The Trouble With Ancient Dna
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The Trouble with Ancient DNA
A thoughtful consideration of the storytelling and science behind ancient DNA discoveries. In recent years, discoveries brought to light through analysis of ancient DNA have made headlines around the world. While ancient DNA studies may appear to be a field that is focused on objective results and laboratory science, it has also relied heavily on storytelling and is surprisingly influenced by political interests. In The Trouble with Ancient DNA, Anna Källén explores how the parameters of genetic science influence the stories we tell about our ancient ancestors, questioning what narratives we can and should take at face value. Through accounts of migrations, warriors, and figures like Cheddar Man, we see enticing and potent narratives that reach far beyond what can be gathered from the scientific study of molecules alone. Rather, by privileging certain narratives and questions--like those about sex or eye and skin color--our stories of ancient DNA are spun around the structure of today's methodologies, technologies, and popular and political interests. Källén considers how DNA is used to sensationalize stories, how its use poses questions of ethics and care, and who is responsible if stories of ancient DNA are adopted for dangerous political projects.
Ancient DNA
Author: Elizabeth D Jones
language: en
Publisher: Yale University Press
Release Date: 2022-02-22
The untold story of the rise of the new scientific field of ancient DNA research, and how Jurassic Park and popular media influenced its development Ancient DNA research—the recovery of genetic material from long-dead organisms—is a discipline that developed from science fiction into a reality between the 1980s and today. Drawing on scientific, historical, and archival material, as well as original interviews with more than fifty researchers worldwide, Elizabeth Jones explores the field’s formation and explains its relationship with the media by examining its close connection to de-extinction, the science and technology of resurrecting extinct species. She reveals how the search for DNA from fossils flourished under the influence of intense press and public interest, particularly as this new line of research coincided with the book and movie Jurassic Park. Ancient DNA is the first account to trace the historical and sociological interplay between science and celebrity in the rise of this new research field. In the process, Jones argues that ancient DNA research is more than a public-facing science: it is a celebrity science.
Who We Are and How We Got Here
Author: David Reich
language: en
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Release Date: 2018-03-29
The past few years have seen a revolution in our ability to map whole genome DNA from ancient humans. With the ancient DNA revolution, combined with rapid genome mapping of present human populations, has come remarkable insights into our past. This important new data has clarified and added to our knowledge from archaeology and anthropology, helped resolve long-existing controversies, challenged long-held views, and thrown up some remarkable surprises. The emerging picture is one of many waves of ancient human migrations, so that all populations existing today are mixes of ancient ones, as well as in many cases carrying a genetic component from Neanderthals, and, in some populations, Denisovans. David Reich, whose team has been at the forefront of these discoveries, explains what the genetics is telling us about ourselves and our complex and often surprising ancestry. Gone are old ideas of any kind of racial 'purity', or even deep and ancient divides between peoples. Instead, we are finding a rich variety of mixtures. Reich describes the cutting-edge findings from the past few years, and also considers the sensitivities involved in tracing ancestry, with science sometimes jostling with politics and tradition. He brings an important wider message: that we should celebrate our rich diversity, and recognize that every one of us is the result of a long history of migration and intermixing of ancient peoples, which we carry as ghosts in our DNA. What will we discover next?