If mankind has always migrated, how can we trace population movements over the long term that have left no written trace?
Lluís Quintana-Murci, professor at the Institut Pasteur and director of the "Human Evolutionary Genetics" unit, shows how the latest advances in population genetics are making it possible to reconstruct human migrations and interbreeding. Examples include the origins of the Basques, Bantu expansions and the settlement of the Pacific.
Gilles Authier, head of the "Languages and Philology of the Caucasus" department at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE), uses linguistics to reconstruct migrations in the absence of historical, archaeological or genetic documentation. He explains why, better than the typological comparison of structures, the "neogrammarian" study of innovations common to several languages can attest to linguistic and geographical bifurcations linked to migrations.
The presentations will be introduced by François Héran, Chair of Migrations and Societies, and followed by a general discussion.
