tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22284798962513231152024-02-19T06:47:14.284-08:00Egyptsearch 2.0Egyptsearch 2.0.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01151811668848185638noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228479896251323115.post-29864361963984340752016-07-04T15:41:00.002-07:002016-07-07T05:45:27.983-07:00Why Basal Eurasian is Still African as of Lazaridis et al 2016<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"[</i><i>The Shuqbah Natufian] type may be described as Mediterranean, <b><u>but with a distinct bias towards the African variety of that stock represented by the predynastic people of Egypt</u></b>. [...] The later cave dwellers of Shukbah practiced a rite which is <u><b>still observed by many negro tribes of Africa</b>. They <b>removed one or both upper central incisors in youth</b></u>, which resulted in atrophy of the corresponding alveolar part of the upper jaw and in an upgrowth of the unopposed lower incisors." </i><br />
<a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015002696519;view=1up;seq=7" target="_blank">Keith 1931</a> pp. 210-11</blockquote>
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The excerpt above (<a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015002696519;view=1up;seq=7" target="_blank">Keith 1931</a>) describes a Natufian sample excavated in the Shuqbah cave's Late Natufian deposits. In comparison to other Natufian sites, the Natufian inhabitants of this cave are known to be particularly African in their morphometric affinities, as shown by the descriptions of various physical anthropologists. The Natufian skull in the image above—complete with the North African practice of <i>upper </i>incisor extraction (<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278416514000257" target="_blank">Stojanowski et al 2014</a>) and what seems to be a blurred nasal margin—differs substantially from preceding groups in the Levant. Among other things, its cranial length (189 mm) and breadth (128 mm) represent a huge break from the short and broad head trend observed in the preceding Levantine skeletal samples (<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15861419" target="_blank">Stock et al 2005</a>; <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.1330960302/abstract" target="_blank">Hershkovitz et al 2005</a>) and are consistent with both North and Sub-Saharan groups.<br />
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In my <a href="https://egyptsearchdetoxed.blogspot.com/2015/01/lets-face-it-basal-eurasian-is-heavily.html" target="_blank">previous post</a> on Basal Eurasian a year ago I made the case that Basal Eurasian is thoroughly admixed with African ancestry. Today, I reject this mixture hypothesis and see it as entirely African (i.e. the modern day African samples with Basal Eurasian are admixed, not the original component itself). After Lazaridis et al 2016's preprint came out, many claimed that the presence of Basal Eurasian in Mesolithic Iran disproves its African affinity. Let's look at what the actual evidence says.<br />
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<h4>
<b>Why my Previous Post Pissed off </b><b>Some 'Afrocentrics' and </b><b>Eurocentrics.</b></h4>
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A year ago I pissed off some Afrocentrics and Eurocentrics by saying that Basal Eurasian is African. I pissed off <i>some</i> Afrocentrics because many of them can't fathom the idea that indigenous Africans can be distantly related to 'black Africans'. This is why you get confused attempts in some quarters to make Berber and pre-proto-Semitic Eurasian languages. The appearances of people who speak these language <i>today </i>generally don't fit the so-called 'black African' notion and are, at times, deemed a threat to vested interests. To <i>some</i> Afrocentrics, the way most speakers of these tongues look <i>today</i> can be deeply distressing, because their languages are closely related to ancient Egyptian. Not satisfied with ancient Egyptians being African (they have to specifically be 'Sub-Saharan African'), Berber and Semitic identities are sometimes downplayed, ignored and conveniently relegated to 'extra-Africa' in what are supposed to be scientific publications. It is no surprise, then, that these passive aggressive feelings resurface in some quarters when Basal Eurasian reinforces those 'undesirable' linguistic and ethnic connections to ancient Egyptians.<br />
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Then there are the Eurocentrics. My post has pissed some of them off as well because the whole notion of Basal Eurasian forces them to rethink their ideas about population affinity. One of Basal Eurasian's implications is that the racial label 'Caucasian' as used by many commentators doesn't just cover West Eurasians. It infringes on indigenous African genotypes and phenotypes. Some Eurocentric commentators marginalize qualms with the label 'Caucasoid'. It is argued that this label only runs into problems in the works of politically correct Africanists and Afrocentrics, because they are in denial. The fact that this label has also run into problems in other parts of the world disproves this sentiment. As shown by the Kennewick Man controversy, the label 'Caucasoid' also infringes on the indigenous phenotypes found in the Pacific. Initially classified as 'Caucasoid', we now have Kennewick Man's genome and he seems no more closer to 'Caucasians' than his immediate ancestors<br />
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It's not a coincidence that academics have such a hard time pinning down the genetic and morphological hallmarks of West Eurasians without inadvertently infringing on populations who don't fit for various reasons. Skeletally, what many call 'Caucasoid' are morphological tendencies that can rise and fall in frequency in many distinct human lineages independent of admixture. This is because the first mtDNA M and N carriers were already evolved in this morphological direction, to some extent. (We can see this, for instance, in the general appearance of Ksar Hill I. This fossil is among the oldest we have of Upper Palaeolithic colonists of West Eurasia). And if <i>some</i> of the first mtDNA M and N carriers already show precocious morphological tendencies in this so-called 'Caucasian' direction, the first L3 people must have shared those variations as well. Based on evolutionary principles, one would expect those variations to decrease as we look deeper in the history of Ksar Hill's ancestors. For instance, we might imagine that the mtDNA L3 people had such precocious tendencies more than the L3'4 people, who might have had them more than the L3'4'6 people, and so on.
