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Ancestry Surprises From New Genetics Analysis Method
An anonymous reader commends a recently published study involving a new way to analyze genetic variation in human populations (full article published in PLOS Genetics): "[S]cientists from Ireland, the UK and the US analysed 2,540 genetic markers in the DNA of almost 1,000 people from around the world whose genetic material had been collected by the Human Genome Diversity Project. The results include a number of surprises... the Yakut people of northern Siberia were found to have received a significant genetic contribution from the population of the Orkney Islands, which lie off the coast of Scotland... there must have been a period of gene flow from northern Europe to east Asia. The study also shed light on the peopling of the Americas, as the results suggest that the native populations of north and south America have different origins."
A lot of people didn't want to give up on the idea that the arctic bridge was the only way people got to the Americas, when it made much more sense that some people could've traveled the ocean to settle here.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
Well, there's anthropological evidence that there were several migrations from Asia to the Americas, namely, two island-hopping sea routes and one over the land bridge in the north. This just sort of confirms this idea.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
This isn't to say Polynesians were the first to South America, as Easter Island was populated around 2000 years ago while S.A. was populated many thousands of more years before that. However, it seems likely that there might have been genetic mixing between Polynesians and South American coastal tribes.
Probably one of the best sources I can think of off the top of my head is the book, Guns Germs and Steel. The book gives a great in depth look at the origins of man, and the crops/domesticated animals we eat as well as lots of maps showing movements through the ages. It's a pretty long read though, but well worth it. The book also goes well into why the decendants of those from Europe and Asia control the world today and not those in Africa, North America or Oceana.
Except for the Bering land bridge. That's a function of sea level, but the world did look quite a bit different. Lots more ice around, less water.
Remember that there is a difference between using mitochondrial DNA (the studies you cited) and autosomal DNA (this study). With mitochondrial DNA, the only information that you get is along the maternal line, so you're missing a lot of the data. Looking back 20 generations, for example, you're only looking at one ancestor out of about a million. It would be possible for two groups to come over but only one be reflected in the maternal line.
Well, primitive tribes _were_ extremely aggressive, and did fight all the time.
On the other hand "contributed to the ancestry of the native North Americans" implies interbreeding, rather than genocide. I.e., they fucked their way across two continents.
It's not exactly surprising, though. A staple of tribal warfare, and it even lasted well into Iron Age in Greece for example, was raiding for another tribe's women, not just their food.
Life expectancy for women was rather disproportionately lower than for men in primitive societieties, and for men it wasn't as high as to reach andropause first. So eventually a lot of still able men were left with the prospect of either finding another woman somehow, or playing with Miss Rosy Palm for the next 5 to 10 years. Meanwhile the next tribe had plenty of women. Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Pinky?
Of course then the next tribe had an acute shortage of women, so the cycle of violence continued.
So I'm saying that interbreeding would have been inevitable. When the newly arrived East Asians won a raid, they got some women from the previous populations, when they lost one, the opposite would happen.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
You'd be wrong there.
Depends on what period of history and what area you're talking about, actually.
There's evidence of Jewish presence in China as early as the 7th century. There were reports in the 9th century of Christian, Muslims, and Jews killed in a massacre in the 9th century. And Marco Polo reported encountering Jews in China in the 13th century. They lived mostly in Kaifeng, where a synagogue was built in the 11th century.
However, it wasn't until the 15th century that Jews in China had much recognition by the local government. In 1421, Jews were finally allowed to take the civil service test. The population in Kaifeng was discovered by European Christians in the 17th century, who used their version of the Torah to crosscheck it against the versions being used in Europe. They were identical.
So... yeah. Not many Jews, but there are signs dating back to the 7th century that Jews were present.
'Course, that's not nearly early enough to match up with Mormon scripture.
Yakut people of northern Siberia were found to have received a significant genetic contribution from the population of the Orkney Islands, which lie off the coast of Scotland.
