November 11, 2011

Echoes from the Past (Nov 11)

There is a lot of stuff accumulating in the to do folder again. I am sure that you will find most or at least some of it interesting.

People who can only read in English may want to consider now subscribing to Pileta de Prehistoria. Until recently most of the materials were in Spanish and largely home-made but since a few days ago, they are compiling a lot of Prehistory-related news, most of them in English. Part of my queue has to do with this change in content.


Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic


Laetoli ash walkers may have been unrelated among them: the various individuals of Australopithecus afarensis who walked on volcanic ash at Laetoli some 3.6 million years ago did so in different occasions and may therefore not have been relatives ··> Live Science.


A researcher questions whether Idaltu (Herto man, reconstruction at right) was actually a Homo sapiens. I think that the questioning is very weak, with key vault-height measures that rather make Idaltu outstanding within H. sapiens range rather than approaching Kabwe (H. rhodesiensis), which had a low vault. However the paper has a long list of anthropometric data on various H. sapiens specimens (all West Eurasian ones, except Idaltu) and said H. rhodesiensis which may be of interest for readers, so worth mentioning anyhow ··> Kyle D. Lubsen's PDF at the Journal of Contemporary Anthropology, Neanderfollia[cat].

(Note: nearly all you need to know about anthropometry seems to be in this nice site).


Human bones found in Okinawa dated to c. 24,000 years ago (oldest occupation known to date) ··> M24, ABC[es].


Painted stones discovered in Hohler Fels (Swabian Jura, Germany).  The style of the stones, dated to c. 15,000 years ago resembles that of SW Europe. However no wall mural has yet been located in that region. It was experimentally demonstrated that the dots are not made with either brush or finger but with a wooden stamp ··> SD, Der Spiegel, Qué[es].

Hohler Fells painted stones


Spotted horses did exist in the Paleolithic, DNA suggests, emphasizing the realism of Magdalenian cave painters, which occasionally painted such kind of coats ··> M. Pruvost et al. at PNAS, Science, SD, Dienekes, Popular Archaeology, NYT.

The dots are not symbols but realistic depictions, it seems now

Download link for Cave of Forgotten Dreams: Werner Herzog's documentary on Cave Chauvet (English with subtitles in Spanish).


Epipaleolithic findings in Rotterdam's harbor. The expansion works for the largest port of Europe have located very small fragments of animal bone (some of which was burnt by human action) and flint stone. Not much but enough to demonstrate human presence in the Western Netherlands in that period, being the first known direct evidence of it ··> Dredging Today, Paleorama[es].





Neolithic & Metal Ages


Neolithic findings in Qatar are oldest known to date in the Emirate: some flint tools and Ubaid style pottery (proto-Sumerian) are complemented by animal remains of diverse significance: fish bones indicating what they captured at sea, shells used for decorative purposes (right) as well as for food, a dog's canine and even the hearth and the hole for the main pillar of their probably sedentary residence have been found ··> Gulf Times.


No second chamber at Newgrange ··> The Meath Chronicle.



Archaeological findings in Inner Mongolia ··> Archaeology News Network (another site to follow apparently)


Humor (from Heritage in Action): Norwegian singer Vegard Ylvisåker made a freaky song on Stonehenge. While I don't like the music, the lyrics have some great moments for laughs (in English with English subtitles, just in case):



There are also some awkward moments because any megalithomaniac worth that name knows that Stonehenge is not a henge (rondel) but a stone ring (cromlech) but well...


Archaeogenetics


The Neanderthal genome goes open access... or something like that. Millán Mozota recommends this UC Santa Cruz page dedicated to allow anyone interested to access the Neanderthal genome in full detail. I can't but agree: an important resource.


The Genographic Project claims that our species migrated from Africa to Asia via Arabia. Better late than never ··> Marta Melé et al. at MBE (pay per view), PR Newswire, Paleorama[es], La Vanguardia[es].

