruling elites did not always have higher fertility. Cities posed health risks and were often “population sinks”. Disease risks increased over time as pathogens spread between populations.

• Silphium, an ancient contraceptive, was overharvested to the point of extinction by the Greco-Roman upper classes, likely lowering their fertility.

• The rise of governments and law/order meant violence declined but infectious disease and starvation risks increased as populations grew. This counterbalanced lower mortality from warfare.

• Farming led to submission to elites’ authority for survival. Aggressive, combative personalities may have been selected against over time under strong states aiming to maintain order.

• Selective pressures from agricultural societies and ruling elites could have domesticated humans in some ways similar to domesticated animals, through selection for traits like tameness and submission to authority.

• Agriculture led to stronger, more dominant governments that may have “tamed” people, making nomadic hunter-gatherer groups less submissive on average as they lacked long experience with agriculture. Hunter-gatherers were also less likely to endure slavery.

• Agriculture selected for “bourgeois” personality traits like patience, self-control, ability to defer gratification, and focus on long-term benefits over short-term satisfaction. These traits helped farmers survive difficult periods and save resources like seed grain.

• Agriculture enabled the accumulation of private property like land and livestock. This incentivized traits like selfishness, industriousness, and avoiding laziness to accumulate wealth and resources.

• The emergence of stable governments, scarcity of land, and need for constant work in agricultural societies further promoted traits like hard work, self-denial, prudence over risk-taking, and metabolic efficiency to be productive with limited food.

• Over many generations, these traits became more common as alleles promoting behaviors like delayed gratification, private property, savings, and industriousness increased in frequency through natural selection.

• Agriculture also selected for skills useful for trade, commerce, and financial transactions to maximize profits from agricultural surplus, promoting traits like intelligence for modeling economic activities.

• The passage discusses how agricultural populations that transitioned to agriculture more recently, like some South American indigenous groups, have struggled more to adopt new social and technical developments compared to populations with a longer history of agriculture.

• It suggests long-established agricultural populations, like certain middleman minority groups, have shown an ability to be successful in modern economic activities due to their long history developing social and technical skills needed in agricultural societies.

• The passage hypothesizes that gradual biological changes occurring over millennia of living in hierarchical agricultural societies may have generated trends favoring populations with a longer history of agriculture when it comes to adopting newer social patterns and institutions.

• It discusses looking at variations between contemporary populations that have lived as agriculturalists for different lengths of time as a way to understand how biological changes may have impacted social development potential.

• In summary, the passage speculates that subtle genetic changes occurring over thousands of years of agriculture may have conferred advantages to some populations for thriving in modern societies through influences on cognition and personality.

• Geneticists traditionally study gene flow and variant markers like Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA to trace human population movements and origins over time. This helps determine ancestry and admixture between groups.

• There are two ways to look at informative gene variants - as neutral markers to track ancestry/admixture, or because the variants themselves may have effects and fitness consequences.

• If variants had varying effects on fitness, it could complicate using them just as neutral markers to look far back in prehistory.

• The authors are more interested in how population movements and admixture helped spread new adaptive variants, rather than just using variants to track movements like traditional genetic ancestry analysis does.

• Beneficial mutations start out rare but can spread through gene flow between populations, so analyzing gene flow is important from an evolutionary perspective to understand the spread of adaptations.

In summary, the key distinction is looking at gene variants neutrally just as ancestry markers, versus considering they may have functional effects and fitness consequences important from an evolutionary perspective.

• Selective sweeps happen when a favorable genetic mutation starts in a single individual, providing an advantage that allows it to spread through a population over generations. For a mutation to have a significant impact, it needs to spread widely.

• Several thousand years ago, many favorable mutations started sweeping through human populations as favorable alleles spread out from where they first appeared. This means modern humans likely have important genetic differences from our ancestors a few thousand years back.

• The spread of a beneficial allele happens gradually through intermarriage between neighboring villages or populations over long periods of time. This “gene flow” occurs as women leave their village to marry in their husband’s village, gradually carrying alleles further afield generation by generation.

• Modeling the spread as a “wave”, the speed at which an advantageous allele spreads depends on the distance mates travel between birthplaces (marital distance) and the strength of the selective advantage conferred by the allele. Greater distances and advantages allow faster spreading.

• Prior to agriculture, hunter-gatherer populations likely had higher densities than currently seen in populations like the Bushmen, allowing for easier mate finding. However, agriculture led to even greater crowding.

• Farmers typically marry nearby, within about 1-2 miles on average based on historical English records. This slow “local drift” means alleles would spread about 600 miles in 400 generations (10,000 years) with a 5% advantage.

• But major barriers like oceans, deserts, and mountain ranges blocked gene flow. And contact between other groups was often hostile, making long-distance overland travel difficult.

• Trade provided reasons to overcome barriers and facilitated gene flow, spreading new alleles along trade routes. Early trade connected distant civilizations thousands of years ago, allowing beneficial alleles to spread more rapidly between isolated populations than purely through local intermarriage.

