Monday, July 17, 2017

On the Mesolithic colonization of Scandinavia (Günther et al. 2017 preprint)


Over at bioRxiv at this LINK. The main takeaway point from this preprint is that Scandinavia was a more happening place than most of the rest of Europe during the Mesolithic, because at the time it was the meeting place between two relatively divergent forager groups, West European hunter-gatherers (WHG) and East European hunter-gatherers (EHG), that entered the peninsula from different directions, the southwest and northeast, respectively, and mixed to form Scandinavian hunter-gatherers (SHG). Other key points:

- EHG probably dispersed across Scandinavia in a counter-clockwise direction via an ice-free route along the Atlantic coast in what is now Norway, because SHG samples from northern and western Scandinavia show more EHG ancestry than those from southern and eastern Scandinavia

- at least 17% of the SNPs that are common in SHG are not found in present-day Europeans, suggesting that a large part of European variation has been lost since the Mesolithic

- although it's unlikely that SHG made a significant contribution to the present-day Northern European gene pool, some gene-variants common in SHG that appear to be associated with metabolic, cardiovascular, developmental and psychological traits are carried at high frequencies by present-day Northern Europeans, especially compared to present-day Southern Europeans, probably due to strong selective pressures specific to northern latitudes in Europe

- SHG is inferred to have had fair skin and varied blue to light-brown eye color, which makes sense considering that it was a mixture of apparently fair-skinned/brown-eyed EHG and dark-skinned/blue-eyed WHG, except that the frequencies of blue-eyed variants and one fair-skinned variant in SHG are much higher than expected from its EHG/WHG mixture ratios, again pointing to strong selective pressures specific to northern latitudes in Europe acting upon certain gene-variants

- a 3D computer generated facial reconstruction of an SHG female based on data from a very high (57x) coverage genome sequence looks, at least to me, like a fairly typical present-day Northern European woman (see Figure S9.1 in the supp info here), though I suspect that the result might be biased in some way, simply because it's impossible to know whether variants associated with specific facial traits in present-day Northern Europeans were also associated with the same facial traits in SHG.

Citation...

Günther et al., Genomics of Mesolithic Scandinavia reveal colonization routes and high-latitude adaptation, bioRxiv, Posted July 17, 2017, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/164400

103 comments:

  1. @Salden

    I'm not sure if that's possible since the Ukranian foragers, who are basically EHG carried light skin pigmentation, and it even made an appearance in the Baltic HG. I think the authors missed this one.

    Small correction to your post, unless I missed something. The EHG travelled in the ice free zone in the arctic zone counter-clockwise, which is how they arrived in Norway. This is counter-intuitive to what you might expect. The WHG moved north-east from modern Germany/Poland to the Baltic/Gotland/Sweden as we've seen from other results.

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  2. Same old, nothing really new or groundbreaking in paper. They say EHG + WHG = SHG, also old news. There is some interesting bits regrading alleles found in SHG.

    3 out 6 SHG carried alleles for EDAR gene - gene associated with "shovel-shaped teeth and hair thickness phenotype" in Asians.

    "For rs3827760, within the EDAR gene, the derived G allele is associated with shovel-shaped teeth and hair thickness phenotype in East Asians. In the novel SHGs in this study, only the ancestral A allele is present (SF12 is homozygote AA). The derived variant was reported in three of the six Motala SHGs which are younger than most other SHGs in this study. It is clear that the variant was present among SHGs, and it is possible that it has a continuous (but varying) distribution from Scandinavia to East Asia during the Mesolithic, and that the very low sample size of EHGs has failed to pick up the variant. It is also possible that the derived rs3827760 variant was brought to Scandinavia by migration in the Late Mesolithic, perhaps related to the specific Motala group."

    Only population who could have brought this is EHG-like population coming from Russia, more sampling for EHG will solve this over time.

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  3. This study is exceptionally good, they really have it all in here. New gold standard for aDNA papers.

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  4. I'll point out how the paper apparently casts doubt on claims the modern Euro look (much lighter skin, light eyes) is only about 6000 or so years old.

    sort of. they agree with the reich lab that SHG did not contribute much ancestry at all to modern scandinavians. the same genetic architecture seems to have emerged twice in this model.

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  5. Romolus: I am pretty sure Davidski would not call that PCA a gold standard.

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  6. @Salden and @Razib: Another pigmentation point about the Early European Farmers and SLC45A2 is also semi-hidden in this paper on the supplement's page 57:

    (For EEF) "(w)hile both pigmentation alleles were observed at rs16891982 (although the derived allele in much higher proportion, see below), virtually only the light-skin allele was observed at rs1426654."

    rs16891982 is a SNP at SLC45A2 and rs1426654 is a SNP at SLC24A5.

    This could be a fairly big change. Mathieson 2015 previously suggested that Anatolian and European Early Farmers probably had a majority ancestral alleles at SLC45A2, with derived as a minority, which is reversed here.

    However, Mathieson's new 2017 (Genomic History of Southeastern Europe) paper also showed a revision of Anatolian Neolithic farmers with derived rs185146 frequency at SLC45A2 of 0.6, essentially the same as the Eastern Hunter Gatherers (http://i.imgur.com/arQ16sa.png).

    If raised frequencies of derived SLC45A2 variants were general across EEF, this suggests that frequency of SLC45A2 might not actually have had as much change in frequency in Europeans since the Neolithic (or even the Boncuklu early Anatolians!) as we had thought.

    The modal EEF phenotype in skin, hair and eyes may well have been pretty much the same as the modal present day Sardinian phenotype (though a minority phenotype would have also existed that is not even seen in Sardinians today).

    Leaves Western WHG (Loschbour, La Brana, Blattherhohle, etc) as the predicted most high melanin group who had post-Mesolithic influence.

    Though even then, if we've lost 17% of SHG common variants, and Western WHG, makes a relatively low contribution to present day people (esp as distinct from other HG introdgression), and even then mostly in Western Europe (based on Cassidy 2016's haplotype analysis), doesn't seem unlikely then Europeans may well have lost some lighter frequency variants from them.

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  7. To me, a couple of interesting things to do with genetic diversity between and within populations (and @Razib if you have any thoughts on these in particular).

    They find that ROH (runs of homozygosity) are much lower comparing SHG to WHG, suggesting that SHG has had a much larger population size or a less pronounced bottleneck in the past. Or in my opinion perhaps this relates to the more diverse ancestry for SHG. See Figure 2.

    On the other hand, they do not find that conditional nucleotide diversity is any higher between WHG and SHG. See Figure S7.1

    Conditional nucleotide diversity is much higher in CHG and EEF.

    See: http://i.imgur.com/U0Elhvr.png

    We might conclude that high conditional nucleotide diversity then a general feature of the early southern West Eurasian populations and low is a general feature of northern.

    However, another point we can add to this is that Kilinc 2016 looked at conditional nucleotide diversity in the earliest (pre-pottery) Boncuklu Anatolians:

    See: http://i.imgur.com/cIeaTax.jpg (from
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5069350/, Figure 2).

    This is actually the lowest among populations in the Boncuklu individuals (lower CND than WHG or SHG). Equally the Tepecik-Ciftlik Anatolian population also a CND intermediate between Boncuklu and EEF.

    There isn't a simple crumbling out of CND into northern ancient=low, southern ancient=high.

    (Caveat of course: WHG and CHG are individuals from quite a varied area who show some signs of subclustering. Looking at a specific WHG subcluster, we may find lower CND again).

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  8. Gene variants associated with psychological traits that have a varying geographic distribution are mentioned. For people interested in population genetics and DNA testing it's nothing surprising that such things occur, but to politically correct scholars in the humanities this is a bomb they don't even know it exists and which they would dismiss as dumb racism. :D

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  9. @Razib
    sort of. they agree with the reich lab that SHG did not contribute much ancestry at all to modern scandinavians. the same genetic architecture
    seems to have emerged twice in this model.

    According to paper first occurence of blue-eyes was about 42 000 years ago if not earlier somewhere in West Asia.
    After that it could be indeed introduced to Europe few times in different ages. But the point is that blue-eyes are realy old. And onot invented again few thousands years ago. This is biased bullshit. And I hope shortly will be dismissed from all new papers.

    Also they said thhat light-skin alleles are also quite old, about 27 000 years old.

    Everything is in suplemental info, check it out.

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  10. The facial reconstruction is really, really cool. They should do something similar to Loschbour and La Brana to calibrate the results.

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  11. Don't see any samples from Finland. A pity there are no samples there as I wanted to see the extent of EHG territory during the Mesolithic. My educated guess is that in Finland the Hunter Gatherers will be almost fully EHG.