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtKUzIBIC-BveErEzu-ciDcZ5XTIY5AoUryL-IijfkhNEqYMiSHuksC28dhgCwkiBMar6b5M2jCh7zVwm5us9sivpnNl60v9qq-UFWr8UbXc3-Ll8d1rXJVaH2bUL9ATaCTKJdFIh7aF_F/s1600/Egbert%252C+Ksar+Hill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtKUzIBIC-BveErEzu-ciDcZ5XTIY5AoUryL-IijfkhNEqYMiSHuksC28dhgCwkiBMar6b5M2jCh7zVwm5us9sivpnNl60v9qq-UFWr8UbXc3-Ll8d1rXJVaH2bUL9ATaCTKJdFIh7aF_F/s320/Egbert%252C+Ksar+Hill.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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<i style="font-size: 12.8px;">Ksar Akil I Juvenile (<a href="http://www.persee.fr/docAsPDF/paleo_0153-9345_1989_num_15_2_4512.pdf" target="_blank">Bergman and Stringer 1989</a>) is one example in a long line of fossils that refute the fallacy that 'Caucasian' features = European, or even West Eurasian.</i></div>
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These apomorphic variations predate 'Caucasians' and explain why some Africans are phenotypically and genetically intermediate. Note that I'm not saying that Eurasian admixture here and there doesn't <i>contribute</i> to this intermediate position of some African populations. What I'm saying is that if you strip those 'intermediate' Africans of their Eurasian contributions, you might get a genetic profile similar to, say, Mota (who is intermediate), as opposed to one that you'd expect to find more likely in equatorial inner Africa. In other words, a Berber speaker stripped of all Eurasian ancestry would still look somewhat like Berbers, albeit with darker skin on par with equatorial Africans. So, the sentiment out there that living North Africans would necessarily blend in with a crowd of 'black Africans' (as lay people often put it) when stripped of their Eurasian ancestry is a myth. The same applies to East Africa. Mota's lack of Eurasian ancestry doesn't stop him from being genetically (and likely also morphologically) intermediate. In this article I will make the case that 'Basal Eurasian' is a later departure from the Y DNA CT / mtDNA L3'4'6 people than Mota. Moreover, I will make the case that they departed from the L3'4'6 stem <i>before</i> the M and N people did.<br />
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<b>Why Basal Eurasian Can't Represent pre-Toba OOA Migrants Like Skhul and Qafzeh</b></h4>
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Lazaridis et al seem to mostly agree with this assessment about Basal Eurasian's phylogenetic positioning. In fact, Their models bear this out as they have Basal Eurasian sandwiched in between Mota and individual Eurasians fossils like Ust-'Ishim. Unfortunately the authors don't carry their own models <i>fully</i> and <i>unconditionally</i> to their logical conclusion when it comes to the identity of Basal Eurasian. While they agree that this sandwiched position is consistent with Basal Eurasian being African, they maintain that it's also consistent with earlier, pre-Toba, OOA migrants. In other words, they're open to the possibility that Basal Eurasian represents Middle Palaeolithic OOA migrants in the Middle East. This <i>pre</i>-Toba migration is thought to be distinct from the <i>post</i>-Toba OOA migration that living Eurasians inherit most of their DNA from.<br />
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But here is the thing. Lazaridis et al identify Ust'-Ishim and his immediate ancestors with the post-Toba OOA event. But Ust'-Ishim is only 45ky old. This means that Ust'-Ishim's population can hardly be cognate with Middle Palaeolithic OOA populations who seem to have split off from living humans <i>at least</i> 120kya. And even this 120kya date is a conservative estimate. These humans are already found in North Africa and adjacent regions (Levant, Arabia) at a time when the populations we consider to be our most distant living relatives (e.g. Khoisan and Pygmies) all seem to have split off closer to southern Africa than North Africa and the Levant. Since our ancestors couldn't have been in two places at once 120kya, the fact that these living hunter gatherer relatives live on one end of the continent (south/central) whereas Aterians and Nubian Complex people live on the other side of the continent (north) indicates that our ancestors would likely have been <i>nowhere near</i> these Middle Palaeolithic OOA humans around 120kya. This, in turn, indicates that pre-Toba OOA migrants aren't cognate with our human lineage until very early, likely <i>before</i> the mtDNA L0'6 node that contains all of us. This would make their human tree cognate with our human tree, as opposed to them being small branches on our mtDNA L0'6 tree.<br />
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But there is more. It's not just this sandwiched position that points to Basal Eurasian's African origin. Closer inspection reveals that all the basic properties that make Basal Eurasian what it is, undermine its identification with pre-Toba OOA migrants. For instance, Basal Eurasian carries little to no Neanderthal DNA. A remarkable finding under the scenario that Basal Eurasian represents pre-Toba OOA ancestry. Those familiar with the Multiregional Evolution (MRE) vs Recent Africa Origin (RAO) debate will remember that continuity (both archaeological and morphological) between archaic humans and pre-Toba humans in several regions was a cornerstone of MRE. For instance, Multiregionalists maintained that anatomically modern humans in various regions used tools that were used by preceding archaic humans. This was interpreted as evidence that regional anatomically modern humans 'evolved' more or less from regional archaic humans. Today, we know that's not true. However, the curious finding that some pre-Toba migrants abandoned their tools in favor of tools made by archaic humans has relevance here. Why? Because if Basal Eurasian represents pre-Toba people, one would not expect this much interaction between pre-Toba and archaic humans to result in a (near) lack of archaic human DNA in Basal Eurasian.<br />