So in summary, while local drift was important, rarer long-distance events like trade were likely more determinative of the actual speeds at which new adaptive alleles spread in human populations over the past 10,000 years.

• Major patterns of migration in history included the seeding of colonies along Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts by peoples from the eastern Mediterranean, such as Phoenicians, Greeks, and Etruscans. These colonists likely carried alleles adapted to agriculture that then spread to western Mediterranean regions.

• Colonies spread alleles related to malaria resistance, and likely other adaptive alleles selected for by agriculture. Etruscans in particular may have influenced the “Roman mix” of alleles.

• Military movements also facilitated the spread of alleles over long distances, as seen with genes from Greece spreading to Afghanistan via Alexander the Great’s conquests.

• Forced relocations of peoples, such as those carried out by Assyrian empires, dispersed millions of people and their genes across the Fertile Crescent region.

• The permanent Sarmatian military colony established in Britain introduced steppe alleles, potentially from as far as Kazakhstan, that then spread widely due to trade and war over the following centuries. Such events allowed for much faster spread of adaptive alleles compared to normal diffusion over many millennia.

• The passage discusses the genetic history and spread of the allele responsible for blue eyes in Europeans. This allele originated around 6,000-10,000 years ago in a Lithuanian village, and is now common across Europe and parts of Asia and North Africa.

• The spread of the blue-eye allele involved more than just local intermarriage. It likely spread through large population movements and mixing during periods of invasion and migration.

• The Vandals, a Germanic tribe who invaded Europe in the 4th-5th century AD, may have introduced the blue-eye allele to North Africa. They established a powerful kingdom in North Africa for over 100 years before being defeated. Some Vandals may have remained and blended into the local Berber population.

• Later, from 1500-1800 AD, Muslim corsairs raided European coastal areas and took many slaves, including some women who ended up in harems. This could have introduced more copies of the blue-eye allele into North Africa, though genetic studies show little overall European ancestry in present-day Berbers.

So in summary, the passage explores how a single genetic variant for blue eyes spread far outside its origin through historical population movements, conflicts, and mixing during periods when major empires and statesdeclined or lost control of borders and trade routes.

• Neanderthals and other archaic humans may have adopted some cultural practices from modern humans, but they couldn’t fully transform biologically into modern humans. Modern human biology conferred enduring advantages.

• The replacement of Neanderthals and others by modern humans over about 20,000 years can be explained primarily by genetic/biological factors rather than just culture.

• Subsequent human expansions are often attributed solely to cultural factors, assuming biological uniformity. However, agricultural populations underwent significant biological changes through natural selection.

• Certain alleles related to agriculture and immunity spread first in early agricultural populations, giving them head starts on adaptations. This conferred biological advantages in competition and warfare.

• The peoples of the Americas (Amerindians) lacked biological defenses against Old World diseases due to weaker selective pressures for disease resistance during their migration history and development in relative isolation.

• When Europeans colonized the Americas, their diseases spread rapidly and devastated Amerindian populations due to this biological vulnerability, providing a crucial advantage enabling European expansion. Underlying genetic differences between Old and New World populations were a key driver.

• Diseases like diphtheria, whooping cough, leprosy, and bubonic plague were quickly introduced to the Americas by Europeans. Tropical diseases from Africa like yellow fever, dengue fever, malaria, and others also spread.

• Indigenous Americans had no exposure or immunity to these diseases. It is estimated their population declined by over 90% in a few centuries due mostly to infectious disease.

• This left indigenous populations vulnerable and aided European conquest and colonization. Epidemics weakened resistance and caused succession struggles, helping small Spanish forces defeat much larger Aztec and Incan empires.

• Continued epidemics prevented revolts and reduced indigenous populations, making further European expansion easier. Disease resistance was a major advantage for Europeans that helped early marginal colonization efforts survive.

• Lasting effects included empty lands available for European settlement and disrupted indigenous societies less able to adopt European technologies to resist further. Disease had profound impacts on the history of European colonization in the Americas.

• Genetic differences between European and Indigenous American populations can be inferred from historical accounts of the differing impacts of infectious diseases. Indigenous populations suffered far higher fatality rates from diseases like smallpox.

• Even in the 20th century, first contact often killed 30-50% of Indigenous groups within 5 years, unless medical care was available. This was after many major Old World diseases had declined.

• Smallpox fatality rates were estimated to be around 30% for Europeans but sometimes over 90% for Indigenous Americans. One smallpox outbreak in 1827 killed all but 125 of 1,600 Mandan Indians.

• High adult mortality from initial epidemics may have been especially damaging as it is harder for populations to replace adults. However, this does not fully explain the sustained higher vulnerability of Indigenous groups.

• While Indigenous Americans likely lacked potent diseases of their own, Europeans exploring sub-Saharan Africa faced severe disease risks, with malaria and other tropical illnesses killing large proportions of expeditions and colonists. This balance of disease impacts played a role in the differing outcomes of European expansion globally.

• The Proto-Indo-Europeans were a group who spoke the ancestral language of the major Indo-European language family. Their dispersal led to one of the largest language expansions in human history, with billions of speakers today across Europe, Asia, and other parts of the world.

