Archive - PifferPilfer

Reich’s new paper: Could humans interbreed after 1.2 million years apart?

David Reich proposes an ancient mixture that raises questions about attraction and reproductive compatibility

10 hrs ago • Davide Piffer

Patience and the Pecking Order

Ancient genetic scores and the layers of social hierarchy

Oct 15 • Davide Piffer

Did Seeds or Scholars Bend the Genetic Curve?

Farming and Confucian institutions enter the same ancient DNA model

Oct 14 • Davide Piffer

Does civilization progress in a straight line or in cycles?

The rise and fall of education-associated genetic scores in ancient DNA

Oct 13 • Davide Piffer

Did Confucianism select for education or intelligence?

Ancient genomes, two genetic scores, and a difficult question about who prospered when learning became a route to office.

Oct 12 • Davide Piffer

Education and intelligence polygenic scores, thirteen years later

Thirteen years ago, we finally had three genome-wide-significant genetic hits for education.

Oct 10 • Davide Piffer

Intelligence and inequality: what ancient graves reveal

Fluid-intelligence genetics and burial richness within cemeteries

Oct 8 • Davide Piffer

We finally have a new IQ GWAS: does it have higher predictive accuracy?

Correction (8 October 2026)

Oct 6 • Davide Piffer

Did Confucian institutions leave a trace in ancient DNA?

A Tang official’s tombstone might tell you where his family came from, what his father did, and how he rose through government.

Oct 5 • Davide Piffer

Digging the elite: richer graves, lighter skin?

Grave goods, pigmentation and education scores within ancient cemeteries.

Oct 3 • Davide Piffer

The ingredients of light skin genetics: farming, low UV and ancestry

What ancient genomes reveal about farming, sunlight and European pigmentation

Oct 1 • Davide Piffer

September 2026

Solving the Aryan paradox: Why northern Europeans have fair skin but their ancestors were not pale

A lighter-direction skin score appears within WSH-labelled chromosome segments. Its rate relative to the whole genome remains uncertain.

Sep 30 • Davide Piffer

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