My wife's pregnant with her first. We had a girl's name picked but were having hell trying to find a boy's name. She was having trouble so we had another ultrasound. We now KNOW it's a boy. I think this story has settled it. I'll be naming my first born Vladamir McHaggis. Being beaten up will build the boy's character.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
We see things as they are right now, and just presume that the clock was frozen before the last few centuries. So, we see black people in Africa and Chinese people in China and assume they were always there. They weren't, they displaced someone to get there. It's just been forgotten.
Not that this makes any of it 'right' or 'justified', nor does it make it 'wrong' or 'unjustified'. These are the facts. Make of them what you will.
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
Hint: its what happens right after "tested and".
OK, so you don't agree with me about abortion. And you probably don't think that in 50 years people will think aborting one in three black children is 1920s eugenics, except with scaleability added.
But lets talk about legislation. See, I don't think saying "If there is a problem, fix it with a law" is an adequate response to "Law consistently fails to solve some problems, for structural reasons". Take the abortion regime in the United States, for example. Ignore the moral dimension for the rest of this post -- you don't have to agree that abortion is bad, you just have to make objective judgements of when it is legally available and when it is not. As a statement of fact, the United States has one of the most permissive abortion regimes in the Western world. Yeah, really.
Has the legal system in the United States hithertofore successfully discriminated between good reasons for abortions and bad reasons? No. Its set up so that it is essentially impossible to force that distinction into law. As a result, despite having a massive political movement dedicated to opposing abortion, and extraordinarily conservative attitudes about sex and abortion relative to peer nations such as many in Europe, the United States in actual practice prohibits far fewer abortions that peer nations in Europe do. (Really: take a look at the gestational limits in Europe. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6235557.stm That is 12 weeks in Belgium, Denmark, etc -- that limit would be and has been stricken as unconstitutionally restrictive in that noted liberal hotspot, Kansas.)
There's a bunch of reasons for that. One is the particularized development of the US abortion regime through the courts. Another is that the current American political consensus is somewhere between "I really do not want to hear about this, ever" and "Well, certainly SOME fraction of abortions are justified, for terrible circumstances which I would never, ever inquire about in polite company". A third is that the primary providers of abortion, who theoretically would end up as expert decisionmakers for legal compliance, are a political movement dedicated to keeping abortion restriction free. As a result, the questions which could theoretically ferret out "good" abortions from "bad" abortions, if one believed that such distinctions existed, can't be legislated and don't get asked.
The same will be true of eugenics.
Would America be socially willing to ask prospective eugenics parents "Excuse me, heard about your problem, so sorry. By the way, was that problem 'Your child is 78% likely to be missing a limb' or 'Your child is 83% likely to be left-handed'"? (Presumably that would be "bad" eugenics, right?) No, we won't be -- egads, that would be a ghastly thing to ask someone, particularly someone who just lost a child because he was headless. So nobody will be asked anything, just like nobody is required to substantiate why they want an abortion.
Would America be willing to impose a coercive state apparatus on eugenicists to ensure that some crazy 1920s-reject racist doesn't recommend 1/3 of black kids for termination? No. Heck, no need for a hypothetical here: we actually do terminate 1/3 of black kids, in the status quo. There is no national coercive apparatus monitoring abortion.
Eugenics will be worth billions upon billions of dollars, with a well-funded lobby, like reproductive medicine is and like abortion is. Children with birth defects, and children with "birth defects" like being left-handed or not predisposed to being athletic or possibly being gay, do not typically have much campaign cash to spend. Which group do you think is going to win in the US political system?
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
The theory I am most familiar with is that it's to do with land distribution and early technology. Early technology was largely plant and animal based. That technology spread easily east-west because of broadly similar climate, but didn't spread well north-south because of climate changes. Eurasia provided a massive east-west area, but Africa, India, Polynesia and so on were relaively isolated in the east-west direction. That means that technology advanced faster in the north than in the south. Add in the general human tendancy of the powerful oppressing the weak and hey, presto! White (and Yellow) colonialism. No racial causes, just the luck of the draw in who was in the right place at the right time.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
If it's science, it should ALWAYS be open for reinterpretation as more data is collected and as analysis techniques improve or are replaced with better procedures.
IMHO, an open mind should be, well, open.
Invenio via vel creo
Context. It's called context. When you're talking thousands of years ago, it gives context to the term.
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.