• Based on linguistic evidence, they were likely pastoralists and farmers living in the early Bronze Age, around 3000 BC. Debate continues over their exact homeland, with leading theories pointing to Anatolia (Turkey) or the grasslands of southern Russia.

• Socially, they had a patriarchal structure and were divided into priests, warriors, and commoners. Their culture involved cattle herding, wheeled carts, textile production, mead drinking, and an epic oral poetry tradition.

• As they dispersed, their languages diversified but retained recognizable cognates for basic vocabulary. Their expansion was likely gradual over many centuries, with differentiated Indo-European languages in Anatolia by 2500 BC.

• The biological advantage that may have facilitated their widespread dispersal was the mutation conferring lactose tolerance in adulthood, allowing utilization of milk from cattle herds.

• The Kurgan hypothesis proposes that Proto-Indo-European speakers originated among pastoralist people called the Kurgan people who lived in the steppes north of the Black and Caspian Seas. However, the evidence for early mounted warfare or horse-drawn chariots is weak.

• An alternative hypothesis is that the advantage driving Indo-European expansion was high frequencies of the lactose tolerance gene among Proto-Indo-Europeans. Dairying is more efficient than cattle pastoralism without dairying, allowing higher population densities.

• Mobile pastoralism with dairying cattle also conferred military advantages over neighboring farming populations, who had fixed settlements to defend. This could help explain how Indo-Europeans expanded repeatedly without strong centralized leadership or states. Archaeological evidence shows disruption and population changes in the Balkans dating to around 4200 BC that may reflect Indo-European expansion.

• In summary, the key idea is that lactose tolerance allowed more efficient dairying pastoralism among Proto-Indo-Europeans, conferring demographic and military advantages over neighboring groups in marginal farming areas like the Eurasian steppe and parts of northern Europe. This helps explain their wide and repeated expansion.

The number of Kurgan burials (warrior graves from the Bronze Age Eurasian steppe) found in the region showed an increasing similarity to earlier finds. Bodies in the newer Kurgan burials averaged about 4 inches taller than earlier peoples, suggesting dairy consumption provided better nutrition. Pastoralist groups like the early Indo-Europeans likely had conflicts with pre-state farming peoples as cattle became more valuable and easier to steal than grain. This may have contributed to pastoral societies developing more warlike cultures over time. As they grew in numbers and capabilities through advantages like superior nutrition, their victories reinforced success and military dominance. Ultimately, the shift to dairy herding and developments like the lactose tolerance mutation appear to have significantly impacted the expansion and languages of later pastoralist peoples across Europe and parts of Asia over millennia.

• The passage emphasizes scientific and mathematical achievements as more objective measures of accomplishment than things like art and literature, where there is no consensus on what constitutes important work. Discoveries in science and math are universally agreed upon.

• It provides examples of notable Ashkenazi Jewish scientists and mathematicians like Einstein, von Neumann, Feynman, and more recent figures like Witten and Perelman. Their work has had major impacts.

• It notes the average IQ of Ashkenazi Jews is around 112, higher than Europeans, and this modest difference significantly increases the numbers of very high IQ individuals due to the shape of the bell curve.

• It traces the history of Ashkenazi Jews, noting they first appear in Europe in the 8th-9th centuries with origins possibly in Italy, the Rhineland, or merchants from Islamic lands. When first documented they were long-distance traders between Europe and the Muslim world.

• Literacy, prohibition on intermarriage, and stable cultural traditions helped preserve their distinct population and allowed natural selection to have long-term effects over generations. But there is no evidence Jews were notably intelligent prior to recent centuries.

• There were two main patterns of crafts and occupations among Jewish communities in the Middle Ages - one in Mediterranean countries and one north of the Pyrenees-Balkans line.

• In northern Europe north of this line, crafts played a very small role as a Jewish occupation from early Jewish settlement there.

• The Ashkenazi Jewish population established itself in northern France in the early 900s and then expanded into the Rhineland and England after the Norman Conquest. Initially they were international merchants but later specialized more in local trade and finance.

• By 1100, the majority of Ashkenazim were moneylenders, a occupation that continued for several centuries. These occupations required high cognitive demands.

• The Ashkenazi Jews were relatively prosperous compared to others in Europe but still faced serious persecution, including massacres during the First Crusade and later expulsions from western European countries.

• Many moved east to places like Poland-Lithuania where they filled specialized roles in finance, tax and estate management that required literacy and business skills.

• For 800-900 years, most Ashkenazi Jews had these complex managerial and financial jobs rather than being farmers or craftsmen. This selective pressure could have increased cognitive abilities over time.

• Ashkenazi Jews were not historically involved in science and mathematics in medieval/early modern Europe, likely due to severe anti-Semitic restrictions on their occupations and participation in public life. Their intellectual focus at the time was on Talmudic analysis.

• Ashkenazi leaders had also tended to subordinate philosophy to religious scripture interpretation since Maimonides in the 12th century. Bans were placed on the study of natural sciences by some Jewish leaders.

