Hyperdiffusion Thread

[Forum Monk]

DNA. There have been hundreds of directed and limited studies, but put them together and a picture emerges. You start to get a feel for it when you see a site like this:
https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/gen ... atlas.html

Of course, it follows the mtDNA lines all the way to mitochondrial Eve. I don't know if DNA can show us anything about hyperdiffusion theory. These 'travelers' would be relatively small group whose DNA would be quickly overwhelmed. Mass migrations? Yea, I think DNA studies could help.

[Charlie Hatchett]

Take X2A, one of the Native American Haplogroups:

“...The phylogeographic patterns and the coalescence times that we obtained here suggest that the basic phylogenetic structures of the mtDNA haplogroups in West Eurasia and North Africa are as ancient as the beginning of the spread of anatomically modern humans in this region. Finally, phylogeography of the subclades of haplogroup X suggests that the Near East is the likely geographical source for the spread of subhaplogroup X2, and the associated population dispersal occurred around, or after, the LGM when the climate ameliorated. The presence of a daughter clade in northern Native Americans testifies to the range of this population expansion...” “

...whereas X2 has apparently undergone a more recent population expansion in Eurasia, most likely around or after the last glacial maximum. It is notable that X2 includes the two complete Native American X sequences that constitute the distinctive X2a clade, a clade that lacks close relatives in the entire Old World, including Siberia. The position of X2a in the phylogenetic tree suggests an early split from the other X2 clades, likely at the very beginning of their expansion and spread from the Near East...”

Origin and Diffusion of mtDNA Haplogroup X

[www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov]

[Forum Monk]

Charlie,
There's a lot of lea-way in that article about the time period when X2 in americas diverged from X2 in europe. This is important because one must consider, in my opinion, how the group traveled to north america and how they survived when they arrived. The end of LGM was about 20,000bp and the younger dryas kicked in around 12,000bp. If they came over ice or over water and found ice or moderate conditions when they arrived, are important considerations for dating, imo.

[Charlie Hatchett]

Charlie,
There's a lot of lea-way in that article about the time period when X2 in americas diverged from X2 in europe. This is important because one must consider, in my opinion, how the group traveled to north america and how they survived when they arrived. The end of LGM was about 20,000bp and the younger dryas kicked in around 12,000bp. If they came over ice or over water and found ice or moderate conditions when they arrived, are important considerations for dating, imo.

“...Moreover, Native American haplogroup X mtDNAs... coalescence times ranged from 12,000–17,000 YBP to 23,000–36,000 YBP, times that are consistent with both a pre- and a postglacial population diffusion (Brown et al. 1998)...”

“...These findings leave unanswered the question of the geographic source of Native American X2a in the Old World, although our analysis provides new clues about the time of the arrival of haplogroup X in the Americas. Indeed, if we assume that the two complete Native American X sequences (from one Navajo and one Ojibwa) began to diverge while their common ancestor was already in the Americas, we obtain a coalescence time of 18,000 ± 6,800 YBP, implying an arrival time not later than 11,000 YBP...”

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articl ... id=1180497

The above figure is rounded, and with Waters newest dating of Clovis sites, showing Clovis does not extend past 11,050 B.P., X2a could well have a coalescence time which is preClovis, potentially as early as 24,800 B.P., and no later than 11,200 B.P.

[Forum Monk]

Then this quotation, suggests a divergence (if Im reading it correctly) prior to the younger dryas and I assume after the LGM, so the atlantic crossing (if that was the route) occurred during a time of less ice. So it unlikely, in my opinion to have been a northerly route over ice at high latitudes. Which ties in to our other thread discussions of Early American Migrations.

Maybe Digit's boat theory is a little more believable.

[Charlie Hatchett]

Then this quotation, suggests a divergence (if Im reading it correctly) prior to the younger dryas and I assume after the LGM, so the atlantic crossing (if that was the route) occurred during a time of less ice. So it unlikely, in my opinion to have been a northerly route over ice at high latitudes. Which ties in to our other thread discussions of Early American Migrations.

Maybe Digit's boat theory is a little more believable.

Yeah, more like ice packs versus solid ice. Instead of island hopping, it may have been more like iceberg hopping.

Though there is indication of possible pre LGM migration:

“...Moreover, Native American haplogroup X mtDNAs... coalescence times ranged from 12,000–17,000 YBP to 23,000–36,000 YBP, times that are consistent with both a pre- and a postglacial population diffusion (Brown et al. 1998)...”

[john]

As john has demonstrated there are many kinds of diffusion and hyperdiffusion. Literature, chemistry, cultural, etc., are all examples.

I'm want to tread lightly on this issue at first. This very word in archaeology/anthropology circles will get a person called various names like racist. And I am not a racist.

To start, here is a reference on the heretic that is credited with early hyperdiffusion philosophy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafton_Elliot_Smith

My personal views differ from his, and I'll explain them and invite others to share their own views.

Being Monday, I must return later in the day. Even retired people have things they have to do.

Min -

Where I am coming from is a more prototypical view.

I'll make the argument that - apart from global catastrophes - the species that transfers the most knowledge to the next generation(s) wins. There are subtle and misunderstood forces at work here. How does the Golden Plover know when to migrate, and to a precise destination at that? So by no means am I imagining that Homo sap., species or race, has any species specific adavantage.

Army ants, worldwide, are a great example of this hormonal, or pheremonal, knowledge.

