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Tired of relying on unlikely TRMCA esimates by others, I decided to take a look at human Y-DNA structure on my own. Unlike with mtDNA, which is relatively asy to study in full, the Y chromosome is very large and, with very few exceptions, it has never been studied in such lenghts. Instead geneticists have been gradually adding SNPs to their collections and that way perfecting our understanding of human paternal genalogy.
But the different branches are very unequally studied. Some like Western European R1b are very well studied (partly via private genealogy companies) and we can presume that we know already most of the SNPs that exist in that line. In comparison others are barely sketched.
This uneven reality of knowledge makes very difficult to compare the different lineages as I did with mtDNA using SNPs (see here, here and here). So I did the following: using the YSOGG data, took a reference lineage (the longest one from root to tip: R1b1b2a1a4a, 104 known SNPs from "Adam") and took also sample lineages in each of the other branches (always the longest apparent line within each). With simple maths I determined the "informative value" of each SNP in those lineages (always in comparison to the reference) and then calculated the equivalent value of the lineal sequences of SNPs at the root of each branch.
The resulting chart is as follows:
Of course, there is some uncertainty, greater for branches that are very badly studied, like C or H, whcih could well be older than they appear here. But the result is at least pretty much illustrative of how things might have been. There is also great uncertainty regarding what exactly "recent past" means. I assume that it means at least two extra reference SNPs, maybe more, as these had no real time to expand and must be restricted to private lineages. Any clade that is widespread enough as to be sampled more than once (i.e. non-private) is probably a founder effect from some time ago: it did not spread this century or even this milennium certainly. Whatever the case, I did some afterwork on the raw diagram, trying to find out some logical timelines. I ended with the following:
This is by no means definitive: some fine tuning may generate much improved estimates, but it does give a rather consistent overall scheme of how things might have been. It was only natural to place Toba catastrophe where it is, just before the great expansion at rapidly succeeding nodes: F, IJK, K and PNO, as well (with some uncertainty) C. But also after the DE and CF nodes. There is archaeological evidence of the presence of H. sapiens in Eurasia before Toba and of continuity in South Asia, so moving the Toba timeline to before the CF node makes no sense to me. It was just very convenient (and also natural) to assign 1000 years per reference mutation along the R1b line, so I did. Analyzing the intrepretation a little bit:
1. R1b
R1b may be than 20,000 years BP (the R1b apparent node falls exactly in the 21 kya line and the R1 node is at the 23 kya line), what is more coincident with Solutrean than Magdalenian. But the most common subclade R1b1b2a (and notice that the other subclades' position is unclear) appears diversified as recently as c. 5000 BCE. At that date Europe was like this and even if we stretch the timeline a little (map), we can only attribute this homogenity within R1b safely to the post-Magdalenian Epipaleolithic context (Tardenoisian especially). So it is possible that most modern European R1b (R1b1b2a) only consolidated in Epipaleolithic times and may have a more northernly origin than the Basque Country (France-Belgium-Rhineland). It might also be Neolthic but it's extremely difficult to find a single Neolithic source for that.
R1b is not just present in Europe and West Asia but it's also frequent in Africa and Central Asia. The latter is mostly R1b1b1, while the (ill-studied) African one falls within two categories: Euro-like R1b1b2a and exotic R1b*. Egyptian R1b is evenly divided in these two categories while Ouldeme R1b appears to be R1b* (some distinct subclade, not yet categorized) in its totality. If the current understanding of non-European R1b is correct (it may be not), then the overall expansion of R1b may have happened c. 20,000 years ago, maybe in connection with Solutrean and related cultures like Iberomaurusian (Oranian), while the "European" R1b instead would have expanded closer to the Epipaleolithic/Neolithic timeline, it seems.
2. R1a
The node shown (c. 18,000 years ago) represents the earliest bifurcation, which surely happened in South or Central Asia. It does not represent the R1a1a main subclade, which expanded much later with all likehood.
3. R2
We know nothing yet of the substructure of R2 but from the estimates it seems it diverged from R1 c. 32,000 years ago, deep in the Paleolithic.
4. Q
The divergence of R and Q appears even older, c. 42,000 years ago, before most of Europe was colonized by h. sapiens.
5. NO
It's been recently discovered that NO and P share one basal mutation. Still their split falls wholly in the main period of K branching out, that, according to my estimates is earlier than 60,000 BP. I will try to adress NO substructure and internal timeline in the future.
6. K
The K multifurcation appears to represent the main Eurasian expansion better than anything else. It may have happened some 63,000 years ago. Some of the branches (L, T) may have gone by very long coalescence periods, while others expanded soon after the K node instead.
7. IJ
Another recently discovered connecion is that of IJK. IJ separated from K not long before the main K divergence and not long after the main F multifurcation. I and J appear to have split c. 50,000 years ago, maybe in connection with the earliest European colonists in Bulgaria. I will try to adress IJ internal structure and possible timeline in the future.
8. F
F may have been the first lineage to diverge after Toba. If H and G actually hang from the F node directly, this may have happened somewhere in NW South Asia.
9. C
The estimated timeline for the coalscence of C may be too long. I am rather inclined to think its multifucation happened earlier, closer to the F-K spread. Whatever the case, this clade must have participated in the "main Eurasian expansion" right after Toba.
10. DE
I also promise some greater insight in the internal structure of this macro-clade (soon to comeTM). Like in the case of C, the main bifurcation node may be missdated a little too late anyhow.
11. B
It's very curious how this African lineage appears to have an expansion time that parallels that of F-K, right after Toba. This catastrophe surely also affected Africa and may have caused some major alterations and opportuities. Of course, as B is only poorly understood, it may be just an illusion.
12. A
The oldest distinct human lineage would seem to have expanded in a parallel timeline to that of the out-of-Africa epysode. Probably there were favorable climatic conditions in that window, helping everybody.
Enjoy.
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119 comments:
First off, thanks for doing all that work.
"R1b may be than 20,000 years BP ... what is more coincident with Solutrean than Magdalenian".
Therefore, while R1b may derive from, and have come in with, the Gravettian it must have eventually replaced other Gravettian lines while leaving many other genes intact. Thus demonstrating that replacement of haplogrouops is possible. Exactly what I have been arguing all along.
I'd be very interested to read any comment Dienekes might care to make regarding your timeline. I hope he gets to see it. I don't have a problem with your timeline at all although I think the current general feeling is that it would be too long.
So now I hope you can atleast entertain the idea that my opinion that most of R1b in Europe (including Basque) is a Neolithic phenomenon (as well as other points, Ainu, urignacian, Botai, etc.) wasn't out of "Sinocentrism" or mean-spiritedness towards you, Basques, or the Man/Whitie.
Perhaps I was impatient with you at times because you argued with me before checking out the findings.
@Terry:
Therefore, while R1b may derive from, and have come in with, the Gravettian it must have eventually replaced other Gravettian lines while leaving many other genes intact.
Well, first, this is not any exact science: just an estimate. My estimate but an estimate anyhow. If my estimate is wrong for this or that, the split between R1b and R1a could well fit withing Gravettian (it's a matter of "only" 5000 years or so).
Second, the Paleolithic had low enough population densities to allow such drift phenomenons to happen.
If you push the whole charter back some 5000 years, it fits perfectly with R1b expanding with Gravettian and R1b1b2a expanding with Magdalenian. But I don't want to force things.
This is in any case a very preliminary study.
...
@Ren:
So now I hope you can atleast entertain the idea that my opinion that most of R1b in Europe (including Basque) is a Neolithic phenomenon (as well as other points, Ainu, urignacian, Botai, etc.) wasn't out of "Sinocentrism" or mean-spiritedness towards you, Basques, or the Man/Whitie.
I have never had a prblem with you for having different opinions, Ren. You just failed once and again to provide evidence to back them up.
I was not the only one upset at you because of how you manipulated active topics to fit your line of thought, or how you disregarded alternative opinions with a brush stroke. You have a problem of authoritarism: you don't seem able to step down from your concepts and discuss horizontally with others.
It is ironical that it is me and my own work which is now apparently providing some arguments for your long-sustained opinions. It is ironical because you are so arrogant and lazy that you have failed to provide such indications a zillion times.
Your style is to dismiss others' arguments without even taking the bother of proving your point. You cannot win an argument, but, if the reason is on yor side, you can surely persuade the others with due pedagogy.
Instead you prefer to just annoy them.
Anyhow neither the timeline nor the known archaeology suggest it's "Neolithic". What they do suggest is that Epipaleolithic flows (epi-Magdalenian) may have got a much stronger effect in Y-DNA lineages than I used to think.
There is no known Neolithic possible source for R1b. Even if it had an Anatolian origin, there's no way to explain its massive distribution in Western Europe from that or any other origin. There was never an "Atlantic Neolithic" that could explain such hypothetical founder effect from Spain to Norway.
You have to provide a plausible scenario if you want to be taken seriously.
But 8000 years ago, Tardenoisian-related cultures were expanding. That may be a reasonable explanation, if the late date for R1b1b2a spread can be confirmed.
Also, for a fine tuning of this draft (or whichever other), it's convenient to compare with climatic data.
This data suggests that the main windows of warmer climate were:
1. c. 105,000 BP (OoA?)
2. c. 95,000 BP
3. c. 85,000 BP
4. c. 78,000 BP
5. c. 73,000 BP (just after Toba)
6. c. 59-50,000 BP
etc.
I won't certainly be satisfied until both graphs fit reasonably.
The evidence for a Neolithic origin of most of R1b in Europe has been mounting for years, and you just recently discovered this? Is it me failing to provide evidence or is it you failing to listen?
I see terryt is interested in this topic. Have him visit my forum, check out the topics, and make a fair judgment about your accusations.
The evidence for a Neolithic origin of most of R1b in Europe has been mounting for years...
No. Only some TRMCA estimates, and those are just meaningless speculations.
Most papers on the issue have always suggested a Magdalenian origin. The structure of R1b out of R1b1b2a is incredibly unknown: at the moment, we don't know where R1b1a and R1b1c stand within the haplogroup strucure and we know nearly nothing of African R1b*.
What we know is that R1b1b2a has a starlike structure, with very few and numerically limited sublineages. We know therefore that the haplogroup expanded suddenly in some sort of demographic explosion. Neolithic fails to explain that certainly: the haplogroup distribution follows no "Neolithic" pattern whatsoever and what we know about Neolihic migrations don't support at all the idea of demic replacement. Furthermore, as I have stated repeatedly, it's extremely odd that no pre-Neolithic clade remains, even if at minority levels, moreso when pre-Neolithic and Neolithic mtDNA, where known, is so similar.
So talking about a "Neolithic" origin for R1b1b2a raises more questions than provides answers.
Now, if you're willing to consider an Epipaleolithic origin, I am willing to consider it. The difference in time between Tardenoisian and the arrival of earliest Neolithic carriers to Western Europe is small but Tardenoisian could make much more sense, as it is directly related to the colonization of Northern Europe and also had a strong impact in SW Europe as well.
Maju said,
"Most papers on the issue have always suggested a Magdalenian origin."
Most papers are ages behind the actual findings, and their dating techniques are flawed to begin with.
Plus, your argument misses the mark, as it argues against things I didn't propose.
For example, I wasn't claiming R1b as a whole is Neolithic. What I was saying was that most R1b in Europe seems like a result of a Neolithic expansion from Eastern Europe, just as the "Tocharian" R1b1b1 (the sister of your R1b1b2) in Uighurs seems like a relic of an early IE expansion that was pre-Iranic R1a.
Most papers are ages behind the actual findings, and their dating techniques are flawed to begin with.
All dating techniques seem flawed to me. Anything the does not make sense with our (quite good) knowledge of European prehistory is flawed. You can make all equations you want but if the result is that 2+2=5, then it's wrong.
... most R1b in Europe seems like a result of a Neolithic expansion from Eastern Europe...
There's nearly no R1b in Eastern Europe. But there are significative ammounts in West Asia, NE Africa and even Cameroon. When looking for the ultimate source of R1b outside Europe, I find only obvious to look at West Asia, in particular Anatolia, that might link with Africa, Central and South Asia (not just in connection with exotic branches of R1b but also with other R).
... just as the "Tocharian" R1b1b1 (the sister of your R1b1b2) in Uighurs seems like a relic of an early IE expansion that was pre-Iranic R1a.
Well it happens that the "Tocharian" R1b1b1 is actually SE European and West Asian as well. We have no idea how it ended in Uyghuristan but probably was a founder effect, as this region was with all likehood first populated by Tocharians of all peoples.
But you can't just point to this, you can't ignore that there's a lot of R1b in Africa, from Sudan to Senegal and it's still ill studied (Ouldeme R1b now partly falls within R1b1c and the rest remains unclassified, Upper Egyptian R1b is half the R1b1b2 and half R1b* and probably the even more frequent Sudanese R1b will follow the same pattern).
But in the end we have a subclade, R1b1b2a, that is almost exclusively West European (most SE European and West Asian R1b falls in other clades: R1b1b1, R1b1b* and R1b1b2*) and that shows a dramatic starlike structure, a clear sign of a demic explossion. Also you have no other possible remnants of Paleolithic peoples in the Y-DNA side, while the mtDNA is instead 90% Paleolithic. R1b starlike explosion (and largely its worldwide distribution) resembles way too much that of mtDNA H, which we know positively by now that expanded in Gravettian times. So wouldn't be for the Magdalenian model and the reluctance of molecular clock hypothesis fanatics, I would be totally persuaded that R1b is Gravettian and that it expanded to Africa with Iberomaurusian and that later it became fixated in R1b1b2a because of the hardships of the LGM.
But I am not sure. Instead you are so terribly sure that Dienekes' speculations on Y-DNA MCH estimates demonstrate anything (they don't and I have debunked them several times now, just by contrasting with actual Prehistorical patterns) and that a weird founder effect in Turkestan, (only distantly related with R1b1b2a, the same that Central Asian H is only somewhat related with West European H) holds the ultimate magical "Neolithic" explanation to life, the universe and everything else, that you won't even bother double-checking your "facts".
Ok, I know you are persuaded that Humankind is Neolithic. A friend of mine was "persuaded" (or so he said) that it was all invented in 1968, just before our birthday. That neither Napoleon nor Hitler, much less Caesar or Tutankhamon, ever existed...
Well, at least he was funny and thought-provoking. You are neither. He raised questions, you hold the "answers".
Here is my most serious advise: think again. Even if you'd be right (you never know), your "model" has way too many holes and too little supporting surface as to float at all.
The problem is that there are two approaches:
1. Known the local history and prehistory, check the DNA facts (modern distribution and whatever we know on aDNA) and then also, why not?, take the TRMCA estimates as the erudite guess they are. With all that try to reconstruct plausible scenarios.
2. Take the TRMCA guesses as "God's Word" and try to force the rest to fit them .
I follow the first method, you and many others the latter. IMNSHO your method is pseudoscientific, as it gives much more weight to sepculative hunches than to well demonstrated facts.
Maju, try to stay on topic. It makes it hard for me and others to reply or follow when you don't do so, and it's the reason why I had to spit or combine many of your posts at Quetzalcoatl.
I meant "Eastern Europe" to include Anatolia and SE Europe. Remember that my orignal point was that R1b in western Europe could be a result of a Neolithic expansion from Anatolia.
The R1b1b1 in SE Europe and Anatolia is possibly a result of a Turkic expansion, or even an early Hittite expansion that pre-dates the later IE expansion, as both Tocharian and Hittite don't Share the word for "wheel" with the rest of IE languages. Otherwise, it's hard to explain why the lineage didn't establish itself in Europe along with other European lineages that came from Anatolia.
Maju, try to stay on topic. It makes it hard for me and others to reply or follow when you don't do so, and it's the reason why I had to spit or combine many of your posts at Quetzalcoatl.
Well, wether you are right or not, this is my home and I do as I please. And no one can split anything, thanks Goddess!
I meant "Eastern Europe" to include Anatolia and SE Europe.
You should be more clear and specific: normally "Eastern Europe" refers to the former USSR (european part) and Finland (i.e. the continental Europe, east of the Kalinigrad-Danube Delta "isthmus") sometimes it includes all the former Soviet Bloc (as geopolitical or economical concept) but it's the first time ever I read that Turkey is in "Eastern Europe".
Remember that my orignal point was that R1b in western Europe could be a result of a Neolithic expansion from Anatolia.
I'd had to go back on the discussion but point taken: when Ren says "Eastern Europe" he means Turkey.
