Opportunity can’t be taken for granted
2025-10-16 13:47 Some people’s view of history is exaggeratedly person-centred.  The development of society is supposed to be driven by single famous individuals.  The resources for such a person is not spent a though at if it has varied.
The American catastrophe
2025-08-11 16:43 The depopulation of the Americas took place in the 16th and 17th centuries. Naturally, regional collapses had already taken place earlier. Maybe the most famous is the Mayan culture’s collapse.
How infectious diseases work
2025-08-08 12:20 Infectious diseases is always something transferred to the affected.  Contagions don’t arise spontaneously when people do certain things.  Instead they have to be conveyed from someone already infected.
The blonde and blue-eyed myth
2025-06-04 10:50 Here in northern Europe there is a widespread myth of an earlier homogenous appearance.  Before a certain point in time all the area’s inhabitants would have been blonde and blue-eyed.  Nazis would add strait hair and strait noses to that.
Peoples of the wheel
2025-06-02 13:11 Proto-Indo-European was the first proto-language identified by linguists.  This based on similarities between Ancient Greek, Latin and Sanskrit.  Unfortunately, it took long before one could say something about where it had been spoken.
Peoples of the sail
2025-04-25 17:02 I call the Austronesians peoples of the sail since they spread agriculture by literally sailing out into the world.  Most areas they came to had no agriculture earlier.
The deficiencies of the Americas
2025-04-18 17:25 Towards the end of the last ice age North and South America were populated. Since the seas were lower then there was no Bering Strait. People could simply walk to Alaska. However, the way south from there was almost entirely ice-covered.
Australia’s infertility
2025-04-10 13:33 There is considerable uncertainty on when Australia was populated.  Certain are the current human species reached it on rafts.  Likely they were built from bamboo.  What we know is the straits being too wide to see across.
Eurasia’s biogeographical advantages
2025-04-04 12:53 Before the current human species Eurasia was inhabited by other species.  So it had been for more than 1.5 million years.  This has given organisms some opportunity to adapt to humans.
Africa’s biogeographical disadvantages
2025-03-27 19:56 When I talk here about Africa I mean Sub-Saharan Africa.  Historically the Sahara has consisted a greater barrier than the Mediterranean.  Most from Africa’s north coast are more similar to Europeans than people south of the Sahara.