One of my geography classes recently explored family ancestry and the related issues of immigration patterns and language dispersal. This set of maps from The Washington Post illustrates the concentration of Nordic ancestry in the Upper Midwest.   (Map from www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/10/07/midwest-orchestras-conservatories-airbnb/.)

This is one of several compelling graphics from a recent report in The Economist (UK) about slavery in the U.S. prior to the Civil War.  (Map from www.economist.com/interactive/graphic-detail/2022/06/18/slave-trade-family-separation.)

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently compared himself to Czar Peter the Great, who waged war against neighbors to "reclaim" Russian lands. This map from Statista compares the borders of Russia today with the borders of the Russian empire at the beginning of WWI: cdn.statcdn.com/Infographic/images/normal/27605.jpeg

In some ways, the violent re-ordering of Hindus, Muslims, and Sikhs that flowed from Indian and Pakistani independence in 1947 has overshadowed the violent re-ordering of Jews, Muslims, and Christians that flowed from Israeli independence the following year. Concerned about denialism and "memoricide" of the latter event, the Middle East Institute, a broad-based nonpartisan think tank in Washington, DC, has published a new paper based on diplomatic documents in the U.S. archives about what U.S. diplomats knew was happening on the ground in Israel/Palestine in 1948:  www.mei.edu/publications/five-things-united-states-knew-about-nakba-it-unfolded

Historically, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was considered an autonomous subordinate of the Russian Orthodox Church. In 2018, the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (long considered first among equals in the Eastern Orthodox Church) announced its intention to grant autoencephaly (religious independence) to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church at some point in the future, causing the Russian Orthodox Church to sever communion with Constantinople. In January 2019, after intense opposition by Russia, which reportedly included involvement of Russian security services operating in Ukraine, various factions of the Ukrainian Orthodox community agreed to unification, and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church was granted autoencephaly by Constantinople shortly thereafter. Since then, more than 2,000 Ukrainian parishes have switched from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP) to the newly unified and independent Ukrainian Orthodox Church. This map, created by a Reddit user 5 years ago, hints at the complexity of Orthodox Christianity in Europe and the Mediterranean. preview.redd.it/y2s27pd5oobz.png?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=cd386b0ae22f56b311ce36bfa4000926bf6f70d1

Historically, spring has been a busy time for home sale listings. Does the name of your street matter in terms of resale value?  A recent study by a finance professor at Emory University analyzed nearly 6,000 home sales across 35 states from 2001-2020, comparing houses sold on streets with Confederate names (e.g., Jefferson Davis, Dixie) with comparable houses sold on streets without the Confederate association. The economic geography was striking in two ways. First, in the 11 states of the former Confederacy, the difference in sales prices was not statistically significant, but in the other 24 states, houses on Confederate-named streets sold for an average of 4% less -- a loss of $10,000 on a $250,000 house, for example.  Second, in areas with higher shares of college educated, Democratic-voting, or Black residents, houses on Confederate-named streets sold at a bigger discount and were more likely to be slow to sell. This map shows Confederate street names in New Orleans, for example, where the city council is reconsidering place names with Confederate associations: bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/nola.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/f/ab/fab4b190-acfc-11ea-b1a5-f38812a04d2a/5ee436e73a7b7.image.jpg?resize=1333%2C1294. (Map from NOLA.com; study data from www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-08/confederate-street-names-can-bring-lower-home-prices.)

The impact of even fairly conventional warfare can be long lived from a biogeographic perspective. A 460-square-mile area of northeastern France was so badly contaminated by shelling during WWI that shortly after the war the French government cordoned it off as the Zone Rouge, or Red Zone, an area deemed unfit for agriculture or human habitation. Even today, more than a century later, there are untold numbers of unexploded shells, including gas canisters, in the Zone Rouge and enough arsenic in the soil to kill 99% of plant life. www.atlasobscura.com/places/zone-rouge

One of the lesser-known shortages emerging from Russia's invasion of Ukraine is neon.  Russia and Ukraine together account for about one-quarter of the world's supply of neon, a gas used in lasers to print computer chip circuits, and an estimated 70% of the world's purified industry-grade neon. Because many chip makers stockpiled neon in the months leading up to the invasion -- having learned a lesson after Russia's annexation of Crimea sent prices soaring in 2014 -- the industry is estimated to have about a six-month supply on hand, although specific resources vary by company. qz.com/2134896/if-ukraines-neon-exports-flag-the-chip-shortage-will-get-worse/

War is bad for landscapes and cultural preservation.  Ukraine has 7 sites that have been designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites and another 17 sites that are on a tentative list for prospective inclusion. To find out more about each of these sites, you can click on the site names or locations on this interactive UNESCO map: whc.unesco.org/en/statesparties/UA

