2024/159: A Short History of Humanity: How Migration Made Us Who We Are — Johannes Krause / Thomas Trappe (translated by Caroline Waight)

If you look at the settlement of Europe as the drama it so often was, then at least 70 percent of its cast are descended from the antiheroes: the migrants who arrived on the continent and subjugated it 8,000 and 5,000 years ago. [loc. 2165]

An informative, accessible and fascinating book about archaeogenetics and what the study of ancient humans' DNA can tell us about patterns of migration. It's Eurocentric, but that allows the authors -- Johannes Krause, director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, and journalist Thomas Trappe -- to focus on the origins of present-day Europeans, and the waves of migration that have swept over the continent from east to west.

There's a thorough examination of the role of plague in human history, from its effect on migration (easier to migrate into an area where most of the population has died) to the lingering fear of migrants bearing disease. I hadn't known that there was a 'first wave' of plague, non-bubonic and probably transmitted to humans by Asian horses, in the Mesolithic: that variant died out just as bubonic plague was evolving. Nor did I realise that after regular outbreaks of plague in the early medieval period (including the Plague of Justinian), the disease went dormant -- at least in Europe -- for centuries before the lethal epidemic of the mid-fourteenth century. The reason is unknown, but Krause hypothesises that earlier outbreaks, as well as cultural and social changes, had reduced population density to a level which precluded mass outbreaks. (He also points out that 50% of medieval plague infections were non-lethal, and conferred lifelong immunity on survivors.)

Also fascinating was the discussion of non-Homo Sapiens DNA inheritance: in sub-Saharan Africa there are no traces of Neanderthal DNA, whereas it's 2.5% in Europeans. Indigenous peoples of Australia and Papua New Guinea are about 7% descended from Neanderthals and Denisovans. It's not only different human species that can be detected in DNA: Southern Europeans, and especially Sardinians, have less genetic indication of incoming migration than in other areas.

There are also intriguing insights into the origins of syphilis (not a souvenir brought back to Europe by Columbus' crew) and the spread of tuberculosis and leprosy. And despite the violence and disease historically introduced by waves of migrants, Krause is at pains to stress that 'human beings are born travelers; we are made to wander.' He argues against the ways in which genetic evidence has been used to fuel ethnic conflicts, and explains how genetic differences are reducing as humans become ever more mobile. And he stresses that the issues facing the world today 'are constants in human history: deadly pandemics and constant migration'.

A really good read: full of science, but with a distinctly humanist slant and a refreshing refusal to interpret prehistory through the lens of the present.