From Melé's abstract:
We also observe that the patterns of recombinational diversity of these populations correlate with distance out of Africa if that distance is measured along a path crossing South Arabia. No such correlation is found through a Sinai route, suggesting that anatomically modern humans first left Africa through the Bab-el-Mandeb strait rather than through present Egypt.
The Genographic Project's latest elaboration is coastal migration (finally!)


Successful pioneers get some selective advantage... or so it seems from a study of Quebecois surnames (which does not count the fallen) ··> C. Moreau et al at Science (pay per view), SD.


Psychological anthropology


Neanderthal brains were strikingly asymmetric. It is unclear why but their right hemisphere was hyper-developed, at least among those from El Sidrón (Asturias) ··> Sinc[es].


Does the origin of language lay in baby apes' gestures? Not the first time I am told that language began with gestures but, specially if you're unfamiliar with this concept, you may want to read this article at New Scientist.

26 comments:

  1. Not very impressed with Mele's paper. The assumption that then follows from now is far too bold for that time depth.

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  2. Well, for people like you who are always open to believe that populations have been once and again radically replaced, not just at local scale but at a continental one, nothing can be inferred about the past from DNA at all. After all it may be just a recent change, just a few millennia old, right?

    For the rest of us it is another voice joining the chorus that states: that is what DNA (and archaeological) evidence appear to say.

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  3. "Not very impressed with Mele's paper".

    He does seem to have started with a theory and then set out to interpret the data to suit. Quote:

    "We have found that Sub-Saharan African populations have an Ne that is ∼ 4 times greater than those of non-African populations and that outside of Africa, South Asian populations had the largest Ne".

    Is that really so surprising? Populations in most other regions of Eurasia have been subject to periods of greatly increased aridity or periods of extreme cold. It is little wonder thatn their 'effective population size' is smaller than that of Africa or South Asia. And:

    "the patterns of recombinational diversity of these populations correlate with distance out of Africa if that distance is measured along a path crossing South Arabia. No such correlation is found through a Sinai route, suggesting that anatomically modern humans first left Africa through the Bab-el-Mandeb strait rather than through present Egypt".

    Ignoring the fact that the back movement from South Asia shown in the map (we can be fairly sure it was actually from SE Asia) that reached into Africa would have greatly influenced the recombinational diversity along any ancient Sinai route.

    "for people like you who are always open to believe that populations have been once and again radically replaced"

    Which seems to have quite likely happened in the case of the Y-hap P and mtDNA R back migration along the Sinai route.

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  4. "Populations in most other regions of Eurasia have been subject to periods of greatly increased aridity or periods of extreme cold".

    Because you say so? Other models actually suggest strong densities in South China/SE Asia as well since early on... but they do look as a bit younger population than that of South Asia in this paper, it seems.

    Maybe you're thinking of Central Asia? West Asia? Why do we not find a single piece of evidence that there was an older, Africa-rooted, population there (except maybe in South Arabia)?

    It's not just this paper: this is just another element to add to a long list of genetic and archaeological materials that support the 'coastal route' model.

    "Ignoring the fact that the back movement from South Asia shown in the map (...) would have greatly influenced the recombinational diversity along any ancient Sinai route".

    There's nothing under it. There were only Neanderthals and they were displaced and eventually driven to extinction.

    "Which seems to have quite likely happened in the case of the Y-hap P and mtDNA R back migration along the Sinai route".

    You are not specific enough but I imagine you mean into North Africa. This is arguable because the dominant Y-DNA lineage there is not P (R1, etc.) but E1b, a distant African cousin. There was probably partial replacement, as suggested by mtDNA but the evidence of older layers persist anyhow (at least that's what I understand).

    This does not happen in West Asia (excepted Arabia), Central Asia nor Europe, where there is no trace of anything before the migration from South Asia.

    Archaeology backs this notion of colonization ex-novo of this large subcontinental area (almost all West Eurasia) from South Asia.

    That's what the data say, not what we want to imagine.

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  5. The two best figures of Melé's paper are in the supplementary data, and then she does not follow up on the results.