Although Barbados achieved independence in 1966, the island elected to remain a constitutional monarchy with Britain's Queen Elizabeth II as its titular head. Only recently, 55 years later, did Barbados choose to become an independent republic (while remaining part of the Commonwealth). This map from Statista shows countries that used to be part of the British Empire: www.statista.com/chart/26297/countries-gained-independence-from-the-uk/

Today is celebrated as Indigenous Peoples' Day in a growing number of U.S. communities. This map shows the region of the Great Lakes -- or, as the indigenous residents referred to them, the Five Freshwater Seas -- in Ojibwe.  The map puts east at the top rather than north to reflect the traditional east-first orientation of the Anishinaabe. decolonialatlas.wordpress.com/2015/04/14/the-great-lakes-in-ojibwe-v2/

By comparing population genetics, researchers have concluded that the practice of building moai -- the huge carved "heads" found on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and elsewhere in Polynesia -- may have originated on a single island in the Tuamotus, a lightly populated archipelago of nearly 80 small atolls near Tahiti that remains part of France. www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/092121_bb_polynesia_inline_desktop.jpg (Map from https://www.sciencenews.org/article/dna-genetics-how-polynesia-settled-migration-islands-pacific-ocean)

Whales began as land mammals (their closest living genetic relatives are hippos) and in the Middle Eocene completed their transition to the ocean. One of the world's premier sites for fossils of Eocene proto-whales is in what is today the Sahara Desert, specifically the Wadi al-Hitan ("Valley of the Whales") area near Faiyum in Egypt's Western Desert, southwest of Cairo. In August, an Egyptian team of paleontologists announced the discovery of a new species of proto-whale that lived in Egyptian waters 43 million years ago. www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/08/did-whales-originate-egyptian-waters

Long ago, Native American communities were moved to or allowed to exist in marginal lands, lands that Euro-American settlers, miners, or the U.S. government didn't particularly want. Those marginal lands are now proving to be particularly vulnerable to climate change. This article looks at the intersection of physical geography and human geography via the current impacts of climate-related changes on Native communities -- from rising waters and melting permafrost in Alaska to extended drought in the Southwest and the Ozarks to coastal erosion in the Pacific Northwest -- and the tricky question of who is supposed to "fix" the problem. www.nytimes.com/2021/06/27/climate/climate-Native-Americans.html

Earlier this month, the Dorset coast of southwest England saw what was probably the most significant rockfall of the last 60 years, with an estimated 4000 metric tons of cliffside giving way between Eype Beach and Seatown. The rockfall is particularly significant because this area is part of England's "Jurassic Coast," originally made famous by pioneering paleontologist Mary Anning and today a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which will likely make the spot a magnet for fossil hunters when the area is deemed safe. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9467211/Biggest-rockfall-60-years-sees-4-000-ton-chunk-430ft-high-cliff-collapse.html

From Memphis, Tennessee, to Paris, Texas, many U.S. cities borrow their names from famous cities elsewhere in the world. This map shows the location of U.S. towns and cities named "Cairo." www.aramcoworld.com/getmedia/d158a90c-93f3-42ce-8707-863a3df6fd86/map-Cairo-USA.jpg To read about the histories of some of these American Cairos, see www.aramcoworld.com/Articles/September-2020/Greetings-from-Cairo-USA

Although not obvious from most maps of Japan, Japan extends most of the way to Taiwan because of the Ryukyu Islands, the archipelago that includes Okinawa and stretches nearly 800 miles south of Japan's four main home islands. Archaeological evidence suggests the Ryukyu Islands were settled more than 30,000 years ago, but recent research mapping ocean currents suggests those early settlers would had to have set out for the Ryukyu Islands intentionally because ocean currents would not have carried drifting boats near the islands. www.sciencenews.org/article/ancient-humans-sea-voyage-japan-ryukyu-island-migration

To coax Morocco into normalizing relations with Israel, the U.S. agreed to recognize Morocco's claim to the disputed region of Western Sahara this week. (Previously, the U.S. had not taken a stand on the issue, in keeping with the UN position that the people of Western Sahara, previously Spanish Sahara, should be allowed to vote on governance of the territory.) Although Western Sahara's land is not of particular interest, being mostly desert without significant mineral resources, the waters off Western Sahara may contain oil and gas deposits and, due to the upwelling of the Canary Current, are one of the world's most productive fisheries, to which Morocco has been selling fishing rights. www.worldatlas.com/upload/b7/4b/b0/western-sahara-map.jpg