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  12. Nothing is certain till we get ancient DNA. So the hypothesis that the light pigment present in Mesolithic SHG orignated in West Asia is just that a hypothesis.

    The out of Africa, out of Asia into Europe/America/Austrillia has been pushed so hard in genetic circles that we don't consider migration can go in any direction. Maybe Natufians had lots of ancestors who lived in Europe. Why not?

    Looking at ancient DNA, there's a good chance hapogroup U orignated outside of the Middle East, Y DNA R orignated outside of the Middle Eas. And before ancien DNA it was assumed everying in Europe was at somepoint in the Middle East. That's just a bad assumption.

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  13. Btw, SHG had mixed alleles in skin pigment SNPs not all derived alleles like modern Europeans, sort of like Baltic HGs who had signicantly less EHG.

    @mtDNA,

    Ancient DNA confirms that all the basal U5 and U4 branches expaned by the Mesolithic. U4a1, U4a2, U4b1a, and U4d are the main U4 branches in moderns and Mesolitics. U5a1, U5a2, U5b2a, U5b2b, U5b1 are the main U5 branches in moerns and Mesolithics.

    But.....it looks like there were expansions within U5 or at least U5a after the Mesolithic. A large percentage, probabl 50%+, of U5a1 in all moderns(not just Europe) are U5a1a and U5a1b1. Both of those U5a1 clas first appear in LNBA Europ(U5a1a1 also in Yamnaya, U5a1b1 also in Tarim Mummies.

    Mesolithic U5a1 is different animal than moden U5a1. It's likely modern U5a1 mostly derives from an inbred Chalcolithic Steppe population. U5a1a, U5a1b1, and other lineages prove R1b and R1a Steppe pops share ancestry.

    Also most moder U5a2 is U5a2a1 or U5a2b1. U5a2a1 fist appears in guess where: LNBA Europe.

    U5b and U5a2 shows earlier expansions and more diversity than U5a1. But modern Eastern Europan U5b is mostly madeup of what might be post-Mesolithic expansions.

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  14. Salden said...
    "I'll point out how the paper apparently casts doubt on claims the modern Euro look (much lighter skin, light eyes) is only about 6000 or so years old."

    I think this may be confused by muddy definitions.

    *If* these depigmentation genes aren't specifically northern latitude adaptations but adaptations for northern latitudes *away from the sea* (due to a deficiency in vit A, vit D, iodine or whatever it was) and thus developed in the *interior* of northern Eurasia then maybe what is now thought of as the European phenotype existed but it wasn't strictly European at the time - it was "Hyperborean" - with a western edge extending into eastern Europe and parts of Scandinavia and an eastern edge as far as Siberia.

    So along the border between the two climate zones there was SHG (or other regional equivalents), a mixture of WHG (maritime European HG) and EHG (Hyperborean interior HG) but neither spread far beyond the border zone because the two phenotypes were selected for their distinct biozones.

    Then (imo) along came the farmers with a similar dietary deficiency to the interior (but for different reasons) and those originally EHG/Hyperborean genes spread like wildfire both within the farmer population and later by the farmer population.

    So personally i'd say (at least one version of) the "European" phenotype goes back a long way except it wasn't strictly European at the time.

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  15. Presenting the oldest extant U5a and U4a among SHG could even explain the origin of U4 and U5 among the EHG and the WHG, as well.

    Considering their early spread in Northert Scandinavia, as well as the rest of arctic Eurasia, it's rather obvious that the ancestors of modern U4/U5 survived the Younger Dryas in the South-Western Baltics - where the Bromme-Lyngby culture still represents the only known refugia in the arctic hemisphere.

    From which the Ahrensburg and Swidrien cultures would emerge, at the start of the Holocene, simultanious and parallell with the Fosna-Hensbacka-culture, that repopulated Fenno-Scandia.

    Rather than being a "mix" of EHG and WHG the SHG could be ancestral to both of them, initially.

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  16. This study didn't consider Mathieson 2017 which found u4a in Mesolithic Ukraine. P

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  17. @ Samuel Andrews

    "Looking at ancient DNA, there's a good chance hapogroup U orignated outside of the Middle East, Y DNA R orignated outside of the Middle East. And before ancien DNA it was assumed everying in Europe was at somepoint in the Middle East. That's just a bad assumption".

    At last!

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  18. Gioiello,

    Well now you know I'm not Sam Hilson or a spreader of Middle Eastern propaganda.

    The vast majority of mtDNA in Europe though did land into Europe from the Middle East.

    The migration of Anatolian farmers into Europe was gigantic. From Ukraine to Ireland and Sweden to Italy, they became the dominat people in Europe.

    And their the most important ancestor of most Europeans today. Then sometime after the Neolithic there were more movements from the Near East into Southern Europe that brought Y DNA J and E1b.

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  19. And btw I'm am considering the possibility H3 orignated in Mesolithic Europe. It looks like H11a may have also orignatd in Mesolithic Europe. It's popular in Eastrn Europe an was found in Mesolithi Lithuania.

    Gioielo, have you noticed your mtDNA K1a1b1 has popped up several times in Neolithic Spain and Scotland? That's pretty darn good evience it's moved into Europe from Anatolia, consiering those people wo carri it were 80% Anatolian.

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  20. Sammy,

    What hgs originated in Anatolia - to later migrate and spread "massively" in Europe, as of ENE?

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  21. Light-eye pigmentation alleles, possibly 43,000 years.

    "The dark skin and blue eyes phenotype combination was likely very common among WHGs and it has been inferred for four out of five
    Mesolithic and Upper Paleolithic individuals in western and central Europe."


    "Using an ABC modeling approach Nakagome et al., predicted that the light-pigmentation allele at rs12913832 emerged around 42,000 years ago or earlier; a date close in time to the initial peopling of Europe. A plausible scenario of the origin of the blue-eye mutation that reconciles our results with findings from other studies is one where this variant appeared in an ancestral population before the ancestors of the WHG migrated from Near East into West and Central Europe."

    Light-skin pigmentation alleles, possibly ~22,000-28,000 years ago.

    "The large effect light-skin alleles at rs16891982 and rs1426654 were present in SHG, EHG, CHG and EEF but absent in WHG and PEHG.
    Similarly, the C11 haplotype is present in huntergatherers (SHG, EHG and CHG but not WHG and PEHG) throughout Europe, as well as in at
    least two early farmers. This pattern is consistent with reports that the rs1426654 derived allele arose ~22,000-28,000 years ago, and that the light-pigmentation allele at rs16891982 arose only once in Eurasians. A possible geographical origin for these two major light-skin alleles is West Asia or the Near East. Later migrations across the Caucasus (CHG) and Eastern Europe would have brought it to Scandinavia, while EEF migrations introduced both alleles into central Europe."


    Selective sweeps for light skin, possibly 15-19 kya and 11-13 kya. (not in WHG though)

    "Moreover,suggested that selective sweeps on rs1426654 and rs16891982 (lightpigmentation alleles), started at between ~15-19 kya (under a dominant model) and ~11-13 kya (under an additive model), respectively."

    All of this known for a while now from hunter-gatherers samples we have so far. WHG were probably only ones in Europe with dark skin until late Neolithic/early Bronze Age. Rest (SHG, EHG, CHG, EEF) were on the lighter side, but not as light as modern population.

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  22. Heads up:

    In the British press today. The genetc evidence now confirms the theory. Modern industrial civilization has a dysgenic effect on general intelligence. A previous study based on records of historical medical reflex times, which correlate closely with general intelligence (G-factor), indicated the same http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2323944/Were-Victorians-cleverer-Research-indicates-decline-brainpower-reflex-speed.html ; study of historical genomes and the genes associated with higher IQ now confirms it.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4706512/Victorians-smarter-class-2017-claims-study.html

    Victorians were smarter than the class of 2017: Advances in medicine mean more people with lower IQs survive today compared with two centuries ago, claims controversial study

    Technology may be getting smarter but humans have been getting less intelligent since Victorian times, according to a controversial study.

    The research claims that up until 180 years ago, people were getting smarter thanks to natural selection favouring 'survival of the sharpest'.

    The emergence of farming, cities and government would have made it easier for smarter people to get on in life, have more children and pass on their genes more widely.

    But that trend has now being reversed, researchers in Brussels claim.

    Genes driving intelligence have become less common since Victorian times, because advances in medicine and nutrition means people with lower IQs can have more children that survive into adulthood.

    The research is led by Michael Woodley from the Free University in Brussels, according to The Times.

    'The millennia-long micro-evolutionary trend favouring higher GCA [general cognitive ability] not only ceased, but likely went into reverse among European-derived populations living in the 19th century', researchers found.

