It is a sad irony that the current wave of (populist, racist, fascist etc) sentiment against people who migrate from one part of our planet to another comes at a time when genetics enables us to better understand humanity's past migrations, and to appreciate that humans have always been migrants. They may stick around for a few generations if the living conditions are favourable, but in the long term, across centuries, all human ancestries have a migration background (the more interesting parts of mine are in the 17th century).
The current anti-migration populism is all the more tragic as the ongoing climate catastrophe is already displacing people and will displace millions more. As Gaia Vince has argued in her excellent book Nomad Century, migration should be embraced as an essential part of the adaptation to climate change, rather than vilified.
All of which provides good enough reasons to add another feature to the ones I have already written about the many migrations of the past. This time the focus is on Europe in the first millennium CE, but inevitably, given the current political meltdown, it is also about the present and future of humanity:
Migration in our genes
Current Biology Volume 35, Issue 3, 3 February 2025, Pages R81-R83
Restricted access to full text and PDF download
(will become open access one year after publication)
Magic link for free access
(first seven weeks only)
See also my new Mastodon thread where I will highlight all this year's CB features.
Last year's thread is here .
Even before the Viking invasions, European populations migrated over long distances. This nineteenth-century painting is Viking Armada by Edward Moran (1829–1901). (Painting courtesy of The Knohl Collection.)
