Peter Forster (geneticist)

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Peter Forster, geneticist

Peter Forster FRSB (born 27 June 1967) is a geneticist researching the prehistoric origins and ancestry of mankind. In addition to archaeogenetics, he has published on the reconstruction and spread of prehistoric languages and in the field of forensic genetics.

Biography

Peter Forster studied

German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. In January 2016 the Royal Society of Biology
elected Peter Forster as a Fellow.

Human Origins

Modern humans have existed in Africa for around 200,000 years. Peter Forster discovered on the basis of modern and ancient DNA
that there has only been a single successful migration out of Africa during prehistory, and he dated this emigration to around 60,000 years ago. The size of this emigrant group, according to his estimate, was less than 200 people (BBC 2009: African tribe populated rest of the world). Their descendants travelled on average about 200 to 1,000 metres per year and reached Europe and Australia just over 40,000 years ago, and America around 20,000 years ago. Due to the small numbers of founders, and due to their subsequent isolation on separate continents, differences between populations accumulated, yielding the distinctive sets of features that are perceived today as human races.[1] On the basis of geographic
mtDNA and language in females today.[2]
Peter Forster has also applied his statistical evolutionary approach on languages directly and has calculated that the Celtic languages spread in the Bronze Age from about 3000 BC, and that the Germanic languages spread during the Iron Age from about 600 BC, as far as Britain.[3]

To obtain these results, Forster has compiled, proofread and corrected DNA- and language databases, and developed, in collaboration with his colleagues,

forensics
.

Bibliography

  • Forster P: "Necessary Brain?". Nature 375:444, 1995.
  • The Y Chromosome Consortium: "A nomenclature system for the tree of human Y-chromosomal binary haplogroups." Genome Res 12:339-348, 2002.
  • Forster L, Forster P, Lutz-Bonengel S, Willkomm H, Brinkmann B: "Natural radioactivity and human mitochondrial DNA mutations." Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 2002.
  • Forster P: "Ice Ages and the mitochondrial DNA chronology of human dispersals: a review." Phil Trans R Soc Lond B 359:255-264, 2004.
  • Forster P, Renfrew C: "Phylogenetic Methods and the Prehistory of Languages." McDonald Institute Press, University of Cambridge, 2006.
    ISBN 978-1-902937-33-5
  • Matsumura S, Forster P: "Generation time and effective population size in Polar Eskimos." Proc R Soc B 275:1501-1508, 2008.
  • Forster P, Renfrew C: "Mother Tongue and Y Chromosomes." Science 333:1390-1391, 2011.
  • Forster P, Hohoff C, Dunkelmann B, Schürenkamp M, Pfeiffer H, Neuhuber F, Brinkmann B: "Elevated germline mutation rate in teenage fathers." Proc R Soc B 282:20142898, 2015.

German Literature

Elisabeth Hamel (2007) Das Werden der Völker in Europa. Tenea-Verlag, Berlin.

External links

References and Notes

  1. ^ Forster P: Ice Ages and the mitochondrial DNA chronology of human dispersals: a review., Phil Trans R Soc Lond B 359:255-264, 2004
  2. ^ Forster P, Renfrew C: Mother Tongue and Y Chromosomes. Science 333:1390-1391, 2011
  3. ISBN 978-1-902937-33-5
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