    James Thompson a senior psychology lecturer at University College London, who was not involved in the research, wrote about the research in his blog on 'Controversial Perspectives Largely Excluded from the American Mainstream Media'.

    'If we had been caught in our Victorian prime our rise in ability since the pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer ages would have been even more apparent', he said.

    Dr Woodley and his researchers used genomes recovered from 99 people in central Europe who died between 2,000BC to 600AD.

    They compared these to the DNA of 503 modern Europeans and found intelligence genes had become more common over time.

    These results were backed up by separate analysis of the genes of 66 individuals who had lived over 3,200 years.

    This general increase in intelligence is counterbalanced by a dip since the 20th century - meaning that although people on average have higher IQs they have decreased since Victorian times when we were in our prime.

    [...]

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  23. MaxT,

    What WHG-samples have proven, beyond doubt, to be dark-skinned or 'tropical'?

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  24. @ Samuel
    I should come back to those posts when I thought that you were Krefter and Sam Huelsen..., but I have no time now and have other problems. Anyway about "your Anatolia" (don't say Turkey, which came much later) the North was linked to Europe more than Semite Middle East or pre-Indo-European Iran.
    K1 is born among the Western European hunter-gatherers (se also Mathiesosn) and certainly K1a1b1e came from Tuscany, not just Italy.
    All the rest I am saying from more than ten years will be demonstrated from aDNA (when your friends decide to test Tyrrhenian Italy and all the rest I asked for)...

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  25. Gene variants associated with psychological traits that have a varying geographic distribution are mentioned. Maybe the hyperboreal people suffered from a form of seasonal affective disorder, characterized by depression during the summer, when there would be more sunlight at these northern latitudes. :>)

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  26. KVN

    A winter seasonal affective disorder might have a kind of quasi-hibernation effect i.e. mope around living off stored body fat till the spring.

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  27. @Batman

    This study points this out (as quoted below) and previous other studies so far. WHG had combination of blue eyes, dark skin and dark hair.

    Absent of light-skin alleles in WHG and Palaeolithic European hunter-gatherers.

    "The large effect light-skin alleles at rs16891982 and rs1426654 were present in SHG, EHG, CHG and EEF but absent in WHG and PEHG.
    Similarly, the C11 haplotype is present in huntergatherers (SHG, EHG and CHG but not WHG and PEHG) throughout Europe, as well as in at
    least two early farmers. This pattern is consistent with reports that the rs1426654 derived allele arose ~22,000-28,000 years ago, and that the light-pigmentation allele at rs16891982 arose only once in Eurasians."

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  28. If urbanization and civilization lowers IQ then why are undeveloped African countries so stupid? Clearly the rise and fall of intelligence is very complex and these current ideas dont tell the whole story.

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  29. >If urbanization and civilization lowers IQ then why are undeveloped African countries so stupid? Clearly the rise and fall of intelligence is very complex and these current ideas dont tell the whole story.

    It's likely because they had and to an extent still have violent tribal culture where most intelligent individuals were probably getting killed. Samething similar probably happened also in the Middle East after the rise of Islam.
    Besides populations living in tropical conditions are always less intelligent but tend to be more violent. Compare related populations like East Asians to Southeast Asians and Europeans to MENAs. In case of Europeans that drop in intelligence probably didn't result in higher aggression over the Victorian Era, though.

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  30. >This is actually the lowest among populations in the Boncuklu individuals (lower CND than WHG or SHG). Equally the Tepecik-Ciftlik Anatolian population also a CND intermediate between Boncuklu and EEF.
    There isn't a simple crumbling out of CND into northern ancient=low, southern ancient=high.
    (Caveat of course: WHG and CHG are individuals from quite a varied area who show some signs of subclustering. Looking at a specific WHG subcluster, we may find lower CND again).


    Not 100% sure but as far as I know KO1 has the highest known ROH out of any modern and ancient indivdual.

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  31. Arch Hades

    "If urbanization and civilization lowers IQ then why..."

    maybe urbanization raised IQ but more recent industrialization has lowered it

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  32. You'd think SHG would have at least contributed significantly to the Saami.

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  33. Oh great the white nationalist halfwits are here.

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  34. >You'd think SHG would have at least contributed significantly to the Saami.

    Saami aren't any more related to SHG than other North Europeans.

    http://jakobssonlab.iob.uu.se/pdfs_Jakobssonlab/Skoglund_etal_SCIENCE_2014.pdf

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  35. @Arch Hades: because what lowers IQ is not urbanisation but modern medical science and healthcare, combined with modern wellfare system. Every children is kept alive regardless of the parents' ability to raise and back them, this lifts the selection pressure for the attributes that are necessary for better survival, for example intelligence. Urbanisation is a coincidence, not a the cause.

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  36. The Nazi belief in Social Darwinism alive and well in the comments.

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  37. It may be technically true that modern systems which care for the weaker halt some selection processes but that is what sets us above animals. That should only be a problem to you if you are a goose stepping wank puffin with master race fantasies rather than a decent person with normal levels of empathy There is also a lot of shite being talked because we have clear evidence that the weak, injured and ill were supported by the community even from the Palaeolithic.

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  38. @mike

    I think they refer to this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jan/16/natural-selection-making-education-genes-rarer-says-icelandic-study

    They noticed a decline.

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  39. MaxT,

    I understand the theoretical concept, that certain alleles connected to pigmentation are responsible for the de-pigmentation of the paleolithic populations who needed to survive the dark winters north of the 60th parallel.

    From what we know about the human biology it's not even possible to survive and succeed in the dim north unless your skin and hair turns pale.

    Which means that EVRY ancient population found north of the 60th parallel, throughout several generations, would be palefaced. To exist, at all...

    That said, my question to you was actually about what specific samples of WHG (location, age) - that shows a lack of ONE or more allele(s) connected to pigmentation.

    ---

    Just as a case in point; an alledged "hunter-gatherer" from Carelia with a sino-tibetan grand grandma - with recent ancestors from south of the 55th paralell - would already have turned the melanin-production back on.

    It's well known that a mix of paled and non-paled people will reset the key alleles for melanine-production to it's original norm, before any ice-age isolation and refugia rook place.

    Thus 3/4 of the descendants of a arctic/tropic re-mix tend to get the old, original mode of these sla's revoken. Which was to produce melanine and give the indidual a decent protection from the daily sunshine in a tropical/semitropical environment.

    The retrieved samples of "HG" from Scandinavia seem to be less influenced of the early relationships with the paleolithic survivors of the tropical hemisphere.

    Which means that the "SHG" -
    from Fenno-Scandia - should be the most close to the paleolithic Europeans.

    Seemingly, that old, palearctic background can still be seen, measured and analyzed among the indigenous populations surounding the northern shores of the Baltic ocean. Who, according to Willerslev et al, seem to be the oldest in Europe...

    ---


    A WHG from Spain or the Atlantic facade - with a grand grandma from Andalusia or Alger - should have a similar kind of influx on his/hers pigmentation. Thus the question about the age and location of the WHG-samples used to determine (a degree of) pigmentation...

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  40. I think IQ must be seen as Potential Intelligence within certain conditions.

    I have witnessed people with very high IQ scores that make the dumbest choices in life when their Emotions overrides their Potential Intelligence.....

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  41. Mike
    Note that I have not expressed any opinion wether this is the right or wrong, neither suggested any solution. I have just stated what I think is true, no moral judgement. I'd agree that this is an extremely sensitive topic for a reason. Also our ability of measuring intelligence in any meaningful way is nearly nonexistent. I do not think that there is an impeding doom that would require desperate measures decided on far insufficient data. But I also think that taboos are counter-productive.

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  42. I think people that can control their Emotions and have a High IQ plus a more phlegmatic nature will make more Intelligent decisions in life...

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  43. Ryan,

    The sami population is basically northern Finns, who's been adopting some goths, swedes and danes fleeing the catholic conquest of (southern) Fenno-Scandia during the last millennia.

    A similar isolation happened in the vast, high-arctic area of todays Russia - due to the greek-ortodox regime conquering major Russia.

    During that period the high-arctic lapplanders were embargoed and persecuted, which forced them to use the high-arctic roads to the east only - for travel and trade as well as social and political interaction.

    Thus the high-arctic populations would keep their connections to the sino-tibetan populations of NE Asia, while the catholisized populations of Fenno-Scandia were strictly prohibitted to interact - in any way or form - with "the heathen finns".

    Consequently the Samis got a different history and a stronger influx of sino-tibetan mt-dna than the rest of Fenno-Scandia, between 1050 and 1750. By 1850 the (forced) christianization of the lapplanders would take effect and their old connections to the east be inhibitted.