The R1b1b1 in SE Europe and Anatolia is possibly a result of a Turkic expansion
All Turkic peoples in that area arrived from Central Asia or Eastern Europe (Russia, not Turkey!). Their influence is surely very hard to pick apart from that of earlier Indoeuropeans. Compared with these, their influence was very limited.
or even an early Hittite expansion that pre-dates the later IE expansion
There's no such thing. Hittites arrived to Anatolia, probably from the Caucasus region, in the late 3r milennium BCE. They never touched the Balcans. Inversely Balcanic peoples did invade and colonize Anatolia in the Iron Age (Phrygians, derived from Thracians, and of which Armenians are surely derived, and Greeks).
The plausible Anatolian influence in the Balcans is circunscribed mostly to the Neolithic period. And, even then, the main core of Balcanic Neolithic was apparently in Europe (Thessaly as far as we can tell) and the links with Anatolia, while surely real, are not particularly strong (and, as E-V13 shows, subject to marked founder effects).
Anatolia still had some cultural influence in the Bronze Age (that spread into Europe from Troy, and then from the Balcans) but, excepted anomalous epysodes as the Etruscan genesis, their demic influence in Europe (Balcans included) at that late stage was limited.
... as both Tocharian and Hittite don't Share the word for "wheel" with the rest of IE languages.
That's an interesting info for philological speculation excercises, thanks. Still you can tell me what relation there is between "wheel" (English) and "rueda" (Spanish), for example. These two languages are closely related within the IE tree (Western IE) and obviously diverged long after IEs knew of the wheel. Obviously English words like "rotate" are cognates of "rueda" but they are also clear Romance loanwords.
What do I mean? That you can hardly built theories on such items and that lexical comparison is a weak tool for anything. I am also persuaded that languages do not evolve at any regular pace: that they do mostly by innovative pulses and that these pulses are normally associated to "foreign" influence into them, be it substrate (creolization) or superstrate (loanwords, like the 40% French vocabulary in English). Sometimes nevertheless they can only be linked to internal "modernization" dynamics: European Spanish is surely evolving in some aspects faster than American dialects in fact.
Such complex linguistic evolution cannot be captured by any simple lexical comparison. But of course people can try to use such speculative explorations to promote their agendas - we can't help it.
Otherwise, it's hard to explain why the lineage didn't establish itself in Europe along with other European lineages that came from Anatolia.
What lineage? R1b1b(xR1b1b2a)? I assume you're talking of this.
First, it's not clear that it is a single lineage: it's an "asterisk" clade: a paraphiletic group.
Second, it shows about the same patterns that other Neolithic clades of Asian origin: E-V13 and J2 especially: strong Balcanic presence, extended to southern Italy, and a more diffuse one by Central/Eastern Europe and the Western Mediterranean.
If you're talking of R1b1b2a, it doesn't seem to have come from Anatolia as such derived clade: it appears clearly Western in diversity, likely origins and distribution.
Caveat:
I said: The plausible Anatolian influence in the Balcans is circunscribed mostly to the Neolithic period.
Only in "recent" times, of course. Aurigancian arrived to Europe with all likehood from Anatolia. Maybe Gravettian did the same (though this is very unclear).
I meant R1b1b1.
I'll have to stop here and leave many of your points unanswered (for the reasons I stated already), although I have answers for them.
R1b1b1 split from R1b1b2 maybe some 20,000 years ago (just another hunch - not to take too seriously). It is found mixed with R1b1b2a*, and surely with the rarer R1b1a, in West Asia and SE Europe. For me it's obvious that it must have a West Asian origin, like R1b (or R1b1) taken as a whole.
I am fairly convinced you are correct with the idea that Y-hap R came into Europe during the Gravettian and expanded greatly during the Solutrian and/or Magdalenian. However that leaves the mystery of what happened to Aurignacian haplogroups. Replaced? Depends on whether any Aurignacian aDNA survives. I'd be prepared to bet that it does.
"It's been recently discovered that NO and P share one basal mutation".
I've noticed that too. Most interesting. I've accepted for a long time that Q and R must have moved north from Northern India (Pakistan probably), either with P or after the mutations that formed them. The newly discovered connection would suggest that NO was part of this movement too. Therefore: NO must have moved east through Central Asia. Or, if P moved north along the East Asian coast, P would be the haplogroup that moved through Central Asia, west. Consequently one or other of these groups must have been capable of such a migration. Why not C? not to mention mtDNA haplogroup N?
"I see terryt is interested in this topic. Have him visit my forum, check out the topics, and make a fair judgment about your accusations".
Any particular topic you'd recommend I look at, Ren?
I am fairly convinced you are correct with the idea that Y-hap R came into Europe during the Gravettian and expanded greatly during the Solutrian and/or Magdalenian. However that leaves the mystery of what happened to Aurignacian haplogroups. Replaced?
I can only make sense with that model. However it also seems to require that LGM population in Western Europe was low enough to allow for a massive fixation, replacing not just the Aurignacian lineages but also all other R lineages.
In any case only Paleolithic conditions could allow for such a massive drift happening.
It might be argued for an early Neolithic founder effect but, apart of somehow being extremely hard that all pre-Neolithic lineages would have been rolled over, there is also the problem of the geographic distribution of R1b1b2a1, which does not fit with any cultural process after Paleolithic, except arguably Dolmenism (only in part).
No one who defends the "Neolithic model" seems happy about Dolmenic Megalithism being at the origin, nor satisfies me either. But it is the only realistic Neolithic/Chalcolithic culture that could be related with R1b1b2a1 spread, if this one was Neolithic. If so the timeline would be of c. 3800 BCE to c. 2400 BCE. While Portuguese Megalithism is clearly older, the expansion of the culture by the Atlantic only happened in that window. Since c. 2400 BCE Scandinavia and Central Europe fell to the Indoeuropeans and Megalithism takes a more southern trend, with expansion in the Western Mediterranean.
But Middle/Southern Portugal does not appear as any likely center of R1b1b2a1, nor does Brittany/West France AFAIK. While the Aquitanian center would have at that time only a limited late influence in atlantic France and Belgium (Artenacian).
Depends on whether any Aurignacian aDNA survives. I'd be prepared to bet that it does.
IMO, Aurignacian mtDNA is surely among us (not to mention some "archaic" faces that look like directly from that time). U8a has been claimed to be Aurignacian by the usual TRMCA estimates (U8b/K instead would seems West Asian - or is it Italian?, while an unnamed third subclade is also found only among Basques). Another likely Aurignacian founder effect IMO is U6 (Iberia and North Africa, with hihest diversity in Iberia) and also the much more common U5 is likely to be of that time. But for Y-DNA lineages we can only speculate on the rare "Dutch" F4 (or is it K4?) and things lke that.
NO must have moved east through Central Asia. Or, if P moved north along the East Asian coast, P would be the haplogroup that moved through Central Asia, west.
My impression is that the split of NPO, like that of upstream IJK, are not substantially distinct from that of K itself (and that of F, also very close in time). Overall it suggests a South Asian origin for all four consecutive nodes, IMO, and spread west and east along southern Asia. We have strong indications linking P and R rigins to northern South Asia, while NO origins instead seem to be in SE Asia (or SE China at most).
IMO, assuming a South Asian coalescence for F:
(F* to varied locations)
> F1 to South Asia
> F2 to South Asia
> F3 to ??
> F4 to ??
> H to South Asia
> G to West Asia
>> IJK to South Asia
>>> IJ to West Asia
>>>K to South Asia
>>> (K* to varied locations)
>>>> K1 to South Asia
>>>> K2 to ??
>>>> K3 to Papua
>>>> K4 to ?? (Europe?)
>>>> L to NW South Asia
>>>> M to Papua
>>>> S to Australia
>>>> T to West Asia
>>>> NOP to South Asia
>>>>> NO to SE Asia
>>>>> P to South/Central Asia
etc.
My impression is that all the diversification nodes go in a quick sequence and that such sequence of branchings must have happened soon after the Toba epysode, probably representing spread within South Asia and out of it in both directions, east and west.
Why not C? not to mention mtDNA haplogroup N?
C has a very obvious coastal model distribution: all C subclades are in the eastern "T": South, SE, East Asia and Oceania.
There is nothing suuggesting an steppary route. In fact the distinct depygmentation processes in Eastern and Western Eurasia rather strongly suggest two branches for these two macrorregions, an U shaped dispersal of humans in Asia (with the base of the "U" in South Asia), plus the branch of Oceania and the more derived one of America.
You might speculate on an steppary route for rather rare Y-DNA D but in fact the coastal route is even more plausible, as we know that the Andaman islands, as well as Japan were colonized rather early, while extreme Tibet was not and must represent a "modern" founder effect taken from the East Asian genetic pool.
We do find indications for steppe/tundra migrations only at a later stage, with Y-DNA Q and N, as well as mtDNA X2, CZ and A. This sequence is only logical, considering that early Eurasians would hav naturally avoided such extreme conditions if possible, but also all the available evidence mounts up in favor of a subtropical belt of early population, only expanded norhwards at a second or even third moment, when the densities in subtropical or temperate areas were already surely quite high for the posibilities of the age. It is just the law of decreasing rent: people will naturally prefer the best lands, then the less good ones and only when they have no choice the poor ones. Cold areas were certainly not prime land, much less for peoples naturally adapated to tropical climate.
terryt wrote, "I am fairly convinced you are correct with the idea that Y-hap R came into Europe during the Gravettian and expanded greatly during the Solutrian and/or Magdalenian."
"Any particular topic you'd recommend I look at, Ren?"
In Europe we are actually dealing with R1b1b2, which is unlikely to be Paleolithic in age. As for checking out the forum, now that he's said that he might've falsely accused me, nevermind.
Maju wrote, "We have strong indications linking P and R rigins to northern South Asia, while NO origins instead seem to be in SE Asia (or SE China at most)."
This is based on no evidence. The basal nodes of NO rests in the north, and now seems likely to have come from Central Asia with P, while IJ seems a direct migration into Europe and the Near East.
ALSO, lest that I give the impression that I fully support an Anatolian origin for R1b, I don't. I merely suggested the mere possibility that R1b1b2 might have come through there into Europe. The only thing I'm firm on is that R1b1b2 is not Paleolithic.
This is based on no evidence. The basal nodes of NO rests in the north...
I know it's one of your old ideas but neither P seems from Central Asia clearly nor NO Seems from Mongolia. NO* and N* is only found in the south and along the Pacific coast. O itself seems to have much higher diversity in the south and coasts too. Only O3 could be argued to represent a N>S flow.
N and Q and C3 and R1a to an extent are clades that do show some affinity to the north but their origins are further south.
...while IJ seems a direct migration into Europe and the Near East.
No, no. To West Asia, from where to Europe at a later date (I).
ALSO, lest that I give the impression that I fully support an Anatolian origin for R1b, I don't. I merely suggested the mere possibility that R1b1b2 might have come through there into Europe. The only thing I'm firm on is that R1b1b2 is not Paleolithic.
Yah, if you could support an East Asian origin for it, you would - right?
IMO, Anatolia is a most plausible origin, as all human migrations into the continent (except the late stepparian tribals: IEs and Altaics) have arrived by that route, be it by the inland Balcanic routes or boating along the Mediterranean coasts. It's the natural bridge, together with the Balcans between Europe and West Asia.
I am not sure that R1b1b2 is Paleolithic. It is not marked, but in my draft above the sister clade R1b1b1 would have split near the root of the R1b1 branching, c. 20,000 BP. I call that Paleolithic. Someone else has also arrived to similar conclusions using Zhivotovski's methods.
But the real problem is not when it coalesced into R1b1b2, which could have done at any time in the West Asian mosaic, but when it became R1b1b2a and exploded in Western Europe.
And that seems to have happened in the 13,500-8000 BP window, i.e. in the Magdalenian and post Magdlanenian pre-Neolithic flows.
And here is no alternative anyhow. There's no alternative model, just a fixation of some people on some fancy data (MCH hunches, of course) you have read somewhere and you do not really like to share anyhow.
Some people like you are just persiaded that, as Neolithic was an important epysode, it must have radically changed the geneticlandscape everywhere. Some even think Neolithic is trivial and must be the historical and protohistorical metal age migrations (funny idea to me).
Well, both had an impact but a limited one. This is well attested by both archaeology and genetics - and I'm ready to discuss the details whenever anyone wants to swim into them and stop just throwing generalistic claims with feeble (and unknown) foundations.
Here we go again..
Maju, none of what you said about NO is true, as I've shown you many a time.
As you can imagine, I do not only listen to you.
N* is found in Southern China (30% among the Yizu, 15% among Southern Han), Chinese-Koreans and Japanese.
N1* seems to follow the coastal route pattern, as does the rare NO*.
As for O, SE Asia, including South China, still holds the highest diversity:
· O1 is clearly SE Asian Austronsians, Daic and southern Han.
· O2 is also quite clearly SE Asian, with a coastal route branch extending towards the north (O2b)
· O3 is the only subclade that can be considered maybe "northern" within O. It is still also very common in SE Asia.
For me there very few doubts that NO migrated towards East Asia following the coastal route as a distinct lineage.
Check if you wish my new post on this issue, where I try to refine the timeline and adress some clades not considered here like NO, IJ, DE and C.
Maju, it's not what I say but the facts (if you ever bother to actually find the papers, read them, and remember), as I had already cited to you previously many a time. Your statements are actually the none-facts here. Instead of wasting my time citing everything again, and again, I can tell you to believe whatever you like, and you can tell me that it's my arrogance.
No: I don't bother to "find the papers" for which I have not even a reference, much less a hot link.
I don't have to believe you and we'll see what are those "papers" you talk about but never cite properly when you begin referencing your claims.
I don't expect anything but a mere MC hunch which is as valid as toilet paper.
tenMaju, I've cited papers to you repeatedly, but it hasn't stopped you from ignoring them. Just to give an example:
You wrote, "NO* and N* is only found in the south and along the Pacific coast."
It's actually your responsibility to cite your claims, because I've only commented on your claims. SO, where are your sources?
In regard to NO*, you can read a paper when it was first discovered (NO* is O*-M214 in the paper):
"Evolution and migration history of the Chinese population
inferred from Chinese Y-chromosome evidence", http://library.ibp.ac.cn/html/slwj/000222645600001.pdf
SO, where are your sources?
Hammer et al., 2005.
It is ironical that is mr-know-it-all-I'm-too-busy-to-waste-time-discussing-the-facts-so-accept-my-word-as-truth (aka the God of Genetics and everything else) who asks. You know perfectly (or you should) that NO* and N* are frequent in SE Asia and that O is more diverse in that area (O1, O2 and O3: all are represented aboundantly).
In regard to NO*, you can read a paper when it was first discovered (NO* is O*-M214 in the paper):
"Evolution and migration history of the Chinese population
inferred from Chinese Y-chromosome evidence", http://library.ibp.ac.cn/html/slwj/000222645600001.pdf
Well: they have only 5 "O*" (they did not even know it was NO* then, it seems). This data has been overriden by later studies ovbiously.
In the above mentioned paper, Hammer and Karafet detect 4/663 NO* in SE Asia, 2/441 in NE Asia and 2/419 in Central Asia. The figures for Japan are much higher but this may be a sample bias (from memory).
But more interestingly they also detect significatively higher numbers of N1* and even N1c1 in SE Asia than elsewhere.
Similarly: O1*, O1a*, O1a2, O2*, O2a1 and O3* all are better represented in SE Asia than elsewhere.
There are other studies and you know (or should know) them better than I do. The evidence is there but if you prefer to remain blind it's your problem.
Anyhow, I am more and more persuaded that Eurasian human expansion sprang from Southern Asia into west and east directions, and from SE Asia into North and South directions. This seems not just confirmed by mtDNA, Y-DNA and autosomal distribution patterns but also by the distinct depygmentation strategies followed by Eastern and Western Eurasians, which show quite clearly distinct genetic histories.
South Asia acted as both origin and buffer between West and East Eurasia. There have been some flows between these two regions through the steppes and tundra but for the most part we have been separated for about 50 milennia.
And I remind you that when you and I first entered in contact I thought that Eurasian humankind had expanded by the steppes (as you claim now, at least partly) and it was largely you who persuaded me of the opposite: that the subtropical "coastal" route was the real one.
I find quite ironic that we are now discussing this at all. It is not that I am stuck in any preconcieved idea: I have enriched my knowledge a lot and the more I look at the genetic patterns, the more I see a U pattern for the Asian spread (with the corresponding extensions of Oceania, Europe and America).
