A Short History of Humanity: A New History of Old Europe, Krause and Trappe - C+

      Archaeogenetics, clearly a new and evolving science, allows us to now decode ancient genomes, some hundreds of thousands of years old. "History and the story of disease in Europe can be told in an entirely new way." The science is centered at the Max Planck Institute For Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig. The ability of scientists to analyze DNA has progressed to the point that analyses that once took years now take seconds. 

     Approximately 11,700 years ago, the Ice Age receded and opened up Europe to migrants from the south.  They came from Anatolia, traveled through the Balkans and spread throughout the continent. The farmers slowly replaced the hunter-gatherers over 2,000 years. As the more numerous farmers took over more and more land, the hunter-gatherers concentrated along the North Sea, and in Scandinavia, where their genes are well-represented today. About 5,000 years ago, migration from the steppes of what is now Russia provided the third great contribution to the European gene pool.

    Farming and food storage led to rodents, fleas and lice and, in turn, viruses and bacteria. The most damage ever inflicted on our species in Europe has been by Yersina pestis, the bacteria that causes the Black Plague, carried by rat fleas. DNA analysis has proven that the plague preceded recorded history and appeared as long as 4900 years ago.  Leprosy, tuberculosis, and syphilis, also caused by bacteria, swept through Europe at different times.

    The history of the world has always been about extensive human migration and movement all over the earth. Over the course of the last few thousand years, that mobility has led to "the branches of the human family"becoming more  intertwined" and our DNA becoming more similar." "The genetic differences between people from Europe and West Africa has been reduced over the past 10,000 years by more than half..." "As human DNA becomes increasingly similar across the globe, constructs such as ethnicity and race are harder to justify than before." "Through the journey of our genes, we know that humans are born travelers; we are made to wander."