    Though, we may still find a surplus of mt-dna C among the Samis, compared to the rest of Finland.

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  44. Slum,

    Urbanization and institutionalization are obvious factors in depriving people of their mental potentials. Along with emotional imbalance and agression, sich as strife and warfare.

    Lower EQ is a consequence of them all.

    As IQ is based on EQ; Lower IQ is a consequence of lower EQ.

    Social justice, care and medicare was always a hallmark of the primates, as well as a significator of all higher mammals. From whom the most intelligent of primates are supposed to have evolved...

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  45. The new paper on ancient and modern genomes and general intelligence argues that organised culture gradually raised intelligence because the culture favoured the survival of the more intelligent; and that the trappings of modern industrialisation have rapidly reversed some of those gains; like welfare, modern medicine, higher living standards for the masses etc. Modern society has largely by-passed selective mechanisms that maintained and improved human genetic quality. It is pretty obvious stuff really.

    The study based on medical reflex speeds indicates a decline in general intelligence equivalent to 15 IQ points since the Victorians, which is massive. Education makes us better only at this or that cognitive skill, it does not raise general intelligence. General intelligence (g factor) means that we tend to do equally well at all cognitive skills measured by IQ. IQ tests measure cognitive skills that allow us to do well in modern society and it correlates closely with personal income. General IQ is genetic and it cannot be raised by education.

    Studies indicate that the higher IQ bands in the UK have declined by 6 IQ points just since the 1980s, so we are talking about a 2 or 3 point drop per generation, which is a massive rate of decline.

    Hard genetic science comes into conflict with pseudo-religious beliefs about equality and the primacy of nurture. If we were to lose another 15 IQ points on average, many people would still refuse the science and claim that "all you need is love, that is what makes us human". It is like a religious view of the world, there is little that can be done to convince them, let alone of its importance.

    Western civilization is on its course, there is little to nothing that can be done about it.

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  46. mike said...
    "It may be technically true that modern systems which care for the weaker halt some selection processes but that is what sets us above animals. That should only be a problem to you if..."

    It's self-evidently a problem. What you're saying is you think the solution to the problem would be morally worse than the problem itself however a lot of that is based on solutions in the past when people didn't know the precise mechanisms involved. Nowadays instead of the problem being solved the "natural" way by couples having twelve kids and only the two healthiest survive or a state imposing artificial selection by culling we can simply have genetic screening where a couple produce 12 fertilized eggs and the healthiest one is implanted in the womb.

    easy peasy - no uniforms required

    ReplyDelete
  47. batman

    "Which means that EVRY ancient population found north of the 60th parallel, throughout several generations, would be palefaced. To exist, at all... "

    Eskimos - which what makes me think the cause was maybe something to do with fish / seafood (or the lack of it).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sealoil and codliveroil may help to make vitamin D2, but only the Sun can make D3.

      Though both the inuit and the eskimos arrived from the Sino-Tibetan people who had lived close to the 65th paralell - along the Pacific rim during Late Pleistocene. Which is one of the reasons the west-east-connection across northern Eurasia could trive as soon as the Younger Dryas was over.

      Delete
  48. @mike,
    "The Nazi belief in Social Darwinism alive and well in the comments."

    Something I've learned is Anthro discussion places on the internet are they are full of eugenic Nazi(s). They love the idea of survival of the fitest and racial superiority. I think they might be a reflection of European thinking that I as an American am unfamiliar with and creeped out by.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Weirdly my experience is the opposite. In Europe it would be considered utterly shameful to dabble in support of borderline eugenics. Certainly since WW2

      Delete
    2. my impression is a lot of DNA forums have a minority of v good considered level headed people but a mountain of people who clearly think they are the master race or whose lack of self awareness of the bias of their nationalism makes them absurd and actually seem retarded in social intelligence terms

      Delete
  49. @apostateimpressions

    If we were to lose another 15 IQ points on average, many people would still refuse the science and claim that "all you need is love, that is what makes us human".

    I'm skeptical about those IQ numbers and what they really mean anyway.

    Also, even if IQ is plummeting in modern societies, solutions that call for the increase in the death toll of those with lower IQ are understandably unacceptable.

    But it's not all doom and gloom, because it's likely that IQ will be raised across the board by artificial intelligence in developed societies in the not too distant future.

    In the next 25-50 years humans will become part machine in many ways, and eventually intelligence will be one of the main beneficiaries of this trend.

    ReplyDelete
  50. @Samuel Andrews

    Something I've learned is Anthro discussion places on the internet are they are full of eugenic Nazi(s). They love the idea of survival of the fitest and racial superiority. I think they might be a reflection of European thinking that I as an American am unfamiliar with and creeped out by.

    Try and guess where ze German Nazis got some of their main ideas from?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_eugenics#Origins_in_the_U.S._eugenics_movement

    ReplyDelete
  51. @batman,

    FOr the most part Saami are normal Europeans(STeppe, MN(EF/WHG)) with an aditional 20-25% something East Asian.

    But multipe analysis have made it pretty clear Saami also have an extra layer of European HG in them. EVen more than what Lithuanians have.

    WIth D_stats Saami get 10-15% SHG when modlelled as a mixture of Lithuanian, East Asian, and EuroHG. That's on top of the extra EuroHG Lithuanians already have.

    And no Saami's East Asian stuff is not from the love relationship Fennoscandiva used to have with Asia before those oh so terrible Christians stopped it. We already know Iron age people in FInland had even more East Asian stuf than modern Saami.

    ReplyDelete
  52. @Davidski,

    I guess you're right that type of thinking does have a stronghold in some circles in America.

    Difference in level of belief in Eugenics/Darwinism might reflect era more than contient. There were definitly lots of European aswell as Amrican imperialists, Darwinists, and eugenics 100 years ago.

    I have been suprised to see European racists on the internet tend to be athiest and support eugenics because in America racists claim to be Christain and are agianst things such as abortion and eugenics. The KKK and Nazis reflect these differneces.

    Athiest eugenic racism to me seems to be more of a European thing, no matter how small a minority they makeup in Europe.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sammy,

      Do you have any idea of which the oldest known sources are, describing blunt racism and due etnocide?!

      Delete
  53. If intelligence is the capacity to absorb the circunstances and outlive them, making a good life of it, it is very difficult to measure because the needed skills are multifactorial.
    So there are many types of intelligence, and in a human society all of them are needed, because the variety provides creative solutions to new problems. Some of them preserve individual life in the short range, other preserve the life of the community in the long range.
    If a society becomes rigid, because idiology of any kind, it gets blind and declines. The same thing with individuals.
    All that talk about inteligence tests, are referred to certain skills that are mostly cultural and correspond to the culture of the country where the test was created.

    ReplyDelete
  54. And the zerowit leftists like Ryan are here to counter them.

    ReplyDelete
  55. Sammy,

    Eurasias largest river-system, the Volga, became the first trade-route connecting Europe and eastern Asia. No less than 8.000+ years ago.

    Since then the sino-tibetan influx in todays Kazakstan and Russia started, reaching Carelia and thus Fenno-Scandia around 7.500 BP.

    Besides boats, dogsledges, pottery and barley-growers we have sino-tibetan mt-dna in Carelia at this time.

    From Iron Age/Middle Age samples we know that women of this descent were married into the nobility - and thus introduced to the various populations of Fenno-Scandia.

    The point I made reffered to the simple fact that this east-west interaction and trade was closed, as soon as the Baltic Ocean was conquered and controlled by the Imperial Roman Church, as of 1050 AD.

    This conquest never reached the cold and arid areas of northern Fenno-Scandia, which is why the new pro-roman regimes in Scandinavia (1066-1249)had to sanction every trader who continued "trading with the Finns".

    At this time the Scandinavian aurhorities didn't differ between 'finns' and 'samis'. To them the 'Lapplanders' where simply yhe northetmost Finns.

    Since the "great schism" of 1054 there was 200 years of war and trade-embargo between the catholic and the ortodox regimes, thus closing down, entirely, the oldest silk-, spice- and silver-route to Northern Europe. As soon as this backbone of the old European trade-organization were broken, the imperial masters of Rome and Konstantinopel started to fight between themselves, which split the terrible "Christians" in two, separating the religious flegma into two separate religions. Creating and cementing an east-west divide that still works very well as a platform for division, antagonism, conflict and warmongering propaganda.


    During the first 200 years of this period - FROM 1050 to 1250 - most of Finland and all of Carelia were spared from the religious fundamentalists of the roman angles and inquisititors. After a negotiated peace the mainland Finns - like the Poles and the Balts - finally subdued to the Roman empire, while the Carelians and the other Fenno-Russians had to join the Greek.