The problem seems to be that you are obsessed with a "recent" Neolithic origin of all things, while what I see is quite well defined Paleolithic flows, more intense generally early on, and only a limited ammout of Neolithic flow instead.
You have to admit that there were many more opportunities for drift and fixation in a huntergatherer reality and that, instead, the "permanent expansion" of Neolithic and post-Neolithic populations allow for only limited founder effects and nearly zero drift.
Maju, the Hammer paper you cited not only disproves your claims about NO* being found only in SE and coastal Asia, but it actually shows a northern distribution of NO*.
If you'd actually looked at the dataset, the only SE Asian with NO* is a Malaysian man (who could very well be the son of a Chinese man since that country is about 40% Chinese). The other "SE Asians" are the Yi and Southern Chinese, who are (genetically, linguistically, culturally, phenotypically, geographically) rather eastern/northern Asian,
and connect them more with NO found in northern China, Mongolia, and Japan.
NO* in the paper has actually the highest density in Japan, and was also found in northern China and Mongolia.
Now, I've mentioned this stuff to you many times before, not that it'd stop you from repeating your claims again, and again.
I'd aslo like to add that Austronesians are rather a Neolithic phenomenon in Island SE Asia, so using them to prove anything as indigenous to SE Asia is another example of irresponsible and misleading blogging.
4 NO* in SE Asia. Read!
I don't care if you consider China to be an ethnic monolith but for what regards to me (and Hammer) south China and Taiwan are SE Asia or close enough.
You can't use the data from southern China to pretend a Mongolian origin, c'mon!
NO* has a most likely a South Chinese (i.e. SE Asian)origin, what implies that it's derived from some ancestral southern Asian NOP, just one step away from equally southern Asian K.
Absolutely all East Asian mtDNA also seems to have arrived that way: following the coastal route in two likely pulses. I don't know why R and M and N9 arrived to East Asia by the coast and instead you have to claim a most unlikely Central Asian origin for Y-DNA NO, based on just nothing anyhow.
Its sister clade, P is South Asian, every day more evidently: Q, R1 and R2 are all present in South Asia, and in clades that suggest that the origin was not distant, if not inside the subcontinent. But you don't see any NO, other than the one that arrived from SE Asia.
So, if P is South Asian, its sister clade NO must be SE Asian (or South Chinese is you want to go nitty-picky).
In any case, their other sister clades (L, M and most K-number) are also in the southern area. One simple shared SNP does not change things much, moreso when it's precisely the best studied clades which are the ones being linked. What if M is also part of NOP? Or what happens with H? Why is H so much neglected when it can surely give us most valuable clues on the origin of Eurasians?
Anyhow, as stated in the above post and especially in the new revision, the F-IJK-K-NOP sequence of nodes are all in a small window and represent a single diversificative pulse. This pulse could happen in a large area or be restrictied to a region like South Asia - we can't tell for sure. I am inclined to think of the whole southern Asian strip as scenario for this first expansion, but mostly because of M (first clade to apparently expand after this pulse) and because that's also what that mtDNA data seems to be saying.
ren said,
"In regard to NO*, you can read a paper when it was first discovered (NO* is O*-M214 in the paper):
"Evolution and migration history of the Chinese population
inferred from Chinese Y-chromosome evidence", http://library.ibp.ac.cn/html/slwj/000222645600001.pdf"
That is a very poor example, ren. This paper has defined "O*-M214" only as M214+ M175-, which should be known as NO-M214(xO-M175) according to current nomenclature. Thus, it is definitely not haplogroup O, but it might be either NO* or N, and most likely the latter.
Maju said,
"Anyhow, as stated in the above post and especially in the new revision, the F-IJK-K-NOP sequence of nodes are all in a small window and represent a single diversificative pulse."
You have no evidence to support this speculative claim of yours, so I feel free to disagree with it on an equally speculative basis. :)
Here are the data on the distribution of haplogroup NO-M214(xN1-LLY22g, O-M175) from the data of Hammer et al. (2005):
4/70 = 5.7% Tokushima, Japan
2/53 = 3.8% Kyushu, Japan
6/259 = 2.3% "Japan" total (6/210 = 2.9% when Okinawans and Ainu are excluded)
1/44 = 2.3% Northern Han
1/441 = 0.23% "Northeast Asia" total
1/40 = 2.5% Southern Han
1/43 = 2.3% Yizu
1/32 = 3.1% Malay
3/683 = 0.44% "Southeast Asia" total
1/149 = 0.67% Mongolia
1/419 = 0.24% "Central Asia" total
0/496 South Asia
0/209 Oceania
Japan has the highest average frequency of haplogroup NO-M214(xN1-LLY22g, O-M175) among the six regions in this study, which are "Japan" (including Ainu, Yamato, and Okinawa), "Northeast Asia" (including Korea, Northern Han, Manchu, Manchurian Evenk, Buryat, Evenk, Even, and Oroqen), "Southeast Asia" (including non-aboriginal Taiwanese, aboriginal Taiwanese, Southern Han, Tujia, Yizu, Miao, Yao, Zhuang, She, Vietnam, Malay, Philippines, East Indonesia, and West Indonesia), "Central Asia" (including Uygur, Mongolia, Altai, and Tibet), "South Asia" (including India and Sri Lanka), and "Oceania" (including Australian aborigines, Papua New Guinea, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia), whereas Japan has the second-lowest frequency of haplogroup C-RPS4Y among these six regions, after South Asia. The rankings for C-RPS4Y are as follows: 198/441 = 44.90% Northeast Asia (all C3-M217, about half C3-M217(xC3c-M86) and half C3c-M86), Oceania (71/209 = 33.97%), Central Asia (107/419 = 25.54%), Southeast Asia (61/683 = 8.93%; C3-M217(xC3c-M86) is most common, followed closely by C-RPS4Y(xC1-M8, C2-M38, C3-M217), and finally C2-M38(xP33), which is limited to the "Indonesia East" sample), Japan (22/259 = 8.49%, about two thirds of which is C1-M8 and about one third C3-M217), South Asia (13/496 = 2.62%; all C-RPS4Y(xC1-M8, C2-M38, C3-M217)).
You have no evidence to support this speculative claim of yours...
They are all separated by very short sequences of SNPs, within a context that comprises more than 100 SNPs in the best studied lineage (R1b) and not so many less in others also reasonably well studied (like E, NO or IJ).
That is my evidence.
Just compare the 27 SNPs leading to F (from C,F) with the 3 SNPs leading to IJK, the 4 SNPs leading to K and the one (only one!) leading to NOP. There's no practical difference between the K and the NOP nodes, obviously. And not much with the upstream nodes IJK and F.
Japan has the highest average frequency of haplogroup NO-M214(xN1-LLY22g, O-M175) among the six regions in this study...
So you think that NO coalesced in Japan? I suspect this is a sample bias phenomenon, and anyhow probably just mean a local N haplogroup (yet to be defined), generated by a founder effect, but I understand your viewpoint.
Excluding Japan, SE Asia has more NO*, N* and almost more of anything within that haplogroup.
Whatever the case, people had to arrive to Japan from somewhere and there is where the Central Asia ("continental") vs. SE Asia ("coastal") route discussion arises. IMO Japanese N* is not the product of a local developement from NOP but most likely that of a local founder effect after NO had already evolved.
The question is where? In SE Asia (incl. southern China) or in the vast, but cold and empty, Eurasian steppes?
The data may well be said to be inconclusive. Much like with Q, we find N both in the north as in the south. Even if they suceeded particularly in the great north, the evidence suggests that they were also in the south, maybe in the south before some of them migrated to Siberia. I rely also on indirect evidence (like the general pattern that all Eurasian lineages, male or female show) to consider the coastal route as much more likely. Also it seems a plausible origin for the Japanese unusual concetration.
Ebizur wrote, "Thus, it is definitely not haplogroup O, but it might be either NO* or N, and most likely the latter."
Yes, you're right. I didn't notice that.
Maju wrote, "Excluding Japan, SE Asia has more NO*, N* and almost more of anything within that haplogroup."
(The only known N* is actually found in China.)
So the Yi, who originate in the foothills of the Tibetan-Qinghai plateau, and live side-by-side with Tibetans, are grouped with Indonesians to make 1 SE Asian into 3. And then cut away some Japanese to make less NE Asians. And so on...
But there's more when we bring Xue's study of NO* into the picture? NO* in the Duar, Evenki, Hezhe (Nainai?), Hui, Buyi, Yao, Korean, and Japanese.
ren said,
"So the Yi, who originate in the foothills of the Tibetan-Qinghai plateau, and live side-by-side with Tibetans, are grouped with Indonesians to make 1 SE Asian into 3. And then cut away some Japanese to make less NE Asians. And so on..."
The focus of the paper in question was Japan, so it makes perfect sense that they would "cut away" the Japanese samples from the "Northeast Asia" group. Even ignoring that context, I find nothing strange about the authors' decision, since it is obvious that the Y-DNA haplogroup compositions of these two regions ("Japan" and "Northeast Asia") are very different from each other. However, I do agree that lumping the Yi and southern Han together with Malays and Indonesians as opposed to northern Han seems a bit arbitrary, and perhaps motivated by a certain stereotype that is current in academia.
"But there's more when we bring Xue's study of NO* into the picture? NO* in the Duar, Evenki, Hezhe (Nainai?), Hui, Buyi, Yao, Korean, and Japanese."
Yes. Here are the data on NO-M214(xN1-LLY22g, O-M175) from Xue et al. (2006):
1/39 Daur
1/26 Ewenki (from northeastern Inner Mongolia)
1/45 Hezhe (i.e. Nanais who live in NE China)
1/35 Hui (i.e. Chinese Muslims)
0/35 Manchu
0/45 Inner Mongolian
0/31 Oroqen
0/31 Uygur/Urumqi
0/39 Uygur/Yili
0/41 Xibe
0/35 Han/Harbin
0/32 Han/Yili
0/25 Korean/China
2/35 Buyi
0/34 Hani
0/34 Li
0/33 Qiang
0/34 She
0/35 Tibetans
1/35 Yao/Bama(, Guangxi)
0/35 Yao/Liannan(, Guangdong)
0/34 Han/Chengdu
0/30 Han/Lanzhou
0/35 Han/Meixian
1/47 Japanese
1/43 Korean/Korea (i.e. Koreans from South Korea)
0/65 Outer Mongolian
Combining these data with the data from Hammer et al. (2005), one obtains the following:
7/306 = 2.3% Japan (or 7/257 = 2.7% excluding Okinawans and Ainu)
1/143 = 0.7% Korean (only in the South Korean sample of Xue et al. 2006)
2/334 = 0.6% Han (one in the "Northern Han" sample and another in the "Southern Han" sample of Hammer et al. 2005; I have included the non-aboriginal Taiwanese sample of Hammer et al. in the Han total)
1/35 = 2.9% Hui
0/87 Manchu
0/41 Xibe
1/45 = 2.2% Hezhe
1/246 = 0.4% Tungus (1/26 "Ewenki" from northeastern Inner Mongolia of Xue et al., 0/41 "Manchurian Evenk" of Hammer et al., 0/31 "Oroqen" of Xue et al., 0/22 "Oroqen" of Hammer et al., 0/95 "Evenk" from Siberia of Hammer et al., 0/31 "Even" of Hammer et al.)
2/379 = 0.5% Mongolic (including 0/81 "Buryat," 1/149 "Mongolia," 1/39 "Daur," 0/45 "Inner Mongolian," and 0/65 "Outer Mongolian")
0/137 Uygur
0/98 Altai
0/173 Tibetic (0/35 "Tibetans" of Xue et al., 0/105 "Tibet" of Hammer et al., 0/33 "Qiang" of Xue et al.)
0/49 Tujia
1/77 = 1.3% Loloish (1/43 "Yizu" of Hammer et al. and 0/34 "Hani" of Xue et al.)
0/58 Miao
1/130 = 0.8% Yao (only in the "Yao/Bama" sample of Xue et al.)
0/85 She
0/70 Vietnam
2/89 = 2.2% Tai-Kadai (including 2/35 Buyi, 0/34 Li, and 0/20 Zhuang; if the Li are excluded, then 2/55 = 3.6% Zhuang-Buyi/Central Tai)
0/48 Taiwan aborigines
1/160 = 0.6% Southeast Asian Austronesian (1/32 "Malay," 0/48 "Philippines," 0/55 "Indonesia East," 0/25 "Indonesia West")
0/130 Oceanic Austronesian (0/53 "Melanesia," 0/17 "Micronesia," 0/60 "Polynesia")
0/79 Indigenous Oceanian (0/33 "Australian Aboriginal People," 0/46 "Papua NG")
0/496 South Asia (0/405 "India," 0/91 "Sri Lanka")
Let's see: Hammer's study only tested for LLY22g (N1) and not for M231 (N), so we can really know nothing for N* from that study, as it will fall within NO*, which is more frequent in SE Asia than anywhere else except that odd corner of Japan.
You may insist all you want that the SE Asia sample is largely from "China" but I think we can agree that the division of East Asian populations used by Hammer et al. is perfectly reasonable. I.e. we don't give a dime for the modern borders of China or Singapore: we divide East Asia in three/four geographic areas: SE, NE, Central and Japan. This division makes more sense to me than talking of "China", which is a Bronze Age creation at the earliest.
Nobody is excluding "China" (modern borders) from being the possible original homeland of NO, and this does not contradict a SE Asian origin, as both regions overlap significatively. Saying "China" is almost as much as saying "Eastern Eurasia", as it ha about half of its area and about 80% of its population. In many parts of he world, colloquially, saying "Chinese" and "East Asian" are synonimous. Here people of Filipino ancestry or just with partial epicanthic fold are often said "chinese". And, wether it's PC or not, it makes some sense.
It's like saying "Indian" or "South Asian", "Russian" or "Eastern European", you know. Probably Moldovans or Chechens will protest, with reason, that they are not Russian but for the common people of the street it makes no real difference.
Anyhow, if you see that most of the NO* and N1*, excluding a very specific corner of Japan, is in Southern China (i.e. SE Asia), how do you concude it came from Central Asia, via Northern China, Mongolia, etc.?
Sorry, I make no sense of it.
In the other paper mentioned, NO* (I did notice that "O*" can't but be NO* - in these old papers you have to always check the markers) is found mostly in the Tibet area. Does it suggest a Central/Northern Asian origin? Not to me: Tibeto-Burman language family speakers extend, as you say well by the fothills of the Himalayas, right East and North of South Asia, not through the steppes of the far north.
Also, now that I think of it, doesn't NO* and D high frequency both in Japanese and Tibeto-Burmans (and remember Andamanese D*) ring a bell to you? It does to me indeed. I don't get the absolute answer from that info, of course, but makes me think of SE Asia (incl. South China) again. Yah, maybe not a strict "coastal route", maybe they wandered by the SE Asian mountains... who knows? But still south rather than north.
The Northern branch is a derived one, IMO. Once they reached those vast empty freezing lands, those who survived had the opportunity to leave their genetic mark. And they did. This applies to N and to Q (and later to C3), as well as to mtDNA CZ, A and D. You'll probably agree that mtDNA CZ, A and D arrived there via the eastern "coastal" route, right? Then why not N? Q does appear to have followed a distinct western route, yes (probably with some mtDNA X2), but for N and C3 there's no particular indication that they went by the west.
The previous answer was meant for Ren. For Ebizur:
... it is obvious that the Y-DNA haplogroup compositions of these two regions ("Japan" and "Northeast Asia") are very different from each other.
Agree.
On your compilation of the data (very refreshing, thanks), it seems clear that, excluding Japan, the highest apportions are in SE. Not in Indonesia but in the border between China and SE Asian modern states.
The only doubt I have is that you say Tibet has 0% in Xue, when he actually places 3/5 NO* (tagged as "O*") samples in the "Tibet" region, including several Tibeto-Burman groups. I could not find these 3 in your list (one only).
Maju said,
"The only doubt I have is that you say Tibet has 0% in Xue, when he actually places 3/5 NO* (tagged as "O*") samples in the "Tibet" region, including several Tibeto-Burman groups. I could not find these 3 in your list (one only)."
Xue Yali et al. (2006) have not found any NO-M214(xN1-LLY22g, O-M175) Y-chromosomes in their samples of Tibetans (n=35) and Qiang (n=33). Hammer et al. (2005) have also not found any haplogroup NO-M214(xN1-LLY22g, O-M175) in their "Tibet" sample (n=105).
