Hoabinhian neolithic site

Issue #36 of Stone Pages' bulletin, Archaeo News, has arrived to my mailbox with at least one item worth mentioning

New Neolithic (Hoabinhian) site found in North Vietnam

The cave, known as Tham Choong, (Na Hang district, Tuyen Quang province) is dated to 8000-7000 years ago. The tools belong to the Hoabinhian culture, which lasted from some 34,000 years ago to c. 2000 BCE, spanning through Paleolithic and Neolithic.

The thousand or so stone tools recovered served for cutting, chopping and grinding. Bone tools were also found, including a sharply pointed one that archaeologists believe was used for stitching the bark clothes they probably used.

Source: Vietnam News.

Other news

Check the newsletter for other news, such as digs in North America (Utah, already mentioned here from another source, Wyoming, Wisconsin) and Britain (Bronze Age cremation cemetery at projected commercial center near Inverness, Scotland, Bronze Age person from the Isle of Man died violently, trekking path projected between Avebury and Stonehenge, etc.) 

There's also a mention on Timothy Taylor's hypothesis on the baby sling being a decisive invention in human evolution (I'm a bit skeptic but who knows?)

More importantly maybe, Paola and Diego mention that they are heading again to Sardinia, accompanied by archaeologist George Nash, with the intention of persuading the authorities to open the badly sealed and spectacular Tomba della Scacchiera (image below), a Megalithic site that has serious conservation risks and also has a strong touristic potential (already mentioned at Leherensuge).

Genetic diversity of SE Asian chickens

An interesting read for those curious about the origins of domestic chicken, its genetic diversity within and across breeds and the interactions between domestic and wild animals within the Gallus gallus species at their likely ancestral homeland.

C. Berthouly-Salazar et al. Vietnamese chickens: a gate towards Asian genetic diversity. BMC Genetics. Open access.

Humans in Philippines before 66,000 years ago

Julien Riel-Salvatore at A Very Remote Period Indeed echoes the latest major discovery on ancient human (sensu lato) presence in Asia.

A metatarsal bone that has been found at Callao Cave in Northern Luzon island and has a minimal age of 66,700 years ago (± 1 Ka), calculated with an uranium-based methodology.

The foot bone compares well, albeit with some minor differences, with those of modern Negritos, believed to be descendants of the first colonization by Homo sapiens in the Middle Paleolithic. However the bone also compares well with other Homo species, such as Homo habilis and, more interestingly, Homo floresiensis, which is known to have lived in the not too distant island of Flores up to 12,000 years ago maybe.

The question on which species it actually belongs to may be solved in the near future as excavations progress in the Filipino cave but one thing is clear: it adds even further evidence in favor of a very early adoption of boating technology by hominins, with potential to cross sea bodies of small size.

Other such evidence is in the presence of Homo floresiensis in the remote island of Flores, never connected to the mainland and requiring in fact the crossing of several straits, the recent discovery of quartz handaxes in Crete dating apparently to as early as 130,000 years ago and the genetic reconstructions that seem to support a coastal route along southern Arabia into South Asia and beyond for the migration of Homo sapiens out of Africa.


Armand Salvador Mijares et al., New evidence for a 67,000-year-old human presence at Callao Cave, Luzon, Philippines. Journal of Human Evolution 2010. Pay per view.

Abstract

Documentation of early human migrations through Island Southeast Asia and Wallacea en route to Australia has always been problematic due to a lack of well-dated human skeletal remains. The best known modern humans are from Niah Cave in Borneo (40–42 ka), and from Tabon Cave on the island of Palawan, southwest Philippines (47 ± 11 ka). The discovery of Homo floresiensis on the island of Flores in eastern Indonesia has also highlighted the possibilities of identifying new hominin species on islands in the region. Here, we report the discovery of a human third metatarsal from Callao Cave in northern Luzon. Direct dating of the specimen using U-series ablation has provided a minimum age estimate of 66.7 ± 1 ka, making it the oldest known human fossil in the Philippines. Its morphological features, as well as size and shape characteristics, indicate that the Callao metatarsal definitely belongs to the genus Homo. Morphometric analysis of the Callao metatarsal indicates that it has a gracile structure, close to that observed in other small-bodied Homo sapiens. Interestingly, the Callao metatarsal also falls within the morphological and size ranges of Homo habilis and H. floresiensis. Identifying whether the metatarsal represents the earliest record of H. sapiens so far recorded anywhere east of Wallace’s Line requires further archaeological research, but its presence on the isolated island of Luzon over 65,000 years ago further demonstrates the abilities of humans to make open ocean crossings in the Late Pleistocene.

