The Future of Germs: A Discussion with Jonathan Kennedy
New Books in Biology and Evolution
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The Role of DNA in Prehistoric Pandemics
Up until 10 years ago, we knew very little about infectious diseases. But advances in the ability to extract and analyse DNA from really ancient skeletons has transformed our understanding of the past in general. We can pretty accurately diagnose what people died of 5,000 years ago. And then we also have a pretty good ideaWhat happened afterwards? There appears to have been a massive migration of people from basically the Western Eurasian steppe somewhere around the north of the Black Sea. They brought both their genetic material with them but also they appear to be the origins of Indo-European languages.
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