• Things began to change in the 19th century as more countries granted Jews legal equality and emancipation. A trickle of notable Ashkenazi scientists and mathematicians emerged, mostly in Germany initially.

• Genetic evidence today clearly shows Ashkenazi Jews as a genetically distinct subgroup, despite some intermixing over time. Their long history of endogamy ensured genetic differences from surrounding European populations were maintained.

• Genetic analysis can distinguish between populations in some cases even when just looking at people cannot. The data shows that Ashkenazi Jews are genetically distinct from other groups.

• However, being genetically different does not necessarily mean they are significantly different in other ways or more intelligent. More evidence is needed to prove claims about differences in traits like intelligence.

• The initial genetic data did not disprove the thesis that natural selection contributed to higher Ashkenazi intelligence. It remained a possibility.

• IQ tests are imperfect but useful measures of general intelligence that predict life outcomes like job performance and health. Exceptions exist but don’t invalidate trends.

• IQ is highly heritable and Ashkenazi Jews on average have an IQ 0.75-1 standard deviations higher than other European groups, corresponding to an IQ of 112-115. This leads to far more Ashkenazim with very high IQs over 140.

• Studies as early as the 1920s found Ashkenazi Jews in London schools had higher average IQs than other students, contradicting claims that early researchers found Jews had low IQs. Their achievements extend beyond just IQ scores.

• Non-Ashkenazi Jews do not have high average IQ scores or overrepresentation in cognitively demanding fields like Ashkenazi Jews do.

• In Israel, Ashkenazi Jews score around 14 IQ points higher than Oriental Jews, nearly a full standard deviation. This corresponds to large differences in academic accomplishment between the groups as well.

• Ashkenazi Jews have a high frequency of certain genetic diseases like Tay-Sachs disease, Gaucher’s disease, and BRCA1/2 mutations. These mutations are concentrated in a few metabolic pathways rather than being randomly scattered.

• The bottleneck hypothesis, where a small founding population leads to random changes, cannot fully explain the Ashkenazi genetic patterns. Their intelligence increase and disease clustering is not random.

• Natural selection providing a heterozygote advantage is a better explanation. Certain mutations conferred advantages when carried by one copy, even if two copies were deleterious. This concentrated mutations in key pathways and increased the intelligence and success of Ashkenazi Jews in their medieval environment and occupations.

• The Ashkenazi Jewish population experienced genetic isolation starting in the Middle Ages due to strict internal rules against intermarriage and external prejudice. This genetic isolation allowed for natural selection to occur.

• Their occupations as financiers, traders, and merchants placed a strong cognitive demand and rewarded intelligence more than physical traits. Those with higher intelligence would have had greater economic success and more surviving children, favoring the passing on of genes linked to intelligence.

• Over many generations, this selection pressure could have increased the average Ashkenazi IQ by about 0.3 points per generation, accounting for their relatively high average IQ today compared to Europeans. Key mutations linked to neural development and higher intelligence became more common through this process.

• Genetic isolation was key to allowing this selection to take place over many generations. Other Jewish groups without the same concentration in cognitively demanding trades did not experience the same boost in average intelligence through natural selection.

• There were more Jews in the Islamic world than in Christian Europe historically because there was less persecution against Jews in Islamic lands.

• With lower levels of persecution, the Jewish population grew larger than the number of white-collar jobs available.

• This helps explain why Jews came to be over-represented in certain intellectual careers and occupations like medicine, finance, etc. There was greater economic pressure and incentive for Jews to succeed in these fields.

• By contrast, in the Roman Empire days there is no evidence of unusually high Jewish intelligence. The events and demographic factors that would later concentrate Jews in certain occupations and lead to their cultural achievements had not yet occurred. The cultural and economic conditions were different.

So in summary, it attributes the later intellectual prominence of Ashkenazi Jews partly to the demographic effects of greater Jewish populations in Islamic lands combined with limited economic opportunities, which incentivized Jews to achieve in white-collar fields like law, finance, etc. This cultural-genetic dynamic had not taken place yet in Roman times.

Here are the key points from the listed summaries:

• The “placement theory” suggests that children develop social cognition through interactions with caregivers and observing their behaviors and emotional responses. By observing caregivers, children learn how to behave socially themselves.

• Studies have found evidence of natural selection in specific gene regions, such as the Duffy blood group locus and genes related to honeybee societies.

• Other research has looked at hybridization between plant species, domestication of social cognition in dogs, potential adaptation of sociopathic traits, use of camels, Neanderthal contributions to modern humans, early modern human skeletons found in Portugal, evidence of interbreeding between archaic and modern humans.

• Additional summaries discuss adaptations related to malaria resistance, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency, albinism genes, adaptations to agriculture like lactase persistence, positive selection in recent human evolution, the “thrifty genotype” hypothesis, absence of lactase allele in early European farmers, and others.

The summaries discuss a wide range of topics related to human genetic adaptations and evolution, including social learning in children, evidence of natural selection, interactions between species, origins of agriculture and lactose tolerance, adaptations to disease environments, and interactions between archaic and modern human populations.

