Potential Origins of Europeans Found

Yahoo News ^ | November 10, 2005 | RANDOLPH E. SCHMID

[AlaskaErik]

A study of DNA from ancient farmers in Europe shows sharp differences from that of modern Europeans — results that are likely to add fuel to the debate over European origins.

Researchers led by Wolfgang Haak of Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, argue that their finding supports the belief that modern residents of central Europe descended from Stone Age hunter-gatherers who were present 40,000 years ago, and not the early farmers who arrived thousands of years later.

But other anthropologists questioned that conclusion, arguing that the available information isn't sufficient to support it.

Haak's team used DNA from 24 skeletons of farmers from about 7,500 years ago, collected in Germany, Austria and Hungary. Six of the skeletons — 25 percent — belonged to the "N1a" human lineage, according to genetic signatures in their mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited from the mother.

The N1a marker is extremely rare in modern Europeans, appearing in just 0.2 percent.

"This was a surprise. I expected the distribution of mitochondrial DNA in these early farmers to be more similar to the distribution we have today in Europe," co-author Joachim Burger, also from Johannes Gutenberg University, said in a statement.

"Our paper suggests that there is a good possibility that the contribution of early farmers could be close to zero," added co-author Peter Forster from the University of Cambridge in England.

Absence of the marker in modern people indicates they are descended from ancient hunter-gatherers rather than the later-arriving farmers, the researchers said.

But others challenged that conclusion.

"The data are new, the analysis is not compelling, and the conclusions are illogical," said anthropologist Milford H. Wolpoff of the University of Michigan.

Anthropologist Joao Zilhao of the University of Bristol, England, noted that the study didn't compare the DNA of the ancient farmers with that of the ancient hunter-gatherers, adding that there are plenty of hunter-gatherer burials in German cave sites that could have been sampled for comparison.

Without that comparison it's hard to say that the difference between modern DNA and that of the ancient farmers means current people are descended from the ancient hunter-gatherers.

"In this particular case, the reason may be because of a farmer input that was subsequently diluted, assuming that the N1a haplotype is a marker of spreading farmers, and that it was as rare in pre-Neolithic Europe as it is today," Zilhao said.

But, he added, "I see nothing in the data that would necessarily carry the exclusion of, for instance, the opposite hypothesis ... that (the N1a marker) represents the incorporation of hunter-gatherer females in the farming communities that are coming into Europe about 7,500 years ago, that incorporation being in such small numbers that, eventually, it all but disappeared."

The research was funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research.

[RightWhale]

Have you come across Graham Hancock's new book? I haven't looked on Amazon today, but he addresses the apparently sudden emergence of modern man in it. He usually ends up with more questions rather than answers, but he also finds fresh angles.

[blam]

Noah's Flood

[lizma]

the most popular mechanism for linguistic evolution is quite a bit different from biological evolution.

I always thought market forces (trading) had something to do with it. That and getting your butt kicked by the enemy. No one will ever explain Msss. Murray.

[little jeremiah]

Prepare to read some very interesting stuff.

[lizma]

They also seem to project a lot of things bassed on this so-called mitochondrial DNA

From what I've read, it sounds legit.

Oxford has been doing a mitochondrial DNA study for quite awhile now. For a few hundred bucks you can send them a DNA sample and they can tell you which "sister of Eve" you belong to, but last time I checked it out it was only for European based "tribes". I think they are now also doing some Y studies.

The Huns were pretty busy in Eastern Europe for awhile, (I'm Slavic on the mom side). Don't know if Oxford is mapping Asia yet.

I think it would be fun to be mapped if ever have $500 in spare change. Like that will happen. I guess I need more rich guys sitting on my sofa.

[shuckmaster]

Based on my limited study of post ice age civilization, a fresh water Black Sea fed by rapidly melting glaciers would be as perfect a breeding ground for early human pre-civilization as any place on earth. Plenty of fresh fish and game, the sea is large enough to prevent any one tribe from completely conquering all while the long circular shoreline allows plenty of interaction between bordering groups. The surrounding mountains allows attacked groups to retreat to safety only to merge back with the amalgamated shore group a generation later. Over 6,000 years, the many individual groups would benefit from any advances in technology any one group invented and all the groups would adapt a similar language. A sudden saltwater flood at 5600BC would not only not only permanently cover their villages but would kill the local food supply forcing the population to disperse in different directions.

[blam]

"A sudden saltwater flood at 5600BC would not only not only permanently cover their villages but would kill the local food supply forcing the population to disperse in different directions."

I've read extensively about this flood. Ryan & Pittman, in the book: Noah's Flood, explain that the whole region around the Black Sea (at that time) was very arid. The people crowded around the lake were fishers and farmers and even (probably) practiced irrigation farming. When the 'dam' broke, these people fled up the rivers (Danube, Don, Dnipier, etc) into europe taking their language (Indo-European) and farming with them. These are probably the 'invading' farmers from the 'Middle-East' that all these articles reference.

Now, having said all that, lol. I think a large number of these people (those crowded around the Black Sea) have their origins way east in the Gansu Province of China. (north of the Indus Valley). We would probably describe their appearance as Celtic. See my earlier thread titled: The Curse Of The Red-Headed Mummies.

[blam]

Archaeologists Find Celts In Unlikely Spot: Central Turkey

[Sam Cree]

*

[CobaltBlue]

You're thinking of the Dvorak keyboard, and if you google that, you'll find that nobody but Dvorak ever came up with proof that the Dvorak keyboard was significantly faster.