Ren has made an error in regard to the so-called "O*" (which are actually NO-M214(xO-M175)) Y-chromosomes in the new samples of Wei Deng et al., "Evolution and migration history of the Chinese population inferred from Chinese Y-chromosome evidence," Journal of Human Genetics (2004) 49:339–348. In this study, the researchers have found 1/16 = 6.25% NO-M214(xO-M175) in their samples of "North" minorities in the PRC (including Mongolian, Daur, Manchu, Hezhe, Xibo, Korean, and Yugur), 3/20 = 15% in their samples of "Tibet" minorities in the PRC (including Tibetan, Yi, Naxi, Lahu, Hani, Qiang, Primi, Bai, Nu, and Derung), 1/13 = 7.7% in their samples of "West" minorities in the PRC (comprised of Uyghur, Kazak, Kirghiz, Hui, Salar, and Dongxiang), 0/23 in their samples of "South" minorities in the PRC (including Miao, Yao, She, Zhuang, Dong, Bouyei, Shui, Gelao, Tujia, and Va), and 0/4 in their sample of the Han majority. Obviously, the sample sizes of this study are pitifully insufficient, but these data do seem to corroborate the findings of significant amounts of haplogroup N1*-LLY22g in (at least Loloish) Tibeto-Burman populations of southwestern China, represented by the Yi in the data of Hammer et al. (2005) and by the Hani in the data of Xue et al. (2006).
Just trying to understand.
1. NOP is South Asian.
- Is it Pakistan or Assam?
2. P moved from South Asia to Central Asia.
- I guess P originated in Pakistan.
3. NO appeared in SE Asia.
- I guess NO originated in Assam.
- Rest NOP inbetween became extinct in South Asia.
I guess I'm bit prejudiced because of stereotypical historical past. Since known times every migration to was either from Central-West Asia to north-west India or from SE Asia or NW Asia to East India. A pattern almost unchanged until 19th century. But it appears during unknown times it had been other way round in both directions. Somehow, when I see stagnant H and L in India (Can they be younger than NOP?) I think of sticking onto my prejudice.
Ebizur wrote, "The focus of the paper in question was Japan, so it makes perfect sense that they would "cut away" the Japanese samples from the "Northeast Asia" group."
Yes, but I was actually talking about Maju. And NE Asia is very different from itself, for example, Manchu from Korean from Han, so it's still rather arbitrary to make a "NE Asian" category.
Manju, "Just trying to understand.
1. NOP is South Asian.
- Is it Pakistan or Assam?"
Manju, don't take Maju's word for it. Without even getting into the gory details, if NOP originated in South Asia, then there would likely be atleast a sister branch of NO and P in India, and so far we haven't found any.
Maju wrote, "I.e. we don't give a dime for the modern borders of China or Singapore: we divide East Asia in three/four geographic areas: SE, NE, Central and Japan."
Maju, you digress again, as I was not talking about political boundaries. It's an analytical issue. The Yi seem rather part of a wave of people coming from the terminal steppe world of the Qinghai plateau, and the ethnic group itself originate in western(?)Sichuan/northern Yunnan, so even geographically, climatically it's rather central China. The Cantonese (as a language), rather originate from Nanxiong in NE Guangdong in 12th century. At that time, it seems it was a dialect of southern Jiangxi, a fusion dialect old Jiangxi and northern refugees. So, to group the Yi, the Cantonese, and Malaysians (who partially come from Taiwan via the Phillippines) together is pretty comical to any educated, analytical person, of which I hope you consider yourself to be. It's like grouping the Finns, the Roma, and Macedonians or even Greeks to make a eastern European region.
I hesitate to explain to you this stuff because you never bother to regard it anyway (from past experience with you), which is rather discourteous. But now I type it out because Manju and Ebizur reads it.
If it gets confusing, just remember that these places (the Yi and Cantonese place) actually snow sometimes, while you can always wear shorts in Malaysia.
Ebizur wrote, "1/160 = 0.6% Southeast Asian Austronesian (1/32 "Malay," 0/48 "Philippines," 0/55 "Indonesia East," 0/25 "Indonesia West")"
It seems that the Malay NO* is a false positive.
@Manjunat:
Just trying to understand.
1. NOP is South Asian.
- Is it Pakistan or Assam?
2. P moved from South Asia to Central Asia.
- I guess P originated in Pakistan.
3. NO appeared in SE Asia.
- I guess NO originated in Assam.
- Rest NOP inbetween became extinct in South Asia.
We don't have enought data to clarify all that.
I'd say that P may perfectly have evolved in NW South Asia (Pakistan maybe but maybe India or Afghanistan or even Uzbekistan or Iran) We can't be sure and people may have migrated over rather large areas too through the milennia. They had no way to know the future political borders of this day, nor surely they would have cared at all.
I'd say that NO may have evolved anywhere between Bengal and the South China Sea. And therefore I'd say that NOP surely evolbed within northern South Asia (which is a large area, I know).
Ren instead contends that NOP evolved in Central Asia, maybe as far north as Altai (I know he has a weakness for Paleolithic Altai) and P and NO are derived branches from that Altaian early UP: one to the west and another to the east.
...
@Ebizur:
Xue Yali et al. (2006) have not found any NO-M214(xN1-LLY22g, O-M175) Y-chromosomes in their samples of Tibetans...
My bad. I was confusing papers. I was thinking of Wei Deng et al, 2003, who do mention 3 "O*" (meaning NO* by the current nomenclature) in 3 people of Tibeto-Burman ethnicity (3 out of 5 NO* in their total sample). Haven't checked Xue Yali as of yet.
...these data do seem to corroborate the findings of significant amounts of haplogroup N1*-LLY22g in (at least Loloish) Tibeto-Burman populations of southwestern China, represented by the Yi in the data of Hammer et al. (2005) and by the Hani in the data of Xue et al. (2006).
Seem so.
Maju, you digress again, as I was not talking about political boundaries. It's an analytical issue. The Yi seem rather part of a wave of people coming from the terminal steppe world of the Qinghai plateau, and the ethnic group itself originate in western(?)Sichuan/northern Yunnan, so even geographically, climatically it's rather central China. The Cantonese (as a language), rather originate from Nanxiong in NE Guangdong in 12th century...
Maybe. But you're assuming that those peoples replaced (and not absorbed) the original population. Somthing I always have a difficult time accepting. Moreso when the Cantonese happen to have significatively more NO than Northern Han and Yi than Tibetans.
It's like claiming that Amerindian Q is European, Andalusian J1 from Asturias or Egyptian E1b from Greece. You get my point, right?
If it gets confusing, just remember that these places (the Yi and Cantonese place) actually snow sometimes, while you can always wear shorts in Malaysia.
Think more like in Myanmar, Laos or Vietnam. I am not claiming NO coalesced in Indonesia but rather in the area at the southern Chinese border (both sides: continental, not insular, SE Asia).
Oops! Most of the last part of my last post was intended to Ren, not Ebizur.
Maju, "Moreso when the Cantonese happen to have significatively more NO than Northern Han and Yi than Tibetans."
Maju, I wish you'd actually look at the data that is right in front of you and stop repeatedly making false claims, most of which have gone uncorrected. There is 1 NO* out of 203 Southern Han in the combined sample (including 34 Chengdu since they are pretty close to Yi and you consider Yi to be SE Asian), and 1 NO* out of 74 northern Han.
Even in the original Hammer sample, the southern Han sample is double of that of the northern Han.
Anyway, even the pre-Han Hmong-Mien and Tai-Kadai likely have their origines further north.
Maju:
I would think if any vast region do not show certain haplogroups, it's a matter of celebration and its isolation should be carefully preserved. I guess we need some guidelines for parsimony here.
Wait, it's actually 1 NO* out of 125 Northern Han (Yili is divided between northern and southern since they are from all over).
Maju:
I would think if any vast region do not show certain haplogroups, it's a matter of celebration and its isolation should be carefully preserved. I guess we need some guidelines for parsimony here.
I agree: someone please tell those primitive ancestors of the past to behave orderly and stay in the queue. We need neatly packed boxes, not this chaos. ;-D
@Ren: whatever. I don't think it makes any difference. But you're right: there's almost no NO* among the Han, neither southern nor northern.
Indeed, you should not create chaos where there is none.
ren said,
"It seems that the Malay NO* is a false positive."
If Karafet or one of her associates has been able to tell you that the tabulation of one Malay NO-M214(xN1-LLY22g, O-M175) individual in the supplementary data table of Hammer et al. (2005) is an error, then that person must also be able to tell you what the correct haplogroup assignment should be. Have you been able to obtain this information?
If you might ask for me, I would also like to know the origins of the samples pooled as "Northern Han" and "Southern Han" in the supplementary material of Hammer et al. (2005). "Northern China" and "Southern China" are such vast and variously defined regions, after all.
Maju wrote, "I agree: someone please tell those primitive ancestors of the past to behave orderly and stay in the queue. We need neatly packed boxes, not this chaos. ;-D"
Maju, you've created the chaos onto yourself, by going crazy at the possibility that R and NO could've come from the same loin.
Just stop making untrue personal accusations against me when I'm merely discussing the facts with you. It's petty.
Manju, I think you should read the conversation first, and put your grudges aside. South Asia is only good enough for R so long as it's part of an initial migration for all Eurasians.
Ebizur, I already posted on the correct haplogroup assignment in the NO* thread in the forum. If I remember, it was O3-M122.
I don't want to trouble Ms. Karafet again about the origins of the northern and southern Han so soon, as she has always been very kind and helpful, unlike certain other researchers.
Maju, you've created the chaos onto yourself, by going crazy at the possibility that R and NO could've come from the same loin.
No. I have not gone crazy about that. It was obvious before and the new shared SNP doesn't change anything in my not-so-humble opinion. It's just K branching out - and K (and IJK) is just F branching out as well. If you look at the graphs I made, you see that they are all part of the same sequence, happening in a short time (for archaeological standards) and surely in the same region, more or less.
This is particularly clear for K and NOP nodes.
Just stop making untrue personal accusations against me when I'm merely discussing the facts with you. It's petty.
Like what? Like that you are thinking in Paleolithic Altai? You know well that I know you enough to know what you're thinking about.
So quit denying (or pretending that you deny without really saying anything at all in fact) what is just true.
South Asia is only good enough for R so long as it's part of an initial migration for all Eurasians.
I strongly disagree. As more and more data mounts up, it's become more and more evident that South Asia (or somewhere not really far from it) is the homeland of R1, R1a (long before R1a1 coalescence at the Urals) and R2, and maybe that of Q as well. It's only logical to think that P itself coalesced in the subcontinent as well. Nevertheless it was probably a NW area within South Asia, close to Central and West Asia.
I want genetic data from Afghanistan very badly. It's the "corner stone" between these three regions and, as the poet said: "the cornerstone is the stone that architects forgot".
Ren:
Please don't have any grudge against me if I don't read your posts.
On the 23rd Manjunat wrote:
"Since known times every migration to [India] was either from Central-West Asia to north-west India or from SE Asia or NW [presume he means NE] Asia to East India. A pattern almost unchanged until 19th century".
Exactly. The mountains of Afghanistan and SE Asia have always provided a huge obstacle to people whose culture is not pre-adapted to living in them. So his comment:
"it appears during unknown times it had been other way round in both directions" is very unlikely to hold true. This would make the furthest southerly possible point of origin for NOP as being somewhere in NW South Asia, if not further north, say Afghanistan.
There is also the evidence indicating that elements of Japanese technology provided the impetus for the original Austronesian expansion from Taiwan to the Philippines. And O3 is definitely associated with Polynesians. The other Os along with the few Ns and NOs could easily have come south with O3 in some sort of association.
"doesn't NO* and D high frequency both in Japanese and Tibeto-Burmans (and remember Andamanese D*) ring a bell to you?"
Very much so. But remember that D is most certainly not SE Asian. From the comment I made above regarding adaptation to mountain environments it seems most parsimonious to accept that D arrived at the coast near the Andamans after moving south from Eastern Tibet, through the mountains separating India from SE Asia, perhaps specifically the Arakan Yoma. They could easily have reached the Sea of Japan via the high country in Northern China.
And although N is found in small amounts in Southern regions it is very widely spread across Northern Eurasia. Probably started its expansion from somewhere nearby.
Manju, wrote,"Ren:
Please don't have any grudge against me if I don't read your posts."
Holding a grudge against you or Maju over differing views would be too petty for my tastes. Please don't feel offended at that.
"Since known times every migration to [India] was either from Central-West Asia to north-west India or from SE Asia or NW [presume he means NE] Asia to East India.
I guess I meant NW of East Asia.
A pattern almost unchanged until 19th century".
Exactly. The mountains of Afghanistan and SE Asia have always provided a huge obstacle to people whose culture is not pre-adapted to living in them.
I probably generalized too much. Roma did migrate out of India. However, their route appears to be via West Asia to Central Asia.
So his comment:
"it appears during unknown times it had been other way round in both directions" is very unlikely to hold true.
I was bit sarcastic there. I too meant it would be unlikely.
But remember that D is most certainly not SE Asian.
While I am not really sure, a SE Asian route for E cannot be discarded in any case (look at Andamanese D*, clearly indicating that D was in SE Asia in the Paleolithic).
Admittedly I haven't put much thought on D as of yet but, look, if I am correct and D split c. 70,000 BP, that is perfectly comparable to the split of the F-IJK-K-NOP sequence. The same we have little (or sometimes no) direct evidence for these nodes (no IJK* or NOP* are known, for example) we have limited evidence for the D node and where it happened. From its modern distribution SE Asia (always including southern China) is a good candidate. The presence of D in Central Asia seems to derive from Eastern Asia (and not vice versa), while the presence of D in Andaman cannot easily be explained with a Central Asian origin. Also D1 is found in SE Asia anyhow.
Nevertheless, the only non-African DE* found to date was in Tibet (Hong Shi et al, 2008), though (from memory) I also read of one case in India (though it could be E or D not properly tested). It is hard to think of the cold and arid Tibetan plateau as the Paleolithic origin of anything, even if it may have acted as refugium in more recent times. So where is the origin? Not far from Tibet but where: in SE Asia or the Khazak steppes? I lean to SE Asia and Andaman seems the evidence, as well as the unique Japanese (espcially Ainu) clade, which should have arrived via the coast.
And although N is found in small amounts in Southern regions it is very widely spread across Northern Eurasia. Probably started its expansion from somewhere nearby.
Instead I think that the steppes and tundra of the North were only colonized at a late stage (roughly simultaneous with the colonization of Europe) and that new ecological niche allowed for several founder effects that have persisted with more or less success till today. The timeframe I get for most North Asian clades (Y or mtDNA) fits with that scenario of colonization of the far north c. 45,000 years ago (more or less).
...
For the record, I have posted more refined analysis of my little amateur study and will keep refining it and considering different possibilities. Right now I'm working in using archaeo-climatic data from Greenland and Antarctica to fine-tune the tree as much as possible. Stay tuned.
terryt said,
"And O3 is definitely associated with Polynesians. The other Os along with the few Ns and NOs could easily have come south with O3 in some sort of association."
Haplogroup O3 accounts for the Y-DNA of perhaps one out of every four Polynesian males of the present day. Most of them belong to haplogroup C-M130, however, and especially its subclade, C2a1-P33.
Here are some relevant data:
Polynesia (Hammer et al. 2005)
2/60 = 3.3% C2-M38(xC2a1-P33)
36/60 = 60.0% C2a1-P33
1/60 = 1.7% I-P19
2/60 = 3.3% K-M9(xS-M230, L-M20, M1-M5, NO-M214, P-P27)
2/60 = 3.3% M1-M5
11/60 = 18.3% O3-M122(xM134, LINE1)
3/60 = 5.0% O3a3c-M134
1/60 = 1.7% O3+LINE1
2/60 = 3.3% O1a-M119(xO1a2-M110)
38/60 = 63.3% C-RPS4Y total
15/60 = 25.0% O3-M122 total
17/60 = 28.3% O-M175 total
21/60 = 35.0% K-M9 total
22/60 = 36.7% F-P14 total
Cook Islands (Hurles et al. 2005)
16/20 = 80.0% C-M130
4/20 = 20.0% O3-M122(xO3a3c-M134)
Western Samoa (Hurles et al. 2005)
15/25 = 60.0% C-M130
1/25 = 4.0% K-M9(xSRY9138, T-M70, K1-M147, L-M61, M1-M5/M4, NO-M214, P-P27/M45)
1/25 = 4.0% O1a-M119(xO1a1a-M101, O1a2-M50)
1/25 = 4.0% O2a-M95(xO2a1-M88)
7/25 = 28.0% O3-M122(xO3a3c-M134)
26/105 = 24.8% O3-M122 total for these three Polynesian samples
69/105 = 65.7% C-RPS4Y/M130 total for these three Polynesian samples
So, it seems that about two out of every three Polynesian males should belong to the C-RPS4Y/M130 clade, and about one out of every four Polynesian males should belong to the O3-M122 clade. These proportions are roughly similar to those for the C and O3 clades in Mongolians, but there is little overlap between the Mongolians and the Polynesians in regard to the subclades of C and O3 to which they belong. Furthermore, a few Mongolians do exhibit haplogroup DE-YAP Y-DNA, whereas the YAP+ clade is completely absent from Polynesians.
