Orkney Islanders Have Siberian Relatives

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 5-23-2008 | Roger Highfield

[blam]

Orkney Islanders have Siberian relatives

Last Updated: 12:01am BST 23/05/2008

A new study on ancient human migrations suggests that Orcadians and Siberians are closely related, writes Roger Highfield.

Orkney Islanders are more closely related to people in Siberia and in Pakistan than those in Africa and the near East, according to a novel method to chart human migrations.

The surprising findings come from a new way to infer ancient human movements from the variation of DNA in people today, conducted by a team from the University of Oxford and University College Cork, which has pioneered a technique that analyses the entire human genetic makeup, or genome.

Although it provides relative genetic contributions of one group to another, rather than timings, it confirms how the first modern humans came out of Africa 50,000 years ago, mostly from a group in southern Africa called the San.

But the subsequent movements around the world, via the near east, central Asia and then Europe, turned up some surprises including a strong similarity between the Sindih, a people who once lived in Pakistan, and Orkney Islanders, or Orcadians.

In turn, the Orcadians are closely related to the people who first colonised Siberia.

"Reindeer herders (a people called the Yakut) are indeed unexpectedly related to British, because one of their strongest signals of ancestry is from Orcadians, the only British population in the sample" says Dr Daniel Falush of University College Cork, a co-author on the paper in the journal PLoS Genetics.

The Orcadians, or those closely related to them in central/northern Europe, also contribute to two other North East Asian populations, the Hezhen and Han from Northern China.

"Humans like to tell stories and amongst the most captivating is the story of the global spread of modern humans from their original homeland in Africa," says Dr Falush.

"Traditionally this has been the preserve of anthropologists but geneticists are now starting to make an important contribution."

Previous methods have either concentrated on one part of the human genetic code (for example, just the Y-chromosome) or a greatly oversimplified model of heredity.

"Our technique enables us to identify more subtle details about genetic contributions than other methods," says Dr Garrett Hellenthal of the University of Oxford, a co-author.

"By incorporating the inheritance of 'blocks' of DNA between generations, rather than just individual genes, it captures a panoramic view of the sharing of patterns of DNA across the entire human genome," he says.

"This allows us to consider a vast number of possible colonisation scenarios - not just the ones people have already thought of - and use an algorithm to determine the most likely migration routes."

The new technique was used to analyse 2540 genetic markers using DNA data from 927 individuals of diverse ethnicity whose DNA was collected by the Human Diversity Project.

The researchers believe their method can cope with much larger datasets with over 500,000 genetic markers and are now working on a detailed picture of migrations into Europe.

[Cronos]

well, most "races", yes, except for those in remote pockets of the world, like the Australoid peoples in Papua New Guinea, Australia (until recently, the 1700s), on the Andaman islands in India, etc, and some sub-saharan african peoples -- the Sanand pygmies come to mind, but then both were driven out of their lands by incoming Bantus with their higher levels of civilisation

Interestingly, for 2000+ years until the Han, Central Asia and the Steppes were exclusively Indo-European, mostly Iran (like the Scyths, Sarmatians etc.) until they were conquered by Turkic peoples.

[Happy Rain]

Thanks for reminding me of the hazards in universal statements.
Still,who is to know if,long ago,some lost,and I mean REALLY lost,Maori fisherman didn’t find himself stranded in Papua.
Then the local girls discover that he looks just like Rudolph Valentino so he ends up seriously adulterating (no pun intended) the tribal gene pool.
Coulda happened,probably didn’t,but coulda.Of course the guy is long dead,either from exhaustion or from being lynched by the men of the tribe,so geneticists would be needed to confirm his existance.

[Happy Rain]

Yes “bazoombas.”

It’s from the Latin,”ba” meaning “fried chicken wings,” and the Greek “zoooommmmbahhhh!” (later shortened to just “zoomba”)which is strictly interpreted as, “the sight of large breasted women bearing plates.”

I’m sure you have a bazoombas or two in your town.

[muawiyah]

In my neighborhood they use an old Arabic word for bazoombas called "bazoombas" or "bosom-bas". Quite descriptive.

Some places refer to "headlights"