The question of the genetic and cultural continuity between ancient Egyptians and the modern population of Egypt is complex. While modern Egyptians are the descendants of the ancient Egyptians to some extent, the population of Egypt has been influenced by a multitude of migrations, invasions, and cultural exchanges over the millennia. The Arab conquest in the 7th century and subsequent interactions with various cultures have contributed to the diverse genetic and cultural landscape of modern Egypt.

Genetic studies suggest that modern Egyptians exhibit a blend of ancestral lineages, including indigenous North African components and influences from the Middle East. Historical events and population movements have contributed to the dynamic nature of the Egyptian population, making it challenging to establish a direct and unbroken genetic link between the ancient and modern populations.

The map below shows genetic distances between DNA 90 ancient Egyptian mummies and DNA of modern populations.

The Sahara acts as a vast and formidable barrier to human migration. As a result, according to the map, people living in Poland are closer to ancient Egyptians than some Sub-Saharan populations.

To learn more about ancient Egypt have a look at the following books:

• National Geographic Atlas of Ancient Egypt
• The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt
• Ancient Egypt: The Definitive Visual History
• The Egyptian Book of the Dead: Deluxe Slip-case Edition
• The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt

The post Who were the ancient Egyptians? appeared first on Vivid Maps.

The Visme team using live births by month of birth data provided by the United Nations, created interesting visualization that shows the most common birth months worldwide.

According to the created infographic, the summer months of July, August, and September are the most typical birth months in higher latitude nations in the northern hemisphere. As the latitude decreases in subtropical and tropical countries, the peak birth months change later to October, November, and December.

For nations in the southern hemisphere, the peak birth months are gathered around March, April, and May.

These data are confirmed by the thorough analysis of human birth seasonality published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society.

Is there a logic behind the prevalence of certain birth months over others? If we were to consider a forty-week pregnancy period to determine the most frequent months of conception, October to December would top the list for nations in the northern hemisphere.

Some researches have shown that there is typically an increase in sexual activity around Christmastime. Even a Google search study shows that searches associated with sex and mating habits rose during the winter and early summer.

In her article for Slate.com, Boer Deng also did the analysis and resolved that nations in northern latitudes were conceiving children more frequently during the autumn, while those farther south were doing so through the winter.

According to research published in The Journal of Reproductive Rhythms, the perfect time of the year to conceive is when the sun is out for 12 hours, and the temperature is between 50 and 70 °F (10 to 21°C). For reasons that are not known, these are the ideal conditions for conception, either because they stimulate sperm generation or ovulation.

The post The Most Common Birth Months Worldwide, Mapped appeared first on Vivid Maps.

Maps were created by Alasdair Rae, using Aerialod software and population density data. The height of each bar represents the number of people living in any one square kilometer.

On the maps below, population data in various regions of our planet is visualized as population towers.

Europe

With 432 people per square kilometre, England is densely populated compared to most other nations of Europe. But it’s not as densely populated as the Netherlands, where 506 people live per square kilometre.

North America

Mexico City has the largest urban area in North America by population, accompanied by New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago.

3D population density of the United States

South America

Brasilian Sao Paulo is the most populous city in South America. Lima, the capital city of Peru, the second-most populated city in South America.

Asia

Over sixty million people live in Guangzhou – Hong Kong region. The cities of the Pearl River Delta could ultimately merge into one combined megalopolis.

The Sichuan Basin is the main population center in central China.

Bangladesh and India’s Indo-Gangetic Plain, which lies directly south of the Himalayas, are the most densely populated regions on Earth.

The preponderance of Pakistan’s population lives along the Indus River.

Region Taiheiyō Belt (literally “Pacific Belt”) containing most of the people in Japan.

With a population of 143 million, Java is the most populous island on our planet. Jakarta is on course to topple Tokyo as the world’s most populous city by 2030.

Asia’s largest island, Borneo, is sparsely populated compared to surrounding areas.

Australia and New Zealand

The most populous cities are located on the east coast of Australia (New South Wales, Queensland) and in southeast Australia (Victoria).

Auckland is the largest city in New Zealand. In Auckland lives more people than in the whole South Island!