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<b>The possible discovery of the source of </b><b>pre-Toba OOA migrant </b><b>aDNA; does it match Basal Eurasian?</b></h4>
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I was recently alerted to a promising finding that <i>looks </i>like it sheds light on the relationship of Basal Eurasian to the population source of pre-Toba OOA migrants. You can find the abstract <a href="http://smbe-2016.p.asnevents.com.au/days/2016-07-06/abstract/35210" target="_blank">here</a>. The gratuitous references to slave trade aside, and assuming that this aDNA is authentic and not a total dud, the abstract describes Moroccan aDNA that is unrelated to any modern sample. This is a curious finding, to put it mildly, because we have a pretty representative array of genomes. We might not have sampled all living populations yet, but filling in the minor gaps here and there is not going to be enough to explain this discrepancy at this point. Why? Because even the most genetically distant living humans can be modeled with 'inappropriate' samples if crisp precision is not a priority. However, from the abstract it looks like the enigmatic aspects of these genomes can't be modeled meaningfully with modern references. The one result they do report should be looked at with a grain of salt and seems to be driven in part by the authors' conformation bias of invoking slavery where it doesn't need to be. The fact that living North Africans, who have ancestry from both sides of the Mediterranean, are distantly related to these genomes proves these cave-dwellers can't be a simple mixture of groups from both sides of the Mediterranean. After all, living North Africans themselves are a mix involving these same sources of ancestry and they're poor candidates.<br />
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The archaeological record of North Africa is unique in the region as far as relic Mousterian-like<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2228479896251323115#1" name="top1"><sup>1</sup></a> populations surviving late into the Late Palaeolithic (<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1966.68.2.02a001050/pdf" target="_blank">Smith 1966</a>; <a href="http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/41183731/54dc8d3f0cf28a3d93f7dd1c.pdf20160115-19908-vl51rs.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ56TQJRTWSMTNPEA&Expires=1467569896&Signature=MCGFLaaXPPnRQWAOIAJjAFHARgM%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DVermeersch_Pierre_M._2009._Egypt_from_50.pdf" target="_blank">Vermeersch 2009</a>). Even in Morocco, as of yet unknown MSA industries appear in the Late Palaeolithic (<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248413001383" target="_blank">Barton et al 2013</a>). These potential links with this aDNA are wailing to be explored and make fixation on slavery a costly and missed opportunity. But that doesn't mean we as bloggers and readers can't hypothesize about connectable dots, <b>while remaining careful about overcommitting to small shreds of information from abstracts</b>. If aspects of these cave-dwellers' genomes do, in fact, turn out to lack continuity with living populations, this can only mean that this DNA comes from populations who are 'older' than living populations. (Older, in the sense of separating earlier from the AMH tree). This impression seems to be validated strongly by the "South African" affinities mentioned in the abstract. Humans older than the Khoisan might harbor some ancestry that's <i>reminiscent</i> of Khoisan due to fact that they both split off from the mtDNA tree rather early, and, therefore, are expected to lack the derived mutations that accumulated in the L1'6 people. In terms of genetic distance, such a separation-based relationship with similar distances to L1'6 people <i>could</i> express itself as an affinity relationship, even though they're not meaningfully related and have accumulated derived mutations in their own right. One paper that shows such a result is <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/324/5930/1035" target="_blank">Tishkoff et al 2009</a>, where Pygmies and Khoisan share a 'hunter gatherer' component. This component can't possibly be taken as a sign of close relationships. Instead, it's likely a reflection of the similar timing of their split from the human tree.<br />