    Since then it was only the Lapplanders that managed to stay outside of the economical, cultural and academic monopoly of the superstious Rome.

    Which is why they had NO other trading-partners left - than their mito-condrial cousins along the arctic ocean to the east. All the way to Tibet, where the memories from these connections are still known.

    Thus there were a period of some 600 years (1250-1850) where ONLY the Lapplander-Finns could trade and marry with the "heathen asians". By 1850 they, too, has to stop these connections. But the genetic impact from those 600 years are still visible - as "the Sami-motife".

    Better do some history Sammy. That may save you some embarassing misconceptions ans consequent strawmen.

    ReplyDelete
  56. Chimp Wars and in fact all Nature tells me that identifying with a group and promoting its interests for survival is very Ancient indeed.

    In order to irradicate this behaviour you have to irradicate all living beings on Earth.....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ric,

      If your point of view was valid there would be no reason for nature to create and/or contain mammals - at all.

      In that case the reptilians would still rule the globe...

      Delete
    2. How precisely did you get to that conclusion ? Why not ? Why should there be a reason ?

      Delete
    3. Do you say that identifying with a group is not a survival mechanism ? Do you say that groups are less efficient when it comes to survival ?

      Delete
  57. @apostateimpressions
    Fear not, if the IQ keep getting lower, a high-level society would crumble and nature would eliminate it. There are many signs of this in the West - war, economic collapse, etc
    This is what people get for putting the religiosity of do-good above natural law. Basically, we rejected Natural Morality, and replaced it by Artificial Morality, as we are now, it's obvious that people with an Artificial Morality would judge Natural Morality as something hideous and wrong.
    I say this all the time: The morals of today are just the morals of today and they're the morals of a dying civilisation, you can't apply them to the past nor to the future.
    Like, do people know that in Brazil for instance, the Median IQ has been in a downward trend for 40 years now? The country changed from being one of the most promising nations in the 1800s along with the USA and Russia to being one riddled with violence and non-working institutions. For instance, Rio de Janeiro has a death toll similar to war zones, and other Latin American countries seems to be following this example.

    @Davidski
    Transhumanism is at best a dream, like in the 60s they thought we would have flying cars everywhere by now.
    The future of civilisation is much darker.

    @Samuel Andrews
    >>Something I've learned is Anthro discussion places on the internet are they are full of eugenic Nazi(s). They love the idea of survival of the fitest and racial superiority. I think they might be a reflection of European thinking that I as an American am unfamiliar with and creeped out by.<<
    Spare me from your false shock, Israel chemically sterilize migrants and other they deem "undesirables".

    ReplyDelete
  58. @Batman - the Saami have a strong and noticeable non-Uralic non-IE substrate. Who is that if not SHG? It's present in "regular" Finns too but to a much lesser extent. That makes sense if there was

    @RobertN - I'm not a leftist - I'm just not so insecure as to have to create a fictional hierarchy of races to feel better about my own inadequacies.

    @David/@Sam - I wouldn't call it "atheist" eugenics. Just because it wasn't religiously motivated doesn't mean it was specifically motivated by atheism, or that a lot of self-professed Christians didn't practice it.

    Canada has a pretty crappy history on this stuff as recently as ~25 years ago with forced sterilizations and the like too.

    I wouldn't worry about disgenics too much. I don't think society is very well sorted by intelligence yet, and there's a study that came out today even that showed something as mundane as gut bacteria has a strong predictive power on cognitive abilities. Maybe my perspective is a bit different given Canada's immigration system (we try to steal the best and brightest from everyone in the world), but given the much lower levels of social mobility in most other countries (particularly the US, UK, Germany and Italy), I don't think there's a very tight connection between the heritable portion of intelligence and the heritable portion of income yet. Society just isn't very merit based yet, and was much worse in the past.

    Keep in mind that the #1 predictor for your income across the OECD isn't your parents' incomes, but rather the income of the parents of your peers in school.

    ReplyDelete
  59. Strange then how Scandinavia, the biggest bastion of wealth levelling social democracy over the last decades, has the best statistics in almost every measure of a functioning healthy happy society.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sweden will become a third world country by 2030 according to official statistics.
      The Nordics are just burning up all the wealth their old timers created.
      Norway wouldn't even function correctly if not for its Oil - the current low prices affected it deeply and many services were reduced and cut.
      Their society is an all time expensive too, their taxation is one of the highest there is and their freedoms are restricted.
      Information is out there, don't be an willful ignorant in the internet age.

      Delete
  60. @Matt

    How much do you think variation in coverage across samples affects nucleotide diversity estimates?

    @Ryan

    Saamis' immediate predecessors (the people who most likely left the linguistic substrate) in eastern and northern Fennoscandia likely weren't SHG survivors. There's just one Bronze Age site with any DNA (and that's mtDNA to boot) but even so it is distinct from both SHG and EHG. http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1003296
    An indirect SHG connection is of course possible.

    ReplyDelete
  61. JohnP, agree completely. We should do absolutely nothing, not lift a single finger to save this civilization. Let them destroy themselves completely. Let it go the way of Nature. Anyone can see by their rhetoric of "Nazi, supremacist", that their intentions are violent toward us. We owe them nothing. The sooner that Western civilization falls the better. If the British end up with an average IQ of 70, then they demonstrably have no one to blame but themselves. And that is how it should be. Clear facts with no attenuation from the opposition.

    ReplyDelete
  62. If we look at admixture frequencies in Europe - High EEF and CHG admixture leads to 'classical' Caucasoid appearance (lean face and high nose) but high Hunter-Gatherer admixture leads to more hunter-gatherer appearance (wide faces, wide jaws, short nose bridge, brow ridge).

    Especially those from Scandinavia, Balts, Volga and parts of northern UK, display more Hunter-Gatherer facial morphology, along with high H-G admixture WHG and EHG. They have more wider faces, wider jaws, shorter nose bridge, in some cases large bow ridges.

    Examples of hunter-gatherer facial morphology, best preserved in regions with high-HG admixture.

    http://i.imgur.com/H0vUO4F.jpg

    http://i.imgur.com/5KMZkEE.jpg

    http://i.imgur.com/8AqqY.jpg

    http://i.imgur.com/0MFyKhQ.jpg

    http://i.imgur.com/N6kr3SU.jpg

    http://i.imgur.com/llwG304.jpg

    http://i.imgur.com/pCvhcMR.jpg

    http://i.imgur.com/pbZghJ1.jpg

    http://i.imgur.com/9ON9Fuf.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  63. @JohnP - Lol. That's all I can say about this hand waving about Sweden.

    @Shaikorth - Thanks for that link. I'm not sure that really helps much though. Do we know if those ~3,500kya samples are from Uralic peoples or some intermediate group? They seem a lot like modern Saami to me. It's hard to disentangle things there though - EHG already had reasonable levels of mtdna haplogroup C, as did early kurgans.

    ReplyDelete
  64. Wow, this comments thread is burning trash.

    @ Shaikorth: How much do you think variation in coverage across samples affects nucleotide diversity estimates?

    Not sure. I haven't seen anything systematic in the papers cited to make me think that nucleotide diversity covaries with coverage at all though. Is there anything you've come across?

    Also, completely off topic, in case you or @Davidski or others were interested, just for my own amusement really, I've been having a go with the SplitsTree4 software and the Fst matrices Davidski has produced, to see what Neighbour Joining Nets form from Fst matrices between recent and ancient Eurasians:

    http://imgur.com/a/FzffH

    Another way to look at the Fst data separately from the ones given by PCoA, Neighbour Joining Trees.

    ReplyDelete
  65. @Matt

    Not really, haven't read a paper that would say anything about this issue. I wonder if it's been looked at yet.

    One thing I note from those trees is pretty solid separation between NW and NE Caucasians though the NW group seems less tight-knit.

    @Ryan
    The linguistic studies which found among other things the paleo-language substrate in Saamis also date their arrival that far north to around Roman Iron Age (if various substrates are clear it's usually because they are recent).
    http://www.academia.edu/4811770/An_Essay_on_Substrate_Studies_and_the_Origin_of_Saami
    This means the Bronze Age site in that paper isn't Uralic and no Indo-European culture extended there either. MtDNA C is found in EHG's but D and Z1a are not.

