tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post861361633046019752..comments2024-03-09T15:46:44.638+01:00Comments on For what they were... we are: More Neanderthal admixture detailsMajuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.comBlogger61125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-47627668153474277612013-02-21T07:19:05.764+01:002013-02-21T07:19:05.764+01:00"Anyhow you must know well the answers I was ..."Anyhow you must know well the answers I was going to give to your many polemicist questions. We have been discussing for way too long". <br /><br />I agree we 'have been discussing for way too long' but you have consistently ignored the many problems I point out in your belief and concentrate on irrelevant trivial nin-picking. terrythttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17327062321100035888noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-70297433638094778052013-02-20T17:11:15.426+01:002013-02-20T17:11:15.426+01:00I just suggested that the dry Deccan acted as buff...I just suggested that the dry Deccan acted as buffer, not barrier, to generate two somewhat different populations in India. They are not that different according to Fst distance values (read previous relevant comment), so maybe it's not that relevant anyhow. Majuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-44515242065732597522013-02-20T17:08:32.525+01:002013-02-20T17:08:32.525+01:00Anyhow you must know well the answers I was going ...Anyhow you must know well the answers I was going to give to your many polemicist questions. We have been discussing for way too long. Majuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-15080204877220040472013-02-20T17:07:35.451+01:002013-02-20T17:07:35.451+01:00Oh great, another post to the trash bin!
Conside...Oh great, another post to the trash bin! <br /><br />Consider yourself replied because I did in length and it did not go through. Majuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-49138525999585437322013-02-20T03:19:54.235+01:002013-02-20T03:19:54.235+01:00"Read it again".
So I did, and what I..."Read it again". <br /><br />So I did, and what I picked up is something you have always dissagreed with. The Petraglia book specifically states that humans prefered the 'deciduous woodland savanna ecosystems'. Bot extracts emphasise the connection between aridity in the north deccan as being part of more widespread climate changes. <br /><br />"This other book by Michael Petraglia talks instead of arid conditions in the last Ice Age in the Western Deccan, suggesting that Eastern and Central India (not affected) was the preferred habitat for human habitation then" <br /><br />But he also says that hominids seasonally exploited even what he calls the 'isolated areas' during arid times. Talking of inhospitable conditions in India: <br /><br />"the founders of East Asian peoples had on average slightly more Neanderthal input than the founders of South/West Eurasian ones. A mere fluke long ago". <br /><br />Doesn't make sense. A route through Central Asia is the only possible explanation for some observed phenomena. For example the absence of any basal mt-DNA N haplogroups in South Asia as well as the lack of any evidence for any technological connection between South and East Asia until somke time after the Tianyuan individual's presence . Here's a paper on human occupation of Central Asia: <br /><br />http://anthropology.colostate.edu/pdf/GlantzHistoryHomininOccupationCentralAsiaReview.pdf<br /><br />The author does say: <br /><br />"Given that the new dates from the Nihewan basin in northern China place hominin occupation of this region at roughly 1.6 Ma (Zhu et al. 2004) the relatively younger dates from Central Asia are surprising, as the region represents a possible corridor to the east. The observation that paleoclimatic reconstructions support a general similarity between the savanna conditions of Africa, the Levant and southern Eurasia (i.e., Dmanisi) with those of the foothill regions of Central Asia makes the relative absence of Early Pleistocene sites in the latter area even more unexpected." <br /><br />The author is obviously not convinced by the usual explanations for that absence. <br /><br />"it seems hominin groups lived in Central Asia during the coldest and<br />driest periods of the Late Pleistocene". <br /><br />"Lithic techno-typology as well as hominin morphology (see discussion below) point to Central Asia as a zone of interaction during the Middle Paleolithic, with contacts to the north, east, and west". <br /><br />Note, even to the north. <br /><br />"Evidence that supports potential isolation/separation of Central Asian hominins from northern and eastern Asian populations is not easily delineated. Geographic barriers like the high