Why the eugenicists were wrong
2025-06-19 17:29 Eugenics arose at a time when the pace of evolution was unknown. Charles Darwin himself thought it was a very slow process. But many of his admirers believed it went at breakneck speed.
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.
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.
Only some animals are suitable for domestication
2025-01-28 19:57 There are dozens of large mammals which are herbivores or omnivores.  However, there are only 15 suitable to domesticate.  Some are too picky eaters.  Others grow too slowly, are too aggressive or to easily frightened.
On the origin of the cat
2025-01-22 13:46 I have read of people thinking the cats we have as pets would descend from large felids.  Or at least be closely related to them.  People might not know that smaller felids exist.
On wolves and dogs
2025-01-17 17:05 Many people have misunderstood how grey wolves are and look.  Apart from the myth of the predator threat they are imagined as monstrous.  People think they are much larger than average humans.
On myths and fairytales
2024-12-31 15:03 Ancient peoples tried to explain what was outside of human control. They were used to think in terms of human interactions. Phenomena were anthropomorphised into gods to be more easily thought about.