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Michele W. Berger
Senior Science News Officer
mwberger@upenn.edu
The world-renowned archaeologist has joint appointments in the Department of Anthropology, the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation and the Department of City and Regional Planning, and the Penn Museum as a curator in both the Asian and Near East sections.
According to the research, many of these individuals originated in sub-Saharan Africa, in line with historical accounts of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. This work, the largest DNA study of its kind to date, was co-led by anthropologist Theodore Schurr and conducted with support from and at the request of the local community.
Research from anthropologist Morgan Hoke shows that in homes that produce their own foods, children exhibit better growth rates and mothers report more autonomy and economic control.
A student-led exhibition at the Penn Museum features objects from the rarely seen Oceanian collection.
In a Q&A, Penn archaeologist Joyce White discusses the partnership with paleoclimatologists that led to the finding, plus possible implications of such a dramatic climate change for societies at that time.
Ancient DNA from 46,000-year-old bone fragments and a tooth reveals this group likely overlapped with Neanderthals for thousands of years.
More than half of America’s farm workers are immigrants, and most have been considered essential workers during the coronavirus pandemic. While this designation has ensured the continuity of their livelihoods, it has also increased their risk of becoming sick.
A new Annenberg course centered around HBO offered undergrads hands-on exposure to media production and a chance to hone their analytical skills using primary source materials.
Kristina Lyons’ new book explores the Colombian world of litter layers, seeds, and soils; Amazonian farmers, narcos, and the War on Drugs
Alex Chen, a doctoral candidate in anthropology, studies emerging disease preparedness, and how air and airflow is the most powerful tool against disease.
Michele W. Berger
Senior Science News Officer
mwberger@upenn.edu
A team led by Joyce White of the School of Arts & Sciences studied stalagmites in a Laotian cave and identified a drought that lasted for more than a millennium, one of a series of megadroughts that affected Asia and Africa between 4,000 and 5,000 years ago.
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PIK Professor Sarah Tishkoff said mitochondrial DNA is a poor tool for tracking ancient population history in Africa, as it only traces genes passed from mothers to children over time.
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Kathleen Morrison of the School of Arts and Sciences weighed in on the origins of human remains found in India’s Skeleton Lake. “I suspect that they’re aggregated there, that local people put them in the lake,” she says. “When you see a lot of human skeletons, usually it’s a graveyard.”
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PIK Professor Sarah Tishkoff and Giorgio Sirugo of the Perelman School of Medicine collaborated on a paper that concluded that predominately European genetic databases may lead to difficulties treating people from other racial backgrounds. “If we don’t include ethnically diverse populations, we are potentially going to be exacerbating health inequalities,” said Tishkoff.
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The Perelman School of Medicine’s Sarah Tishkoff offered commentary on a recent study on skin pigmentation in Latin American people. Previous research on pigmentation “has been done on Europeans, where ironically we don’t see a lot of variation,” she said. “One of the last frontiers has been, ‘What about East Asians and Native Americans?’”
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Penn researchers, including visiting student Adeyemi Oduwole, are analyzing mitochondrial DNA from bodies discovered in Charleston, S.C. All of the people found were of African ancestry, making the site the oldest known graveyard of enslaved Africans in the city. “Both of my parents grew up in Nigeria,” said Oduwole. “Those could be my ancestors down there.”
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