demography
Demography refers to the number of individuals, age structure, and dynamics of populations.
New evidence is revealing the ages of death, birth, and menarche in Neandertals
Analysis of dental cementum is yielding new insights into the ages when ancient people faced significant physiological stresses.
How the lives of mothers matter to offspring survival in wild primates
A paper by Matthew Zipple and coworkers finds that the survival of young primates depends on their mothers "well beyond the age of weaning".
The so-called Toba bottleneck simply didn't happen
Prompted by a paper by Chad Yost and coworkers, I look at the persistent myth that humans were an endangered species only 74,000 years ago.
Should we be surprised if Neandertals, Denisovans, and modern humans didn’t form stable hybrid zones?
A geneticist asks why we don't see more persisting hybrid populations, and I find an answer in the theory of population source-sink dynamics.
Another Denisovan from Denisova Cave
A review of the 2015 work identifying the Denisova 8 specimen by Susanna Sawyer and coworkers.
Chimpanzee communities are hundreds of years old
Reviewing a 2014 study by Kevin Langergraber and coworkers looking at the Y chromosome variation within chimpanzee groups.
New findings from the Denisova 3 genome at high coverage
Sequencing work by Matthias Meyer and coworkers highlights the demography of ancient Denisovans and genes that may make today's people different from them.
Have human lifespans been constant for the last 2000 years?
Maximum lifespan is hard to assess in past populations. The data suggest that lifespan has been increasing over time.
Did Neandertals evolve in a population sink?
The dynamics of adaptation in shrinking populations may help understand how many ancient populations evolved.
Our new paper on why human evolution accelerated
I run through our 2007 work on evidence for recent natural selection across the human genome.
