europe

Razib discusses the genetics of Pleistocene Europeans with Cosimo Posth. https://insitome.libsyn.com/the-genetic-history-of-ice-age-europe

Travelling in different countries I couldn't help but notice that the brands of cars on the road can vary quite a bit. Obviously people tend to buy more cars from their own country, either for patriotic reasons or because the marketing is better, the cars are designed in accordance with the...

A new survey by the Pew Research Center analyses the percentages of practising and non-practising Christians and unaffiliated people across West European countries. Here are a few infographics to illustrate the findings. The Benelux and Nordic countries have the least practising Christians...

I have noticed that the price of car rentals can vary quite a bit between countries and interestingly the GDP per capita or general cost of life does not correlate at all with the price of car rentals. I have used the site CarRentals.com to compare prices in major European cities and capitals...

I noticed that there was no good map covering all countries with serious data, so I made one. This map was made based on the combined data from Wikipedia, Worlddata.info, a study by Grasgruber et al. (2016) (for the Middle East and North Africa), Diggita (for Italian regions) and Destatis (for...

In another thread, I was explaining how, for many Northwest Europeans, the decision to get married or live under a civil union or domestic partnership was often simply motivated by the desire to have a wedding party (still a dream for many women, regardless of their religiosity). I was...

I have made a map showing the average time spent watching TV (in minutes) in and around Europe. The data for this map comes from Statista (for Europe), Zenith OptiMedia (for the Middle East) and Ipsos (for Lebanon only). For the sake of comparison, Americans spend 270 minutes per day in front...

The new World Happiness Report 2018 was published last week. 156 countries were surveyed. The ranking includes a number of factors such as y: GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and perceptions of corruption. Generosity is based on...

An interactive chart by The Economist shows the relation between life expectancy, GDP per capita, and the proportion of elderly people living in good health. The results are somewhat surprising. While the French, Swiss, Italians and Spaniards live the longest, the graph shows that relatively...

I read if Catalonia were to proclaim independence unilaterally in the next few days without the approbation of Madrid, Catalonia would not automatically become a member of the European Union. The logic is that if it splits from a member state of the EU, it would need to re-apply for EU...

In 2013 Mastercard release a report called Cashless Journey, analysing the percentage of cashless transactions as a share of the total value of consumer payments in 33 countries. Here is the ranking. Belgium : 93% France : 92% Canada : 90% United Kingdom : 89% Sweden : 89% Australia : 86%...

Is there anyone until now who has proposed that the steppe people were indo-europeanized by the Cucuteni-trypilian culture before they entered Europe? That would sure explain why the balkans doesn't have as much steppe input as northern europe, and why the balkans seem to have older branches of...

I have been making socio-economic maps for several years. Here is the latest addition. I have calculated the average unemployment rates for the 12-year period 2004-2015. Unemployment rates change all the time and it is only useful to compare the economic health of countries based on data...

I have hypothesised for several years that the wave of Neolithic farmers who came from the southern Levant through North Africa brought a quite different set of haplogroups and autosomal admixture than the Anatolian farmers that colonised the Balkans and Central Europe. There is ample...

Should Armenia be considered Middle East? Poll! Armenia has historic ties to the Persian, Roman, and Greek empires. Armenia has cultural similarities to other Caucasus nations, such as Georgians and Azeris. Armenians resemble other Caucasus people, such as Georgians and Azeris. Armenia is a...

I had not made any new archaeological maps for 6 years. Yet there are still periods that weren't covered, including that particularly interesting one that saw the emergence of the Khvalynsk culture, which may well have been the first PIE culture in the Steppe, before Sredny Stog and Yamna. That...

Denmark Czech Republic Austria Cyprus Italy Ireland Netherlands Hungary France Greece Germany

Denmark Czech Republic Austria Cyprus Italy Ireland Netherlands Hungary France Greece

Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. All these 4 countries speak German as their first and official language. they are bordering each other. They once used to be one country, yet they are divided. Always thought about that..

The original Celts came from central Europe. However modern central Europeans (Swiss and Austrians) don't look phenotypically Celtic in the modern interpretation (Irish, welsh). Were the original Celts closer in appearance and genes to the Irish (pale, freckles, red hair) or closer to the Swiss...