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One thing to keep in mind is that more answers in regards to these cave dwellers' affinities won't necessarily prove that their ancestors are (related to) the authors of the North African 'Mousterian'. In order to justify the connection of these genomes with the North African 'Mousterians', transparent analyses have to first confirm that 1) parts of these genomes occupy an outgroup position relative to both L0 and L0'6 people, 2) frequency and diversity of this ancestry decrease with distance from North Africa and 3) that the haplotype blocks that make up this ancestry have the right LD properties. Because skeletal remains of modern humans associated with the North African and Levantine 'Mousterian' so far seem to form a morphological clade, the results—whatever they turn out to have in store—should be generalizable to modern human makers of the 'Mousterian' in general. If they're not generalizable in terms of proving that these people belong to the same genetic meta population, then at least we should be able to generalize that they all share their 'olderness' relative to L0'6 people. The reason for this is that their suite of morphological characteristics clearly 1) make them morphometrically intermediate between L1'6 modern humans and archaic humans and 2) tend to put them on a separate branch from L0'6 carriers (<a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-007-2929-2_12" target="_blank">Harvati and Hublin 2012</a>, fig 12b). The archaeological evidence is consistent with the idea that the Middle Palaeolithic modern humans all over North Africa represent a metapopulation (<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379114003023" target="_blank">Scerri et al 2014</a>). So, based on everything I've just mentioned, the modern human makers of the 'Mousterian' either all have to be L0'6 people, or they all have to be older than the L0'6 people; they can't be both at the same time. And if they're pre-L0'6 people, which is clearly supported by most evidence, they would not have mtDNA L0'6 lineages before they came in contact with the ancestors of all living humans.<br />
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One such example of contact between the makers of the North African 'Mousterian' and L0'6 people could be represented by Iwo Eleru, who is found in association with LSA artefacts that are more typical of L0'6 people, but who has morphological affinities with 'Mousterian' Afro-Eurasian modern humans (<a href="http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.503698" target="_blank">Stringer 1974</a>, <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0024024" target="_blank">Harvati et al 2011</a>). Note, BTW, that Iwo Eleru's affinities are just another example of getting the impression that makers of the 'Mousterian' were not on the L0'6 tree. What I mean is the following. Iwo Eleru's morphological relatedness to these 'Mousterians' seems to be mirrored by the presence of A1b (known as A0, today) in both regions. A1b so far seems to have a distribution between Northwest and West/Central Africa (<a href="http://genome.cshlp.org/content/24/3/535.full.pdf" target="_blank">Scozzari et al 2012</a>, fig 2 and 3). It is noteworthy that North African A1b is <i>not</i> derived from the West/Central African versions discovered so far (<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3113241/" target="_blank">Cruciani et al 2011b</a>), consistent with (but not proof of) a north to south movement. Interestingly, there is more to the correspondence between Iwo Eleru's morphometric affinities and the agreeing distribution and structure of A1b. For one, A1b is older than the L0'6 people (consistent with everything I've been saying), making it a good candidate lineage of at least <i>some</i> makers of the North African 'Mousterian'. Secondly, the West/Central African versions of A1b so far are consistent with an arrival in the region sometime in between ~40-25kya (<a href="http://genome.cshlp.org/content/24/3/535.full.pdf" target="_blank">Scozzari et al 2012</a>, fig 2). To anyone familiar with North Africa's archaeological record, that last date range should immediately get their attention. ~40kya marks the end of the Aterian and the onset of arid conditions in the Sahara. The dating and structure of West African A1b therefore fits the idea of Saharan migration towards hospitable areas like West Africa.<br />
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As you can see, the data doesn't fit well with the idea that people related to Skhul and/or the Nubian complex people were <i>the</i> Basal Eurasians.<br />
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<h4>
<b>Why it's not a 'Crushing Blow' that Some Natufian Samples don't Have Much Basal Eurasian Ancestry as Neighboring Samples</b></h4>
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Let's move on to the other arguments against an African origin of Basal Eurasian. Not necessarily Lazaridis et al, but various commentators have claimed that the higher proportion of Basal Eurasian in Hotu III (~60%) than in the sampled Natufians (~40%) necessarily makes Basal Eurasian inconsistent with an African origin. This is a fallacy, because from the skeletal remains this was already self-evident. For instance, in my previous post on Basal Eurasians I made it clear that Natufian sites have yielded skeletal remains with some appearing more tropically adapted than others. Therefore, to those who subscribe to the view that Basal Eurasian is African, it's not an earth-shattering revelation that some Natufian samples don't have as much Basal Eurasian as neighboring sites. In order to falsify that Basal Eurasian is African, skeletal remains from the Shuqbah and Athlit caves analyzed by Keith have to be sampled. This is what <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015002696519;view=1up;seq=7" target="_blank">Keith 1931</a> has to say about these Natufians in particular:<br />