Sorry Ebizur. I actually meant that any O Y-chromosome in Polynesians is mainly O3. It probably was part of a movement from the north because the C Y-hap (as you so correctly point out is the major Polynesian haplogroup) is the Eastern Indonesian version, i.e. resident in island SE Asia.
"It is hard to think of the cold and arid Tibetan plateau as the Paleolithic origin of anything".
That is true for the Tibetan Plateau itself but regions just to its north are not so bleak. Some regions north of the Plateau are shown in a map I have of the natural vegetation as being open forest land. Presumably such regions have always been relatively mild.
"as well as the unique Japanese (espcially Ainu) clade, which should have arrived via the coast".
At times of lowered sea level it was perfectly possible to walk dry-footed to Japan from Mainland Asia, unlike the situation with Australia and New Guinea. Therefore Y-hap D need not at all have arrived in Japan via the coast.
C Y-hap (as you so correctly point out is the major Polynesian haplogroup) is the Eastern Indonesian version, i.e. resident in island SE Asia.
More like Papua and island Melanesia, in fact.
That is true for the Tibetan Plateau itself but regions just to its north are not so bleak. Some regions north of the Plateau are shown in a map I have of the natural vegetation as being open forest land. Presumably such regions have always been relatively mild.
Maybe. But also the regions to its East and SE, where Tibeto-Burman peoples also inhabit and where D and NO variability is found too.
While we do have some archaeological evidence of SE Asian Paleolithic, I am not aware of what is now Western China being inhabited until rather late. Can you expand my knowledge on that matter?
I knowfor sure that Uyghuristan was not inhabited before the Tocharians. The E-W steppary corridor existed in late Gravettian times (and maybe before) to some extent but went through the Altai, much further to the north.
At times of lowered sea level it was perfectly possible to walk dry-footed to Japan from Mainland Asia, unlike the situation with Australia and New Guinea. Therefore Y-hap D need not at all have arrived in Japan via the coast.
Along the coast yes. Even when the islands were connected to the mainland they were a clearly maritime province, separated from the continent by an inland sea. Even today, Japanese are among the most heavy consumers of fish and seafood in the world. Their other distinct lineages appear clearly connected to SE Asia as well.
terryt said,
"Sorry Ebizur. I actually meant that any O Y-chromosome in Polynesians is mainly O3. It probably was part of a movement from the north because the C Y-hap (as you so correctly point out is the major Polynesian haplogroup) is the Eastern Indonesian version, i.e. resident in island SE Asia."
It is certainly true that most haplogroup O Y-DNA in Polynesians belongs to O3-M122 (26/30 = 87% according to the data that I have posted previously). About 2.9% of these Polynesian samples (3/105) belong to haplogroup O1a-M119(xO1a2-M50/M110), which amount to 3/30 = 10% of the haplogroup O samples, and a single individual in Hurles' Western Samoa sample belongs to O2a-M95(xO2a1-M88) (1/105 = 0.95%; 1/30 = 3.3%). However, some of the O1a-M119 and O3a3c-M134 individuals in Polynesia, as well as the single O2a-M95 individual from Western Samoa, might be descended from recent Chinese immigrants; something like 3.5% of those who currently self-identify as ethnic Samoan also recognize some Chinese ancestry, almost all of which is ultimately due to admixture from southern Chinese males.
Also, I choose to remain agnostic in regard to the question of the ultimate origin of the C2-M38 clade; this haplogroup has been found in substantial amounts as far west as the island of Sumba in Indonesia, so its current distribution may be largely a result of a recent dispersal of Central-Eastern Malayo-Polynesian-speaking populations.
Maju said,
"More like Papua and island Melanesia, in fact."
The reality of the situation regarding haplogroup C2-M38 is not quite so simple.
Peter A. Underhill et al. ("Maori Origins, Y-Chromosome Haplotypes and Implications for Human History in the Pacific," Human Mutation 17:271–280 (2001)) have provided some precious data on the composition of the present New Zealand Maori Y-DNA pool:
Maori
23/54 = 42.6% C2-M38
1/54 = 1.9% G-M201
5/54 = 9.3% I-M170
1/54 = 1.9% J2-M172
1/54 = 1.9% J-12f2(xJ2-M172)
3/54 = 5.6% O3-M122
1/54 = 1.9% K-M9(xO-M175, L-M11, T-M70, N1c1-M178, M1-M4, M2a-SRY9138, P-M45)
18/54 = 33.3% R1-M173
1/54 = 1.9% P-M45(xR1-M173)
Other Polynesians
7/17 = 41.2% C2-M38
1/17 = 5.9% J2-M172
3/17 = 17.6% O3-M122
3/17 = 17.6% K-M9(xO-M175, L-M11, T-M70, N1c1-M178, M1-M4, M2a-SRY9138, P-M45)
3/17 = 17.6% R1-M173
"The NRY survey included 71 males, 54 of which were of stated Maori heritage. The remaining 17 males
included seven from Samoa, three Tonga, one Rarotonga, one Moumea, one Tokelau, one Cook Islands, and three from unspecified locations in
Polynesia."
Whenever one reads a study about the Y-DNA of Native Americans, Polynesians, or other post-colonial populations, it is important to keep in mind that the data have most likely already been "adjusted" by excluding Y-DNA samples that are assumed to be due to recent European (or other foreign) admixture. It's really quite creepy in my opinion, but that's the way it is done in academia.
By the way, Underhill has also mentioned the presence of C2-M38 and C*-M216 in Indonesia:
"An additional sample of 17 Indonesians, selected for being RPS4YT derived, was also analyzed. Ten were ht3 and 7 were ht4. In
Indonesia, ht3 (RPS4Y/M216/M38) occurs in Irian Jaya, Bangka Is., S. Sulawesi, Lombak Is., S. Sumatra and E. Java. Ht4
(RPS4Y/M216) was observed in Lombok Is., Alor Is., Irian Jaya, S. and C. Sulawesi."
Thanks Ebizur.
R1 is likely to represent European admixture, as does J2, I and G. Removing it (I'm kinda "academic" in this aspect though admittely can cause confussion if the whole data is not published properly):
Maori sample (n'=29):
· C2 79.3%
· O3 10.3%
· J(xJ2) 3.4%
· P(xR1) 3.4%
· K* 3.4%
Other polynesian sample (n'=13):
· C2 53.8%
· O3 23.1%
· K* 23.1%
What subclade of K is this K* most likely to represent? K3? Other?
Maju said,
"R1 is likely to represent European admixture, as does J2, I and G. Removing it (I'm kinda "academic" in this aspect though admittely can cause confussion if the whole data is not published properly)"
Perhaps I have not communicated clearly enough. What I have meant to say is that these Polynesian data from Underhill et al. are precious precisely because they have not been "pre-adjusted" according to whatever theory about the origins of particular haplogroups happens to be popular in academia at the time the study is published.
"What subclade of K is this K* most likely to represent? K3? Other?"
These four individuals (one Maori and three other Polynesians) are actually K-M9(xO-M175, L-M11, T-M70, N1c1-M178, M1-M4, M2a-SRY9138, P-M45), which means that they must belong to K1-M147 (unlikely, as this is considered to be a "private" haplogroup), K2-P60/P304/P308, K3-P79/P299/P307, K4-P261/P263, M*-P256, M2*-M353/M387, M3-P117/P118, NO*-M214, N*-M231, N1*-LLY22g, N1a-M128, N1b-P43, N1c*-M46, S-M230/P202/P204, or K*-M9. Hammer et al. (2005) have not found any S-M230 in a sample of sixty Polynesians, so it might be most likely that the four Polynesian individuals of Underhill et al. should belong to M(xM1) or one of the rare K clades (K1-M147, K2-P60, K3-P79, K4-P261). I'm not sure whether any true K*-M9 has been found; some studies have reported K*, of course, but I think that they probably have failed to test for all known subclades of haplogroup K.
Oops, I forgot to mention that Hammer et al. (2005) also have not found any haplogroup NO-M214(xO3-M122, O1a-M119) in their sample of 60 Polynesians. However, I have seen an example of some sort of basal haplogroup N Y-DNA (probably N1*-LLY22g) in Fiji, so it is possible, though not very likely, that these four Polynesians of Underhill et al. might belong to haplogroup N(xN1c1).
"More like Papua and island Melanesia, in fact".
No. They have a different C (the new C6) except in coastal regions obviously influenced by Austronesian-speaking people (C2).
"Even when the islands were connected to the mainland they were a clearly maritime province".
Japan was completely connected to the mainland. The Sea of Japan became a virtually land-locked sea, a bit like the Mediterranean is today. The Japanese fishing ability is not so extremely ancient, about 15,000 years old. Admittedly early, but as a result of that the "other distinct lineages appear clearly connected to SE Asia as well" could quite possibly be a result of southward movement of people already possessing this fishing technology.
"some of the O1a-M119 and O3a3c-M134 individuals in Polynesia, as well as the single O2a-M95 individual from Western Samoa, might be descended from recent Chinese immigrants".
Quite. Even in New Zealand Chinese men often had children with Maoris. Not many Chinese women came out with the men to the goldfields and market gardens. My nephew's Maori mother is part Chinese.
"R1 is likely to represent European admixture, as does J2, I and G".
I would agree with that even though some effort may have been made in the studies to eliminate Polynesians with known such ancestry. Convicts escaping from Australia, sealers, whalers and merchants all spread around the Pacific extensively early on.
Japan was completely connected to the mainland. The Sea of Japan became a virtually land-locked sea, a bit like the Mediterranean is today.
So it was a peninsula: a maritime province markedly separated from the mainland. In fact it was only connected by Sakhalin.
Following this reference, I gather:
- Via Sakhalin maybe: mtDNA A, D, CZ and G (Y is negligible), making up some 50%. Y-DNA C3 and N only (6%), though these could have also arrived via other routes.
- Via Korea or Ryukyu almost necesarily: mtDNA B, F, N9, M (23%). Y-DNA O (53%)
- Local Japanese clades: Y-DNA D2 and C1 (40%). I'd think these are derived from mid-East or SE clades. MtDNA M7a and N9b seem very much Japanese-only also but also connect to China and SE Asia, not to NE Asia (exception of neighbouring Nivkhi N9-Y).
The overall picture is confuse and I'd dare say very interesting. I'd like to know Ebizur's opinion because a possibility is that Japanese genetics is largely a remnant of the people flowing northwards and not so much of northeastern Asians migrating southwards.
But maybe I'm wrong in this.
The Japanese fishing ability is not so extremely ancient, about 15,000 years old.
Can you document the 15,000 BP date (i.e.latest possible date) for fishing in Japan? It's an interesting piece of info.
Anyhow, I don't think any especial technolgy is needed to fish. Native Americans fish in rivers with nothing but some natural poisons, other peoples use nets or lines, other collect seafood from the shores, and in Mauritania people even cooperate with dolphins for a rare form of symbiotic fishing between two of the most intelligent species on Earth.
We know that in Europe fishing hooks existed as early as the Solutrean, while Magdalenian were maybe especialized in seal and maybe even whale hunting. Even Neanderthals long before were eating sea produce.
Also fishing is important in the adaptation to the harsh NE Asian conditions because of vitamin D especially.
It's possible that the documentation for this in East Asia is lacking but I'm intimately persuaded that they were using he riverine and coastal resources as much as they could since the very beginning.
Admittedly early, but as a result of that the "other distinct lineages appear clearly connected to SE Asia as well" could quite possibly be a result of southward movement of people already possessing this fishing technology.
There's no evidence of people going via Japan to SE Asia AFAIK. There is no evidence either of your claim that fishing tech was specifically developed in NE Asia.
I really hate it when you come with such speculations without the necesary evidence.
Also I see no reason why Native Americans were spreading from Alaska southwards via the coastal route (hence heavily relying on sea produce) already c. 20,000 years ago, and "fishing tech" only arriving to Japan c. 15,000 years ago. People have been fishing since nearly always, just that nets do not leave clear remains and that is also often the case of fish bones (too small, too feeble). Our best evidence (very limited) is ironically in whale bones, surely a very marginal produce, and in the scarce biological analysis of human remains.
terryt said,
"Japan was completely connected to the mainland. The Sea of Japan became a virtually land-locked sea, a bit like the Mediterranean is today."
Maju said,
"So it was a peninsula: a maritime province markedly separated from the mainland. In fact it was only connected by Sakhalin."
Actually, there is no proof that the whole of Japan recently has been connected to the continent through Sakhalin or through Korea.
A biogeographical line similar to the famous "Wallace Line" runs through the Tsugaru Strait between Hokkaido and Honshu, named the "Blakiston Line" for the first person to describe it scientifically, Thomas Wright Blakiston (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Blakiston). The Blakiston Line may be summarized by stating that animal species in Hokkaido are closely related to those in the Russian Far East and vicinity, whereas species in Honshu and the other main Japanese islands are related to those that inhabit more southerly reaches of Asia, particularly certain parts of central and southern China. To be honest, the existence of the Blakiston Line should be quite obvious to anyone who has lived in Japan, because the species of Hokkaido are all named "Ezo XXX," where "Ezo" is the Japanese word for "Ainu" or "Hokkaido," and "XXX" is the Japanese word for some species that is common in the main islands of Japan. In the south of Japan, another major biogeographical division, the Watase Line, runs through the Tokara Strait, separating the island of Yakushima on its north side from Kuchinoshima of the Tokara Islands (and, more generally, the entire Ryukyu Archipelago) on its south side.
Anyway, returning to the point, the Blakiston Line, which delimits the distribution of even the Eurasian Eagle Owl (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Eagle_Owl), is formed by a strait that is presently about 24 to 40 km in width and that reaches a depth of about 130 m. The Korea-Tsushima Strait, which separates Kyushu from Korea, is presently about 140 km wide at its narrowest constriction, and it has a sill depth of approximately 140 m and a maximum depth of about 200 m. So, although there may be a case for supposing a recent connection between Hokkaido and the Russian Far East via Sakhalin, the rest of Japan is pretty well isolated, and there seems to be no evidence for rejecting the null hypothesis (i.e. that the situation of the Honshu-Shikoku-Kyushu complex has been the same in the past as it is in the present).
Thanks for that explanation, Ebizur. If I gather correctly, that means that the Honsu and the nearby smaller islands were probably all the time separated from mainland Asia, albeit by rather narrow straits, right?
Maju. Interesting map you provide. Interesting, but almost certainly wrong. It's debatable how far sea level fell in the last ice age although a round figure of 100 metres seems generally accepted. A fall of this magnitude would at least connect the Tsushima Islands to the Japanese mainland. The Korea Strait is slightly deeper but a fall of 100 metres would expose a huge area of land, including much of the Yellow Sea, stretching south to even connect Taiwan to mainland China. This would provide access to Japan independent of the Korea Strait.
This image of the Yellow Sea should help:
http://images.google.co.nz/imgres?imgurl=http://www.ogleearth.com/seaofjapanchina.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.ogleearth.com/2009/01/bathymetry_upda.html&usg=__4gm4EByNV9bz5X7XSeVQIMTsjas=&h=231&w=468&sz=19&hl=en&start=2&um=1&tbnid=3F-Wmod-YGus0M:&tbnh=63&tbnw=128&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dyellow%2Bsea%2Bbathymetric%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1G1GGLQ_ENNZ286%26sa%3DG%26um%3D1
The second link you provide even says, "During the last Ice Age, which ended approximately 15,000 years ago, Japan was connected to the continent through several land bridges, notably one linking the Ryukyu Islands to Taiwan and Kyushu, one linking Kyushu to the Korean peninsula, and another one connecting Hokkaido to Sakhalin and the Siberian mainland. In fact, the Philippines and Indonesia were also connected to the Asian mainland". Some of these connections are definitely exaggerated however. The Ryuku Islands, the Philippines and most of Indonesia certainly remained separated.