New paper on Y-DNA haplogroup C

Natsuya points me to this new paper on the distribution and likely spread of Y-DNA haplogroup C, with special focus on East Asia and subhaplogroup C3.

Hua Zhong et al. Global distribution of Y-chromosome haplogroup C reveals the prehistoric migration routes of African exodus and early settlement in East Asia. Journal of Human Genetics 2010. Pay per view (but you can read it freely at ZohoViewer).

CONCLUSIONS
We demonstrated the phylogeographic distribution of one of the most ancient non-African Y-chromosome lineages, from which we inferred the prehistoric migration and expansion of the Hg C lineage. We propose that Hg C was derived from the African exodus and gradually colonized South Asia, Southeast Asia, Oceania and East Asia by a single Paleolithic migration from Africa to Asia and Oceania, which occurred more than 40KYA. The prehistoric northward migration of Hg C in mainland East Asia likely followed the coastline and is consistent with the northward migration of other East Asian Y-chromosome haplogroups.

Nothing too new as you can see, however the the data detail and the neighbor-joining trees of haplotypes for C3 and C5 are of some interest, suggesting that C3 probably coalesced a Mid-East Asia (China and surroundings) rather than SE or NE Asia.

C6 was not located anywhere, suggesting that it's just a very minor clade. In contrast South Asian specific C5 was detected among 2.5% of Indians and 1.5% of Southern Pakistanis, reminiscent of a back-migration from SE Asia by the same "coastal route" that was used to reach SE Asia at an earlier moment.

It's interesting also the still rather high amount of undefined C* found in various areas: 4.6% in Philippines, 5.6% in East Indonesia, 5.9% in Micronesia, 5.6% in Australian Aborigines, 9.1% among the Mulau of Guangxi, 6.9 among the Shui of Guizhou, 7.6 among the Yao of Guangxi, 7.7 among the Tujia of Hubei, 8.2 among the Hui of Ningxia and 6.7 among the Hezhe of Heilojiang. It is also potentially interesting the 0.5% in India because it might have greater densities in some of its very diverse populations (but it's treated as a single homogenous sample in this paper).

Morong 43: health professionals under the Inquisition in Philippines

There is today an interesting article at La Haine (in Spanish, an English version can be read here), by James Petras and Robin Eastman-Abaya, on the kind of Colombian-like violence and oligarchic terrorism that dominates the Filipino political landscape, where votes are forced by the means of institutional terror by a handful of feudal lords (and ladies, as President Macapagal).

A particular focus is the inquisitorial forgery of the case against 43 physicians and nurses that were arrested at a professional meeting in the locality of Morong, where they were discussing a plan for intervention in case of epidemic after the disaster caused by typhoon Ketsana.

They were rounded up and brought to a military camp where they were tortured. They are (gratuitously) accused of belonging to the guerrilla New People's Army.

The decane of the College of Physicians of the University of Philippines described the arrests, tortures and accusations as part of a pattern of terrorism against physicians comitted to the rural areas, where the situation is generally awful.

The issue has been covered in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet however the mainstream press has ignored the matter completely, because Gloria Macapagal and her terror regime are a key ally of the Empire in the area.

East Asian autosomal genetics, second round

I already commented on the HUGO paper (paywall, but full PDF here) before as a "working note". Recent discussion at another blog has got me working again on it.

I ended up with this map reflecting as well as possible the geographical distribution of the various components:


Names (arbitrary but descriptive) are my creation, as are the arrows illustrating possible gene flows. Question marks indicate where there's lack of data. Continuous lines indicate "pure" areas, dotted lines indicate greater or thinner presence of each component.

I suspect that the blue component represents the Neolithic stock, spreading first autonomously and then also (but more limitedly) in admixture with other components. If so, the other major components may have receded before it or may have just absorbed each other in mutual interactions.