mountain zones of the Tien Shan and Pamirs did not seem to impede faunal dispersals across Eurasia (see<br />Keates 2004). In this regard, the notion that Neandertals moved east from their core area in Europe and stopped in Central Asia because of being geographically hemmed in is unsupported, certainly in light of Middle Paleolithic evidence from the Siberian Altai and other sites in China". <br /><br />"In any event, there is some evidence of the continuous occupation of Central Asia during the Late Pleistocene and perhaps across the Middle to Upper Paleolithic divide. A continuous occupation of the Siberian Altai also has been suggested and seems to be supported at sites like Kara Bom (Derevianko et al. 2000; Derevianko and Markin 1992)". terrythttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17327062321100035888noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-38921079219441192532013-02-20T02:13:41.204+01:002013-02-20T02:13:41.204+01:00"Neither M31 nor M32 look particularly derive..."Neither M31 nor M32 look particularly derived from M" <br /><br />Of course they're derived from M. That's why their name starts with 'M'. If you're meaning to say they are not basal M then I agree. That was my point. They are not particularly early in M's diversification. <br /><br />"I conclude that they are therefore very old, maybe of 70 Ka ago for M32 and a little less 60-50 Ka for M31. Certainly not 'recent'". <br /><br />How on earth do you come to that conclusion? Andaman M31 is M31a1, sister to Orissa M31a2. The combined M31a haplogroup is sister to M31b'c. So by the time we get to M31a1 we are considerably downstream from M31. Andaman M32 is M32a, sister to M32c from Madagascar. The combined M32 haplogroup is siter to Indian M56, so again we are dealing with a downstream haplogroup. <br /><br />"not more than your famous X is from N for example" <br /><br />X branches directly off basal N. What are you talking about? <br /><br />"All I say is that they are related techno-cultures of a kind that can be safely associated with H. sapiens in those regions (documented in Palestine and Altai)". <br /><br />So I assume you're prepared to share with us the characteristics that distinguish the technologies of the first modern humans in the Levant from the later Neanderthals that occupied the region. That will be a very useful piece of information because no-one else has yet been able to do so. I agree that mode 4 is a characteristic of Homo sapiens but its absence is not evidence of Homo sapiens absence. <br /><br />"We also know that Homo sapiens replaced Neanderthals in the dates discussed here or a bit later in all West Eurasia, what's your problem then? What part don't you understand?" <br /><br />You are the one who fails to understand that the first humans to emerge from africa did not have a mode 4 technology. Thereforee you cannot use the expansion of mode 4 technology to chronicle Homo sapiens' spread. We also cannot assume that Neanderthals did not replace early modern humans beyond the Levant as climate cooled. A factor to keep in mind here is that Central asian Neanderthals were shifted phenotypically towards Homo sapians as compared with Neanderthals from further west. This is most parsimonioulsy explained as being the product of hybridization between the two 'species'. In fact many individuals have been difficult to classify as either species, only defined by the mt-DNA extracted. For example note the headline of this post: <br /><br />http://anthropology.net/2008/05/26/new-hominin-remains-from-uzbekistan-are-kinda-sorta-neandertal-like/terrythttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17327062321100035888noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-20679138253304713742013-02-19T08:15:29.294+01:002013-02-19T08:15:29.294+01:00Read it again.Read it again.Majuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-64535820495080739992013-02-19T08:13:44.048+01:002013-02-19T08:13:44.048+01:00Neither M31 nor M32 look particularly derived from...Neither M31 nor M32 look particularly derived from M, not more than your famous X is from N for example (in the case of M31, quite less in the case of M32). I conclude that they are therefore very old, maybe of 70 Ka ago for M32 and a little less 60-50 Ka for M31. Certainly not "recent". Y-DNA is less obvious to look at but D is not "recent" in any case. <br /><br />"You're still assuming, without any evidence whatsoever, that the first modern humans to enter the region carried a fully-developed Upper Paleolithic technology. On what grounds do you make that assumption?"<br /><br />What?! Sorry I'm talking of Aurignacian-like industries all them mode 4. "Fully developed" is a category I don't understand well in this context. All I say is that they are related techno-cultures of a kind that can be safely associated with H. sapiens in those regions (documented in Palestine and Altai). <br /><br />"Another unjustified assumption".