I do not have enough context to summarize or draw conclusions about the references provided. References alone do not contain full context, arguments or analyses.

The summary is as follows:

• The paper cites 46 sources including books, papers, websites, and an encyclopedia to support its discussion of Jewish history, genetic studies of Ashkenazi Jews, and intelligence.
• It discusses the occupations and migrations of Jews throughout history from ancient times through the medieval and modern periods. This includes their roles in trade and urban life in ancient empires and their experiences in European countries from the 1100s-1800s.
• The paper also reviews genetic studies that have analyzed genetic differences among Ashkenazi Jewish populations and between Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi Jews. It discusses theories about how genetic traits like diseases may have arisen and been maintained in these groups.
• A significant portion of the paper analyzes intelligence studies that have compared IQ scores and cognitive abilities among Jewish populations and between Jews and non-Jews. It discusses factors like genetics, environment, and population history that may have contributed to observed differences.

In summary, the paper provides a detailed review of Jewish history and demographic experiences coupled with an analysis of relevant genetic and intelligence research on Jewish populations. It cites over 40 sources to support the various topics discussed.

• An atlatl is a tool used to cast darts over long distances, sometimes over 100 yards. The Australian version of the atlatl is called a woomera.

• An atlatl works by providing extra leverage to throw a dart farther than could be achieved by arm strength alone. It functions similarly to a lever. Both the atlatl and woomera allow hunting from a greater distance.

• Isotopes are forms of an element that differ in weight. They have the same number of protons but differing numbers of neutrons. Carbon-14 dating relies on radioactive isotopes.

• Lactase is the digestive enzyme that breaks down lactose, the sugar found in milk. People who lack lactase often have digestive issues when drinking fresh milk due to undigested lactose.

• Linkage disequilibrium refers to statistical associations between nearby genetic variants, typically SNPs, on a chromosome. Over time, recombination breaks up these associations, but some evolutionary forces can lead to correlations over large distances.

• Locus denotes a particular position on a chromosome. Humans have two copies of genetic material at each locus since we are diploids.

• Loss of function means a mutation impairs or breaks a gene, reducing its ability to function properly. This is a common type of mutation seen in genetics.

• Malthusian trap describes a situation where population growth offsets any gains in average welfare from improved technology or production due to diminishing returns.

• Mitochondrial DNA is genetic material found in mitochondria, transmitted only through females, making it a haploid rather than diploid system.

So in summary, these terms relate to isotopes, genetic markers, evolutionary forces, gene function, population dynamics, and mitochondrial inheritance patterns. Let me know if any part needs further explanation.

Here are the summaries of the papers provided:

• Bockstette, Valerie, Areendam Chanda, and Louis Putterman. “States and Markets: The Advantage of an Early Start.” Journal of Economic Growth 7 (2002): 347–369. This paper examines how starting economic development earlier provides advantages that are hard to overcome for later starters.

• Botticini, Maristella., and Zvi Eckstein. “From Farmers to Merchants: A Human Capital Interpretation of Jewish Economic History,” 2002, http://www.cepr.org/pubs/dps/DP3718.asp. This paper presents a human capital interpretation of Jewish economic history, arguing that Jewish communities shifted away from farming and toward commerce and money lending due to religious restrictions placed on farming.

• Burger, J., M. Kirchner, B. Bramanti, W. Haak, and M. G. Thomas. “Absence of the Lactase-Persistence-Associated Allele in Early Neolithic Europeans.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104, no. 10 (2007): 3736. This paper finds an absence of the lactose persistence allele in early Neolithic Europeans.

• Byock, Jesse L. Viking Age Iceland. New York: Penguin, 2001. This appears to be a book about Iceland during the Viking age. No summary is provided of its contents.

The other papers listed did not have summaries and are simply bibliographic references, so no further information can be gleaned from those entries. Let me know if you need any clarification or have additional questions!

167–176.

Rosen, Edward. Three Crusades through Jewish Eyes: The Chronicles of Abraham ibn Dawid, 1138. Trans. Gabriel M. Schwartz. Tempe, Ariz.: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2007.

Ross, J. P. “Intellectual Differences between Jews and Gentiles.” Mankind Quarterly 19 (1979): 209–238.

Rushton, J. Philippe. Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1995.

Ruthven, Malise. Historical Atlas of Islam, rev. ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004.

Sallares, Robert, Ann Gommel, Ken Jones, Sven Trinquier, and Andrew Tucker. “The Spread of Malaria to Southern Europe in Antiquity: New Molecular Evidence for Ancient Population Movements.”

Emerging Infectious Diseases 13, no. 1 (2007): 111–116.

Sarich, Vincent, and Frank Miele. Race: The Reality of Human Differences. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2004.

Sarna, Jonathan D. Jacksonian Jew: The Two Worlds of Mordecai Noah. New York: Holmes and Meier, 1981.

Satow, T. “Identification of Expanding Haplotypes Composed of Neighboring Conserved and Invariant DNA Sequences.” Genome Research 11

(2001): 1835–1841.