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<i><b><u>In physical type the late cave people of Athlit were the same as the Natufians of Shuqbah</u>.</b> An elaborate comparison of the human remains found by Miss Garrod in the Capsian deposits of Shuqbah with those from the Aurignacian and mesolithic deposits at Athlit <u><b>has led me to the conclusion that all represent the same racial stock</b>.</u> The skull from Shuqbah, depicted in figs. 67, 68, may be accepted as a type. Especially <u><b>remarkable was the nasal development of this cave people—often almost negro-like in the flattening of the nasal bridge and in the width of the inter-orbital septum</b>.</u> The nasal bones, although their transverse arch is depressed, still have remarkable dimensions—such as might herald the pronounced nasal development of later Semitic races (figs. 67, 68)." </i><br />
<a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015002696519;view=1up;seq=7" target="_blank">Keith 1931</a> pp. 221-22</blockquote>
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Clearly, not all Natufian sites are interchangeable proxies when it comes to testing whether the Levant was the main corridor through which Basal Eurasian left Africa and reached other places in the Middle East. We've seen this sort of Eurocentric contentment happen before in the blogs when, for instance, hotchpotches of assorted Natufian skeletal remains were indiscriminately pooled in a single sample and didn't come out as 'African' as they have in the past. See, for instance, <a href="http://www.persee.fr/docAsPDF/paleo_0153-9345_1995_num_21_2_4620.pdf" target="_blank">Arensburg & Lahr 1995</a> where the measurements, including stature, betray that some Natufians range from somewhat, to completely unlike Keith's Natufian sample (the stature of the latter sample fell in the range of 1525-1600 mm., which is a far cry from the Natufians at Mallaha, whose mean stature was 1741 mm.). A similar outcome happened in <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oa.2315/abstract" target="_blank">Holliday 2013</a>, which saw the Natufians (this time, exclusively from the El Wad site) group with somewhat cold adapted groups rather than with Africans. It's not uncommon to see partisans on the blogs uphold such results as the 'ultimate evidence' that earlier analyses on the Natufians are now somehow refuted.<br />
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Obviously, the discrepancies in the various reports are due to the varying degrees of the Natufians' aboriginal Middle Eastern (i.e. WHG-like) ancestry. In <a href="http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2052&context=humbiol" target="_blank">Stock 2013</a>, for instance, we seem to be dealing with a Natufian sample with less WHG-like ancestry, as their post-cranial affinities seem to differ from the affinities reported in <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oa.2315/abstract" target="_blank">Holiday 2013</a> (the Natufians from <a href="http://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2052&context=humbiol" target="_blank">Stock 2013</a> cluster with Predynastic Egyptians and the Masai as opposed to their Epipalaeolithic predecessors). This doesn't mean that either Stock or Holiday is 'right' and that one undermines the other; they're both 'right'. Now that we've established that an African origin of Basal Eurasian doesn't require all Natufians to necessarily surpass neighboring samples in their amount of Basal Eurasian, we can move on to the next objection.<br />
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<h4>
<b>Why More Basal Eurasian in Mesolithic Iran Doesn't Rule Out an African Origin</b></h4>
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Various commentators online point out that there are no African haplogroups so far in the Iranian samples, yet, they have more Basal Eurasian than Natufians. Therefore, these proponents argue, Basal Eurasian must not be African. Similar questions have been raised regarding the apparent sparseness of E-V13 among European farmers. Such arguments arise out of ignorance in how haplogroups propagate over time under evolutionary forces. I've already explained this in my previous post on Basal Eurasian, which you can find <a href="http://egyptsearchdetoxed.blogspot.com/2015/01/lets-face-it-basal-eurasian-is-heavily.html" target="_blank">here</a>. What I want to deal with right now is the fact that the features that make Keith's Natufians stand out, can be found in the same Iranian sites that we're told are supposed to be free of African admixture. We'll get to the features of the oldest individuals in the Hotu cave (Hotu II and Hotu III) in a minute. But first, some context is required. A year ago I had the following to say about the African contingent among the Natufians:<br />