<br /><br />If you say so...<br /><br />We also know that Homo sapiens replaced Neanderthals in the dates discussed here or a bit later in all West Eurasia, what's your problem then? What part don't you understand?<br /><br />Majuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-58834923767812677982013-02-19T08:02:04.554+01:002013-02-19T08:02:04.554+01:00Vale. I'm not familiar with this A00, which is...Vale. I'm not familiar with this A00, which is not even listed at ISOGG as of today. I cannot therefore comment further at this stage.Majuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-4367497831917317942013-02-19T03:11:27.128+01:002013-02-19T03:11:27.128+01:00"You obviously need to brush up on your knowl..."You obviously need to brush up on your knowledge of population genetics then". <br /><br />Yet you can say: <br /><br />"In addition A0 and A1a are very rare lineages even where they exist and, on top of that, Y-DNA (with no plausible mtDNA counterpart), which is generally much less strongly related to autosomal (overall) genetics than " <br /><br />So what is your difficulty in seeing that Autosomal DNA is presumably usually the oldest with mt-DNA being often younger and Y-DNA being even younger? Or is it just that you can't see it when it suits your purpose to not be able to see it? <br /><br />"On the other side, as Terry points below, this paper does mention that there seems to be some Mousterian, related to that of Altai, in Mongolia. If so, I stand corrected". <br /><br />And you will have even more to stand corrected on as time goes by. <br /><br />"The key point is that the Indian subcontinent was not demographically a single unit in all the last Ice Age". <br /><br />Yet you insist on considering it one unit when considering basal haplogroup diversity in the continent. For example yopu said: <br /><br />"The basal diversity does suggest an origin in South Asia for mt DNA R" <br /><br />So which region within South Asia exhibits this basal diversity? <br /><br />"It was also mentioned in the first source that the Northern Deccan was also arid in the Middle Pleistocene, what affects directly the early population of the subcontinent by our species, which clearly happened long before the late Pleistocene". <br /><br />The paper does say that the Thar Desert is 'arid' and the North Deccan is 'semi-arid'. Any time that the North Deccan was semi-arid it is likely to be a result of the expansion of the Thar desert, making anywhere north of the Deccan uninhabitable except for the upper reaches of the Ganges. That does actually make sense of the apparent centre of dispersal of mt-DNA M though. Several branches were eventually able to move south into Madhya Pradesh while most journeyed east north of the Ganges into Northeast India and Zomia. terrythttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17327062321100035888noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-20516097099061236002013-02-19T02:53:09.345+01:002013-02-19T02:53:09.345+01:00"No".
You obviously need to brush up ..."No". <br /><br />You obviously need to brush up on your knowledge of population genetics then. Autosomal DNA preserves genetic elements older than either mt-DNA or Y-DNA. I would have thought that was obvious to anyone. <br /><br />"Is original from SE Asia and surely not the technology brought by the Andamanese. It's probably more related to the Nicobarese, who speak an Austroasiatic language". <br /><br />Possibly, but the settling of both island groups could be almost contemporary with each other. After all you know as well as I do that technology can be passed to other groups. The boating technology that allowed SE Asian groups to reach the Nicobars would obviously also have passed along the mainland coast allowing south Burmese populations to reach the Andamans. I'm not claiming that is exactly what happened but there is certainly no reason for it to be impossible. <br /><br />"I would prefer to use genetic inference and suggest a very old divergence at unknown but clearly Paleolithic time". <br /><br />But genetic evidence doesn't 'suggest a very old divergence at unknown but clearly Paleolithic time'. Andaman Y-DNA D is considered closely related to Indian Y-DNA D and Andaman mt-DNA Ms both have close relations in India. M32 is even found in Madagascar which was settled no more than some 2000 years ago. <br /><br />"It seems to me still a bit late" <br /><br />Well it does rely on molecular-clockology so I'm prepared to accept an earlier date for SW Asian N's diversification if you so wish. <br /><br />"It is therefore safe, considering the whole and not