But as Ebizur said, "A biogeographical line similar to the famous 'Wallace Line' runs through the Tsugaru Strait between Hokkaido and Honshu". I read years ago that this was the only connection between the ancient Sea of Japan and the Pacific Ocean. On the other hand the Korea Strait displays no such biogeographical line.
Cavalli-Sforza ("The Great Human Diasporas") wrote "Between ten and fifteen thousand years ago, Japan was linked to the mainland - with Russia in the north and Korea in the south - and had its own internal sea. As a result, the area developed uniquely on the back of the sea's fishing potential". I'm afraid you'll have to refer to his book to find the references he actually used to come to this conclusion, but we now have a better idea of those connections.
He also wrote, "The population [of Japan] five to six thousand years ago was already very large and numbered some three hundred thousand, thanks to the development of fishing techniques".
Maju wrote, "We know that in Europe fishing hooks existed as early as the Solutrean, while Magdalenian were maybe especialized in seal and maybe even whale hunting".
Fishing with hooks may well have originated in Europe and spread across the northern hemisphere, north of the Mongolian Plateau. It's been accepted for a long time that an advanced microlithic technology entered China from the north. It was presumably that technology that was to spread south and reach SE Asia about 5000-7000 years ago, ultimately giving rise to the further expansion into the Pacific.
Well, I cannot really judge the exact isolation or connection of Japan to the mainland in the Ice Age, what is clear is that it was a relatively isolated and maritime province.
I cannot either judge the spread of the technique of fishing with hook. But most "primitive" peoples around the world in fact fish with other techniques primarily, be them nets, poisons (appropiate only for small rivers) and/or spears/harpoons. While bone-made harpoons must have left some traces (and in fact they did), wooden ones as well as nets of any kind would have left nearly no remains - if any at all.
It's the same as with boats (always made of wood or leather): they have left almost no evidence. In fact the first evidence we have in West Eurasia of high seas navigation is indirect (island colonization, fish remains) and only for a later date we have been lucky enough to find a longboat more or less intact in a Danish marsh.
We have also no evidence of ropes or clothes, yet people must have been using them. In fact, if you look at any modern stone-age people, you'll see that only a small fraction of their daily tools involve persistent materials like stone or bone. Baskets, homes, tents, clothes, ropes, etc. all is made of perishable materials. Also in acid soils, for instance, bone itself is not preserved for long either. Finally many areas of the world are poorly studied archaeologically.
So it's safe to say that the evidence we lack of is much much more than the evidence we actually have. What we know is just a minimum of what actually happened, the rest we have to guess.
"In fact the first evidence we have in West Eurasia of high seas navigation is indirect (island colonization, fish remains)".
Fish remains do not at all necessarily indicate boats. Even today in parts of New Zealand it's possible to catch fairly large, and eminently edible, fish from the shore. And whales and dolphins regularly beach on sandy shores. The interesting point regarding the evidence of island colonisation is that the evidence for it is much more recent in Western Eurasia than it is in the east. That has to be significant.
By the way. The latest edition of New Zealand Geographic magazine has an article concerning the discovery of a female European skull carbon dated to 300 years ago, long before Europeans are known to have reached the islands. The conclusion is that it was brought in as a skull but the author uses the occasion to cover mtDNA and carbon dating for a non-specialist reader. The article includes a map of mtDNA expansion. It's a variation of the map in Wikipedia haplogroups so I was inspired to look again at the Wiki map, and guess what? N is now shown as having moved through Central Asia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_mitochondrial_DNA_haplogroup
The NZ Geographic map is slightly different in that it has M definitely in India and ignores both R and the early N (S) in Australia. For some reason the Wiki map compilers still put this early N in Australia as having come through India, but I have no idea why they insist on this. Otherwise the new map agrees with I've been claiming all along.
Fish remains do not at all necessarily indicate boats. Even today in parts of New Zealand it's possible to catch fairly large, and eminently edible, fish from the shore.
I thought you were aware of what we were talking about, as we have discussed this before: I mean high seas fish remains in Cardium Pottery Neolithic, largely coincident with island colonization. This does not talk of mere boats but of already very advanced ships capable of open seas sailing, as well as of some good orientation skills.
The interesting point regarding the evidence of island colonisation is that the evidence for it is much more recent in Western Eurasia than it is in the east. That has to be significant.
I tend to agree with that: Eastern Eurasians were apparently more seagoing at an early time than western ones were. Nevertheless West Eurasians had no problem crossing straits (Gibraltar, Messina, Bosphorus) and rivers where the opposite side is visible, so they knew of boats.
The other day I was watching a documentary on pan-Amazonian games, and some of the natives taking part appeared somewhat astonished and fearful of the dimensions and agitation of the sea at Porto Seguro. In fact they narrated that their people in the past had boated downstream the Amazon river until it became too wide for coasts to be seen and the waters became too dangerously agitated for their skils.
Guess this is the kind of boating skills we could expect in most Paleolithic peoples: riverine and/or coastal. The fact that in Eastern Asia they were somewhat more seagoing than that, at least in some cases, talks of advanced skills and maybe even boat tech among these peoples but not that the rest of the peoples ignored boats altogether, as you have often suggested.
... and guess what? N is now shown as having moved through Central Asia.
And what's the evidence for that? Looks like the dragons and other fantastic stuff ancient cartographers liked to complete their maps with where they lacked knowledge. Just a fancy with no fundaments.
Btw, for your reference, the latest research on Y-DNA D, the only high level clade so far that really posed a challenge and could suggest a Central Asian route shows quite unequivocally that it expanded from south to north, from SE Asia into middle East Asia.
The only intriguing thing is that Tibet still appears central for the clade, and way too important in D1 and some D* branches. While the article argues for an early colonization of Tibet maybe as early as 40-30 kya, this still leaves many questions unanswered. Maybe only further more extensive sampling of SE Asian peoples (only a handful were used in this paper), including Burmans and Austroasiatics may clarify the matter.
Source for this paper is Mathilda's, btw.
"I mean high seas fish remains in Cardium Pottery Neolithic, largely coincident with island colonization".
So what's that got to do with Paleolithic boating ability? That's long after humans had reached Australia. In fact it's reasonably close to when humans were finally able to move into the Pacific beyond the Northern Solomon Islands.
"until it became too wide for coasts to be seen and the waters became too dangerously agitated for their skils".
Gibraltar Strait is calmer than the Amazon? Coastal waters are extremely difficult to navigate, probably even in the Mediterranean. I'll grant very primitive boating technology is adequate for crossing calm rivers but swimming is also possible if the distance is not too far. surely only eveidence of long distance open water travel is relevant to the discussion.
"And what's the evidence for that?"
I've no idea (LOL). You'll have to ask the person who compiled the map. I'd presume he or she had some very valid reason to drastically alter the map that had been in that entry for so long.
As I said before, some haplogroups have been left off the top map in Wiki. Interestingly they include three M descendants: Z (we won't argue again where it comes from), Q (New Guinea and Northern Australia) and E (SE ASia), along with four N descendants: S (Australia), Y (East Asia), P (Australia and New Guinea) and R (again we won't argue about where that comes from). It looks as though the 'Great Southern Coastal Migration' is dead in the water, so to speak. But wait. The map still has mt-hap M moving along the southern coast. But the M line is actually extremely rare in Australia. Most mt-haps there are N derived.
As I've said many time, "It's possible to prove nearly anything if you're prepared to ignore Australia".
"shows quite unequivocally that it expanded from south to north, from SE Asia into middle East Asia".
By what route? It certainly wasn't via the coast. According to Ebizur, in SE Asia Y-hap D is found only in regions that would have been part of the mainland at times of low sea level: Malaysia, Borneo and Sumatra. Y-hap D may well have been the first into the hill country of East Asia but it's still an open question as to where it entered there from. My guess would be that it had spent a long time perfecting life in that environment.
So you maintain that no surviving Y-haps moved through Central Asia with the mt N haplogroup. Who did these N derived women breed with then? Men who were already there?
So what's that got to do with Paleolithic boating ability?
That the first fossil ship is from Neolithic times. Just that. Sorry to have confused you.
Gibraltar Strait is calmer than the Amazon? Coastal waters are extremely difficult to navigate, probably even in the Mediterranean.
Gibraltar strait can be crossed on a surfing board by a strong person in a summer day. They main danger are the intense heavy traffic of big ships. You can see the opposite coast, so you know where you are heading to in any case, something that does not happen for instance in the lower Amazon river.
Coastal waters are perfectly navigable with simple boats in good weather conditions almost anywhere on Earth. When the sea is stormy though, then it's a very different story.
I'll grant very primitive boating technology is adequate for crossing calm rivers but swimming is also possible if the distance is not too far. surely only eveidence of long distance open water travel is relevant to the discussion.
I disagree. Swimming implies much greater risks and a much higher fitness than boating. Boating is reasonably safe, while simming long distances is a high-risk sport. You cannot swim without floating support the many kilometers that separate the Pillars of Hercules or Sicily from Calabria (excepted maybe some very very exceptional recordmen in modern diving suits), much less bring your family and stuff with you. You need boats.
I've no idea (LOL). You'll have to ask the person who compiled the map. I'd presume he or she had some very valid reason to drastically alter the map that had been in that entry for so long.
It is a subjective interpretation obviously. For me it's meaningless.
It looks as though the 'Great Southern Coastal Migration' is dead in the water, so to speak.
No, it's not. All relevant evidence points to it. I really make no sense of your claims on a Central Asian corridor: they are just fantasies without any single piece of evidence.
As I've said many time, "It's possible to prove nearly anything if you're prepared to ignore Australia".
I won't ignore Australia.
By what route? It certainly wasn't via the coast. According to Ebizur, in SE Asia Y-hap D is found only in regions that would have been part of the mainland at times of low sea level: Malaysia, Borneo and Sumatra. Y-hap D may well have been the first into the hill country of East Asia but it's still an open question as to where it entered there from. My guess would be that it had spent a long time perfecting life in that environment.
The data for SE Asia is not complete (mostly Thailand and nearby southern etnicities within China) but it still looks like SE Asia is at the core.
You insist in asscoaiting "coastal route" with highly developed navigational skills, what is a total nonsense. I can't know for sure if they followed a strict coastal route, they alternate coast and highland or they went all the way through the interior. But I know that you have a core in Thailand and one out of three subclades in Japan, that is "coastal" enough for me, especially if the "non-coastal" alternative is going through Khazakstan and Altai.
As said before, D was the only top level Eurasian lineage that still posed some questions on the "coastal" route and it has been resolved to have a SE Asian core and hence fully in agreement with the "coastal migration" paradigm.
The "coastal migration" does not necesarily mean strict travel by water or even at few meters or even kilometers from the coast. We are talking about continents here: the coastal route means South > SE Asia > East Asia and mainland Oceania, as opposed to your fantasy claim of Central Asia > East Asia > South Asia > Oceania (and then back via South Asia to the West, if I understand you correctly). That continental/circular hypothesis of you is not validated by any factual data.
So you maintain that no surviving Y-haps moved through Central Asia with the mt N haplogroup. Who did these N derived women breed with then? Men who were already there?
I mantain that mtDNA N followed the coastal route, like all other high level lineages. The continental routes were only used by low level lineages (i.e. much later) like Y-DNA Q, N, C3 and R1a and mtDNA A, CZ, D and X2.
N women had aboundant choices to mate with in the southern subtropical Asian regions.
"Gibraltar strait can be crossed on a surfing board by a strong person in a summer day".
They had surf boards in the Paleolithic?
Uh?
"Can" is present term, isn't it?
What I (obviously) mean is that if it can crossed with a surfing board it can be crossed with a simple boat, canoe or raft as well.
In foresight of the future, I'll reply in advance to your question:
- Terryt (aborted would-have-been future): Did they have boats, canoes or rafts in the paleolithic?
- Maju (pre-emptive anti-future abortive reply): Yes.
Don't be a complete idiot Maju.
You yourself wrote, "You cannot swim without floating support the many kilometers that separate the Pillars of Hercules or Sicily from Calabria (excepted maybe some very very exceptional recordmen in modern diving suits), much less bring your family and stuff with you".
So the same problem would arise with any primitive boats. Actually the only evidence you offer in support of your claim that the Mediterranean was crossed in Paleolithic times is some very controversial evidence based on mtDNA.
"Boating is reasonably safe".
No it's not. Coastal waters, apart from those in very sheltered harbours, are usually very dangerous unless you have a fairly efficient boat and are especially skilled at handling it.
So the answer you provide for your imaginary question, "Did they have boats, canoes or rafts in the paleolithic?" is almost certainly wrong. The correct answer would be, "No, especially not in Western Eurasia, but possibly they developed very primitive ones in the south east and were there able to cross very sheltered stretches of water. With practice they were eventually able to conquer more dangerous stretches in the region".
You also commented earlier:
"The 'coastal migration' does not necesarily mean strict travel by water or even at few meters or even kilometers from the coast".
The original argument in favour of the 'coastal migration' was based entirely on the idea that it involved boats. The idea of boating technology was required to account for the evident early arrival in Australia. That's why the Bab el Mandeb was proposed as the exit from Africa. To claim now that the 'coastal migration' could have taken place kilometres from the coast is to substantially change the rules mid-game.
"they alternate coast and highland or they went all the way through the interior".
Hang on. If any population had started along the coast but then moved inland they would have had to have become adapted to living in that different environment. We know from all sorts of human expansions that groups adapted to a particular environment prefer to live in that environment ahead of any new ones. They move into new environments only once resources become depleted in the environment to which they are already adapted, the same as any other species. Once any group had become adapted to a semi-open savanah environment they would have spread preferentially through that. No moving back and forth between coast and then huge distances inland. Just one or the other.
So the same problem would arise with any primitive boats.
No. You don't get exhausted so much, you don't suffer hypothermia so easily and you can bring belongings and children in such a boat.
Actually the only evidence you offer in support of your claim that the Mediterranean was crossed in Paleolithic times is some very controversial evidence based on mtDNA.
Maybe - though it's anything but contoversial, and makes up a sizeable apportion of the mtDNA at both sides of the strait.
But you also have the Messina strait of similar characteristics that offers no doubts.
And you have a quite clear archaeological case for H. erectus crossing into Iberia from North Africa some 600,000 years ago, before the main wave arrived from mainland Europe.
And finally you also have people crossing into Australia and Papua, a much harder feat, in a time that precedes any AMH crossing in Europe, even that of the Bosphorus.
You have a dogmatic position that argues that people could not use boats. Listen: I do not understand why you claim it, I do not agree with it and I really don't care about it any more.
The original argument in favour of the 'coastal migration' was based entirely on the idea that it involved boats.
Can you cite the source? I just remember that at that time I was looking into South Asian Paleolithic and I decided that "coastal" had only that much meaning, that the Narmada-Son-Ganges riverine route was at least as valid and better documented.
Use of boats? IMO yes. People use boats all around the planet: Native Americans do, Papuans do, Australian aboriginals do and even Pygmies do. Seminomadic peoples need boats to exploit their enviroments, be them coastal or riverine. Rivers, lakes, swamps and bays are everywhere (except in the deserts): you need boats as much as you need spears or clothes.
The idea of boating technology was required to account for the evident early arrival in Australia.
Indeed. And to Andaman islands, and to Papua an to Japan probably too. In fact they needed it to cross the Ganges, the Mekong, to speed up travel through riverine routes, to be able to move at all through tropical mangrover swamps (so rich but so rough for land animals like us), etc.
Even if they went through the West Asian interior, how could they manage to cross the Indus (and other rivers) without boats?
That's why the Bab el Mandeb was proposed as the exit from Africa.
Not only. Of course Bab el Mandeb (narrow, warm, dotted with islands) can easily be crossed with primitive tech but the main reason was that the core of Eurasian expansion appears to have been in South Asia and scientists looked for the faster possible route between Africa and South Asia (that goes via Southern Arabia, obviously) to explain this phenomenon.
But whatever you think the "lost" route was through West Asia, from South Asia on, the paths is clearly via SE Asia. And that is roughly the "coastal" model.