    Obviously, she should have added the distances from India to the ones from Africa. How could anyone not do this? I am speechless.

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  6. I do not have access to the paper nor the supplementary material, so I can't discuss it in depth but, in any case,do you mean geographic distances? What would be the difference in the results?

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  7. "this is just another element to add to a long list of genetic and archaeological materials that support the 'coastal route' model".

    I don't think so.

    "Why do we not find a single piece of evidence that there was an older, Africa-rooted, population there (except maybe in South Arabia)?"

    If the 'coastal route' is so strongly supported why do we find no haplogroups in Southern Arabia that provide evidence of its passing? Y-hap J is the predominant Y-chromosome in Southern Arabia and it almost certainly originated further north. The mtDNA haplogroups that you so often claim as evidence are all downstream clades of widespread African haplogroups, apart from the anomalous L6.

    "This does not happen in West Asia (excepted Arabia), Central Asia nor Europe, where there is no trace of anything before the migration from South Asia".

    'Because you say so?' Surely the presence of Y-haps G and IJ provide abundant evidence of their ancient presence in West Asia, as do several mtDNA N haplogroups. As for Central and West as a whole we can be sure that changing aridity and temperatures pushed people around, and probably led to local extinction at times.

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  8. "The mtDNA haplogroups that you so often claim as evidence are all downstream clades of widespread African haplogroups"...

    Actually they are subclades of mostly quite rare African haplogroups, like L0 and seldom of common ones like L2 and L3 (and also within these lineages). That is what first caught my attention and also that these sublineages are not usually found in the areas that would have provided slaves or other types of immigrants to Arabia like the Sudan region or East Africa.

    They are all very odd, unexpected findings, which must have arrived long ago, roughly at the time of the OoA or slightly after it, per the SNP count (downstream from the common ancestor "Eve").

    Y-DNA was surely changed much more since those times (much easier to replace even by mere drift, specially in such an arid region), same in North Africa, so it's not in principle so trustworthy (why do you guys insist so much on Y-DNA, beats me!) Yet it'd be interesting to understand better the structure of both J and E in the peninsula, because at least one North African E lineage (M81) might be also a very ancient one, considering its regional exclusiveness and dominance.

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  9. "I do not have access to the paper nor the supplementary material, so I can't discuss it in depth but, in any case,do you mean geographic distances? What would be the difference in the results?"

    The routes to Europe she uses go more or less directly there, instead of via India. Consequently, she gets a huge scatter in the diversity vs. geographical distance plots, and the European locations all show too little diversity for the (too short) distances assumed. The scatter is slightly reduced when using the South Arabian rout - but the results are somewhat marginal.

    Then, in the supplementary data, she plots diversity vs. distance from India, rather than Africa. This makes no difference for most locations, except of course for the near Easter ones. Basically, you can just add the distance from Africa to India and the scale just slides to the side (all points move to the right by ~5,000km), except for the Near Eastern locations, which only move by 2,000-3,000km. And it fits: the Near Eastern data points are all too high (showing too much diversity w/r distance). So, the results would have been much cleaner when adding the distance from Africa to India to all appropriately derived populations.

    Now, since the route results were somewhat marginal, that opens up the big question how they would have looked with a more logical approach? Perhaps worse, perhaps better. All the data are there, so someone with time can replicate this...

    You may be able to show even better that the South Arabian route was the main path, and you may be able to show that Europe was populated from ~India.

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  10. That what you say is most interesting, Eurologist. I wonder if the earlier timing of the colonization of East Asia and Australasia (repectively to Europe and most of West Asia) can also be found in those numbers.

    If you can send me a copy, I'd really appreciate it (lialdamiz[AT]gmail[DOT]com). Irrespectively, if you feel like writing a short entry on the matter for publishing, I'd be glad to oblige (what happened with your blog, btw?)

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  11. Check your inbox.

    Oh, and I would also remove (from the regression analysis) Basques and Tibetans, since they are known population isolates with reduced diversity.

