Mapping the Origins and Expansion of the Indo-European Language Family
- R. Bouckaert, P. Lemey, Q. Atkinson
- LinguisticsScience
- 24 August 2012
Both the inferred timing and root location of the Indo-European language trees fit with an agricultural expansion from Anatolia beginning 8000 to 9500 years ago, which supports the suggestion that the origin of the language family was indeed Anatolia 7 to 10 thousand years ago—contemporaneous with the spread of agriculture.
Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin
- R. Gray, Q. Atkinson
- LinguisticsNature
- 27 November 2003
An analysis of a matrix of 87 languages with 2,449 lexical items produced an estimated age range for the initial Indo-European divergence of between 7,800 and 9,800 years bp, in striking agreement with the Anatolian hypothesis.
Frequency of word-use predicts rates of lexical evolution throughout Indo-European history
- M. Pagel, Q. Atkinson, A. Meade
- LinguisticsNature
- 11 October 2007
It is proposed that the frequency with which specific words are used in everyday language exerts a general and law-like influence on their rates of evolution, consistent with social models of word change that emphasize the role of selection and suggest that owing to the ways that humans use language, some words will evolve slowly and others rapidly across all languages.
Phonemic Diversity Supports a Serial Founder Effect Model of Language Expansion from Africa
- Q. Atkinson
- PsychologyScience
- 15 April 2011
It is shown that the number of phonemes used in a global sample of 504 languages is also clinal and fits a serial founder–effect model of expansion from an inferred origin in Africa, pointing to parallel mechanisms shaping genetic and linguistic diversity and supports an African origin of modern human languages.
mtDNA variation predicts population size in humans and reveals a major Southern Asian chapter in human prehistory.
- Q. Atkinson, R. Gray, A. Drummond
- Biology, GeographyMolecular biology and evolution
- 1 February 2008
Estimates of relative population sizes show remarkable concordance with the contemporary regional distribution of humans across Africa, Eurasia, and the Americas, indicating that mtDNA diversity is a good predictor of population size in humans.
Male infanticide leads to social monogamy in primates
- Chris Opie, Q. Atkinson, Robin I. M. Dunbar, S. Shultz
- BiologyProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- 29 July 2013
It is shown that biparental care shortens relative lactation length, thereby reducing infanticide risk and increasing reproductive rates, and phylogenetic analyses support a key role for infanticides in the social evolution of primates, and potentially, humans.
FROM WORDS TO DATES: WATER INTO WINE, MATHEMAGIC OR PHYLOGENETIC INFERENCE?
- Q. Atkinson, G. Nicholls, D. Welch, R. Gray
- Biology
- 1 August 2005
An alternative data set of ancient Indo-European languages is used and two very different stochastic models of lexical evolution are employed – Gray & Atkinson’s (2003) finite-sites model and a Stochastic-Dollo model of word evolution introduced by Nicholls & Gray (in press).
Stepwise evolution of stable sociality in primates
- S. Shultz, Chris Opie, Q. Atkinson
- BiologyNature
- 10 November 2011
A model of primate social evolution is presented, whereby sociality progresses from solitary foraging individuals directly to large multi-male/multi-female aggregations, with pair-living or single-male harem systems derivative from this second stage.
Ultraconserved words point to deep language ancestry across Eurasia
- M. Pagel, Q. Atkinson, Andreea S Calude, A. Meade
- BiologyProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- 6 May 2013
A statistical model is used to predict the existence of a set of such highly conserved words among seven language families of Eurasia postulated to form a linguistic superfamily that evolved from a common ancestor around 15,000 y ago, implying that some frequently used words have been retained in related forms since the end of the last ice age.
Population structure and cultural geography of a folktale in Europe
- R. Ross, Simon J. Greenhill, Q. Atkinson
- BiologyProceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological…
- 7 April 2013
It is found that geographical distance and ethnolinguistic affiliation exert significant independent effects on folktale diversity and that variation between populations supports a clustering concordant with European geography.
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