just cherry picking the evidence, that the earliest UP dates are not older than those from Kara Bom, what leaves us at c. 43 Ka BP, at most 44.9 Ka BP (but could also be more recent, up to 41.7 Ka BP)". <br /><br />You're still assuming, without any evidence whatsoever, that the first modern humans to enter the region carried a fully-developed Upper Paleolithic technology. On what grounds do you make that assumption? <br /><br />"As for Okladnikov cave, further North, it is interesting not for its UP dates, which do not exist, but for its very late MP ones: 48.8-33.5 BP, what makes it a likely last stand for either Neanderthals or Denisovans after displacement by our kin from their more traditional settlements further south". <br /><br />Another unjustified assumption. We know that Neanderthals replaced modern humans in the Levant as climate cooled around 70,000 years ago yet you insist that Central Asian Neanderthals and Denisovans remained exactly where God had placed them until being replaced by modern humans. terrythttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17327062321100035888noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-30349224273612520552013-02-19T00:33:16.120+01:002013-02-19T00:33:16.120+01:00A00, estimated by Michael Hammer to have diverged ...A00, estimated by Michael Hammer to have diverged 338-563 kya, is older than A0 and A1a. Much older, in fact. If you're willing to attempt to push the African presence of lineages such as J1 and R1b to the early LSA, then I presume A00 should even look "H. ergaster" to your eyes, considering its great divergence from other modern Y chromosomes. So how can you claim it's a H. sapiens lineages, or even close to the root of H. sapiens? <br /><br />There are a couple of reasons to believe that A00 may be related to recent admixture with hominins related to Iwo Eleru. This admixture may have occurred as late as the Neolithic. <br /><br />A00 is highly rare, in accordance with the possibility that it may have introgressed relatively recently, but was neither lost nor strengthened by genetic drift. And it wasn't spread to other parts of Africa. As a result, it is apparently limited to areas not far from Iwo Eleru (western Cameroon). Lankhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09164328821211694856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-113270812431386862013-02-18T21:27:47.397+01:002013-02-18T21:27:47.397+01:00Read Derevianko (2003?).
The MP-UP inhabited (or...Read <a href="http://ejournal.anu.edu.au/index.php/bippa/article/viewFile/84/75" rel="nofollow">Derevianko</a> (2003?). <br /><br />The MP-UP inhabited (or known to have been inhabited) Altai district is just West/SW of Gorno Altaisk. Two areas can be discerned:<br /><br />1. South (Kara Bom, river Ursul): MP dates: 62.2 to >42 Ka BP; UP dates: 43.3 and 43.2 Ka BP.<br /><br />2. North (Anui River, Ust-Karakol and Denisova mainly, very close to each other, further North Okladnikov that I'll treat separately for good reasons). MP dates: 282-46 Ka; UP dates: (a) the very anomalous RTL one of 50,000 but with a brutal error margin of ±12,000 years (it may therefore be as recent as 38 Ka) and (b) more trustworthy C14 dates since >37.2 Ka BP until 29.7 Ka BP. <br /><br />It is therefore safe, considering the whole and not just cherry picking the evidence, that the earliest UP dates are not older than those from Kara Bom, what leaves us at c. 43 Ka BP, at most 44.9 Ka BP (but could also be more recent, up to 41.7 Ka BP). <br /><br />43 Ka BP = c. 47 Ka ago (calibrated) and 45 Ka BP = c. 48 Ka ago (calibrated). This is what we have after a realistic review. <br /><br />As for Okladnikov cave, further North, it is interesting not for its UP dates, which do not exist, but for its very late MP ones: 48.8-33.5 BP, what makes it a likely last stand for either Neanderthals or Denisovans after displacement by our kin from their more traditional settlements further south. The three areas are separated by 60 Km the two mentioned above and by some 45 Km between Denisova and Okladnikov. So there must have been some contact between both populations, even if sporadic and cautious, and possibly even hostile (they retain different techno-cultures, so not really loving each other IMO). <br /><br />That (and maybe a little more in the details is what we get from the MP-UP transition in Altai). <br /><br />47 Ka ago (after calibration) is still an early date for Aurignacoid cultures but not earlier than the 49 and 48 Ka dates scattered through Europe, much less the 55 Ka ones of Palestine. So it is reasonable to say, as I do, that both phenomena ("Aurignacian" in Europe and Altai are contemporary and originate in the same West Asian older population/culture. We can discuss the details of this but the overview is very clear. Majuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-43864217828911445232013-02-18T19:39:04.570+01:002013-02-18T19:39:04.570+01:00http://paleo.sscnet.ucla.edu/BrantCA2001.pdf
