Topic description and stories

Immigration and migration, and the issues that surround them, have become symbolic of the 21st century.

Aubrey Lynch, elder from the Wongatha Aboriginal language group, who participated in the study.

Unprecedented study of Aboriginal Australians points to one shared Out of Africa migration for modern humans

21 Sep 2016

The first significant investigation into the genomics of Aboriginal Australians has uncovered several major findings about early human populations...

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Dani tribesman on his way to his village in the Baliem Valley, Papua.

Ancient ‘trace’ in Papuan genomes suggests previously unknown expansion out of Africa

21 Sep 2016

Several major studies, published today, concur that virtually all current global human populations stem from a single wave of expansion out of Africa...

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The fieldwork was conducted during the winter because the frozen lake surface provided the researchers with a solid (but freezing) platform for drilling into the sediment

Textbook story of how humans populated America is “biologically unviable”, study finds

10 Aug 2016

Using ancient DNA, researchers have created a unique picture of how a prehistoric migration route evolved over thousands of years – revealing that it...

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The African Golden Weaver, Zanzibar

Opinion: There’s a reason why Africa’s migratory songbirds sing out of season

09 May 2016

Claire Spottiswoode (Department of Zoology) and Marjorie Sorensen (Goethe University Frankfurt am Main) discuss why several species of migratory...

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Robert Morden, A New Map of England (1673) (detail)

The Channel: a historian’s view of an iconic stretch of water

30 Mar 2016

Water joins as well as divides – and maritime communities often defy the borders imposed by the state. In the first book of its kind, Dr Renaud...

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EU migrant workers

Honeypot Britain? EU migrants’ benefits and the UK referendum

25 Feb 2016

Ahead of Britain’s EU referendum, research will explore the experiences of EU migrants working in the UK, and attitudes to employment and social...

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DNA was extracted from the molar teeth of this skeleton, dating from almost 10,000 years ago and found in the Kotias Klde rockshelter in Western Georgia.

‘Fourth strand’ of European ancestry originated with hunter-gatherers isolated by Ice Age

16 Nov 2015

Populations of hunter-gatherers weathered Ice Age in apparent isolation in Caucasus mountain region for millennia, later mixing with other ancestral...

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Zaatari camp for Syrian refugees in Jordan

Refugee camp entrepreneurship

17 Sep 2015

Entrepreneurship initiatives can fill the ‘institutional void’ of long-term refugee camps, according to new research.

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Haile Selassie by Lucien Aigner

Four decades after Haile Selassie’s death, Ethiopia is an African success story

27 Aug 2015

Christopher Clapham, Professor Emeritus at the Centre of African Studies, University of Cambridge looks at the changes that Ethiopia has undergone...

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Head of an albatross caught on Sep. 22 1901 by Edward Adrian Wilson

“Albatross!” The legendary giant seabird

01 Jun 2015

The Cambridge Animal Alphabet series celebrates Cambridge's connections with animals through literature, art, science and society. Here, A is for...

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"Maccari-Cicero" by Cesare Maccari. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Understanding the ancient world through language

22 May 2015

James Clackson's new book looks at what language use can tell us about ancient societies.

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From one extreme to the next?

05 Feb 2015

The threat to peace posed by the Islamic State group has been described as “unprecedented in the modern age”, yet research on the rise and fall of an...

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