,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Descriptions of Natufian and PPN remains consistently report<b> <u>post bregmatic depression, among other features consistent with Sub Saharan African ancestry</u></b> [<a href="http://www.persee.fr/doc/paleo_0153-9345_1992_num_18_2_4574" target="_blank">Meiklejohn et al 1992</a>; <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02438114" target="_blank">Agelarakis 1993</a>; <a href="http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/paleo_0153-9345_1994_num_20_2_961" target="_blank">Hershkovitz et al 1994</a>; <a href="https://www.academia.edu/3003346/PhD._Pratiques_fun%C3%A9raires_param%C3%A8tres_biologiques_et_identit%C3%A9s_culturelles_au_Natoufien_une_analyse_arch%C3%A9o-anthropologique._Th%C3%A8se_de_Doctorat_en_Anthropologie_Biologique._Universit%C3%A9_Bordeaux_1_Talence_non_publi%C3%A9_" target="_blank">Bocquentin 2003</a>]. Strangely, despite proximity to Africa, the prospect of these being a marker of recent African ancestry is typically not seriously considered, as in [<a href="http://www.persee.fr/doc/paleo_0153-9345_1992_num_18_2_4574" target="_blank">Meiklejohn et al 1992</a>], where it is treated as an artificial deformation.</i></blockquote>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1DVkJDeagabxtgNzO2US_4uWXYHZ8EmvIf8QUe5YGOzCpp2vIK_hxeNjDxflrVFv6Mm8tP_NbDw0DMoCtQDQ94772-jZsX79AEwQYNYg_pde2jXZaju_ou2W0XrR47sfsynw2IM6AlpuC/s1600/Natufian+skull+with+post-bregmatic+depression+Bocquentin+2003.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1DVkJDeagabxtgNzO2US_4uWXYHZ8EmvIf8QUe5YGOzCpp2vIK_hxeNjDxflrVFv6Mm8tP_NbDw0DMoCtQDQ94772-jZsX79AEwQYNYg_pde2jXZaju_ou2W0XrR47sfsynw2IM6AlpuC/s320/Natufian+skull+with+post-bregmatic+depression+Bocquentin+2003.png" /></a></div>
<blockquote>
<br />
<i>A Natufian skull pictured in <a href="https://www.academia.edu/3003346/PhD._Pratiques_fun%C3%A9raires_param%C3%A8tres_biologiques_et_identit%C3%A9s_culturelles_au_Natoufien_une_analyse_arch%C3%A9o-anthropologique._Th%C3%A8se_de_Doctorat_en_Anthropologie_Biologique._Universit%C3%A9_Bordeaux_1_Talence_non_publi%C3%A9_" target="_blank">Bocquentin 2003</a> exhibiting many features consistent with recent African ancestry, including post-bregmatic depression (see the slight depression along the length of the vault of this skull).</i></blockquote>
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As was pointed out in this quote, post-bregmatic (or post-coronal) depression (PBD) is a cranial trait that is often used in forensic analyses as a possible indication of Sub-Saharan African ancestry. What the quoted excerpt doesn't explicitly state is that the data in several of these sources indicate that PBD is found in the wider Middle East, seemingly from the late Epipalaeolithic/Mesolithic onwards. For instance, it is attested in the proto-neolithic in northern Iraq (Shanidar cave), the neolithic in Iran (Ganj Dareh) and yes, even in the Mesolithic of Iran (Hotu cave). However, one problem is that cranial deformation practices (including some that, perhaps, induced PBD) became frequent all over the Middle East after the Mesolithic and Epipalaeolithic. This makes the use of PBD to diagnose African ancestry after the Epipalaeolithic and Mesolithic somewhat unreliable. This is exacerbated by the fact that the people involved with studying these practices make no serious effort to distinguish genetic from man-made causes of PBD.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSPkw4id5d5La61_mzc9C70nSlpIVYpnsik3kXvk1LKHtchXEV_X1QiJfWO-ltYY5YiscWXTsyzpDoE1ib9Ctczzc1n2aa2d85lSdGfsfior9JqWmQvTKpzZFEiFYao8oFPt91I-oOVD0y/s1600/cranial+deformation+artificial.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSPkw4id5d5La61_mzc9C70nSlpIVYpnsik3kXvk1LKHtchXEV_X1QiJfWO-ltYY5YiscWXTsyzpDoE1ib9Ctczzc1n2aa2d85lSdGfsfior9JqWmQvTKpzZFEiFYao8oFPt91I-oOVD0y/s200/cranial+deformation+artificial.jpg" width="196" /></a><br />
<a href="http://www.persee.fr/doc/paleo_0153-9345_1992_num_18_2_4574" target="_blank">Meiklejohn et al 1992</a> don't even consider that at least <i>some </i>of the PBD in neolithic Iranian and other sites could have a genetic cause. They attribute <i>all </i>incidences of PBD to artificial cranial deformation. Granted, the clear evidence of various forms of cranial deformation (other than PBD) in these sites indicate that artificial deformation could explain at least <i>a portion </i>of the sky-rocketed frequencies of PBD during the neolithic. However, I'm not saying this because the authors' arguments were so compelling. In fact, it strikes me as remarkable that the authors don't take a step back from their conclusions given the discrepancies in their data. According to their own data, most of cranial deformation-inducing practices left behind cranial 'scars' reasonably consistently. Only one type of supposed 'deformation' was not associated with any scarring pattern. Curiously, this exception was PBD. For instance, the bandaging practices that supposedly induced cranial deformation artificially, left behind horizontal and diagonal groove patterns on most of the skulls. However, the authors report no vertical grooves that would be consistent with PBD-inducing vertical bandage practices (see image to the left). Instead, we're left with the following substitute for actual evidence:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Of the features noted by Lambert, <b>Post-Coronal Depression and Parietal Bulging are hard to explain other than by deformation</b>. </i><a href="http://www.persee.fr/doc/paleo_0153-9345_1992_num_18_2_4574" target="_blank">Meiklejohn et al 1992</a> </blockquote>
But PBD was the most frequently observed 'deformation'. Is it merely a coincidence that no scarring pattern was found for PBD? Remarkably, the authors seem to be unaware of the fact that PBD is a non-metric trait. Either that, or they refuse to consider that genetic causes plays a role here, in which case "hard to explain", as they put it, simply means 'unwilling to consider'.<br />