The post 3D Mapping The Global Population Density appeared first on Vivid Maps.

Doctor Jonathon Simmons of Boston (Massachusetts) went even further. He created terrific schematic illustrations of human anatomy in the distinctive style of the London Underground map. 

Just as Harry Beck’s original intuitive and easy-to-use 1933 London Underground map straightened out and color-coded each of the lines, Jonathon Simmons’ anatomical map depicts thirteen different “lines” through the body, each of which illustrates a particular system of the body. Here are several:

• The Vermillion system (Pink line) depicts one of the tiniest surface areas, the frontier around the mouth from the cupid’s bow to the bottom lip.
• The airway system (Black line) defines the passages from the mouth and nose, down the larynx, and into the lungs. The system also operates with bronchial arteries (red lines) and veins (blue lines).
• The nervous system (Yellow line) begins from the brain’s temporal lobe and reaches to the body’s limbs, such as the fingertips and toes.
• The special system (Magenta line) contains organs vital for 4 of the 5 senses–sight, hearing, smell, taste, and the reproductive organs.
• In the portal system (Purple line), about 75 percent of the blood streaming from the liver passes through portal veins, one of two sets of veins linked to the liver.

Want to learn more about the human body, then have a look at the following atlases of human anatomy:

• Atlas of Anatomy
• Human Anatomy
• Human Body

The post Subway Map of Human Anatomy appeared first on Vivid Maps.

The growth of androgenic hair is linked to androgens’ level and the density of androgen receptors in mesenchymal cells in the skin.

The map below shows male androgenic (body) hair across the world among indigenous populations, according to the American Journal of Physical Anthropology by Stewart W. Hindley, Albert Damon.

Why is hair preserved on men’s bodies, and how does it affect women’s preferences?

According to the ectoparasite avoidance hypothesis, natural selection has influenced human hairlessness to decrease the possibility for the body to host disease-carrying ectoparasites. Nevertheless, males retain noticeable facial and body hair patches. It means that other factors also influence men’s hairiness.

The studies conducted using cross-cultural data from 30 nations indicate that women’s body hair preferences for chest hair were linked with facial masculinity preferences and gender empowerment.

Women’s preferences for body hair are most substantial among women from nations where male-male competition is more elevated.

According to the map above, such competition is most pronounced among peoples living in the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East, Scandinavia, the Caucasus, and the Japanese island of Honshu.

While in most western countries, the current ideal of male beauty is hairlessness rather than hairiness which the traditionally seen as a symbol of high testosterone levels and masculinity.

The post Average Body Hair Distributions appeared first on Vivid Maps.

The Neolithic Revolution

The post The History of the World appeared first on Vivid Maps.

European early modern human lineages between 40 and 26 thousand years BP still part of a large Western Eurasian “meta-population,” linked to Central and Western Asian populations. The division into genetically separate sub-populations in Western Eurasia is a consequence of enhanced selection pressure and founder effects during the Last Glacial Maximum.

By the end of the Last Glacial Maximum (21 thousand years), called West European Hunter-Gatherer lineage, appears from the Solutrean refugium during the European Mesolithic (12.7 thousand years). All tested Mesolithic, West European Hunter-gather, Y-chromosomes from Luxembourg and Motala (Sweden), related to haplogroup I. Haplogroup I is the primary candidate for Europe’s indigenous Y-haplogroup, which is today the most prevalent Y-haplogroup in most of Scandinavia.

These Western hunter-gatherer societies are considerably displaced in the Neolithic Revolution by the arrival of Early European Farmers lineages derived from Mesolithic populations of West Asia (Anatolia and the Caucasus).

In the European Bronze Age, there were again extensive population replacements in parts of Europe by the invasion of Ancient North Eurasian ancestors from the Pontic–Caspian steppes. These Bronze Age population replacements are connected with the Beaker culture archaeologically and with the Indo-European expansion linguistically.

As a consequence of the population shifts throughout the Mesolithic to Bronze Age, contemporary European populations are distinguished by differences in West European Hunter-Gatherers, Early European Farmers, and Ancient North Eurasian ancestry.

