Page 1 of 1

Das Klub in action?

Posted: Sat May 08, 2010 5:28 pm
by circumspice
http://www.archaeologydaily.com/news/20 ... armer.html

"A few months ago I blogged a paper in PLoS Biology which suggested that a common Y chromosomal haplogroup, in fact the most common in Europe and at modal frequency along the Atlantic fringe, is not pre Neolithic. Rather their analysis of the data implied that the European variants were derived from an Anatolian variant.

The implication was that a haplogroup which had previously been diagnostic of "Paleolithicness," so to speak, of a particular population may in fact be an indication of the proportion of Neolithic Middle Eastern ancestry. The most interesting case were the Basques, who have a high frequency of this haplogroup, and are often conceived of as "ur-Europeans," Paleolithic descendants of the Cro-Magnons in the most romantic tellings. I was somewhat primed to accept this finding because of confusing results from ancient DNA extraction which implies a lot of turnover in maternal lineages, the mtDNA. My logic being that if the mtDNA exhibited rupture, then the Y lineages should too, as demographic revolutions are more likely to occur among men.

But perhaps not. A new paper in PLoS ONE takes full aim at the paper I blogged above. It is in short a purported refutation of the main finding of the previous paper, and a reinstatement of what had been the orthodoxy (note the citations to previous papers). A Comparison of Y-Chromosome Variation in Sardinia and Anatolia Is More Consistent with Cultural Rather than Demic Diffusion of Agriculture:..."

Re: Das Klub in action?

Posted: Sat May 08, 2010 7:33 pm
by uniface
Looks that way, CS.

Not to make light of earnest effort, but belief that crude, single-factors like this are the keys that can elucidate big pictures strike me as bordering on silliness.

Sherlock Holmes could pull it off with bootlaces and pocket watches, but he was Sherlock Holmes. And they aren't :mrgreen:

:face:

Re: Das Klub in action?

Posted: Sun May 09, 2010 8:52 pm
by E.P. Grondine
Looking at the wrong thing. mtDNA is the best tracker of human populations.

Different geneticists are now regularly coming out with new and contradictory findings, about once every 2 weeks or so.

Re: Das Klub in action?

Posted: Tue May 11, 2010 9:58 am
by Rokcet Scientist
E.P. Grondine wrote:Looking at the wrong thing. mtDNA is the best tracker of human populations.
Until the next "best tracker of human populations" is developed.