Observations

The expansion of the Peninsular component to Indonesia did not carry the Neolithic component. So either is pre-Neolithic of was made by non-mixed Austroasiatic peoples after getting the "neolithic package" from further north without getting the genes.

The expansion of the Neolithic component to sub-Hymalayan South Asia did not carry other Eastern components, so it happened before or, in any case, in a separate way to admixture with other East Asian groups.

The South Maritime (Austronesian) expansion happened also independently from any genetic input, other than admixture with native Austronesians and Melanesians (West and East of Wallace Line respectively)

North and South Maritime populations did not interact, not even in the mainland, excepting Han expansion. This is quite curious and might explain the physiognomic differences between northern and southern "Mongoloids" much better than old hypothesis of admixture with Negritos/Melanesians.

Several distinct aboriginal groups seem to have receded before Austroasiatic and Austronesian expansion without significantly penetrating the settlers' genetic pools. These are mostly Negritos (Malay and Filipino) but also the Proto-Malay and the Mentawai. The Hmong, even if a larger ethnicity, can be argued to have suffered a similar destiny, absorbing a lot of Neolithic component and impacting other groups only minimally. In this they are similar to Austroasiatics, though in ISEA, the overlaying component is Austronesian, not Continental (and they have been absorbed linguistically).


Reconstructing the past

A plausible reconstruction of pre-Neolithic/Early Neolithic distribution could be this map:

Colors as above. I ignored the Mlabri and Proto-Malay. Please don't be too nit-picky with the necessary/convenient simplifications, thanks.

I understand that some quite reasonable ethnic interpretations can be made:

Sino-Tibetan: Neolithic Blue with various mixtures. Northern Neolithic may soon have evolved into a Blue-Yellow mix speaking proto-Sinitic.

Tai-Kadai (Kradai): Neolithic Blue with South Maritime Green (Southern Neolithic genesis).

Austroasiatic: Red, often with Neolithic Blue. Must have existed in Sundaland prior to Austronesian expansion and prior or simultaneous to Neolithic (Blue) expansion. Did they arrive there as Neolithic settlers, Epipaleolithic maybe, or were there "all the time"?

Austronesian: Bright Green, often in admixture. Must be original from the Taiwan-Philippines-SE China area.

Hmong-Mien: Along with their ethnic component (Light Blue), they display Neolithic Blue with minor Bright Green, suggesting that they adopted Neolithic before Tai-Kadai genesis. They have absorbed some Tai-Kadai blood but their genesis seems older than that (peripheral South Neolithic genesis).

Melanesian, Filipino Negrito and Malaysian Negrito are three different stocks.

Ongoing revolutions in Asia

Surely you have already read/watched/heard about the takeover of Kyrgyzstan by the opposition after some major clashes and of the growing and extremely daring pressure of the Red Shirts in Thailand, who are in practice taking the capital in defiance of the state of emergency and even stormed Parliament yesterday.

These revolutions are reactions to poverty, nepotism, corruption and autocracy, of course. In the case of Kyrgyzstan, it seems to lack any effective revolutionary project (what may result in further instability), but it is not so clearly the case with the Thai Red Shirts movement.

Whatever the case, what is clear to me is that these revolutions (we'll see if the Red Shirts succeed but it looks rather likely) have geopolitical implications that we cannot ignore (besides our best wishes for dignity, justice and freedom for all): both countries are key US allies in Asia, hosting bases, and both are rather close to China.

In the Thai case, the implications are fairly clear: China supports Cambodia, which in turn supports the Red Shirts movement in a bid to fight from the inside its powerful and authoritarian Thai neighbor. In the Kyrgyz case the situation is slightly more complicated for the presence and interests of Russia, which stands between China and the Western bloc and also has a military base in the impoverished nation. Russia, naturally has denied any influence in the revolt but from the geopolitical viewpoint it cannot be ignored the recent developments in the former USSR region, all favorable to Russia (Georgia war, power shift in Ukraine). So it is difficult to say whether it's China or Russia or both the ones lurking behind the Kyrgyz revolution. In any case, it's not too favorable in principle to US interests, whose only base in Central Asia is precisely in that country.