The recent discovery and subsequent disappearance of a metal column in the Utah desert brings to mind this article about other (actual) archaeological mysteries in the United States, including the Big Horn Medicine Wheel in Wyoming, the Blythe Intaglios in California, the Miami Circle in Florida, and the Great Serpent Mound in Ohio. www.atlasobscura.com/articles/american-ancients-ten-united-states-archaeological-mysteries

A new addition to a series of petroglyphs created between 1500 and 2500 years ago and known collectively as the Nazca Lines was recently discovered in the Nazca Desert near the Pacific coast south of Lima, Peru. A giant cat, similar to those depicted in Paracas textiles from 2200 years ago, joins a spider, hummingbird, and dozens of other images. www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-54593295

This Reddit map shows which U.S. presidents, post-independence, acquired which chunks of the current United States.
www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/j7ag3y/american_territory_acquisitions_by_president/

October 14 is National Fossil Day. You can use this interactive map from data mapping engineer Ian Webster to see what the earth looked like 20 million to 750 million years ago and what kinds of dinosaur fossils can be found near your town (or any other). dinosaurpictures.org/ancient-earth#260

Escalating fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan has been in the news this week as the two countries battle, again, over the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The end of World War I saw both the emergence of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Treaties of the 1920s ceded Ottoman territory in the Caucasus Mountains to the Soviet Union. This territory became, in part, the Soviet republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Soviet leader Josef Stalin chose to make the (Armenian, Christian) enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh part of the (Turkic, Muslim) Soviet republic of Azerbaijan but gave it limited self-government as an "autonomous oblast." In the waning days of the Soviet Union, Nagorno-Karabakh saw an opportunity to secede from Azerbaijan and join Armenia. Azerbaijan, first as a Soviet republic and a few years later as an independent country, did not recognize Nagorno-Karabakh's demands to secede, and Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Nagorno-Karabakh have been frozen in conflict, with occasional bursts of fighting, ever since. Nagorno-Karabakh's territorial claims vary, but this map shows the borders as inherited from the Soviet Union: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b4/Location_Nagorno-Karabakh2.png/375px-Location_Nagorno-Karabakh2.png

Did physical geography, including terrain and biogeography, influence early human brain development? New research suggests that yes, it did:

"'The basic idea is that open spaces—open grassland, flat plains—are just speed games, favoring the predator, since they are larger," [Northwestern University neuroscientist and engineer Malcolm] MacIver told Ars. 'Closed spaces—dense forests or jungles—favor simple strategies of running for cover. Using a complexity measure, we show both of these habitats have low complexity.' ... The complexity 'sweet spot,' according to MacIver, is a landscape like the one featured in The Hobbit chase scene, or like Botswana'a Okavango Delta, both of which feature an open grassland and moss zones dotted with clumps of trees and similar foliage. 'In this zone, neither speed games nor running for cover maximizes survival rate,' said MacIver. 'But planning—by which I mean imagining future paths and picking the best based on what you think your adversary will do—gives you a considerable advantage.' And that planning requires the kind of advanced neural circuitry typical of the human brain. MacIver and his Northwestern colleague and co-author, Ugurcan Mugan, performed numerous supercomputer simulations, which revealed that while seeing farther (MacIver's original theory) is needed for advance planning to emerge evolutionarily, it is not sufficient by itself. Rather, it requires a combination of long-range vision and complex landscapes. This, in turn, may have led to the development of one of the most difficult cognitive operations: envisioning the future. ... [I]n the simple water and land simulations, the prey showed low survival rates regardless of which strategy it employed, demonstrating that there was no evolutionary benefit to being able to plan in environments that are very open or too densely packed. In the former, the best bet is to try and outrun the predator; in the latter, there are too few clearly available paths, and the densely packed environment hinders how far the prey can see. But a patchy landscape in the Goldilocks zone of complexity showed a huge increase in survival rates for prey that relied on the planning strategy, compared to the habit-based approach."
arstechnica.com/science/2020/07/how-the-geometry-of-ancient-habitats-may-have-influenced-human-brain-evolution

In a ruling that surprised many earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Oklahoma statehood in 1907 did not abrogate the U.S. government's treaty from the 1830s with the Muscogee (Creek) Indians that promised the tribe a chunk of eastern Oklahoma, including land that today includes parts of Tulsa, Oklahoma's second-largest city. The ruling also provides precedent for land allotted to the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole tribes, which collectively, as this map from The Wall Street Journal shows, may be entitled to more than half of Oklahoma. (from www.wsj.com/articles/american-indian-lands-include-eastern-oklahoma-supreme-court-rules-11594304003)