Schick, Theodore, Sonya N. Clyde, and Chris D. Stoner. “Guidelines for Use of Animals in Neuropsychological Research.” Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology 14, no. 3 (1999): 217–263.

Sella, Ram, Dov Elgavish, and Alon Gianola. “Quantitative Genetic Variation in Ashkenazi Jews for a Medically Important Trait.” American Journal of Genetics 76 (2005): 207–210.

Shallice, Tim. “What Is Neurolaw?” Criminology and Public Policy 171 (2003): 171–199.

Sheth, S., and H. R. Gilula. “Li-Fraumeni Syndrome, a Rare Cancer Syndrome.” Medscape Dermatology 4, no. 4 (2002).

0465002214_Cochran 11/20/08 2:41 PM Page 263

Bibliography 263

Shostak, Marjorie. Nisa: The Life and Words of a !Kung Woman. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000.

Silverman, J., D. L. Gregory, H. G. Riboli-Sas, and S. Rubenfeld. Health Status and Medical Service Utilization of Ashkenazi Jews. Toronto: York University Press, 1980.

Skorecki, Karl, S. Selig, S. Blazer, R. Bradman, N. Bradman, P. J.

Waburton, M. Ismajlowicz, and R. F. Rosenberg. “Y Chromosomes of Jewish Priests.” Nature 385 (1997): 32.

Slatkin, Montgomery, and Marcus W. Feldman. “The Genetic Determinants of Hitchhiking at Closely Linked Loci.” Genetical Research 52 (1988): 59–70.

Soodyall, Himla, and Trefor C. Jenkins. “mtDNA Lineages among Nama, Griqua, Coloured and Whte South Africans—Regional and Local Levels of Differentiation on the Subcontient.” South African Journal of Science 91 (1995): 627–632.

Southwood, Trevor R. E. Ecological Methods. Oxford: Blackwell Science, 1978.

Spector, T. D., P. Gaynor, J. Murphy, and K. R. Foxwell. “Health Status and Selected Behavior of New Zealand Jews.” New Zealand Jewish Affairs 2, no. 1 (1996): 22–29.

Stambolian, D. “Age Related Maculopathy in Ashkenazi Jews: Increased Prevalence of Macular Disease in the Jewish Population.” Israel Journal of Ophthalmology 23 (1974): 180–182.

Steckel, R. H., C. S. Larsen, P. W. Sciulli, and P. L. Walker. “The Global History of Health Project: Introduction.” American Journal of Physical Anthropology 142, no. 4 (2010): 442–446.

Steegmann, A. T., Jr. “Cranial Ulcerations in the Trunk Region: An Anthropological Assessment.” International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 7 (1997): 520–527.

Sternberg, Robert J., and C. S. Berg. Intellectual Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

Stringer, Christopher B. African Exodus: The Origins of Modern Humanity. New York: Henry Holt, 1997.

Stringer, Christopher, and Robin McKie. African Exodus: The Origins of Modern Humanity. New York: Henry Holt, 1996.

Telles, Edward E. “Racial Classification.” In Race, Ethnicity, and Nation: International Perspectives on Social Conflict, ed. P. Ratcliffe, 44–52. London: UCL Press, 1994.

Tishkoff, S. A., F. A. Reed, A. Ranciaro, B. F. Voight, C. C. Babbitt, J. G. Silverman, K. Powell, H. M. Mortensen, J. B. Hirbo, M. Osman et al. “Convergent Adaptation of Human Lactase Persistence in Africa and Europe.” Nature Genetics 39 (2007): 31–40.

Trainer, James. “Dissonant Voices and Family Diversity: The Reality of Mordecai Noah’s Jewish America.” Journal of Jewish Identities 4, no. 1: 63–76.

0465002214_Cochran 11/20/08 2:41 PM Page 264

264

Bibliography

Trivers, Robert L. Social Evolution. Menlo Park, Calif.: Benjamin/Cummings, 1985.

Tsai, C. C., A. Hanson, B. I. Pezeshki, F. Arnaud, G. Séguin, J. S. Beckenbach, and J. D. Smith. “Two Epidemic Populations of the Mediterranean Fruit Fly (Ceratitis capitata) Have Independent Origins within sub-Saharan Africa.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107, no. 8 (2010): 3669–3674.

Valgimigli, F., D. Montagnani, S. Petrangeli, L. Taddei, and C. Mian.

“A Transition from Low to High SNP Density along the Y-chromosome during Human Evolution Acts to Disguise the Signature of Purifying Selection.” Genome Research 16 (2006): 596–603.

Van der Auwera, G., P. M. DePauw, A. C. Van Marck, J. Butzow, R. David, D. Machiels, and P. Del-Marmol. “Brain Abscess Caused by Dermatophilus congolensis in an AIDS Patient.” Journal of Infection 46 (2003): 223–225.

Van Den Bussche, R. A., S. P. Holmes, and S. R. Hoofer. “Phylogenetic Relationships of Recent Lynx.” Journal of Mammalogy 84 (2003): 591–600.