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  12. As I have said elsewhere, for all the fanfare about it, Basques do not display significantly lower diversity than European averages, in spite of being such a peculiar people, which has mostly been protected from Indoeuropean-caused remixes (which obviously should increase local diversity a bit) and in spite of the very strict requirements of pedigree, which are more relaxed in other populations (again something that affects perceived diversity). I can't speak for Tibetans but regarding Basques "low diversity" is a myth.

    Thanks for the copy in any case. :)

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  13. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  14. There would seem to be some errors in the tabulation, specially with Lebanese - and also a possible confusion/swap between Ati and Tibetan.

    It is not clear to me how they calculate N(e), so I can't confirm or deny these suspicions.

    But what is clear is that the figures at the left of the Leb row are much like those of Kuwait and other West Asians but then the right columns we find incoherent N(e) levels comparable only to Tropical Africa.

    In the legend they say: "relative population size (Relative Ne) which is calculated based on the lowest value (that of Tibetans)", but the lowest value is in fact that of the Ati. What is wrong.

    We can't work with these figures because they seem to be wrongly tabulated and it's unclear where.

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  15. "Actually they are subclades of mostly quite rare African haplogroups"

    But found in South and East Africa and so easily explained as having come from there at some time after any original OoA.

    "these sublineages are not usually found in the areas that would have provided slaves or other types of immigrants to Arabia"

    I mwould certainly hesitate to claim they crossed the Red Sea as 'slaves'. Their arrival presumably goes back to when humans first navigated the Red Sea, probably with the original arrival of Y-haps R or T.

    "why do you guys insist so much on Y-DNA, beats me!"

    Because it is much simpler to follow than is mtDNA. Besides which you have often claimed that Y-DNA 'always' carries mtDNA along with it. I don't actually agree with that last.

    "Yet it'd be interesting to understand better the structure of both J and E in the peninsula, because at least one North African E lineage (M81) might be also a very ancient one, considering its regional exclusiveness and dominance".

    From 'the advantage of being first' rule:

    http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2011/11/advantage-of-being-first.html

    We would guess that Y-DNA J was first into Southern Arabia. This haplogroup in no way participated in any OoA. So we can now assume that Southern Arabia was uninhabited until Y-DNA J arrived there. As for E1b1b1b1-M81 being part of the 'original' OoA. Hard to justify as it is downstream from E1b1b1b*-V257, found in Europe, including Sardinia. and E1b1b1b1-M81 is hardly regionally exclusivene. It is common in Mali, in West Africa. Mitochondrial DNA in Southern Arabia can also hardly be described as 'ancient'. How about mt-DNA R0:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R0_(mtDNA)

    Quote:

    "Haplogroup R0 occurs frequently in the Arabian Plate with its highest frequency in Socotri (Population 50,000 Yemen) ... Its greater variety in the Arabian Plate suggests R0a originated in and spread from there".

    But even you admit its ultimate origin is at least as far east as India. So it's not original OoA. The other common mt-DNAs in southern Arabia are all also R-derived.

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  16. They do not come from Mars but "Khoisan" clades prominent in Arabia is at least striking, isn't it? You would expect lots of common Kenyan, Tanzania... clades, most of which are in the L2 and L3 groups, and the same haplotypes or almost. But what Behar and such have found does not make sense by recent migration parsimony, specially as they have not found in most cases the specific clades in Africa at all.

    Those clades are almost for sure extremely old in Arabia.

    "Because it is much simpler to follow than is mtDNA".

    In fact it's much more complex, specially as it does not organize itself around a simple "slow" mutation pattern, as mtDNA does. The amount of DNA info in Y-DNA is brutal, in mtDNA it is manageable instead.

    Also the patterns of mtDNA are easier to understand, probably because it is better known but also because mtDNA retains better old ancestral layers that may have in some cases totally vanished in Y-DNA.

    "Besides which you have often claimed that Y-DNA 'always' carries mtDNA along with it".

