A look at population movements and migration through the records in ancient and modern genetic material. This is a fascinating approach to ancient prehistory. The detailed discussion of haploids, y-chromosomes etc. and be a bit confusing or hard to follow in detail, but the discussion of what this rather technical evidence shows is done in clear, easy to follow language. There are all kinds of little tidbits:
- the Celts seem to be associated particularly with iron work, and seem to have spread in scattered clusters all over Europe, settling in areas with good resources for iron work and other metal work.
- the population of a settled region does not remain constant; population levels rise and fall significantly based partly on weather patterns and long-term climate fluctuations
- in this way, the Indo-europeans seem to have initially entered Europe at a time when population levels in eastern Europe were quite low - this brings into question the whole idea of the Indo-eurpoeans invading and destroying the Old Europe culture that was highly developed in eastern Europe before the I-E's arrival - there is some evidence for shrinking population in Old Europe in the period preceding the I-E's arrival.
- many things can affect climate change - the bursting of a huge glacial lake in North America and the outflow of huge quantities of cold water into the Atlantic sparked a noticeably climate shift in Europe that lasted for at least 100 years!
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