    ReplyDelete
  66. @Ryan
    People like you live in an alternative reality, where everything is roses.
    Here's the United Nations' report that Sweden will become a third world country if it continues with its policies:
    http://ww.rrojasdatabank.info/HDRP_2010_40.pdf
    Here's a very biased site reporting on the subject (but no less accurate or truthful on this subject):
    http://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2014/April/Soviet-Sweden-Model-Nation-Sliding-to-Third-World

    People really don't get how serious the situation is, no one is laughing, if you were European (I'm assuming you're American), you would know that Europe is passing through an existencial crisis in every level, economically, politically, ethnically, culturally and religiously.

    Again: Don't be an willful ignorant in the internet age.

    ReplyDelete
  67. @ johnP
    Several reasons perhaps . This would include a deeply seated psychological self- defence
    Many of the "righteous left" are semi-intelligent people like journalists lawyers teachers and Academics who have constructed a false-dichotomy of the world they live in which sees anyone more succesful than them as an oppressor. On the other hand, they prostrate themselves over "poor oppressed brown folk" for a cheap dopamine thrill.
    They do not want to go beyond the surface of this make believe world because it'll erode the platform they have created and force them to deal with their own issues.

    Then there are the overly represented fringeists like lesbians/ feminists, "professional black people" like Yassmin Abdel-Magied , and other malcontents who have an inner hatred for traditional Western values, because despite acceptance to the level of pandering, they can remain internally unhappy, and simply wish to smear everyone with their own shit

    All such Left leaning people are overly represented in media/ news, entertainment, university academia, etc. This results is a mutlileveled and deeply set indoctrination/ brainwashing. It begins from primary school, what with the revisionist leftist history and such; continues with social media and movies. It's a constant bombardment.
    At uni I was told by a lecturer that anyone with a sense of humanity *should be* with the left.

    This creates a Pavlovian response of protest anytime Trump or anyone the left makes any enemy of. With such constant bombardment, the path is difficult, because the majority of the population has become the proverbial useful idiot. And these people are our friends, colleagues , family..
    The otherreality is the "diversity" of the western world. Many people simply have no alliegance or care for Europe and its plight. This slowly erodes the blood born alliance of those in USA and Australia, turning to indifference, even contempt. Even educated & enlightened non-Europeans have some amount of resentment at the achievements of Europe

    ReplyDelete
  68. Let's stick to genomics. This political garbage is quite annoying and tiring to read around.

    ReplyDelete
  69. The genes + IQ debate is going to get very interesting over the next few years, as more robust and relevant data comes to light.

    Right now it reminds me of the debate from a few years ago (before ancient DNA) about physical anthropology and the peopling of Europe. This debate was mostly stuck in the 1930s.

    I'll try and get a new thread going later today to change the focus.

    ReplyDelete
  70. The modeling of those facial features was extremely interesting, mind you.

    ReplyDelete
  71. Interesting yes, but useful?

    It might be useful but someone needs to demonstrate that it is. For instance, by showing that variants associated with cranial features in modern Europeans are also associated with the same cranial features in European HGs.

    And even then, we won't be certain that variants associated with soft parts of the face in modern Europeans are associated with the same in HGs.

    ReplyDelete
  72. @ Shaikorth, couple more nets for East Asian populations might interest you: http://imgur.com/a/ofq91

    ReplyDelete
  73. The two Stora Förvar skulls were lost during storage (although there was no certainty either belonged to SF12), having those would have helped a lot in measuring the modeling's accuracy.

    ReplyDelete
  74. @Matt

    Do you have the required stats to add some Philippine/Andamanese indigenes in those?

    ReplyDelete
  75. One of the matrices I have includes Onge, so modified that nets to include the Onge: http://i.imgur.com/THJY0Fd.png

    ReplyDelete
  76. Matt Said "One of the matrices I have includes Onge, so modified that nets to include the Onge: http://i.imgur.com/THJY0Fd.png"

    The position of the Vietnamese Kinh is interesting. I expected something like 70% Han 30% Cambodian, but is this what the graph shows? They are very close to Dai.

    If there are a lot of individuals in this sample then it would be nice to see them clustered into groups.

    Garvan

    ReplyDelete
  77. From the paper:

    "Individual Hum2 displayed the derived state at 20 sites leading in a hierarchal order to
    haplogroup I2-M438 (Table S5.1). (...) Hum2 was ancestral for I2a-L460 as well as for an
    additional 20 downstream sites."

    What does that imply for the question of where the y-dna I2 originated, in respect to SHG vesus WHG and EHG?

    If the SHG can be sescribed as a "mix" of WHG and EHG, one could reverse the equation an suppose that the very SHG could be ancestral to both WHG and EHG.

    In view of the present aDNA we better check if th SHG-group just as close - or closer - to the post-glacial origin of y-dna I2. Lokking at geograpical and archaeological facts it's both possible and plausible. In genetic terms this means that the mesolithic SHG-group could be ancestral to both WHG and EHG.

    Isn't that a question worth checking?

    ReplyDelete
  78. I know it's off topic but I just have to post. One look at modern societal norms of social media (ie: Fartbook and Twatter) and dumbed down tech, and you can see the average person is learning less, and/or the technical details are being hidden for the sake of ease. The long term effect of this will be the average person is much less intelligent thanks to societal norms, with a smaller group of knowledgeable elites.

    ReplyDelete
  79. @Garvan, these are just based on Fst matrices Davidski has run, so I can't do split any populations up. Also they're population based and not individual based, so I think what have to happen is to try and split the population up into subpopulations and then rerun the matrice?

    IRC, Vietnamese populations don't seem to look like they could be modelled as anything like 30% Cambodian ancestry as Cambodian IRC approx 15-19% South Asian ADMIXTURE component and Vietnamese populations sequenced tend to lack this component (e.g. https://images.nature.com/full/nature-assets/nature/journal/v538/n7624/extref/nature19792-s1.pdf - page 22, though note this is a huge 45MB file).

    I previously used an ADMIXTURE calculator by Davidski on the Estonian Biodatacentre's set (which I *think* this may be from) to produce a dendrogram linking populations in East Asia with similar East Asian components, once South and West Eurasian components were excluded: http://i.imgur.com/CLGOxlB.jpg.

    What I found was the excluding the South Asian part you had: Thai = basically Dai and Vietnamese, Cambodian = between Dai and Austronesian populations, Burmese = pretty much like Tujia and to a lesser extent Central Han (Fst shows more fine scale affinities towards for Burmese to Naxi and Yi from Western China as well, which you can see in the nets, but that's fine scale and beneath the resolution of the ADMIXTURE used for the above). But they're all ethnically diverse countries, so.

    I don't think it's implausible that Dai and Kinh could be pretty much similar, net of some additional drift and isolation in Dai (mostly in the Dai).

    ReplyDelete
  80. Cambodians have some Onge-like or Malaysian aborigine-like ancestry which is basically absent in Kinh. This makes a bigger difference than their minor modern Indian-like ancestry.

    Broushaki 2016's ancient fits give them 10-20% Ust-Ishim on top of "modern East Asian" proxied by Han. In Southeast Asia Ust-Ishim links to ASI or populations like Onge which prefer it over Han as a haplotype donor. Kinh and Dai are almost fully "Han" with the same donors.

    ReplyDelete
  81. In ADMIXTURE, Cambodians tend to just pop out with ASI component rather than anything else, and IRC population distances tend to mirror the same thing (i.e. doesn't seem like anything distant from ASI and closer to Onge would move the population in the direction it does towards South India). But this could just be a limitation of references in most ADMIXTURE panels I see.

    ReplyDelete
  82. Something like Jehai should be a better fit for the non-"Han-like" ancestry of Cambodians than Onge, but Orang Aslis aren't in most public panels. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4453060/

    Cambodians clearly have too little Iranian Neolithic ancestry for modern South Indians to explain most of the difference from Kinh etc. but their component still contains shared ASI and is less drifted than Onge so makes sense it would be preferred in most panels.

    ReplyDelete
  83. @Davidski: "The genes + IQ debate is going to get very interesting over the next few years, as more robust and relevant data comes to light.

    Right now it reminds me of the debate from a few years ago (before ancient DNA) about physical anthropology and the peopling of Europe. This debate was mostly stuck in the 1930s."

    When the famous Swedish social democrat and supporter of "reform eugenics", Gunnar Myrdal, tried to solve what he called the U.S.'s "Negro problem" in the 1938-1940s he already had a long history of siding with eugenics, not necessarily from a physical point of view, but certainly from a"social gygiene" one.

    "The workers' movement" and its "science" has always become disconnected from its workers.

    When checking the evils of the 1930s it's easy to point and laugh at the National-socialist surface, but perhaps more useful for our own time to dig slightly deeper and thereby revealing what's still going on today. So for example was it mostly ordinary social workers who in the tradition of "social hygiene" picked out many (most?) of the Holocaust victims.