I act...http://paleo.sscnet.ucla.edu/BrantCA2001.pdf<br />I actually posted on my forum and that's where Maju first came in contact with the situation in that region.<br />I'm not making any comments, except to give a context for all of Maju's ideas. I haven't seen anything new; they are all versions of what I said with a Basque flavor.renhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04377460204421275833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-81283889515634362032013-02-18T19:09:57.920+01:002013-02-18T19:09:57.920+01:00"Or do you consider the common ancestor of Ne..."Or do you consider the common ancestor of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens to go all the way back to the spread of Acheulean technology, well over 1 million years ago?"<br /><br />Yes, I do. I think that the weight of the evidence is on that side. Only weak disciplines like molecular-clock-o-logy and some currents of anthropometry/palaeoanthropology propose a more recent common ancestor. IMO they lack any sort of weight. A critical revision of molecular clock estimates, using the correct date for the Pan-Homo split (8-13 Ka) really puts the common ancestor around the million years in most cases and the rest is, well, Trinkaus and little more. There are other very respectable palaeoanthropologists that <a href="http://leherensuge.blogspot.com.es/2010/05/atapuerca-experts-neanderthals-diverged.html" rel="nofollow">propose a divergence of circa one million years</a> (I've also read from them "1.3 Ma" elsewhere). Finally there's no obvious evidence of any migration out-of-Africa nor into-Africa between the spread of Acheulean and the migration of Homo sapiens. <br /><br />"Nevertheless, it's certainly possible that there was substructure within Africa, distinguishing the immediate African ancestors of Neanderthals (H. heidelbergensis or H. ergaster if you'd like) and the ancestors of modern humans in that time".<br /><br />I'm very skeptic.<br /><br />"we know that archaics persisted in parts of Africa until quite recently"<br /><br />But archaics closely related to Homo sapiens, or are we to think that there was no genetic flow, probably also expansions and contractions in Africa before the coalescence of our species? Also A0, if not strictly sapiens (??), should be very close to the root of "sapienskind", so the difference would be minor, specially in comparison with Neanderthals. In addition A0 and A1a are very rare lineages even where they exist and, on top of that, Y-DNA (with no plausible mtDNA counterpart), which is generally much less strongly related to autosomal (overall) genetics than mtDNA. <br /><br />As for Iwo Eleru, it looks mostly modern by most variables (fig. 2), so I suspect a case of misidentification or retaining of some "archaic" trait (because of admixture or just diversity, in which Africa is king). Anthropometry is not rocket science, you know. <br /><br />Even if you'd be right in some aspect, the influence of such elements should be negligible. I'm really more inclined to consider such extremely subtle "differences" just random noise caused by natural diversity or, if real, rather provoked by Chadic influence in Nigeria (Northern Nigeria is essentially Chadic, even if not dominated by R1b like their relatives of Lake Chad). Majuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-81022432842495651302013-02-18T18:38:20.220+01:002013-02-18T18:38:20.220+01:00I was referring to Homo heidelbergensis. Or do you...I was referring to Homo heidelbergensis. Or do you consider the common ancestor of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens to go all the way back to the spread of Acheulean technology, well over 1 million years ago? Considering your general preference for older dates, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. <br /><br />Nevertheless, it's certainly possible that there was substructure within Africa, distinguishing the immediate African ancestors of Neanderthals (H. heidelbergensis or H. ergaster if you'd like) and the ancestors of modern humans in that time. And since we know that archaics persisted in parts of Africa until quite recently (see <a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0024024" rel="nofollow">Iwo Eleru</a>, possibly related to Y-DNA A00 found in nearby Cameroon), it's not impossible that this potential substructure may have contributed to modern patterns of variation.