The history of entrepreneurship: Medieval origins of a modern phenomenon

The origins of enterprise are often associated with the Industrial Revolution, but this article presents evidence of entrepreneurial activities from a much earlier date – the medieval period. Between 1250 and 1500 the church, merchants and members of the royal court all engaged in activities that demonstrated the entrepreneurial characteristics of innovation, risk-taking and judgement. The activities of the prior of Tynemouth and the career of the wool merchant William de la Pole illustrate these developments. By focusing on individuals rather than firms, it is possible to push back the study of entrepreneurship beyond the Industrial Revolution and early-modern trade to a period that witnessed the origins of the modern state.

Khoisan hunter-gatherers have been the largest population throughout most of modern-human demographic history

The Khoisan people from Southern Africa maintained ancient lifestyles as hunter-gatherers or pastoralists up to modern times, though little else is known about their early history. Here we infer early demographic histories of modern humans using whole-genome sequences of five Khoisan individuals and one Bantu speaker. Comparison with a 420 K SNP data set from worldwide individuals demonstrates that two of the Khoisan genomes from the Ju/'hoansi population contain exclusive Khoisan ancestry. Coalescent analysis shows that the Khoisan and their ancestors have been the largest populations since their split with the non-Khoisan population similar to 100-150 kyr ago. In contrast, the ancestors of the non-Khoisan groups, including Bantu-speakers and non-Africans, experienced population declines after the split and lost more than half of their genetic diversity. Paleoclimate records indicate that the precipitation in southern Africa increased similar to 80-100 kyr ago while west-central Africa became drier. We hypothesize that these climate differences might be related to the divergent-ancient histories among human populations.

A history of the Jews in modern times

by Max Raisin