According to Sciencemag, blending rates ranged geographically. In the late Neolithic, West European Hunter-Gatherers in farmers in Hungary was at about 10 percent, in Germany almost 25 percent, and in Iberia as high as 50 percent. The contribution of Early European Farmer’s ancestry is more notable in Mediterranean Europe and decreases towards northeastern Europe, where Ancient North Eurasian ancestry is stronger. The Sardinians are defined by almost clear origin from Early European Farmers.

Distribution of European Y-chromosome DNA (Y-DNA) haplogroups by country and region in percentage

Haplogroup is a group of similar haplotypes that share a common ancestor with a single-nucleotide polymorphism mutation. More specifically, a haplogroup is a combination of alleles at different chromosome regions that are closely linked and that tend to be inherited together.

As a haplogroup consists of similar haplotypes, it is usually possible to predict a haplogroup from haplotypes (a haplotype is a group of genes in an organism that are inherited together from a single parent).

Haplogroups pertain to a single line of descent, usually dating back thousands of years. As such, membership of a haplogroup, by any individual, relies on a relatively small proportion of the genetic material possessed by that individual.

A simplified map will look like this.

Map with predominant Haplogroups

The map below shows countries by percentage of similarity to Y-DNA average of Europeans.

Residents of Austria have the highest percentage of similarity to the Y-DNA average of Europeans (89.4%).

What will the political map of Europe look like if you use genetics for state division?

What if borders were drawn by DNA instead of ethnicity?

The post Dominant Y-DNA haplogroups in Europe and the Middle East appeared first on Vivid Maps.

One of the most intriguing aspects of Y-DNA haplogroups is their association with specific geographic regions and population movements. For example, haplogroup R1a is prevalent in Eastern Europe and parts of Central Asia, suggesting migrations of Indo-European populations. Meanwhile, haplogroup E-M180 is common among populations in Africa, indicating early human migrations within the continent.

The study of Y-DNA haplogroups has also shed light on historical events and cultural exchanges. Haplogroup J, for instance, is found in high frequencies in the Middle East and Mediterranean regions, reflecting the historical connections between these areas and the spread of agriculture and early civilizations.

Furthermore, genetic studies have revealed surprising patterns of migration and admixture. For instance, haplogroup Q is found in Native American populations, indicating the ancestral lineage of Indigenous peoples in the Americas and suggesting migration routes from Siberia across the Bering Land Bridge thousands of years ago.

The world map below shows the Y-DNA Haplogroups with possible migration routes.

Here is a simplified map of the Y-DNA haplogroup world with migration routes and the times when the migrations took place.

Recent advancements in genetic sequencing technology have allowed for more precise analysis of Y-DNA haplogroups, leading to discoveries of previously unknown population movements and interactions.

Below is a more detailed, modern haplogroup map of the world according to recent advancements in genetic sequencing technology..

If you’re unsure of your ancestry, consider taking a genetic test.

• AncestryDNA Genetic Test Kit: Personalized Genetic Results, DNA Ethnicity Test, Origins & Ethnicities, Complete DNA Test
• 23andMe Ancestry Service – DNA Test Kit with Personalized Genetic Reports Including Ancestry Composition with 2750+ Geographic Regions, Family Tree, DNA Relative Finder and Trait Reports

The post World map of Y-DNA Haplogroups appeared first on Vivid Maps.

According to estimates from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in the UN and the non-profit group Survival International, there are between 100 and 200 uncontacted peoples, numbering up to 10,000 individuals. A majority of uncontacted peoples exist in South America, especially northern Brazil, where the Brazilian government and National Geographic report that between 77 and 84 tribes live.

Other small groups of uncontacted people also continue to live in isolation, mostly in the equatorial forests of Africa and Asia.

Video below shows, for the first time, extraordinary aerial footage of one of the world’s last uncontacted tribes in Amazonia’s tropical forests.

The post Map of the locations of potentially uncontacted peoples at the start of the 21st century appeared first on Vivid Maps.

Related post:
– The Greater Tokyo Area, as compared to England
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The post Countries & territories with a population less than Greater Tokyo (37.8m) appeared first on Vivid Maps.