The general concept you're looking for is called "path dependence" -- and it's controversial whether it really exists, although VHS vs. Betamax did seem like a good example.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks, for the link and ping. One of the problems in Ryan and Pitman's book "Noah's Flood" (besides the premise of the title) is right in the book. Catal Huyuk was burned and abandoned right at the time of this Black Sea flood, after about 3000 years of occupation, and presumably by the hypothesized displaced farmers.

The Mellaart excavation (about 3 per cent of the site) 40+ years ago found no signs of indigenous development. It's as if the culture which built the town came from elsewhere, all prefab and ready to go. One suggestion is that the people who settled at Catal Huyuk came from what is now the continental shelf, offshore of Turkey, on the Mediterranean side. The town was (or may have been) involved in the obsidian trade, which is very old, reaching back to the end of the Ice Age (at least).

Also, agriculture is at least 14,000 years old, based on RC dating of a double-row (domesticated) barley sample. While I don't doubt that there were farmers down in the former lands around the proto-Black Sea, I'm sure they didn't invent farming. :')

[SunkenCiv]

According to New Scientist magazine (May 4, 2002, p. 13), the researchers found an underwater delta south of the Bosporus. There was evidence for a strong flow of fresh water out of the Black Sea in the 8th millennium BCE.

That's particularly interesting because Ryan and Pitman cite an old anecdote by Diodorus which doesn't support their view (that there was a single extraordinary flood event in human times), but claim that it does. The Black Sea would have been filling up with glacial meltwater at the same time as the rest of the world's seas, and arguably should have been doing so at a faster pace.

The story from Diodorus involves a then-extant local tradition on Samothrace in the Aegean that the flooding of the peninsula (the island seen today was indeed a peninsula during relatively recent human times) resulted from an outflow from the Black Sea, and that Diodorus was shown the still-visible remains of the submerged structures of the earlier town. Ryan and Pitman attribute the first detail to an implausible scenario:

• the ancestors of the inhabitants of that island had lived on an unidentified peninsula in the Black Sea, now submerged
  
• moved at the time of the flood to an island in the Aegean, an unknown number of miles, accomplished on foot as the flood made navigation into the Aegean impossible
  
• retained the story for 7000 years
  
• reversed the direction of the flow in order to make sense of it
  
• pointed to the submerged structures, which must be coincidence
  
• another people built the submerged structures many centuries before the Aegean _gradually_ rose and flooded the Black Sea, or
  
• that the structures, whatever they were, were natural and in any case may still exist

If natural, the submerged structures would be serendipitous or even the origin of the story. If they led to the Samothracians either making up the story of the flood, or distorting some account of the actual Black Sea flood, it would be an amazing coincidence. This would however make the rest of Ryan and Pitman's supposed explanation incredible, if an 8000 year old tradition to explain apparently submerged structures is not already incredible.

[SunkenCiv]

uh-kay...

Recent Earhquake and the tsunamis:
Anyone still believe Noah's Flood wasn't real?
self | 12/27/04 | RaceBannon
Posted on 12/27/2004 8:47:38 AM PST by RaceBannon
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1309028/posts
13 posted on 12/28/2004 10:35:09 AM PST by timer
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1309028/posts?page=13#13

[F14 Pilot]

bump

[blam]

Understand that the Ice Age ended in three 'surge' periods and a couple times in between, it went back to cold periods. The surge periods were (about) 15k, 11-12k and 7-8k years ago. I think it was during the 11-12k periods that the ice, snow and glaciers north and east of the Black Sea melted and caused a fresh water flood of the Black Sea that over-flowed and emptied into the Mediterranean.

I also believe that the Mediterranean was blocked at Gilbralter in probably a couple different place within the sea itself. I believe the Mediterrean was severely dessicated during the Ice Age and it was only until the 7-8k melt that the 'plug' at Gilbralter was breached with sea water streaming in and doing a cascade breach of the internal 'dams' , finalizing with the salt water breach into the Black Sea 7-8k years ago.

The Mediterranean completely dried out a number of times because there are salt deposits on the bottom that are 1-2 miles thick. The last time it completely dried out was 5 million years ago.

[blam]

I meant to ping you to my post #96 also.

[SunkenCiv]

Nice pic of the modern straits:
http://www.ersdac.or.jp/todayData/02.8/1.jpg

http://www.answers.com/topic/atlantic-ocean

A shallow submarine ridge across the Strait of Gibraltar separates the Mediterranean basin from the Atlantic and limits the exchange of water between the two bodies.

http://sealevel.jpl.nasa.gov/education/cool-facts.html

Seven million years ago, when geological forces lifted the Straits of Gibraltar and blocked the flow of Atlantic Ocean water into the Mediterranean, the Mediterranean Basin was completely dry! And in some places its bed lies 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) below sea level.  When the Straits of Gibraltar dropped to today's level, what may have been the Earth's grandest waterfall may have run for 1,000 years, until the sea was full.

[also sez: "Ten meters (33 feet) of ocean depth has the same mass as the whole atmospher; 2.5 meters (8 feet) of ocean depth holds as much heat as the whole atmosphere; 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) of the ocean depth has as much water as the whole atmosphere."]

[CobaltBlue]

It's always fascinating watching people looking for "proof" that this or that event in the Bible really happened -- the Noachian flood is always the biggie.

Do other religions to that, too? I just don't know enough about other religions, except maybe the Greeks, and they did seem to be always looking for "proof" that their myths (e.g., Atlantis) really happened.

[SunkenCiv]

Looking for physical causes of events described in the Bible beats the ass of rejection in toto.