<br /><br />But this was just a sidetrack of me speculating to try to fit the data. I don't feel very strongly about this either way. Lankhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09164328821211694856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-34854691255613497302013-02-18T05:48:41.195+01:002013-02-18T05:48:41.195+01:00Ooops, forgot the link again: http://www.cell.com/...Ooops, forgot the link again: http://www.cell.com/AJHG/retrieve/pii/S0002929711005453Majuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-3860624712662249282013-02-18T05:48:17.663+01:002013-02-18T05:48:17.663+01:00On the other side, as Terry points below, this pap...On the other side, as Terry points below, this paper does mention that there seems to be some Mousterian, related to that of Altai, in Mongolia. If so, I stand corrected.Majuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-2243275548706113512013-02-18T05:45:00.874+01:002013-02-18T05:45:00.874+01:00"Does it make sense or does it not?"
No..."Does it make sense or does it not?"<br /><br />No.<br /><br />"The Toalean"...<br /><br />Is original from SE Asia and surely not the technology brought by the Andamanese. It's probably more related to the Nicobarese, who speak an Austroasiatic language. The presence of pottery and polished adzes would suggest so (<a href="http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter24/text24.htm" rel="nofollow">this entry</a> suggest a Great Andamanese heritage but did they ever have pottery and adzes?)<br /><br />In any case three shell middens are hardly a good knowledge of the islands' prehistory. So I would prefer to use genetic inference and suggest a very old divergence at unknown but clearly Paleolithic time.<br /><br />"So the authors assume H. erectus could survive that far north, yet maju insists H. sapiens could not".<br /><br />We have already debated that. Homo erectus was in Eurasia, gradually adapting by whichever means to cold climates, since c. 1.8 Ma ago. So for 900,000 or more years they were not able to adapt to Siberia, yet you expect me to believe (without any evidence or rather a lot of evidence against it) that our species chose that harsh route, via deserts and some of the coldest places of Earth, first and foremost. C'mon!<br /><br />"The cultural continuity apparent in the development of the Mongolian Paleolithic suggests the formation of Mousterian traits on the basis of a local Lower Paleolithic tradition with Levallois technology."<br /><br />That bit is interesting. It would add weight to Highlander's claim. Its alleged similitude with Altai Mousterian may allow us to speculate (but not be certain yet) about Neanderthals or their hybrid "Denisovan" relatives (also users of Mousterian, it seems) to have inhabited both regions. <br /><br />"... mt-DNA N began diversifying in SW Asia around 60,000 years ago".<br /><br />It seems to me still a bit late. After all we should expect its descendants to be all around and certainly in West Asia c. 55 Ka ago. A bit too fast maybe? I rather favor a near 70 Ka chronology instead in spite of the weakness of the archaeological evidence as of today.<br /><br />"So modern humans may have reached Altai soon after".<br /><br />At least 15,000 years later. That's not "soon". Majuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-57082508899951942952013-02-18T04:12:56.356+01:002013-02-18T04:12:56.356+01:00"Terry could be right on this one. His idea c..."Terry could be right on this one. His idea certainly deserves more than the sneering contempt you've shown so far". <br /><br />Everyone gets sneering contempt from Maju. <br /><br />"it is at least plausible that Neandertal DNA arrived in China via Central Asia, especially in light of curiously persistent Mousterian industries across the region". <br /><br />Here is a paper Maju has read but others will find it illuminating: <br /><br />http://paleo.sscnet.ucla.edu/BrantCA2001.pdf<br /><br />Quote: <br /><br />"As in western Eurasia, the Initial Upper Paleolithic emerges in Northeast Asia sometime after 45,000 years ago and is characterized by the elaboration of blade technologies showing a mixture of Middle and Upper Paleolithic<br />characteristics". <br /><br />And: <br /><br />"We include the Kara Bom Upper Paleolithic, Chikhen Agui, and Shuidonggou assemblages in the Initial Upper Paleolithic, emphasizing both the striking technological coherence between these assemblages and the technological<br />parallels with accepted Initial Upper Paleolithic assemblages from western Eurasia. Moreover, we hold that there is strong continuity between the regional Middle and Initial Upper Paleolithic". <br /><br />So the Initial Upper Paleolithic is intrusive but accommodating of locals. The Initial upper Paleolithic would probably have been introduced by Y-DNA Q and mt-DNA X. But these were obviously not the first 'modern' human haplogroups in the region. So the IUP does not represent the first modern humans