Geopolitics apart, there is another lesson to be learnt in these revolutions: that a rotten autocratic government is a ripe fruit waiting to fall down, that revolutions can happen and do happen when the conditions are propitious. Whether these revolutions can solve the problems that caused them is another matter but certainly there is no such possibility if the causants of misery and oppression remain in charge.

Macro-haplogroup N in East Asia, Chen 2009

A reader has been so kind to send me a copy of this Chinese paper, which I have hanged at ZohoViewer:

Chen Zhiyong, Migration and Diversification of Mitochondrial Haplogroup N in EastAsians. Communication on Contemporary Anthropology 2009.

The paper is in Chinese (and can't find any English version) but has loads of nice and informative graphs and maps with legend in both languages about macro-haplogroup N and some of its derivatives, specially A and N9 (incl. Y).

As the saying goes: an image is worth more than a thousand words... specially if these are in a language you can't understand. Still, if any of you can read some Chinese and give some feedback, I'm of course interested.

Most importantly the paper seems to confirm a SE Asian origin for macro-haplogroup N. Specifically it suggests a SE Asia as probable origin:

Fig.2 A simplified Median-joining Network of haplogroup N based on mitochondrial HVS-1 Keys for the colors: Red for the Tonkin Bay area, Green for South China, Orange for North China, and Blue for Southeast Asia.

Fig. 4 The frequency distributions of unclassified N [top] and N*(16223) [bottom]

Another relevant finding is that haplogroup A seems to be also original (like nearly everything) from South China/SE Asia:

Fig.10 Diffusion of the mitochondrial proto-A haplogroup. Blue clines stand for the total frequency, and red clines stand for the mutation rate within the population.

Notice that "proto-A" seems to mean A* rather than some pre-A standing between the N and A nodes. That's what I gather from the phylogenetic context in other figures but if anyone can clarify further, I'll be thankful.

Finally as the genetics of SE Asia and in particular Island SE Asia have been recently matter of lengthy discussions in this blog, I think that this map on ISEA N9 (N9a and Y2) may be interesting:

Fig.28 Distributions of the mitochondrial haplogroups Y2 and N9a in Southeast Asia. Blue stands for Y2, and red for N9a6.

But anyhow, take a look at the paper even if you can't speak Chinese because there are a lot of maps and phylogenetic graphs, all of them of interest.

One thing they have in common though: the spread of all lineages seems to begin in South China/SE Asia.

Indonesian Y-DNA is mostly Paleolithic

Found at Dienekes'.

Tatiana M. Karafet et al., Major East-West Division Underlies Y Chromosome Stratification Across Indonesia. MBE 2010. Pay per view.

While I don't have at the moment access to this surely interesting paper and hence to the likely substantial details, the abstract sounds highly interesting:

The early history of Island Southeast Asia is often characterized as the story of two major population dispersals: the initial Paleolithic colonization of Sahul 45 thousand years ago and the much later Neolithic expansion of Austronesian-speaking farmers 4,000 years ago. Here, in the largest survey of Indonesian Y chromosomes to date, we present evidence for multiple genetic strata that likely arose through a series of distinct migratory processes. We genotype an extensive battery of Y chromosome markers, including 85 SNPs/indels and 12 Y-STRs, in a sample of 1,917 men from 32 communities located across Indonesia. We find that the paternal gene pool is sharply subdivided between western and eastern locations, with a boundary running between the islands of Bali and Flores. Analysis of molecular variance reveals one of the highest levels of between-group variance yet reported for human Y chromosome data (e.g., ?ST = 0.47). Eastern Y chromosome haplogroups are closely related to Melanesian lineages (i.e., within the C, M and S subclades) and likely reflect the initial wave of colonization of the region, while the majority of western Y chromosomes (i.e., O-M119*, O-P203, and O-M95*) are related to haplogroups that may have entered Indonesia during the Paleolithic from mainland Asia. In addition, two novel markers (P201, P203) provide significantly enhanced phylogenetic resolution of two key haplogroups (O-M122, O-M119) that are often associated with the Austronesian expansion. This more refined picture leads us to put forward a four-phase colonization model in which Paleolithic migrations of hunter-gatherers shape the primary structure of current Indonesian Y chromosome diversity, and Neolithic incursions make only a minor impact on the paternal gene pool, despite the large cultural impact of the Austronesian expansion.

