Cultural Genomics and the Changing Dynamics of Cultural Identity

This monograph presents a new discipline-cultural genomics-as a complex approach for studying the interrelation between genomic data and culture and the impact of culture on genomic evolution in human history. It analyzes three basic components of cultural genomics-archaeology, genealogy, and genomics. The author explores the classifications of archaeology and genealogy as traditional disciplines and tests their peculiarities against the limitations and delimitations of genomics to resolve the problems of human origin and historical demography. The main thesis in the book is that cultural genomics as a complex discipline has been changing the dynamics of exploring the human cultural identity in revolutionary ways and the problems of personal origin and lineage. Additionally, this book analyzes the evolution of human civilization and its requirement for close integration of genomics, archaeology, genetic genealogy, traditional genealogy, and other related social and cultural disciplines.Cultural identity is the basic constructor of the progress of human civilization. Cultural genomics allows researchers to personalize human history and embed new parameters of identity from the perspective of origin. However, the success of the scholarly results depends on how well genomics is blended with related branches of the science of humanity to produce quality results. Many topics of cultural identity still dwell only in the domain of traditional archaeology and genealogy, although genomics has expanded the opportunity to learn not only how cultural identity evolved, but also to create platforms of global networks of interrelatedness that have no analogies in the previous human scholarly experience.The innovative scholarly problems that the author addresses and the general attempt to constitute cultural genomics as a leading complex discipline of human cultural identity in the 21st century connect the book to the interests of the global scholarly community and all who are interested in cultural identity, genomic archaeology, genetic genealogy, and human origin as well as the evolution of human civilization. The author of this study, Dr. Lolita Nikolova, is a globally renowned scientist who has conducted an in-depth and complex original research; she uniquely combines expertise in the fields of prehistoric archaeology, genealogy, and cultural genomics.