Maybe, for example, we replaced the communal knowledge generated by pheromones with the communal knowledge generated by "intelligence".

And I am definitely am not interested in the various arguments swirling around the Neolithic. This is far older, and we flat out don't understand.

So, getting back to the Solutrean/Clovis premise, I would posit that the proven abilities of the cultural techne put no drag on the people's ability to move large distances, whether over open water or the land/icepack edge. Whether they could communicate that knowledge forward, multigenerationally, in a coherent fashion, is, to me, the critical question germaine to the theory of the Solutrean diaspora to N. America.


john

[Minimalist]

Okay...hockey is over for a while...at least the part I'm interested in.

I certainly don't buy the "Egypt as the mother culture" theory. Nor Sumeria, Harappa, etc. All of these seem far too late.

I've previously expressed scepticism about Out Of Africa. The standard explanation is the HSS evolved in Africa and then moved out in small groups and populated the whole world replacing whatever they came in contact with. No one ever explains WHY they left.

We know at times in the past that what is now the Sahara was a rich and well-watered Savannah. So why would people voluntarily leave in sufficient numbers to populate the rest of the world?

1- Overpopulation. It sounds reasonable but who gets to leave and who gets to stay? It would seem that conflict over scarce resources would precede a diaspora.

2- Climate change. Similar to above but how would anyone know that there were better opportunities elsewhere? Would you willingly leave the Nile river valley to cross Sinai to see what is on the other side of the Arabian desert? More importantly, if you were the clan leader would you bring you women and children on what might turn out to be a death march?

3- War. But who is doing the fighting? Isolated hunter/gatherer groups do not generally make war on a large scale. You need agriculture or at least nomadic pastoralists (Mongols, Huns, etc.) to lead to that kind of militarism. One could see survivors of an invasion fleeing away from the scene of the battle....but, who were the invaders?

4- Catastrophe. A sudden disaster which killed a lot of people and left the land unable to support the survivors. Of course, the only survivors would have been those far enough from the epicenter and then, assuming that we are still dealing with a primitive neolithic hunter/gatherer culture, how would they know what had happened so far away?

It just seems that there are practical problems with OOA.

[Cognito]

Charlie,
There's a lot of lea-way in that article about the time period when X2 in americas diverged from X2 in europe. This is important because one must consider, in my opinion, how the group traveled to north america and how they survived when they arrived. The end of LGM was about 20,000bp and the younger dryas kicked in around 12,000bp. If they came over ice or over water and found ice or moderate conditions when they arrived, are important considerations for dating, imo.

Monk, the dates are:

Last Glacial Maximum: From 23,000bp to 18,000bp
Younger Dryas: From 12,900bp to 11,600bp

During the gap between the LGM and YD there were short periods of climate reversal and oscillation. Due to rapid warming and its associated sea level rise most of that North Atlantic extended sea ice was likely gone by about 15,000bp.

[Forum Monk]

I certainly don't buy the "Egypt as the mother culture" theory. Nor Sumeria, Harappa, etc. All of these seem far too late.
...
It just seems that there are practical problems with OOA.

I can deal with 10,000 years of human history, because there is a history, however flawed we perceive it. The claim of individuals that certain super cultures existed well before this, say 15,000-20,000 years ago, has many problems. As far as I can tell, the only reason to think there was an advanced culture is we perceive these hints of advancement in the artifacts of cultures which are more recent. But the fact of the matter is, we have seen cave art, stone tools, carvings, a few bones, and miscellaneous fragments of life from 20,000bp and none of it is advanced.

There is no real evidence, only circumstantial.

[Beagle]

I would agree that there was no "super-culture", especially as portrayed in old Atlantis movies, etc. However there is evidence that much of mankind progressed beyond the hunter-gatherer stage in the 6,000 years between the LGM and the Younger Dryas.

We have primitive harvesting scythes in the Sahara from this time period. There are the cave drawings and other evidence of seafaring capabilities over much of the planet. Anything that points to cultures above the level of simple hunter-gatherers is more advanced than what orthodoxy has told us for so long.

There are quite a few scientists today however, who agree that there were more advanced proto-civilizations.

[Minimalist]

advanced proto-civilizations.

"Advanced" does not imply space ships.[/code]

[Forum Monk]

No, that's right. Advanced means, knowledge of precession, knowledge of PI and of the golden ratio. Its means knowedge of levers and basic mechanics, etc.

It doesn't mean capable of knapping out a pretty biface.

[Minimalist]

http://www.think-aboutit.com/EGYPT/Prec ... denAge.htm

In 1901, divers working off the Greek island of Antikythera found the remains of a 2,000-year-old clocklike mechanism. Now in the Greek National Archaeological Museum, the extraordinary find is a complex assembly of twenty or more precision gears designed to compute the motions of the Sun, Moon and planets. Nothing comparable is known from ancient scientific texts, and from a traditional historic point of view, such a mechanism should not have existed for at least another thousand years. The discovery of the Antikythera Device is equivalent to finding a supercomputer on a farm in the 18th century.

[Beagle]

http://listserv.tamu.edu/cgi/wa?A2=ind9 ... =0&P=23846

I finally found an example of what I meant about hyperdiffusion evoking the word racist etc.

It's a rant by a person upset about the restrictions placed in one forum. Restrictions on discussion are not uncommon, so this is no reflection on these folks. But this rant is informative to those unfamiliar with this discussion.