I’m reading a very interesting article in the New Yorker about a pile of skeletons near a lake in the high Himalayas. It’s a curious piece, both rather romantic and occasionally draws me up short, such as with throwaway lines like the following, referring to genetic analyses of ancient bones:
Under the scrutiny of science, the dead are becoming eloquent.
Notable as many of the dead were already eloquent, but in stories. But who cares about stories told by primitives.
I was interested to learn that that South Asian populations (or at least Indian populations) are amongst the most heavily sampled for DNA, certainly ancient DNA.