Recently, I gave a lecture in  UCLA on the challenges and opportunities in using genetic data to make historical inferences.  The campus of UCLA, by the way, is one of the most beautiful I have ever been.  The lecture was a part of DNA and History seminar series.  It was really nice to see very pronounced efforts to create a multidisciplinary theorotical framework for more nuanced studies of molecular/genetic anthropology.

My talk was constructed on three arguments: (1) The intersection of genetics and history is complex and counter-intuitive in most of the cases, (2) the temporal scale of the sample collection is one of the most important factors in accurately answering the study question; and finally (3) one way to avoid complexities is to conduct very focused, ethnohistorically contextualized studies.  For this last argument, of course I used Anatolian work as an example.

The podcast of this lecture is available.  Please send me an e-mail if you want to watch it, so that I can provide you the necessary information.