Bad news in any case for the Neolithicists, again confirmation for the Paleolithicists like myself. This in a context like SE Asia where it's been argued more than anywhere else in favor of a massive population replacement in Neolithic times (based on craniometric data mostly). It seems it was not the case after all.

I wonder how does Karafet and colleagues treat the issue of the proposed MNOPS macro-haplogroup downstream of K, or if just limit themselves to describe the sublineages (such as M, S and O) regardless of upstream affiliation.

Notice that the discovered divide goes exactly along Wallace line, a major ecological divide, which exists because the continent reached in the Ice Age, when sea levels were much lower, as far East as Bali and Borneo, while the islands east of that line remained separated.

Understanding the ecological divide at Indonesia (from Wikipedia)

This divide only makes sense if navigation was limited at the time and makes no sense whatsoever if one wants to explain it within the context of Austronesian expansion, because for these formidable oceangoing sailors, who colonized as far as Hawaii, Easter Island and Madagascar, such barrier would have never been any obstacle at all.

Update (March 10):

I got a copy of the paper (thanks to Argiedude again) and the four phases proposed are as follows:

1. Early colonization reaching to Sahul. Lineages: C*, K*, C2, M and S. Dated to c. 45 Ka ago.
2. Second flow affecting only Sundaland. Lineages: O1a1, O2a, O3(xO3a3) and O1a. Dated to 30-15 Ka.
3. Austronesian colonization. Lineages: O1a2 and O3a3(xO3a3b). Dated to 4-3 Ka.
4. Late arrivals from India, West Asia and China. Lineages: H, L, J and O3a3b.

Of course, the dates attached to the two Paleolithic phases are to be taken with some caution.

Some F* (East Indonesia) and R (West Indonesia) were also detected and should be associated to phases 1 and 4 respectively.

The remnants of the first phase are found particularly in East Indonesia, Melanesia, Polynesia (as partial genetic extension of Melanesia) and Philippines, where K* still constitutes almost 50% of Y-DNA. There's also some C* and K* in West Indonesia (and notably, different source, some 25% K* among the Orang Asli of peninsular Malaysia) but it's much more patchy and diluted.

Of the second phase, I'd read that O2a and O3 are arrivals from mainland SE Asia but that O1 may have coalesced at Sundaland and flowed northwards to as far as Taiwan, where O1a2 constitutes some 90% of the Aboriginal Y-DNA, being the main haplogroup that can be directly linked to the Austronesian expansion in phase 3.

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Addendum (March 12): map by Argiedude showing the frequencies of the lineages belonging to the first colonization wave of Karafet, here described as "Australasian lineages" and also showing current distribution of Austronesian and Papuan languages (the latter a paraphyletic group):

Larger version

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Important update (Mar 14): rare H and J lineages:

Thanks to the keen eye of Ebizur and Argiedude (see the discussion here and at Dienekes' blog), two rare Y-DNA lineages have been spotted in the Karafet samples: these are H(xH1,H2) and J(xJ1,J2).

H(xH1,H2) is found in Bali (17/641 = 2.65%) along with some H1 and H2 (one case of each). This paragroup seems rare even in India.

J(xJ1,J2) is found in Bali too (2/641 = 0.3%) along with some J1 (6/641) and J2b (4/641). It is also found in Vietnam (1/70 = 1.4%), along with some J2(xJ2b) (1/70), this last one also found in Java, Sulawesi, Vanuatu and Han Chinese. J* is, according to Argiedude not really found anywhere else.

Someone by the name Finn uploaded the paper and supplements at Zoho Viewer and you can (at least by the moment), find them at these links: main, PDF supp, XLS supp.

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Update July 3: Natsuya has got some further details via private communication with Tatiana Karafet. Specifically the distribution of haplogroups among the four different Han samples and STR haplotype sequences for O3b3b-M7. LINK.

Paleolithic Europeans did not burn the vegetation as in SE Asia or Australia

While it seems that in SE Asia and Australia newly arrived H. sapiens extensively used fire to transform the landscape since 60-50,000 years ago, this was not the case in Europe, neither by Neanderthals nor our species.

Anne-Laure Daniau et al., Testing the Hypothesis of Fire Use for Ecosystem Management by Neanderthal and Upper Palaeolithic Modern Human Populations. PLoS ONE, 2010. Open access.