Hang on. If any population had started along the coast but then moved inland they would have had to have become adapted to living in that different environment.
Is it that different? Not sure about yoy but I'm used to mountains kissing the sea and we living between the two: highland sepherds and coastal fishermen shoulder to shoulder, with no marked division.
They move into new environments only once resources become depleted in the environment to which they are already adapted...
It's not that way. It's the law of decreasing redits: the population grows (yah: it does grow when conditions are minimally favorable) and eventually some (but not all) need to look for better areas. The group as a whole does not move: it splits and some of them move.
In the ideal conditons of a virgin land, as it surely was Asia in the time of early human colonization, this meant maybe occupying the neighbour valley first of all, then maybe exploring a not too distant somewhat different niche and only with much time (yah, it took many many milennia to populate something as large as Asia) starting a longer travel.
Once any group had become adapted to a semi-open savanah environment they would have spread preferentially through that. No moving back and forth between coast and then huge distances inland. Just one or the other.
You may have a point. But once the savannah was fully occupied, for their economical system's possibilities, some surely looked for alternatives. If we human are something that is curious, innovative and entrepreneur.
Whatever the case the South Asian presumpt ancient savannah was criss-crossed with rivers (and coasts and mountains), so people soon was explointing different niches. Archaeological data suggests they lived mostly near the coasts or rivers (in fact most humans do even today), so using boats was only natural.
I don't know if there were some savannah-specalized "Maasai" then but I am sure that there were other kind of economies too.
I think it's time we gave up on this one but a few thoughts you might like to comment on:
"Archaeological data suggests they lived mostly near the coasts or rivers (in fact most humans do even today), so using boats was only natural".
Yes. Humans, even Australopithecus, need to drink fresh water occasionally so they usually live somewhere near it. However it's unlikley Australopithecus, for example, had boats. I think it's safe for us to assume that boating technology developed gradually, as has most technology. Just think of chariots, or horse riding. And just because some group of humans could see an opposite shore that is no guarantee they quickly developed the technology required to cross the water to reach it. After all we can see the moon but it's only very recently we've had the technology to get there.
"Whatever the case the South Asian presumpt ancient savannah was criss-crossed with rivers".
Precisely why I believe movement across South Asia was very slow, not rapid.
"you also have people crossing into Australia and Papua, a much harder feat, in a time that precedes any AMH crossing in Europe, even that of the Bosphorus".
Exactly my main point. Effective boating technology necessary to achieve sea crossing probably developed somewhere nearby.
"People use boats all around the planet".
Yes. They do now but when and where was it first developed?
"And to Andaman islands, and to Papua an to Japan probably too".
Note carefully: all in the east.
"In fact they needed it to cross the Ganges, the Mekong, to speed up travel through riverine routes, to be able to move at all through tropical mangrover swamps (so rich but so rough for land animals like us), etc ... how could they manage to cross the Indus (and other rivers) without boats?"
This pre-supposes a route through India. I'd guess with the rapid route ancient humans took they didn't need to cross the Indus, the Ganges, the Mekong or mangrove swamps. And mangrove swamps are far from ideal human habitat. Not until humans possessed the technology to clear the tangled vegetation (and had boats) did they manage to move into such regions as what is now Bangladesh. I also remember you remarking on another blog that even Uttar Pradesh was sparsely inhabited when the Indo-Europeans arrived. Why was that?
And just because some group of humans could see an opposite shore that is no guarantee they quickly developed the technology required to cross the water to reach it.
As I see it, it's guarantee that someone, sooner than later, would try. People is that way: curious, inventive, intrepid...
Anyhow, if you leave by water you need to "tame" it so to say: you need boats, to cross rivers, to exploit mangroves, etc.
You mention australopithecines but that's totally irrelevant. We are talking of fully evolved people like you and me. Rather: more evolved in the sense that they had to solve real practical problems like those every day, while for you and me it's in many senses a lot simpler and we lack the crafting and scouting "instinct", so to say, because we have not been raised with that but with a pile of books, gadgets and shops.
After all we can see the moon but it's only very recently we've had the technology to get there.
It's not comparable. We first needed to invent something that could overcome gravity, while floating is a lot simpler. Additionally the real distances are not comparable either: at rowing speed we'd take years to arrive to the Moon.
But it's clear that people has always dreamed to reach out to the Moon, just because it's there and we are curious and adventurous. Sadly it was much more difficult so it took some more time to achieve.
Precisely why I believe movement across South Asia was very slow, not rapid.
Your hypothesis is all based in the lack of boats or anything of the like. You build everything in that idea of yours but makes no sense for several reasons:
1. MtDNA M is shared primarily by South, SE and East Asia, as well as mainland Oceania. This clade is the oldest and clearly expanded by that "T" shaped area around SE Asia. Almost the same can be said of N, with an extension to West Asia.
2. The only areas that lack rivers are deserts. People strongly tend to avoid deserts (hence the name).
3. You have not a single evidence that supports your no boats hypothesis, the pillar of all you like to argue. First try to find evidence and then come back and discuss. Otherwise it's really tiresome and unproductive.
Exactly my main point. Effective boating technology necessary to achieve sea crossing probably developed somewhere nearby.
Historical Papuans and Australian Aboriginals just had canoes. What are you talking about?
Yes. They do now but when and where was it first developed?
H. erectus used boats or rafts, at least on occasion. H. sapiens surely evolved on a boat, so to say.
Note carefully: all in the east.
And? You're discussing against the "coastal" migration, which applies to Eastern Eurasia primarily. Can you put your thoughts together?
I also remember you remarking on another blog that even Uttar Pradesh was sparsely inhabited when the Indo-Europeans arrived. Why was that?
I just said that the Neolithic of the lower Ganges was surely much less impressive than that of the Indus, that population densities (for agricultural levels) may have been lower and that such situation may explain why Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have R1a1 levels comparable to Russia or Poland, equally, European regions where Neolithic existed but was rather second tier when IEs invaded.
It has nothing to do anyhow, as it's a totally different time and age. Flippant: to argue about Middle Paleolithic you take an example from the Bronze or Iron Age - no sense at all!
Seriously: put your thoughts together on your own, be self-critical, put them coherently on type for he public to judge and stop wasting my time.
YOU ARE NOT GOING TO PERSUADE ME THAT HUMANS COULD NOT BOAT ACROSS A MERE RIVER OR STRAIT (AND THEN SUDDENLY CROSS INTO AUSTRALIA AND PAPUA MIRACULOUSLY). The feat of Elkano was not the birth of sailing but its apotheosis, ICBMs are not the direct product of spear throwing, from fire to a flamethrower there's an abyss of developement. IF PEOPLE MANAGED TO CROSS WALLACE LINE SOME 60 THOUSAND YEARS AGO, OBVIOUSLY THEY HAD BEEN BOATING FOR MANY MANY DOZEN MILENNIA EARLIER.
"IF PEOPLE MANAGED TO CROSS WALLACE LINE SOME 60 THOUSAND YEARS AGO, OBVIOUSLY THEY HAD BEEN BOATING FOR MANY MANY DOZEN MILENNIA EARLIER".
But the big question is, 'Where?'
"H. erectus used boats or rafts, at least on occasion".
Evidence?
"Historical Papuans and Australian Aboriginals just had canoes. What are you talking about?"
Aren't you claiming that all early humans had canoes? Besides which there's no reason at all to believe that humans first crossed Wallaces line in canoes. Basic rafts would be sufficient. But the question arises, 'How old were these rafts?' My guess would be, 'Not very old'.
The relevance of Uttar Pradesh in the Neolithic is that it was presumably also not so acceptable as habitat for earlier humans.
"MtDNA M is shared primarily by South, SE and East Asia, as well as mainland Oceania. This clade is the oldest and clearly expanded by that 'T' shaped area around SE Asia".
I have never claimed otherwise. However:
"Almost the same can be said of N".
Certainly not true. I'm obviously not the only one to accept it's not true. Are you implying that the editors of Wikipedia were prepared to let some crank alter their map of mtDNA spread for no reason at all? The name attributed to the map in NZ Geographic is given as Alexandre Van De Sande so I presume he changed the Wiki map. Presumably he's a madman.
But the big question is, 'Where?'
That's not a serious question for me (lack of evidence to really adress the issue).
That in regard to Homo spp. As for our species, they surely moved along the nile... in canoes, logically.
"H. erectus used boats or rafts, at least on occasion".
Evidence?
They crossed Gibraltar, for example.
"Historical Papuans and Australian Aboriginals just had canoes. What are you talking about?"
Aren't you claiming that all early humans had canoes? Besides which there's no reason at all to believe that humans first crossed Wallaces line in canoes. Basic rafts would be sufficient. But the question arises, 'How old were these rafts?' My guess would be, 'Not very old'.
They use canoes now, rafts seem much more complex design to me. Though guess that to travel along long distances with family and stuff a raft could be better - but not strictly necesary.
The relevance of Uttar Pradesh in the Neolithic is that it was presumably also not so acceptable as habitat for earlier humans.
Well, we have evidence that they lived there. You are speculating on thin air but actual archaeological data from all the Plaeolithic, places Homo spp. in the Narmada-Son-Ganges route (all the way down to sedimentary Bengal, at least in the UP) and all the way up along the Ganges in general. People enjoyed Uttar Pradesh and nearby areas then, and moved along and across rivers often.
They also enjoyed the coastal route south to Karantaka and Kerala and across the Ghates to the Bay of Bengal. But for the strict coastal route around Cape Comorin, we lack evidence. This is probably only because of changing sea levels.
The pattern is incredibly similar for Low, Middle and Upper Paleolithic, with minor variations. So not just H. sapiens enjoyed those areas of India but H. erectus did too before.
Certainly not true. I'm obviously not the only one to accept it's not true. Are you implying that the editors of Wikipedia were prepared to let some crank alter their map of mtDNA spread for no reason at all?
How active are you in Wikipedia? I used to be really active some time ago and I know that with the current copyright-madness policy they are ready to accept any junk that can serve to illustrate their pages without any criticism (anyhow only 2-3 people could make any sort of logic criticism and they are probably working on something more relevant or just ignoring the Wiki altogether as I do).
In any case, I find extremely naive and/or conveniently acritical from you to take such a shallow limited info like a mere illustrative map anywhere as "evidence" of anything. It's just an illustration.
The name attributed to the map in NZ Geographic is given as Alexandre Van De Sande so I presume he changed the Wiki map. Presumably he's a madman.
Madman is strong word but ignorant or tendentious surely yes. But even if he comitted an error or judgement bias in that illustraton I am flippant that you even dare to blame him at all. After all, it is you who is not researching the matter well enough and, like the typical Judeo-Crhistian trying to "prove" Noah's deluge or whatever, you are aggrandixing the value of whatever fits your ideas (be it a shadowy rock on Ararat mt. or the curvature of a capricious arrow on an illustrative map for the general public) and simply ignoring all the rest. That is pseudo-science, man, and I have got more than enough of it.
Please don't come back with that silly argument of maps: make your research, argue on real data why this and not that but don't use "authority backing" when your "authority" is a mere divulgative media with no documentation or even reasoning to support that. It's like I would claim that carpets fly based on a Disney illustration, please!
PS-
Regarding Central Asian mtDNA, I have just now been re-reading this paper. It clearly states that all the mtDNA in the province is of either West or East Eurasian origin (derived), with a slim remnant of South Asian derived ones. Some clades (G2a and D4c) appear to be fairly old but are still derived from East Asian lineages. The paper does not dwell on the peculiar H subclades of the region (H8 mostly) but that doesn't make any big difference anyhow, as its ancestors H, HV and R0 are clearly West Eurasian lineages, so it's just more of the same: Central Asia is a mosaic of Western and Eastern derived lineages, some older and some of more recent arrival, but holds no ancestral ones, at least mtDNA-wise (which IMO is more stable and reliable as reference than Y-DNA).
Darn! Link is broken, reposting:
D. Comas et al, "Admixture, migrations, and dispersals in Central Asia: evidence from maternal DNA lineages".
Hope it works now.
I think I have been able to trace the misconception of a Central Asian route for N to Maca-Meyer, 2001, who argues for two distinct populations for N and M, in West Asia and another in South Asia respectively. It's certainly not any new issue therefore.
But it cannot withstand the critical scrutiny (like other fancy conclussions of this author, btw, like her ideas on the origins of U6 - totally inconsistent with her own data). This is very especially true if you decide not to ignore Australia, as you suggested a few posts ago.
She argued for lineages A and B (no mention of F nor N9 but guess they would be included as well) to have migrated via Central Asia to the East. She never argued for N as a whole having a Central Asian homeland anyhow, just a convenient (but unproven and in fact most unlikely) route for A and B (and presumably F and N9 too).
But she did not argue for any likely route between the presumpt West Asian N/R homeland and Sahul. As you said before, we cannot ignore Sahul. Hence a SE or South Asian homeland for N and R is much more likely in fact, because the derived Oceanian lineages could not have gone through such a long journey through northern Asia without leaving some trace. In fact, if your hypothesis would have any merit, we would expect Sahulian N/R clades to be derived from East Asian ones and not so close to the N and R roots. The only somewhat clear connections we find of Sahulian lineages in Asia are with South and SE Asian clades, and not many in fact.
So, if we (wisely) choose not to ignore Australia and Melanesia, we must conclude that SE/South Asia is a much more likely origin for all Eurasian lineages, be them mtDNA or Y-DNA.
"How active are you in Wikipedia?"
Not very. It's convenient for getting a quick overview of any subject though.
"They crossed Gibraltar, for example".
No mention of Flores? Wouldn't Flores provide evidence for where "THEY HAD BEEN BOATING FOR MANY MANY DOZEN MILENNIA EARLIER". Anyway, we don't really know if Homo erectus actually used any manufactured craft to achieve these two crossings.
"the derived Oceanian lineages could not have gone through such a long journey through northern Asia without leaving some trace".
I doubt very much that 'the derived Oceanian lineages' themselves originated anywhere other than near where they survive today. It would have to have been their ancestors who moved through either Central Asia or India. As for a 'trace' of those ancestors we find several haplogroups that, although having been subject just to recent expansion, certainly seem to have separated from their related haplogroups in very ancient times. Y-haps C3 and D and mt-haps A and Ket N. Mt-hap Y is also difficult to explain away as having arrived via India. In fact it is most unlikely any of these linages could have moved through India "without leaving some trace".
"if we (wisely) choose not to ignore Australia and Melanesia, we must conclude that SE/South Asia is a much more likely origin for all Eurasian lineages, be them mtDNA or Y-DNA".
Only if we 'believe' that all ancient haplogroups derive from just a single small region. This scenario is unlikely. The human species has probably always been fairly widely distributed, if only through Africa, the Middle East, the Iranian Plateau and Southern Asia. The belief in a single small region of origin is certainly a product of "the typical Judeo-Crhistian trying to 'prove' Noah's deluge or whatever".
Terry, I'm a Biblical Anthropologist and can tell you that the idea at all human populations descend from the 3 sons of Noah is not found in the Bible at all. It is an outdated interpretaton. Linguistic and anthropological investigation of the peoples listed in Genesis 10 (the so called "Table of Nations") shows conclusively that all these populations are in the Afro-Asiatic group. This leaves open the question of other groups emerging from other ancestors.
I have a question. Is R-V88 a subclade that spread into Africa, or is it basal?
Alice: per ISOGG, there is not any V88 SNP. However they and myself may be missing some recent research that maybe you are familiar with. If so, I would not mind an explanation, link, reference...
I presume you mean the R1b1* found in Sahelian Africa, specially at the Chad and Nile areas. AFAIK, only its adscription to R1b1-P25 is known at the moment and seems not to be part of R1b1b2-M269, which is the main cluster of R1b. Hence it is probably quite basal in the R1b phylogeny (but in wait of further research).
Whatever the case, I treat it as one of the various ill-classified sublineages of R1b, namely:
- R1b1*-P25 (Sahel)
- R1b1a-M18 (Sardinia, SE France)
- R1b1c-M335 (private, Lebanon)
- R1b1b1-M73 (Uyghurs and other Central Asia)
Of these only R1b1b1-M73 has a satisfactorily clear phylogenetic position (pretty much basal). The remainder is R1b1b2-M269, which is the bulk of R1b and extends from West Asia to the Atlantic, with some structure that I deal with at this post.
Ah, I now realize what is R-V88. I missed the relevant post at Dienekes and only today I saw it.