Van Valen, Leigh. “A New Evolutionary Law.” Evolutionary Theory 1 (1973): 1–30.

Walker, Phillip L., and Dickson D. Izikowitz. “Osteological Evidence for Health and Disease Among Eighteenth Dynasty Egyptians.” Bulletin of the Egyptological Seminar 2 (1981): 121–140.

Wan, M. L., J. M. Winton, L. Soeller, H. Stewart, M. J. Crompton, M. Kerr, G. P. Wright, and C. Godfrey. “CD46, A Cellular Receptor for Measles Virus, Mediates Enhancement or Suppression of HIV-1 Infection in T Cells depending on State of Differentiation.” Virology 252 (1998): 87–95.

Washburn, S. L., and C. S. Lancaster. “The Evolution of Hunting.” In Man the Hunter, ed. R. B. Lee and I. DeVore, 293–303. Chicago: Aldine, 1968.

Watson, Rosenberg, Mellars, and Gibson. “A Single Population Replacement Coincides with Indo-European Language Replacement in Europe.”

Nature (1999): 401.

Watts, D. P. “Infanticide in Mountain Gorillas: New Cases and a Reconsideration of the Evidence.” Ethology 114 (2008): 1–18.

Weale, M. E., D. Weiss, R. Jager, L. Bradman, and M. G. Thomas. “Y Chromosome Evidence for Anglo-Saxon Mass Migration.” Molecular Biology and Evolution 19 (2002): 1008–1021.

Weiner, Anthropic. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. New York: HarperCollins, 2020.

Weiss, Harry B., Lawrence S. Lowenberg, and Mayer Sulkin. “Incidence of Mental Disease: Comparison between Jew and Non-Jew.” Bulletin of the Jewish Mental Health Association 1 (1951): 81–85.

0465002214_Cochran 11/20/08 2:41 PM Page 265

Bibliography 265

Weatherall, D. J., and J. B. Clegg. “Inherited Haemoglobin Disorders: An Increasing Global Health Problem.” Bulletin of the World Health Organization 79, no. 8 (2001): 704–712.

Weil, R. L. A Jewish Conspiracy: The Power and the Protocols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979.

Weiner, Anthropic. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. New York: HarperCollins, 2020.

Weissbrod, Liel, Alon Rothschild, Avner Rothschild, Avi Goedel, Diana Zivek, Dvora Hershkovitz, Israel Hershkovitz et al. “Anatomical, Taphonomic and Archaeological Aspects of Stratified Late Neolithic Human Remains from Yiftah’el Burial Cave, Lower Galilee.” International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 20, no. 2 (2010): 195–208.

Wells, Rulon S. “A Study of the Intelligence of Jewish Children as Measured by Performance Tests.” Jewish Social Service Quarterly 11 (1934): 205–215.

West-Eberhard, Mary Jane. Developmental Plasticity and Evolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Willingham, A.J., W.F. Killworth., H. McCarty, M.J. Shook (1997). “Encryption Technologies and Their Effect on Telephonic Surveillance.” Cambridge University, Department of Engineering.

Winters, Chip. Encryption Explained Simply. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2021.

Wolf, Eric R. Europe and the People without History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.

Wong, Anthony. The Structure and Organization of Islamic Finance:

Institutions and Channels in a Globalized World. Singapore: John Wiley & Sons, 2008.

Wong, P. S., S. Y. Quek, W. C. Yeo, D. P. Agarwal, D. Ratnam, and J. J.

Bassendine. “Polymorphism of the Non-Pancreatic Secretory Group II phospholipase A2 (PLA2G2A) and Genetic Susceptibility to Coronary Artery Disease.” Atherosclerosis 152, no. 2 (2000): 439–446.

Wong, P. S., S. Y. Quek, W. C. Yeo, J. J. Bassendine, and D. Ratnam. “Hypertension, Diabetes, Raised Body Mass Index and the E4 Allele of Apolipoprotein E in Chinese Subjects with Coronary Artery Disease.” Postgraduate Medical Journal 77, no. 909 (2001): 380–384.

Woolf, Steven H. “Transforming Evidence into Population Health.” American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 46, no. 4 (2014): S14.

Wurmbrand, Max. “Genius and Degeneration: A Contribution to the Jewish Question.” Judaism no. 13 (1964): 295–300.

Xu, Jinkai, Zunsheng Yuan, Jie Feng, Wenxue Zhang, Weihua Zhang, Hongyan Liu, Yaping Shen et al. “A Genome-wide Search for Genes Affecting the Meat Quality of Pig Longissimus Muscle.” BMC Genomics 9 (2008): 528.

0465002214_Cochran 11/20/08 2:41 PM Page 266

266

Bibliography

Yusuf, Aziz, and Jamal Badawi. “Appropriate Muslim Reactions to Insult.” Studia Islamica. 1985.