    Finally, as a tool for debating these kind of issues I'd suggest the anti-fascist 1948 Human Rights declaration and its global view on what it means to be a human with equal rights - no matter what, except of course the will to deny others from it.

    I'm fortunate to be a "European bastard" with no real origin or home or religion of my own - except humanity - and therefore vaccinated against at least some forms of racism.

    Genes are better than culture or religion because they don't stick equally to your thinking as skull forms, facial features etc. Nor do I have to take any responsibility for what they were up to in the past.

    ReplyDelete
  84. @ Daviski,

    What's the matter with this blog?

    Isn't it possible to discuss ancient Scandinavian genomes without getting racistic and anti-racistic?

    ReplyDelete
  85. The mesolithic Europeans, already, kept sledge-dogs as well as guard-dogs/hunting-dogs. The diversification of modern dogs seem to have started in paleolihic/mesolithic Europe:

    "... we present analysis of ∼9 × coverage whole genomes of two dog samples from Germany dating to the Early and End Neolithic (∼7,000 years old and ∼4,700 years old, respectively). We observe genetic continuity throughout this era and into the present, with our ancient dogs sharing substantial ancestry with modern European dogs."

    As the carriers of human mt-dna U2, U4 and U5 and y-dna I2 - the dogs in this survey can be termed as 'ancestral' to the indigenious populations of NW Eurasia.

    The present paper from Scandinavia definitly confirms what is known already about the first males populating the Baltic Ocean and the N-Atlantic facade, during Early Holocene, to belong to the very same dynasty -
    identified as y-dna I/I2/I1.

    The pioneering-phase in the repopuation of Eurasia is recognized as the period immediately following the Younger Dryas mega-extinction - as of 12.000 years ago - when the populations of paleolithic Europe disappeared. Today we find that relatively close brother-lines of y-dna I2, such as G2, H2 and J2, spread in the very same fashion -
    in a patrilocal, dynastical pattern - as they repopulated the SW and SE parts of Eurasia respectively.

    While y-dna I populated northern Europe a large dynasty based on y-dna G populated southern Europe - from Iberia to Mesopotamia.

    Meanwhile hgs H and J created parallel dynasties on the Indian subcontinent. Later, during BA, outliers from the H-
    and J-groups migrated to Sumeria, the Levant and Egypt, where they intruded, conquered and took over the established dynasty. Thus we may find y-dna J among among the new rulers of BA Sumer and Egypt, as well as y-dna H/J among gypsies and hebrews.

    ---

    The spread of y-dna R1 is clearly linked to the mesolithic-neolithic transition, as foraging, horticulture and herding becomes complemented with cattle-farming and horsebreeding.

    The close relationship between the old and the new ways of sustainance have obviously been of a friendly character - as burials of individuals from various dynasties in the same burial-mound.

    Consequently the spread of cattle-farming can be viewed as a complementary culture to the pioneer-populations - who used trapping and herding to domesticate goats and reindeer, sheep and pigs. With which they could re-populate Eurasia and reconnect with the tropical populations who had survived the massive extinction events during the paleolithic-mesolithic transition.

    Besides dogs.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms16082

    ReplyDelete
  86. The ancestor to the present dog-types seems to have survived the extinction events of the Younget Dryas in paleolithic/mesolithic Europe. (Most probably amongst the strictly limited population of humans that survived that period in the NW European refugia.)

    Cpnsequently there's a continous line of herritage between the dogs of paleolithic Europe and dogs of mesolithic, neolithic and present-day Eurasia.

    "We find no evidence of a major population replacement; instead, our results are consistent with a scenario where modern European dogs emerged from a structured Neolithic population."

    https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms16082

    One may note that the European dogs are just as indigenous to Europe and Eurasia as their hosts who still carry y-dna G, H, I, J, K/N and R now seem to be.

    As all theese dynasties have a common, paleolithic ancestor (macro-F) there is ample reason to look at the GHIJK-group as a first, common origin of the I-E culture, as heard in the languages and seen in art, deco and symbolism.

    (Today there are no need to keep the old presumption of an "ancient nostratic langusge" to have existed as a "Pre-IE Europe" - before it "went extinct". One assuption proving another isn't science...)

    With the present updates from the archeological and genetical sciences there's NO doubt that the Paleolithic Continuation Theory - explaining the origin and spread of IE and Uralian languages - is prevailing.

    Which means that the IE/U-languages are a direct heritage from the Paleolithic populations of NW Europe. (Whatever politicians, tyrants and cowards came by, 10.000+ years later...)


    We may still insist upon a logical, rational and sensible explantion to why the IE-languages (still) follows the geographical spread of the mentioned, indigenous Eurasian dynasties that branched out after ice-time, as y-dna G, H, I, J, K/N and R1. From Iberia and Ireland to Siberia, China and India. From where specific outliers could reach as far as America and SE Asia.

    Together with the common use of dogs, goats, pigs and cattle - as well as woven textiles, decorated ceramics and artefacts of gold, silver, copper, tin and bronze.

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  87. The mega-faunal mass-extinction during the Younger Dryas represented a severe decimation of all human populations north of Africa, tropical India and China.

    Thus we see a clear bottle-neck in all the arctic subspecies that survived the YD. The human genome included.

    The bottle-necks apparent in the present Eurasian genome speaks of a Younger Dryas when the Cro-Magnons/Proto-Caucasians were very close to extinction.

    According to Pinhasi et al (2015) there was no more than 30-40 people in the human community surviving the last maximal cold-phase, as of 13.000 to 12.000 years ago. Consequently we may downgrade ANY idea of their holocene descendants - historically known as 'asi' and'ari', presently called "caucasians", to have organized any warfaring invasion, anywhere.

    http://eurogenes.blogspot.no/2015/03/european-foragers-almost-wiped-out-by.html?m=1

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  88. >Only population who could have brought this is EHG-like population coming from Russia, more sampling for EHG will solve this over time.

    It's most likely from EHG. Here are two EHG reconstructions from Gerasimov.

    http://anthropogenesis.kinshipstudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/YuzhnyiOleniiOstrov-Mongoloid.jpg

    http://anthropogenesis.kinshipstudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/YuzhnyiOleniiOstrov-Caucasoid.jpg

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  89. >According to Pinhasi et al (2015) there was no more than 30-40 people in the human community surviving the last maximal cold-phase, as of 13.000 to 12.000 years ago.
    >Consequently we may downgrade ANY idea of their holocene descendants - historically known as 'asi' and'ari', presently called "caucasians", to have organized any warfaring invasion, anywhere.

    ANI invasion on India was thousands years after that if you're talking about that.

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    Replies
    1. Bands of 30 people, not 30 people total.

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  90. I'm not sure about the formation of "ani". What I refferred to was the mythological "ari" ('aryan') - aka "asi" ('aser','aseri', 'ashinas, 'asvinas') - as known from the ancient, IE litterature.

    According to the IE myths they wrre the first population to appear IN the arctic (borean/hyperborean) world, FROM which they arrived to the southern premisses of the ancient indian and sino-tibetan populations.

    Consider that the European mythologies have some explicit explanations about these "asi"; as a large family who managed to survive an ancient, cataclysmic ice-age (ragnarok), as The Only One. Consequently they are described as "First Family" of (all) the "Northern Lands" - and the very origin of the (modern) Caucasians.

    The same Sagas define "the northern lands" geograpically, as the land north of "Narvasund" - today known as The Straight of Gibraltar.

    From this First Family a number of sons (princes) went out as pioneers, to establish their own dynasties and populate sprcific areas - becomming "first families" (royals) in their own right, as founders of new, independant dynasties. The overall goal werr obviously to create stable cultures, able to explore and (re-)populate the vast areas of Eurasia which the LGM and the YD had left arid, barren and empty of both mice and men.

    The various Pantheons seen across Eurasia, as well as among ancient Amerindians, seem to reflect a very similar collection of "idols" - as they all reflect on their respective "First Family", today refered to as 'Roy-als'.

    In the five-cast societies of the ancient world the royals were at the helm of the reproduction-cycle, as the "royal seed" would be distributed throuhout all five casts - through the higher, middle and lower nobility.

    As the first and oldest family-estate would serve as a common courtyard, the functions of a 'cas-tell' would make it an immediate core of the political and social structure of these societies. Which is why we got 'kingdoms'.

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  91. According to some prominent scholars of Greek antiquity the first, skilled sailors were entering the Meds from the Atlantic facade, "some 9.000 years before Solon".

    Solon is known as the "learned historian" who was instrumental to form the constitution of a democratic state, as Greece recovered from the Trojan wars, foreign occupations and tyrrants rulers - rather than indigenous kings and royals, from "the seed of Zeus".