    Rather the opposite. I think that Paleolithic migrations were not male-only ever. But who carries who and how the original layers survive against drift (etc.) by gender is another story. MtDNA evidence survives much better: that's quite obvious.

    "From 'the advantage of being first' rule"...

    The subsequent quote is neither from the abstract nor Dienekes nor the discussion. That paper is about colonial surnames in Quebec.

    "We would guess that Y-DNA J was first into Southern Arabia".

    I do not. However the previous Y-DNA layers may not have survived: it's a harsh region prone to bottlenecking.

    "E1b1b1b1-M81 is hardly regionally exclusivene. It is common in Mali, in West Africa".

    "Common"? Slippery concept: the clear definite center of M81 is in Southern Morocco (ref), where we also find some the most striking and probably ancient phenotypes of the region.

    The peculiarity of M81 is that it's virtually absent in East Africa, including the whole Nile Basin, what makes it hard to claim that it arrived "recently" with other E1b, from the shared origin of of all the macro-lineage.

    So the track is cold, very cold... so the lineage is probably very old in the region. That it has experience lesser diffusion across the Sahara seems of no importance.

    "But even you admit its [R0a's] ultimate origin is at least as far east as India. So it's not original OoA".

    Who said so? R0 is derived from R (India), from N (SEA), from L3 (East Africa). That is the route followed in reverse order, which corrected results in: East Africa ··> SE Asia ··> India ··> West Asia (R0) ··> Arabia (R0a).

    But L0f2b, for example (a lineage only known to me as Omani), must have done the much more simple East Africa ··> Arabia route. Same for the rest:

    L4b1: East Africa ··> Arabia
    L0ab1b: ? ··> South Africa/Morocco and Arabia
    L3e2: ? ··> West/NW Africa and Arabia
    L6: East Africa (as L3'4'6) ··> Arabia ··> North Ethiopia

    In general they all must have migrated from East Africa but the timelines fit with the OoA:

    The basal nodes for this migration seem to be:

    Older than L3: L3'4'6 ··> L6

    Slightly younger than L3 but older than M: L4b, L0f2

    As old as M: L0a1b

    As old as R: L3e2

    So people were probably flowing into Arabia at the same time that an offshoot of them was taking advantage of the frontier beyond the Persian Gulf swamps. In spite of repeated backmigrations and aridity some of these lineages, probably a quite random collection, survived to present day. We find a similar situation in North Africa but not in the Fertile Crescent.

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  17. "Actually they are subclades of mostly quite rare African haplogroups, like L0 and seldom of common ones like L2 and L3 (and also within these lineages)".

    Surely that must be enough to convince you that no members of L3 (including M and N) ever crossed the Bab al Mandab from west to east.

    "But what Behar and such have found does not make sense by recent migration parsimony, specially as they have not found in most cases the specific clades in Africa at all. Those clades are almost for sure extremely old in Arabia".

    From your own blog some time ago on the subject I see that most in fact do have at least close relations in Africa. Most almost certainly arrived in Arabia long post-OoA.

    "The subsequent quote is neither from the abstract nor Dienekes nor the discussion. That paper is about colonial surnames in Quebec".

    Why would the Paleolithic be any different? Surely the first arrivals would rapidly come to dominate the available ecosystem. Only if later arrivals had a markedly superior technology woould they be able to replace the first arrivals there. And you have consistently opposed the idea of replacement. Except when it suits your belief?

    "I do not. However the previous Y-DNA layers may not have survived: it's a harsh region prone to bottlenecking".

    Surely if the region was such a paradise for the first OoA it should have remained such for their descenadants. And it was just a few days ago you were criticising me for suggesting aridity had caused extinctions. Make up your mind!

    "the clear definite center of M81 is in Southern Morocco"

    Once more you cannot make up yopur mind. A few days ago you were claiming the haplogroup as being regionally exclusive to the Arabian Peninsula.

    "The peculiarity of M81 is that it's virtually absent in East Africa, including the whole Nile Basin, what makes it hard to claim that it arrived 'recently' with other E1b, from the shared origin of of all the macro-lineage".

