What Anthropological project or search would excite you the most?

Question

Thoughts?

Answer 1

Full DNA testing on Egyptian mummies, just to shut up Afrocentrists. I want hair colour, eye colour, Y chromosome, Mt DNA, and skin pigmentation, please. If they were indeed all black I'll shut up, but I'll wonder where they got all the mixed race and Caucasians to model for the statues and tomb murals.

Other than that... Full sequencing of European, Asian and African populations to sort out what DNA can't have come from Africa, then digging up every Neanderthal bone and whipping out as much of it's DNA for comparison as possible.

Big, and expensive projects.

Answer 2

I think it would be interesting to study the ways in which different cultures are absorbed and (re)shaped in environments like New York City. By that i mean the fact that here (I just moved to NYC) are being spoken over 170 languages and I'm sure that since people from so many places in the world gather in the same place and interact  there has to be an interesting outcome, culturally speaking. For instance, I've noticed that there are some rural-like patterns in Queens, although I can't tell exactly what.

Answer 3

Isotope testing on bronze age beaker period burials in britain to determine how many of these people were immigrants like the Amesbury Archer and where they came from. This would be followed by facial reconstruction of important burials such as the Archer.

Answer 4

Research to see if some people come from snakes!!!!!!!!

I could provide a list of some people to be tested.