What is a molecular anthropologist?
Schurr: A molecular anthropologist is someone who employs the tools of human genetics to questions of human ancestry, migrations, and origins. So, rather than looking at skeletal remains or looking at archeological remains, we look at genetic remains of individuals to understand those aspects of human variation in history. My work focuses on the Americas and Siberia, primarily. After collecting ethnographic data and biological samples for DNA, we come back to our labs and analyze DNA samples to look at aspects of genetic variation. Q: Are there examples where molecular anthropology has refuted some kind of past knowledge about history? Schurr: Sometimes genetic evidence helps eliminate certain situations that are sort of ambiguous or historically muddy. One example is with the black Lemba of the Mozambique in Southern Africa. They have Semitic languages and some aspects of Semitic culture, but yet they are largely Bantu in terms of their phenotypic appearance. So the question is: Why w