    I agree it appears that the lineage E1b1b1-M35 originated in the headwaters of the Nile whereas E1b1b1b-V257 appears to have originated in the Western Mediterranean, perhaps Morocco. But I don't see any mystery there. My guess is, as I've tried to explain in the past, that members of E1b1b1-M35 moved down the Nile and out into the Mediterranean. Along the way the subclades a-f formed, several near the starting point in Ethiopia. Any E1b1b1b1-M81 in the Arabian Peninsula is almost certainly the product of back movement from the Western mediterranean long after any OoA.

    "Who said so? R0 is derived from R (India), from N (SEA), from L3 (East Africa). That is the route followed in reverse order, which corrected results in: East Africa ··> SE Asia ··> India ··> West Asia (R0) ··> Arabia (R0a)".

    The point I was trying to make, and you are obviously trying to avoid considering, is that R0 in Southern Arabia can in no way be considered a remnant of any OoA.

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  18. "But L0f2b, for example (a lineage only known to me as Omani), must have done the much more simple East Africa ··> Arabia route".

    Almost certainly so. But its close relative L0f2a is Ethiopian, and your own diagram has L0f2b with a tail 40 mutations long. Hardly convincing evidence of a remant of the OoA.

    "L4b1: East Africa ··> Arabia"

    So? And an even longer tail. Where's the evidence of its ancient presence in Arabia?

    "L0ab1b: ? ··> South Africa/Morocco and Arabia"

    I presume you mean L0a1b1. A widespread haplogroup. May even have spread with Y-hap E1b1b1b1-M81. From Morocco.

    "L3e2: ? ··> West/NW Africa and Arabia"

    Ah. At last an L3 haplogroup. Derived of course. And could have arrived in Arabia at any time, from anywhere within Africa. And so on.

    "In general they all must have migrated from East Africa but the timelines fit with the OoA"

    No they don't. There is not a single L haplogroup with basal diversification confined to Arabia.

    "Older than L3: L3'4'6 ··> L6 Slightly younger than L3 but older than M: L4b, L0f2 As old as M: L0a1b As old as R: L3e2"

    Those ages tell us nothing about when they reached Arabia. All are shared between Africa and Arabia, and could have arrived at the latter place at almost any time.

    "We find a similar situation in North Africa but not in the Fertile Crescent".

    We find several basal N lineages in the Fertile Crescent. Open your eyes.

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  19. Burning nail again, Terry.

    "no members of L3 (including M and N) ever crossed the Bab al Mandab"...

    ...

    "At last an L3 haplogroup".

    Yeah. You should have read until the end before replying.

    The collection of lineages is odd: several L0 (which is at least not too common in East Africa, except maybe South Sudan), and some L3'4'6. It speaks volumes about being part of the Second Expansion of our kin in Africa, which may be correlated with the Abbassia Pluvial (??). And not from later.

    "Surely if the region was such a paradise for the first OoA"...

    Nobody, absolutely nobody, claims that South Arabia was any "paradise". You made that up as so many other things.

    "Once more you cannot make up yopur mind. A few days ago you were claiming the haplogroup as being regionally exclusive to the Arabian Peninsula".

    I do not think so: I am talking of Y-DNA E-M81 not of mtDNA M81 (may that be what you're thinking? - Though as fair as I recall the Arabian one is M48)

    Your confusion is quite impressive.

    "Any E1b1b1b1-M81 in the Arabian Peninsula"...

    Or pilgrimage to Mecca. Whatever the case they'd be irrelevant erratics.

    You are rising a lot of dust around a NON-FACT that seems to be only in your mind.

    "The point I was trying to make, and you are obviously trying to avoid considering, is that R0 in Southern Arabia can in no way be considered a remnant of any OoA".

    And? You have discovered America... a bit too late!

    "But its close relative L0f2a is Ethiopian"...