    Solon died 558 BC. Add 2017 and 9.000 to that and we get the first sailors of the post-glacial Med, some 11.575 years ago.

    Since Clay-varves and Carbon-dating started to define the period called "ice-time", finally ending it at 11.500 - 12.000 years ago. Today the calibrated dates tend to end at 11.900-12.000.

    The first spread of boreal forests, mice and men along the Atlantic facade AND the southern Baltics occurs within the period of 12.000 - 11.500 BP.

    The oldest structure at Gobekli Tepe is dated 11.600 BP.

    This means that the atlanteans described and dated by Plato have been confirmed from THREE different sources - out of three different professions.

    Consequently wr may exclude ANY claims of 'fraud' or 'incident' from the discussion about the validity of Platos historical records.

    Thus the origin of the PIE cultures seems to have been found. In the lands of Aurora Borealis.

    Both Hellenic and Vedic litterature describes a "northern population" as a source of origin. Today we know that the first descendants of these "ari-ans" - aka "asi-ans" - came sailing, skiing and dog-sledging out of their isolation in nort-west Eurasia, as soon as ice-time ended and the climate allowed them to.

    Today we also know that Platos ancient ship-builders and sailors seem to have arrived in the Med just as the first stones at Gobekli Teppe were cut, chisled and polished. Involving symbols and signs known from paleolithic Europe as well as mesolithic, neolithic and BA/IA Scandinavia.

    Archaeological samples have shown that this proto-IE culture was deeply rooted in paleolitic Europe. Just as the dynasties and civilizations within the IE family were all based on y-dna from a common (proto-arian) ancestor - today defined as "macrogroup F".

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  92. Following the evolution of the y-dna of the Mesolithic/Neolithic period at large, it's obvious that the hgs GHIJK/T have spread to VARIOUS parts of the continent - and thus formed the first stable and continous populations of Eurasia - as new and inedependent, patrilocal dynasties, evolving under various climates ad their skills and talents became influenced by the mix with the tropical survivors of ice-time - to form the respective Pantheons and produce the Populations that built the civilizations that had crossed the Baltic as well as the Med, to reach the White, the Black and the Red Sea - respectively. Add the flods of Volga-Don and you would already get a clue to how a branch or two from the 'aesir'/'asi'/'ari' that survived ice-time in NW Europe could establish a steady route of travel and trade with Iran and India. As well as China.

    Thus we may explain the ancient occurance of the caucasian y-dna H and J from Carelia to Iran and India, where they became formative to the Dravidian and Indo-Iranian dynasties.

    In the reverse direction we find mt-dna C/Z and D travelling north and west - influencing the arian EHG as well as the SHG. Meanwhile the WHG seem to receive some tropical mt-dna from the westetn Meds.

    Which may explain the common origin as well as the later differetiation of the Eurasian HG.

    On these grounds the term ANI/ASI should include the first arctic visitors that influenced the ancient 'proto-indians' of subtropic India - adding hgs like y-dna H/J and mt-dna U-K/HV.

    Later contributions from the north, like cattle-farming and y-dna R1a, was obviously strengthening the political and cultural bonds between Europe and India - as the R1a/R1b-tribes became s massive part of the I-E culture. But they were NOT the first I-E speakers to reach Spain, Italy, Greece, Anatolia, Iran or India. The first dynasties of these areas - based on y-dna G, I, J and H - were all originating from a common, PIE culture.

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  93. Sure.

    But so far we have only one such 'band' identified to survive through the LGM as well as the (even worse) YD. Known as Bromme-Lyngby, surrounding the straight of Oresund - from where they spread after the end of YD, 11.900 yrs ago, to all directions. Straight south they formed the Ahrensburg-Hohe Fells and the Azilian.

    To the east they repopultated the area of the old Pertuna-culture, to the post-glacial Swidrien - from which the first cultures of Vistula-Donau, the Dvina-Djepr and Kunda-Volga evolved. Connecting the Atlantic facade with the Asian west and the Mediterranean north. Cunliffes "Europe Between The Oceans" and Zwelebils "Mesolithic Europe" are highly recommendable. Not to mention the later works of Terberger et al.

    Besides these eastern pioneers there was a branch moving north, in the very first centuries after the YD, to rediscover and re-populate Fenno-Scandia, as well as the larger islands outside of Norway, Denmark and Holland. From the present paper we get the confirmation that the men of the pioneers of Northern Europe were predominantly Y-dna I2, with women of hgs U2, U4 and U5.

    Meanwhile, during the very same period, I2's brother-line G2 - seem to become predominant in both SW and SE Europe. With sisterclads to the women up north, as well as some new ones appearing out of the Levant.

    When the ancestors of the extant lines of y-dna J shows up it's basically a SE branch of the same, 'arian' brotherhood - ancestral to all present J-lines. Thus e may explain the reverse movement of female exogamy from the Indian subcontinent, from where mt-dna D seems to reach Bactria and Caucasus.

    A NE branch of these Caucasian ('arian') survivors obviously reached the Chineese survivors of the LGM/YD. Founidng a Sino-Tibetan/Mongol population they obviously enjoyed closer relationships with each other - as well as the first trade and transport across the Tocharian mountains.

    Since then a clock-wise 'intrusion' of the 'East Asian' mt-dna C/Z seems to have reached NW Asia and NE Europe - no later than 7.500 BP. Seemingly following the Volga Highway to Carelia - and thus 'the occidental west'.

    Looking at the memories kept in the mythologies of the IE, Uralian and Sino-Tibetan populations we find common forms and formats, structures and functions, norms and ideals. At the core of their cosmology they all keep the memory of a common ancestral family as their highest idols, as formulated by the respective Pantheons.

    There's all the more reason to believe that the first, post-glacial distribution of y-dna across the Eurasian continent was somewhat 'organized' - by a common ancestral family ('band') - to be both orderly and civilized, swift and effective.

    The strong co-relations between the various I-E myths, symbols and political structures - as well as the common "family-three" of languages - points to a rather well-worked co-ordination between these dynasties. As do an almost syncronic evolution of travels and trade within and BETWEEN these dynasties as the Mesoltitic turned into the Neolithic.

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  94. From the same common ground we may understand the synchronity between the various societies
    in terms of the cultural, technological and social evolution across Eurasia - from the Mesolithic throughout the Neolithic and the Chalcolithic.

    The later expansion of crops and livestocks connected to y-dna R1a/b and Q can never explain the early spread of the I-E languages sufficently. One major problem with the "agricultural steppe" as the first spread of I-E traits, traditions and language is the pre-required "intruison" needed to explain the dismantling of the older, larger and already well established dynasties. With their due, extensive tribes (etnicities) - such as the early branches of F, as G2, H2, I2 and J2. The idea of a "more advanced" farmers "overrunning" or "outsmarting" the "more primitive" HGs is anything but scientific. When, in fact, there's no lingustic, archaeological or genetic reason to explain the Eurasian HGs as anything but "Indo-European" or "Proto-IE". Unless they're EHG speaking "Uralian".

    The first centuries of the Holocene Optimum laid the grounds for a massive spread of stable staples and stock-breeding. At that time the linguistic ties between the R1-stcokbreeders and their older cousine-lines of HG's were already in place, to allow the rapid spread of stockbreeding across the continent - due to a common I-E root-language. Which, according to some lingusits, may have a shared proto-stage with Uralic.

    That may also explain why some find related words between Uralian and Dravidian, the southern neighbour of the I-E languages. Thus one wonders wetter the shared cognates between Dravidian and Uralic is a result of their respective, IE neighbours - such as the Iranian/Bactrian and the Hindi.

    Another cognate between Uralic and IE sheds some light on the Centum/Satem-debate, as some Uralian dialects uses them both to say "a hundred". Another division in the I-E languages are the counting-systems, as the southern branches - together with the uralian - uses a decimal count, while the north-west I-E (still) count in duo-decimals.

    ---

    We might look for 'bands' of '30 persons' to form the populations (families) that established the first branches of macro-dad F and anmother R after Ice-Age - fully aware of each other and a common genetical and cultural origin. Thus bringing a I-E basic substrate to the various corners of arctic and semi-arctic Eurasia, well before the cattle-farming revolution. As culturally learned and historically counscious decendants of y-dna F->GHIJK/NO.

    The co-relation between the demography based on aDNA and the spread of the IE and Uralic languages seems to support the early, post-glacial origin of them both. The post-glacial distribution of y-dna GHIJK and R seem to overlap remarkably well with the spread of the Caucasian phenotype, as well as the I-E cultures.

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