Conclusion

Extensive use of fire for ecosystem management was probably a component of the technical package of Modern Humans during their colonisation of Southeast Asia. Our study shows that fire regimes in Western Europe between 70 ka and 10 ka were mainly driven by the D-O millennial-scale climatic variability and its impacts on fuel load. At a macro level at least, the colonisation of Western Europe by Anatomically Modern Humans did not have a detectable impact on fire regimes. This, however, does not mean that Neanderthals and/or Modern Humans did not use fire for ecosystem management but rather that, if this were indeed the case, the impact on the environment of fire use is not detectable in our records, and was certainly not as pronounced as it was in the biomass burning history of Southeast Asia.

Thailand turmoil finally well explained

I was getting the impression, watching the repression in Thailand this week, so different to the lack of it when the "yellow shirts" did exactly the same last year, that the current "yellow" government is basically a puppet of the king and very especially the army and that in the end Thaksin and his "red shirts" would be the party of the people and the others just the usual political dogs of the estabilishment. But I don't know too much of Thailand (other than it being the main vassal of the US Empire in the region, together with Philippines), so I have kept a cautious "neutral" attitude.

Finally I have found at The Guardian (via Rebelión) an article that explains what is really going on.

The author, Giles Ji Ungpakorn explains that, yes, Thaksin is evil, burgueoise and corrupt but he managed to lead the popular discontent against the de-facto monarchical dictatorship and the estabilishment in general, which is even more evil, burgeueoise and corrupt. After the reaction managed to take him out, the real party behind him is emerging and their new name Real Democracy (instead of the rather silly "Thai Loves Thai" used in the past) speaks a lot.

Ungpakorn explains that what is going on is in fact just the normal class war going on everywhere else: the people demanding real democracy and social change, some of which Thaksin implemented in fact. But he argues that the red shirts are far from being just mere passive followers of Thaksin, that they have reacted in anger in fact to some of his policies and lack of them in the past and that, now that Thanksin is in exile, have become even more radicalized.

In turn the yellow shirts are denounced as a monarchist fascist old guard trying to impose a "new order" where most public positions, including parliamentary seats, would not be elected. Fascism.

Ungpakorn had to exile himself last February to avoid being persecuted under the fasicst laws of the SE Asian realm that severaly persecute anyone who criticies the totalitarian monarch.

In a sense we are watching some of what happened in Nepal last year, with the difference that the red shirts, by the moment, are not so much radicalized and certainly (unlike the yellow shirts) are not armed like the Maoist guerrilla of the Himalayan country. As the confrontation deepens the republican sentiment grows and, well, anything may happen. Moreso in such an awful general economic context as the one we suffer now.
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SE Asia before Hoabinian (just a note)

Searching a bit in the Net on Asian Paleolithic, specially Southern and SE Asian because of their importance regarding the early human expansion in Eurasia, found this e-book: Prehistory of the Indo-Malaysian Archipielago by P. Bellwood (p. 159-161).

My interest focuses in what existed prior to Hoabinian (c. 17,000-3,000 BP):

1. Sonviian: N. Vietnam, S. Thailand and peninsular Malaysia (c. 23-11,000 BP uncalibrated). Somewhat different from Hoabinian but also a "cobble culture". Both cultures overlap in space and time.

2. Kota Tampan (peninsular Malaysia): c. 31,000 BP (dated by fission racks in zircon) over a Toba explosion ash layer. Resembles Sonviian. Unlike further north, there is a blank between Kota Tampan and full Hoabinian (c. 13,000 BP)

3. Lang Rongrien (southern Thailand): c. 38,000-28,000 BP (uncalibrated), and related site Moh Khiew (c. 26,000 BP), with a bifacial retouch industry. Distinct from the other "cobble cultures". The author suggests it could be similar to another culture in Sabah. Lang Rongrien also has a Hoabinian of later date, with a thick sterile layer in between.

The LGM hiatus seems unique to the Malay peninsula and southern Thailand and does not exist furthern north in SE Asia or China.

...

I'd thank any reader who could point me to useful links (not books) on Asian Middle and Upper Paleolithic, very specially those that provide synthetic data with dates (and, yeah, I love maps and illustrations too)
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