    But Ethiopia has no particular relation with Oman and Oman has not any random sample of Ethiopian lineages but just some very specific and rather rare ones.

    "Where's the evidence of its ancient presence in Arabia?"

    Its absence anywhere else.

    "A widespread haplogroup".

    Why would you claim so? AFAIK it's been spotted only among Khoisan and Moroccans, indicating a very old remnant of human expansion within Africa, which has been erased in the Tropics.

    "May even have spread with Y-hap E1b1b1b1-M81. From Morocco".

    E-M81 did not spread to Arabia. It's almost exclusive of NW Africa and the Sahara, with a weak presence in the Nile basin. It's known presence in Arabia Peninsula is 0%.

    Shame on you for wasting my time with this.

    "There is not a single L haplogroup with basal diversification confined to Arabia".

    All the ones mentioned, they are rare enough for you and I not to know all their details but they seem confined to Arabia (except for L6, whose basal diversity seems clearly Yemeni on close look).

    Now you will mention their ancestor clades but that's not it (anticipating some waste of time here).

    "All are shared between Africa and Arabia"...

    Just like L3 is (or even M and N - you are going to end thinking like Dziebel if you follow that route). At some level all lineages are shared: there's no absolute barrier and anyhow that's the effect of migration OoA and back-migration into Africa.

    "... and could have arrived at the latter place at almost any time".

    I do not have time today to go on the detail of this. Whatever the case this is a "may" not any strong counter-evidence.

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  20. See this, Terry: http://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com/2011/11/on-seemingly-ancient-lxmn-lineages-of.html

    I did not have time to reply to some of your question marks ('claims' but they are wrong) but today I have dedicated some time to the matter.

    ReplyDelete
  21. "I do not think so: I am talking of Y-DNA E-M81 not of mtDNA M81 (may that be what you're thinking? - Though as fair as I recall the Arabian one is M48)"

    Quote:

    "Yet it'd be interesting to understand better the structure of both J and E in the peninsula, because at least one North African E lineage (M81) might be also a very ancient one, considering its regional exclusiveness and dominance".

    "E-M81 did not spread to Arabia. It's almost exclusive of NW Africa and the Sahara, with a weak presence in the Nile basin. It's known presence in Arabia Peninsula is 0%".

    That's why I was so surprised by your claim just quoted.

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  22. Oh, c'mon! The Arabian Peninsula is NOT the Iberian Peninsula! You are just petty-tricking here (or you know nothing of geography). The two sentences do not contradict each other anyhow (thanks to the word "almost").

    Again instead of supporting your claims with data, you resort to attempts of twisting and squeezing the meaning of sentences. With no success by the way.

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  23. "Again instead of supporting your claims with data, you resort to attempts of twisting and squeezing the meaning of sentences"

    I'm not 'twisting' anything. I'm merely quoting you. So what on earth did you mean by the comment, 'it'd be interesting to understand better the structure of both J and E in the peninsula, because at least one North African E lineage (M81) might be also a very ancient one, considering its regional exclusiveness and dominance' in a discussion concerning Arabia?

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  24. I meant that E-M81 may be as old as Solutrean in West Iberia (arriving across the Strait of Gibraltar), an old pet hypothesis of me. How does it relate to Arabia? Beats me.

    I can't remember the context. But it had nothing to do with Arabia but with NW Africa (where this lineage for sure coalesced) and, laterally, about Iberia (as an offshoot). Arabia is very far away from both: many thousands of kilometers of mostly desert and sea.

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  25. "I can't remember the context. But it had nothing to do with Arabia but with NW Africa"

    The context had everything to do with Arabia, and nothing to do with NW Africa. Your original comment dates from Nov. 13, 10.22 a.m.

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  26. The meaning of that sentence, which is admittedly very confusing (I had to read it several times till I understood what I meant back then from context and memory), is that at least one sub-lineage of E1b in North Africa (M81) may be very old and therefore there may also be other E sublineages in Arabia which are also extremely old.

    That's what I meant.

    ReplyDelete

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