Toward human phylogenetic intuitions

100 years ago a science based physical anthropology offered up very little as to a systematics of mankind beyond what you could intuit from visual assessments of phenotypic similarity alone. Instead, there were fantastical taxonomies which had little basis in the true pattern of variation and more in the nationalistic debates of that period. The Nordic, Mediterranean, and Alpine trichotomy of the European peoples had only marginally more concrete reality than the division between the Vanyar, Noldor, and Teleri. We don't live in such a fantastic age. Much of the mystery, and so potential for mischief, is gone. The "post-genomic" era means that old questions only vaguely perceived in the past are now well resolved. Quite often readers will ask a question as to the phylogenetic relationship between population A & B. If I don't know off the top of my head, which is the norm, I'll go to the ...