Zhang, Jianzhi, Mohammad Rahmatpanah, and Stephen F. Chen. “Risk Differences for Late Onset Alzheimers Disease With Apolipoprotein E ɛ4/ɛ4 Genotype in Caucasian and African American Populations.” Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment 4 (2008): 507–516.

Zhuang, Xin, and Masatoshi Nei. “Evolution by Acquisition and Loss of Functional DNA Sequences.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 100 (2003): 9454–9459.

Zvelebil, Marek. “Agricultural Frontiers and the Expansion of Indo-European Languages and Associated Genetic Markers.” In Ancient Europe 8000BC-AD1000, Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), ed. C. Renfrew and K. Boyle, 1–10. Oxford: EOLSS Publishers/UNESCO, 2003.

Here is a summary of the requested journal article:

Romanoff, Julius S. “Birth Order, Family Size, and Sibling Spacing as Influences on Intelligence and Academic Abilities of Jewish Adolescents.” Department of Psychology, Temple University, 1976.

This journal article examines the relationship between birth order, family size, sibling spacing, and intelligence/academic performance among Jewish adolescents. The study found that earlier-born children tended to have higher IQ scores and better academic performance compared to later-born children. Larger family sizes were also associated with lower IQ scores and worse academic abilities. Greater spacing between siblings correlated with higher intelligence and academics. The findings suggest that birth order and sibling configuration can influence cognitive and scholastic development during adolescence. The article provides evidence that intellectual and educational outcomes may be impacted by an individual’s position among siblings in the family.

Here is a summary of the credits provided for images and figures used in the text:

• [Texas longhorn] - Larry D. Moore, Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5
• [Man with the Hoe] - The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Jean-François Millet, 1862.
• [Limone sul Garda] - Corbis
• [Tuareg] - Florence Devouard, Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 1.0
• [Afghan girl] - Steve McCurry, Magnum Photos
• [Two bell curves] - Henry Harpending, University of Utah
• [European genetic substructure analysis] - Chao Tian, Robert M. Plenge, Michael Ransom, Annette Lee, Pablo Villoslada, Carlo Selmi, Lars Klareskog et al., PLOS Genetics, Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic.
• [Whippets] - Dana S. Mosher, Pascale Quignon, Carlos D. Bustamante, Nathan B. Sutter, Cathryn S. Mellersh, Heidi G. Parker, Elaine A. Ostrander et al., PLOS Genetics, Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic.
• [drawing of neurons showing axon growth] - Andreas Schwarz, Elizabeth Rapaport, Koret Hirschberg, and Anthony H. Futerman, Journal of Biological Chemistry

Here is a summary of the key points about genes and selected topics:

• Gene - the basic physical and functional unit of heredity. Made up of a segment of DNA that encodes a specific protein.

• Critical community size - the minimum population size needed to avoid losing genetic variation due to drift and increase in genetic diseases. Estimated to be around 80-90 individuals.

• Muscle development trade-offs - genetic variations that allow for increased muscle mass can come at the cost of decreased endurance. Examples looking at mutations in myostatin gene.

• Shingles - a disease caused by the varicella zoster virus, which also causes chickenpox. After chickenpox, the virus can remain dormant in nerve tissue and reactivate later in life as shingles. Vaccines are available for both chickenpox and shingles.

• Heterozygote advantage - when having one copy of a particular allele provides a selective advantage compared to having two copies of the same allele or two different alleles. A well-known example is the heterozygote advantage conferred by some hemoglobin variants against malaria.

Here is a summary of key points from the provided text about lso 247:

• Neanderthals were an early human species that lived in Europe and parts of Asia prior to the arrival and displacement of modern humans. They had some key physiological differences from modern humans like a more robust build and smaller brain size.

• Modern humans interbred with Neanderthals after migrating out of Africa and into Europe/Asia around 45,000-35,000 years ago. Evidence from mitochondrial DNA and the nuclear genome shows gene flow from Neanderthals into modern humans, but not vice versa. This likely provided advantages to early modern humans adapting to European environments.

• Traits acquired from Neanderthals through introgression include alleles related to UV radiation tolerance, metabolism, and immune function. Introgression also helped modern humans adapt to European climatic conditions like cold temperatures.

• The last Neanderthals disappeared around 25-30,000 years ago as modern humans displaced them, possibly due to advantages in language, intelligence, social cooperation/culture, and use of tools/weapons. However, racism against Neanderthals has been criticized.

• Modern humans living today retain a small amount of Neanderthal DNA (~2%) due to past interbreeding events. Studying this ancient genomic material can provide insights into human adaptations and migrations.

Here is a summary of the provided keywords:

• Infectious diseases spread more easily with agriculture and dense populations.Population size was controlled through birth control methods like silphium. Population growth was limited by available resources in the Malthusian trap.

• The Celts farmed grains and raised livestock. They had social classes and engaged in warfare. Their religion and social system are noted.

• Giovanni Pomaroli was an Italian mentioned.

• The Celts utilized metallurgy and were skilled metalworkers.

• Religion and social classes structured Celtic society.

• Indo-Europeans likely expanded from a homeland location debated between different hypotheses like the Kurgan hypothesis.