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According to <a href="http://www.persee.fr/doc/paleo_0153-9345_1992_num_18_2_4574" target="_blank">t</a>hese authors' source, Lambert, this practice kicks off in the Middle East during the neolithic. This is unlikely, as it occurs in the preceding Hotu sample (<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3143835?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents" target="_blank">Angel 1952</a>). It would be interesting if artificial deformation was an attempt to mimic the natural headshapes of prestigious or mythological groups in the Middle East. Are the artificial examples of PBD a case of 'art' imitating life? Whatever's the case, PBD, along with other features that are consistent with Africans, are found in sites where Basal Eurasian peaks so far. These sites include the Iranian neolithic (<a href="http://www.persee.fr/doc/paleo_0153-9345_1992_num_18_2_4574" target="_blank">Meiklejohn et al 1992</a>) and the Iranian Mesolithic (<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3143835?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents" target="_blank">Angel 1952</a>). Angel has, among other things, the following to say about a specimen from the latter site (Hotu II):<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The pentagonoid skull vault is 75 to 100 cc. larger than the 1,325 cc. modern average in capacity, and is long and high <b><u>with marked post-coronal depression</u></b> and concave and sinuous temporal planes, as if the infantile sharp curve of the parietal bone had not been fully corrected by later peripheral remodelling.</i><br />
<i>(<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3143835?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents" target="_blank">Angel 1952</a>)</i>.</blockquote>
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About Hotu III Angel says, among other things:<br />
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<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The skull has a strikingly capacious vault (1420-1460 cc.), ovoid, broad, well-filled with wide-set base (129 mm.) and approaching the "square- head" minority among Upper Palaeolithic and later Europeans. <b><u>The face has wide cheeks, wide nose</u></b>, and a protruding chin, and probably resembled number 2.</i><br />
<i> </i><i>(<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3143835?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents" target="_blank">Angel 1952</a>)</i>.</blockquote>
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If this Hotu III individual measured by Angel corresponds to "Hotu IIIb" sequenced by <a href="http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/06/16/059311" target="_blank">Lazaridis et al 2016</a>, he's more than consistent with the Shuqbah Natufians and many Africans he's supposedly unrelated to. His nasal index is estimated at 58.2 (very broad) while his upper facial index is estimated at 44.2 (again, relatively broad). (Estimated, because the Hotu III had to be reconstructed). Hotu III combines these features with contrasting features (including somewhat broad neurocrania [CI of 77.7], a stocky build, and a general Upper Palaeolithic European 'look') that seem like they were inherited from contemporary West Eurasians. In this respect, Hotu III calls to mind <a href="http://www.persee.fr/docAsPDF/bmsap_0037-8984_1991_num_3_1_1770.pdf" target="_blank">Homo I from Atlit Yam</a>, a PPNB individual who combines similar African-like and West Eurasian-like morphometric features. This mosaic of features is consistent with Hotu III's genome, as he's reported to be 40% West Eurasian and 60% Basal Eurasian.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnODh9PSUENY526d6mJ6IrYXXe8aDa9YnuRJndqlvjwgiuoPdVheVNlxZ78BDi_i70GTUFPGhWH_hn5gWfsPPqspcy6TG8BXZwoyKGeMwdlAE53k4x5knuCW_Go08_vwCLhmYFUmrdlMib/s1600/Atlit+Yam2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnODh9PSUENY526d6mJ6IrYXXe8aDa9YnuRJndqlvjwgiuoPdVheVNlxZ78BDi_i70GTUFPGhWH_hn5gWfsPPqspcy6TG8BXZwoyKGeMwdlAE53k4x5knuCW_Go08_vwCLhmYFUmrdlMib/s400/Atlit+Yam2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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Homo I from Atlit Yam (PPNB). Taken from <a href="http://www.persee.fr/docAsPDF/bmsap_0037-8984_1991_num_3_1_1770.pdf" target="_blank">Hershkovitz &</a> <a href="http://www.persee.fr/docAsPDF/bmsap_0037-8984_1991_num_3_1_1770.pdf" style="font-size: 12.8px;" target="_blank">Galili 1991</a>. Note similarities with and differences to the aforementioned descriptions of both Hotu III and <span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Atlit Cave</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Natufians</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">. Also note the missing upper central incisors </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">(a North African practice [</span><a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278416514000257" style="font-size: 12.8px;" target="_blank">Stojanowski et al 2014</a><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">]</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">) </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">and corresponding atrophy.</span></div>