in the region. Turning to the Middle Paleolithic: <br /><br />http://ejournal.anu.edu.au/index.php/bippa/article/viewFile/85/76<br /><br />"In Mongolia, Acheulian-like bifaces were first reported occurring within the surface collections at such open-air sites as Bottom-of-the-Gobi and in the vicinity of Mount Yarkh (Okladnikov 1983, 1986)". <br /><br />And: <br /><br />"The cultural continuity apparent in the development of the Mongolian Paleolithic suggests the formation of Mousterian traits on the basis of a local Lower Paleolithic tradition with Levallois technology. The analogous features of the major Mousterian variants allow us to include Mongolia, primarily the Mongolian and Gobi Altai regions, and the Russian Altai in a single geographic unit representing the development of a distinctive Middle Paleolithic culture". <br /><br />"The occupation of the Altai by early humans was most likely connected with a northern migration wave of Homo erectus who expanded beyond the boundaries of the African continent and reached Asia. According to the dates that have recently been generated from loess and soil samples of the Kuldara, Khonako-2, and Obi-Mazar-6 sites in Tajikistan, H. erectus arrived in Central Asia in the range of 600,000 to 900,000 years ago (Ranov 2001; Ranov and Schäfer 2000)." <br /><br />So the authors assume H. erectus could survive that far north, yet maju insists H. sapiens could not. It is uncertain when 'modern' humans arrived there. The authors state: <br /><br />"The evidence available has not yet provided reliable grounds for associating the technological variants of the Altai Middle Paleolithic with distinct prehistoric human populations bearing independent cultural traditions". <br /><br />We can perhaps accept from here: <br /><br />http://ac.els-cdn.com/S0002929711005453/1-s2.0-S0002929711005453-main.pdf?_tid=0d552c56-7977-11e2-9ff1-00000aacb362&acdnat=1361156480_cf82ae9b09a0f34d6156ea6ed99257f1<br /><br />that mt-DNA N began diversifying in SW Asia around 60,000 years ago. So modern humans may have reached Altai soon after. Incidently, the last paper has some really useful distrubution maps of mt-DNA haplogroups N1'5, N2 and X. Specifically X as a whole, both N2a and W and N1b, N1a3 (called 'N1c' in the paper), I and N1a1'2(xI) (called 'N1a' in the paper). A further interesting, and probably relevant, point is that apart from the remote possibility that mt-DNA R originated in South Asia India has no basal representatives of mt-DNA N at all. terrythttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17327062321100035888noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-69082052854231731252013-02-18T02:50:11.962+01:002013-02-18T02:50:11.962+01:00"terryt, I would like to have discussions wit..."terryt, I would like to have discussions with you. Can you give an email or some type of contact info or should I give you mine?" <br /><br />Email: terrytoohill@yahoo.com<br /><br />"That makes no sense whatsoever to me [Autosomal DNA is presumably usually the oldest with mt-DNA being often younger and Y-DNA being even younger]". <br /><br />Obviously it does make sense because you then wrote: <br /><br />"also women migrate less than men" <br /><br />So, make up your mind. Does it make sense or does it not? <br /><br />"We don't know that. I suspect it a case of lack of sufficient archaeological surveillance [Human presence on the Andaman Islands not much before 10-12,000 years ago]". <br /><br />The Andamans have been subject to 'archaeological surveillance', and we certainly have no evidence that human presence there is any more ancient than that. Just what some people would like to believe: <br /><br />http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/chapter25/text25.htm<br /><br />Quotes: <br /><br />"The handful of Indian archaeological excavations in the islands have so far found an oldest archaeological date for an Andamanese presence of only 2,280 years from the present (with an uncertainty +/-90 years). In prehistory, this is almost yesterday and not old at all". <br /><br />"The stone tools found in Andamanese kitchen midden and described in the previous chapter are closely related to a specific stone tool industry, the Toalean (see below). This industry has been found all over the Indonesian archipelago and beyond". <br /><br />"The Toalean is defined by B. Bulbeck, Pasqua M., and Di Lello A. for Sulawesi (Celebes) as a "mid-Holocene stone flake and blade industry of a number of caves in southern Sulawesi, Indonesia, c 6000 BC and later. The industry developed out of preceding flake industries and is characterized by small backed flakes and microliths, and well-made Maros points". <br /><br />Another interesting snippet from the same source: <br /><br />"Was that more or less unified