As I expected all or most African former R1b1* belongs to that haplogroup: a single subclade.
Thanks, Maju. I read your comment at Dienekes blog and I tend to agree with you. I totally agree with you on Mathilda. I've found it impossible to hold a conversation with her in which I could actually learn something. :}
I have debated with Mathilda a lot and most of the time quite constructively. I used to like her blog a lot because of the aboundance of interesting materials on North Africa.
However, I don't know if it's her illness or what but as of late she seems more stubborn and racialist. She does not post much anymore either.
"Linguistic and anthropological investigation of the peoples listed in Genesis 10 (the so called 'Table of Nations') shows conclusively that all these populations are in the Afro-Asiatic group".
So only the Afro-Asiatic-speaking people descend from just Noah's three sons?
"I used to like her blog a lot because of the aboundance of interesting materials on North Africa".
I agree. I hope her illness is not so severe that she has given up posting.
So only the Afro-Asiatic-speaking people descend from just Noah's three sons? -
Ignore that please. She's a "Biblical anthropologist", whatever that is. You cannot expect total reason from anyone who describes him/herself as "Biblical whatever". Obviously Noah is just a tribal deformation of Sumerian myths, same as the figure of Eve and most of the rest of the Genesis.
But she has a genuine interest on the matter and that has its own merit. At least she is not insulting Basques or homosexuals like other commenters who have landed by as of late... she's entitled to have her own opinions and beliefs.
Sorry Maju
I appreciate that you grant me the right to my "opinion", Maju.
I've been researching for 32 years and am considered one of the leading Biblical Anthropologists in the world today. It is a field that is wide open to bright young anthropologists and it is a productive area of study. My specialty is kinship analysis and I have diagrammed the kinship pattern of Abraham's ancestors, which is why I'm interested in the genetic studies of distant ancestry.
Noah is most assuredly an historical person and he lived in the Lake Chad Basin. The flood was not worldwide, but there was certainly a period of at least 500 years of extreme dampness and, as you know, Lake Chad was once a sea. During Noah's lifetime Mega Chad extended to Mount Meni (in Niger). The idea that Noah's Ark landed in Armenia comes from the mistaken assumption that Har Meni (Mount Meni) could only be translated Armenia.
The Bible is the largest written source of data we have from the ancient Semites and other Afroasiatics, so why dismiss it? It also is the only source of information about the kinship pattern of the Horites (devotees of Horus). To read something on what Biblical Athropologists do, go here:
http://jandyongenesis.blogspot.com/2009/11/genesis-through-lens-of-anthropology.html
Noah is most assuredly an historical person and he lived in the Lake Chad Basin.
Sorry, Alice. Noah is just a tribal deformation of the legend of Ziusudra and, in my opinion, the flood is not any physical flood but the flood of Semitic peoples into Mesopotamia. The Sumerian Kings' Chronicle ends this way: and the flood (amaru) leveled everything. I have read more than one opinion that it refers to the semitic peoples known also as a maru or amurru, who in the first half of the 4th milennium BCE invaded Mesopotamia (and possibly other less documented areas).
Even Eden may be the common pastures of Sumer known as Anedena (between the low Tigris and Euphrates), where maybe some of the ancestors of the Hebrews brought their sheep until they were expelled somehow. That's possibly why it's said that Abraham was from Ur, i.e. from Sumer.
I've been researching for 32 years and am considered one of the leading Biblical Anthropologists in the world today.
By whom? The United Council of Churches? The Esotheric University of Tel Aviv? The Vatican Archives?
The Bible is the largest written source of data we have from the ancient Semites and other Afroasiatics.
No. The Bible only talks of Hebrews, maybe at some moments it vaguely mentions some nearby peoples but that's all. And it's not exactly "data" in a scientific sense anyhow (though I don't want to devaluate mythology either, that certainly expresses often some facts in extremely blurry and distorted ways).
There's an open mind for you!
Erm, you are telling me that Noah (Hebrew version of Sumerian Ziusudra) existed as a real person nothing less than at Lake Chad. And you are defending your qualifications because you are some sort of "Biblical scholar". What do you expect? Please!
Reality check, seriously.
You're a good researcher. Do the research yourself. The data in support of Noah's historicity and residence in Chad Basin is abundant, though ignored by older biblical scholars, because most were Germans writing during the rise of the Nazi regime. Some cultural anthropologists working there have noted the connections. For example, the only place on the surface of the earth that claims to be Noah's homeland is Bor'No - Land of Noah. (Ziusudra is the eastern Afroasiatic tradition's name.)
Sumerians were not Afroasiatic. It is a Sumerian myth, just that adopted by Hebrews.
"The flood was not worldwide"
Doesn't the Bible say it was? I'm sure it claims the flood was sent to destroy the earth. Or is that element of the story not 'literally true'? What other bits of the Bible are not 'literally true'? Or is it over to the individual to pick for him or herself which bits are literally true and which bits are not?
I disagree with Maju that 'The Flood' refers to a flood of people. I suspect 'The Flood' is a memory of an actual Mesopotamian flood. But the story has grown, as stories have a habit of doing. The high point where survivors landed was Eridu. People ritually ate fish at an ancient temple there.
"My specialty is kinship analysis and I have diagrammed the kinship pattern of Abraham's ancestors"
But surely the stories concerning Abraham cannot be taken literally either. He is said to have had dealings with people who didn't appear in the region till long after 2000 BC, unless he's more recent than that.
"The Bible is the largest written source of data we have from the ancient Semites and other Afroasiatics, so why dismiss it?"
And it provides very useful information, especially for the period since Ahab in Israel and Hezekiah in Judah. But on its own it's not so reliable.
I've had a quick look at your blog and I'm tempted to comment there. Is that alright?
What other bits of the Bible are not 'literally true'? -
According to what I was taught in a Catholic School, essentially nothing is too trustworthy (except the life and miracles of Jesus - for them of course). When I began questioning this part too, they kicked me out (with my full agreement, of course).
I disagree with Maju that 'The Flood' refers to a flood of people.
The archaeological evidence does not point to any widespread flood in all Mesopotamia (or Sumer) at any point, just localized floods affecting this or that city. Hence while the concept of disastrous flood is obviously part of the local imaginary, the generalized flood that the Sumerian documents mention cannot be a flood of water but something else that is curiously coincident with the end of prehistory (mythical list of kings) and beginning of history (realistic list of kings), and the attested presence of Semites in the region. The coincidence of words seems to be an intentional wordplay that, I imagine, was already common in Sumer before the Book of Kings recorded it.
This is of course not my invention: I have taken it from history books written by specialists.
The high point where survivors landed was Eridu. People ritually ate fish at an ancient temple there.
Eridu is the oldest Sumerian city and the one that displays oldest archaeological signs of worship to Enki (Kronos, Saturn, Yaveh). I can only imagine that this southern Sumerian city (very much in the lowlands) acted as refuge or reference for Sumerian culture in a time of increased Semitization.
Whatever the case, Sumerians recovered but never totally. And certainly they never again reached the imperial heights of El Ubayd archaeological phase, that surely mark the first empire in human history. Further Mesopotamian empires would all be Semitic.
Flood myth is one of the most common myths around the world. Anyway, just like Ziasudra, Noah, India had 'Manu'. Curiously, this appears only in Satapata Brahmana which clearly defines the primacy to Brahmins. Early Vedic text (Rg Veda) had only passing reference of four Varnas and no explanation thereafter. In this text they divide even Vedic deities along caste lines.
West European mythologies have no deluge legend. The Wiki mentions Ireland but it's a neo-myth about Noah, not any genuine legend. The closest thing in Basque mythology is some local myths of some farmhouses or villages swallowed by some local pool or creek, or the legend of Old Bayonne (placed in Hondarribia) that fell into the sea.
But well Basques do not have creation myths either: creation is perpetual, not primeval. Nor have prophets, nor temples, nor anything of what is considered part of religion elsewhere, including by Christianized Basques. They were not polytheistic though but monotheistic/bitheistic: female-male duality that, when together, spawns the storms that bring fertility. Any minor deity, basically Odei-Eate-Michael (Basque-Celtic-Hebrew names), is an offspring (or manifestation) of the dual God, same as all the rich universe of plural and benevolent genii.
Manju, do you think that Brahma and Abraham (Al-Braham?) are the same figure in different versions?
I read somewhere i the past some speculation on that which attributed the name to the IE root *Brm, meaning deep voice, thunder (like in Spanish "bramar": the noise that bulls make). Or in other words speech, the Verb that the Hebrew sages decided was at the beginning of their creation legend, or the Lunar/priestly concept of the tongue/mind (Thoth) in the Egyptian dualist myth that also includes the solar/monarchic concept of the heart/willpower (Ra, Horus) and that is most likely at the origin of the Hebrew creation myth (in this case the influence seems more Egyptian that Sumerian).
I understand that this duality Brahman/Aham also exist in Hindu mythology and really makes much sense even from a psychological sense (i.e. the perceptive/reflexive mind and the volitional/executive mind).
I think it's non-duality of Brahma/Aham and not duality that's there in those scriptures (Satapatha Brahamana and later Sankara's comments on them..."Aham Brahmosmi").
There are few similarities between Brahma and Abraham. Anyway, since I believe Brahmin Varna was basically a creation of West Asian priests (who merged with IE bards). However, my belief just stems from the fact that priests had started their lineages in West Asia (in Sumeria) around 3000 BCE(En-Men-Dur-Ana).
Abraham - Brahma
Sarai - Saraswati
I think IE speaking Andronovo culture got its Iranian culture by these West Asian priests around 2000 BCE (Fire cult).
my belief just stems from the fact that priests had started their lineages in West Asia (in Sumeria) around 3000 BCE(En-Men-Dur-Ana).
Not sure if it matters but just for the record, Sumer is much older, dating to 5400 BCE (Eridu) and 5300 BCE (Ubaid period). This last implied some sort of "imperial" expansion (in Mesopotamia, and parts of Syria and Anatolia). Its cultural influence was surely immense (Egypt, Iran, Pakistan and all West Asia), though we only know of it from legends and archaeology.
The decline of this cultural phase (early or pre-deluge Sumer) was coincident with the Semitic invasions (first half of the 4th millennium BCE) and the beginnings of non-mythical history.
Abraham - Brahma
Sarai - Saraswati
Oddly enough it makes total sense.
The priesthood, if we are speaking of those who sacrificed at altars, has its orgins in Africa. It is linked to the much older conception of rebirth through blood which is why red ochre dust was sprinkled on the bodies of the dead rulers. The red ochre was first mined in the Lebombo Mts of southern Africa 80,000 years ago.
Maju:
Do you have any idea about lineage system of Indo-Europeans? Any inputs highly appreciated.
Alice: I don't question that ochre (a catchall term for diverse reddish minerals anyhow) was first used in Africa. It is quite possible in fact that there were no humans outside Africa 80,000 BP, though the opposite is also possible as well. Whatever the case, the use of ochre is widespread among hunter-gatherers in many places including some of the oldest offshoots, like Bushmen and Pygmies, who definitively have absolutely no priesthood of any sort.
Mixing ochre with modern (i.e. post-Neolithic) religious concepts is just a total craze. I realize now that I was not being abusive when I dismissed your "biblical" credentials: you are nothing but an illuminated pedantic ignorant.
Reality check.
Manju: not sure. They were markedly patriarchal for sure. They had a patriarchal warrior imaginary rather than a patriarchal priest/wiseman one. For German Dziebel they used the Eskimo system of simple relations mostly, I understand, but I know that some Slavic peoples have more complex systems.
I know that in certain sociological study on French someone detected a difference between the Celtic sustratum of the NW (patriarchal authoritarian of extended family - clannic - conservative politics) and the Germanic substratum of the NE (patriarchal authoritarian of nuclear family - liberal politics). A third type of Basque substratum was detected in the SW (soft patriarchal of extended family - socialist politics).
If you can't find his inspirer Henry Morgan, father of kinship studies, surely Engels' "Origin of Family, Private Property and State" will be available. In that classical book the Greek, Roman, Celtic and Germanic kinship is reviewed in great detail, along with others like Iroquois, Hawaiian and Aboriginal Australian.
I have it right here, but it's been long since I read it and would take me a while to get a well founded impression on the matter.
I'm not looking at kinship system where the basic unit is family. Probably, I should say clan system. If you consider India, Brahmins have lineage system where they trace their ancestry to some sages. However, Dravidians have clans identified by totemic objects or house names or place names. This lineage or sept is exogamous in either Brahmins or in Dravidians.
"just localized floods affecting this or that city".
I was actually thinking of just such a flood. For anyone involved in a flood it certainly seems as though the whole world is flooded, especially on a wide open plain. And stories grow. On the other hand you could be correct with your 'flood of humanity' idea.
"female-male duality that, when together, spawns the storms that bring fertility".
I wish they'd do that here.
"Oddly enough it makes total sense".
Sure does.
Per Engels (and I presume Morgan on whom Engels bases his boook) clan systems are universal: the clan is the exogamous unit within a normally endogamous tribe. Tribes have always at least two clans (to ensure exogamy within the tribe). Indoeuropeans were no exception probably and the clan/tribe structure is documented even up to advanced stages of civilization, though gradually being replaced by the city-state "individualization" requirements.
At the beginning Athenians were members of clans and tribes, at the end they were private citizens without nearly other lineage connection than their known relatives and the Athenian republic. Much of the same happened in Rome, though Patricians specially kept the clan ("gens" in Latin) system (but not the tribe anymore - except in the very devalued sense of "district") for longer.
If Brahmins don't have clan system anymore it is surely because they have lost it and replaced by some other structure like political or religious organization.
I was actually thinking of just such a flood. For anyone involved in a flood it certainly seems as though the whole world is flooded, especially on a wide open plain.
Sumerians were unavoidably familiar with local unpredictable floods. Anyhow the concept of Ziusudra's flood is one that destroys the old regime somehow: a true cataclysm affecting the whole country and triggering a whole new era.
On the other hand you could be correct with your 'flood of humanity' idea.
The fact is that both events (mythical flood and real Semitic migrations) are coincident in time, so the interpretation is not far fetched at all.
Of course there will be random people searching for Noah's lost ark for as long as the myth is recalled. But that's another totally unrelated story...
12,000 years ago all the river systems of the Sahel-Nile, Tigris-Euphrates and Saravati (Saruti)-Indus flooded vast areas. These are also the areas of the Afro-Asiatic peoples. That being the case, we are not surprised to have multiple flood stories among these peoples.
http://college-ethics.blogspot.com/2010/01/understanding-binary-distinctions.html
Sorry, Alice but what you say seems extremely unlikely (and no reference in your site seems to support such claim) and anyhow keeps no relation with the well established chronology for the Sumerian "flood" that clearly places it at some time in the 4th or 3rd milennium BCE (because the first dynasty "after the flood" is the dynasty of Kish, rather well dated).
Luckily for us, the Hebrews were not the only ones who wrote in that time.
You can, I guess, argue for a real riverine flood in Mesopotamia but what you say makes no more sense than if you would be talking about UFO sightings.
Do you know where the oldest known writing has been located?
Abraham was not a Hebrew and we are discussing his ancestors.
Have you examined the satellite photography showing the extent of those river systems 12-15 thousand years ago?
I preceive that you are operating under negative assumptions about the Bible and people who think that it may have validity.
You aren't really interested in discovery, are you? You continue to trot out the old Sumerian mythology line, which not helpful.
I've enjoyed the debate, but since I'm wasting my time, I'll sign off.
Abraham was not a Hebrew and we are discussing his ancestors.
Abraham is said in the Bible to be the ancestor of all Hebrews (of course he can only be a mythical ancestor, not a real one).
I preceive that you are operating under negative assumptions about the Bible and people who think that it may have validity.
The Bible (OT specifically) is a compilation of Hebrew legends, semi-historical materials and religious teachings (often all mixed). I accept in principle that it may say something useful about historical reality, the same that can, for example, Greek legends. But is not a historical book in the modern sense of the word.
You have by default to take its claims with a good dose of salt. Very specially the more mythological materials like the Genesis and even the Exodus.
You continue to trot out the old Sumerian mythology line, which not helpful.
Why not? Sumer is not only the oldest civilization worldwide but was without doubt extremely influential in the whole region.
Why would be more helpful to heed not the legends of a bunch of fanatic militarized nomads but your particular interpretation of what they eventually compiled?
You need loads of faith, not in Yaveh but in you, for that.
I'll sign off.
Feel free.
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