Negrito population broken up and largely destroyed by the Great Migrations of modern groups speaking languages of the Austronesian (Malayan etc), Austroasiatic (Khmer, Nicobari, etc) and Sino-Tibetan (Thai, Burmese, etc) families from the north between 8,000 and 5,000 years ago? Probably it was". <br /><br />The author has no difficulty accepting that these langauges came from further north. And some will find this 1955 extract interesting: <br /><br />http://www.andaman.org/BOOK/reprints/cipriani/rep-cipriani.htm<br /><br />"Human groups physically and culturally comparable to the Andamanese exist only in Asia. They are the Semang of the Malaya Peninsula, and the Aeta of the Philippines. Important is this finding of resemblances between people so widely separated to-day, and without any contact between them now. This similarity is not a chance similarity; it arose certainly because there was contact between these peoples in ages long ago, a contact now destroyed". terrythttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17327062321100035888noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-52913142821588672832013-02-17T20:07:41.579+01:002013-02-17T20:07:41.579+01:00Sorry, the first paper is: http://csb.scichina.com...Sorry, the first paper is: http://csb.scichina.com:8080/kxtbe/fileup/PDF/06ky2110.pdf<br /><br />Forgot to insert the link, meh!Majuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-931242977224414692013-02-17T20:04:02.363+01:002013-02-17T20:04:02.363+01:00IMO MP Palestine remains are all Homo sapiens. The...IMO MP Palestine remains are all Homo sapiens. There could be one hybrid individual (Skhul 5 if my memory is correct) but that's about it. <br /><br />What else? The scapula: this paper says clearly: "This scapula is small and its dimension is similar to that of <b>modern female</b>". <br /><br />The alleged Mousterian artifacts. I could find nothing but <a href="http://books.google.es/books?id=z9gMsCUtCZUC&lpg=PA13&ots=JTWnfmnf0V&dq=Mongolia%20Mousterian&pg=PA13#v=onepage&q=Mongolia%20Mousterian&f=false" rel="nofollow">a cryptozoological book</a> that mentions that claim by passing: "Neanderthal fossils are not known in Central Asia, though Shackley <b>claims</b> to have re- covered, in Mongolia, Mousterian tools normally associated with them".<br /><br />A claim is not a fact!<br /><br />So rien de rien.Majuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12369840391933337204noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-72924151731479252132013-02-17T19:09:16.835+01:002013-02-17T19:09:16.835+01:00"People brought wheat the same way (silk road...<i>"People brought wheat the same way (silk road) from Near east to north China (Yangshao culture) so I think this way was much easier to pass than it is today because of drought."</i><br /><br />Precisely so. Sheep came to the East along the proto-Silk Routes, too, and likely metallurgy as well. The Afanasevo of Siberia owed their material culture to southern Central Asia, not the Eurasian steppe.<br /><br />During the Pleistocene, there were periods when Central Asia was more hospitable than in historical or proto-historical times. What we see in the material record is that, whenever this vast region could be occupied by man, it was occupied, even when the environment was marginal at best. It could conceivably have been an area of significant human development and interaction for, not just the thousands of which we know but, several tens of thousands of years.Va_Highlanderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04671547664669092756noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3023805782808412230.post-80951439134755480832013-02-17T17:48:26.197+01:002013-02-17T17:48:26.197+01:00Would you consider reading a book, Maju? Or how ab...Would you consider reading a book, Maju? Or how about just putting "mousterian" and "mongolia" into a search engine and mashing the "Enter" key? Worked for me.<br /><br />The Salawusu formation is at least 35,000 years old and possibly twice that. The scapula found near its base has been interpreted as modern with Neandertal-like features. The Darra-i-Kur temporal bone is likewise interpreted as <i>H sapiens</i> with archaic morphology and was found in a Mousterian context.<br /><br />Reports of two Qafzeh-Skhul-type hominids, one in Inner Mongolia and another using a Neandertal toolkit in Afghanistan, suggest that it is at least plausible that Neandertal DNA arrived in China via Central Asia, especially in light of curiously persistent Mousterian industries across the region. Terry could be right on this one. His idea certainly deserves more than the sneering contempt you've shown so far.Va_Highlanderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04671547664669092756noreply@blogger.com