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As you can see, rather than constituting a 'problem' to the African origin of Basal Eurasian, Hotu III seems to embody quite the opposite. He fits in an emerging picture that shows that Eurasian genomes with high degrees of Basal Eurasian ancestry likely also exhibit 'African' features, whether morphological or otherwise. This tight correlation hasn't been violated yet. Aside from the Mesolithic Hotu individuals, we see it in Stuttgart's cranio-facial appearance and various pooled early neolithic samples. If (and this remains to be seen) Kostenki-14 has Basal Eurasian, as has been suggested by some (<a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/346/6213/1113" target="_blank">Seguin-Orlando et al 2014</a>), some of his cranio-facial features can also be interpreted as standing out in the African direction. Unfortunately, we do not have the skeletal remains of the recently sequenced hunter gatherers from the Caucasus. They have a substantial input of Basal Eurasian (<a href="http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/151116/ncomms9912/full/ncomms9912.html" target="_blank">Jones et al 2015</a>), so, in light of what I just said, their skeletal remains would be of interest. Interestingly, the <i>circumstantial evidence</i> so far suggests that this correlation holds for them as well. The reason for this is that their partial descendants, the Corded Ware people, had exceptionally long and narrow heads (<a href="https://archive.org/details/racesofeurope031695mbp" target="_blank">Coon 1939</a>), The fact that the height of their neurocrania exceeds their cranial breadth (indicating a acroplatic index near zero) is interesting, as anthropologists from the previous century have often claimed this to be atypical of recent Europeans (<a href="http://pjx.sagepub.com/content/14/4/368.extract" target="_blank">Smith 1941</a>).<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"The index known as the <b><u>acroplatic index</u></b>, which was </i><i>devised by Carl Pearson, is of special importance. It gives the </i><i><b><u>relationship between height, width and length</u></b>, and it has been </i><i>found that <b><u>Europeans as a rule show an index of something </u></b></i><i><b><u>in the vicinity of +6, Negroes as a rule are approximately zero</u></b>, </i><i>but <u><b>Egyptians, strangely enough, show a minus index, and in </b></u></i><i><u><b>this particular case, -4.2.</b></u>" (<a href="http://pjx.sagepub.com/content/14/4/368.extract" target="_blank">Smith 1941</a>)</i></blockquote>
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Their cranial index (CI) and body measurements also show a peculiar trend, even compared to Upper Palaeolithic Europeans. In these two characters <i>early </i>Upper Palaeolithic Europeans are more 'linear' (<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248496901116" target="_blank">Holliday 1997a</a>; <a href="http://www.isita-org.com/jass/Contents/2008%20vol86/09_Vercelotti.pdf" target="_blank">Vercellotti et al 2008</a>; <a href="https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/33765/04.pdf?sequence=28" target="_blank">Churchill et al 1999)</a> than <i>late </i>Upper Palaeolithic Europeans. The Corded Ware people not only reverse this trend to the exclusion of nearby WHG-like groups, but, at least in terms of CI, they come out on the other end. Meaning that their head shape seems to be more 'linear' than their ancestors in both eras. This can't be explained with purely ecological explanations.While many of the Corded Ware peoples' features go in the other (i.e. European) direction, this is still a strange combination of traits for a people who supposedly have been out of the tropics for over 50ky.<br />
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<h4>
<b>Moving Forward in 2016</b></h4>
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It has <i>always </i>been possible to detect clearly intrusive tropically adapted features in many Middle Eastern and Central Asian sites in between the early Holocene and the Bronze Age (<a href="https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ase/117/1/117_080130/_pdf" target="_blank">Ogihara et al 2009</a>; <a href="https://www.academia.edu/4683460/Human_skeletal_remains_from_the_necropolis_of_Gonur-Depe" target="_blank">Dubova 2001</a>, <a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F1-4020-5562-5_11" target="_blank">Stock et al 2007</a>). What's new is that it will now, for the first time, not be up to researchers' whim whether they want to 'admit' they're there and show morphological discontinuity with groups in the region today. Did they come from Africa? The Persian Gulf Basin? Saudi Arabia? The possibilities used to be too numerous to get to the bottom of things. Moreover, any progress in this area was doomed to begin with because the select few with access to these remains have no interest in the study of Africans beyond Africa (indeed, sometimes they're not even interested in studying Africans beyond Sub-Saharan Africa, see <a href="http://bmcevolbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2148-10-138" target="_blank">Harich et al 2010</a>, for instance, who allow for no mtDNA L in North Africa other than through slave trade). In this sense, aDNA can act as watershed moment.that allows for rapid progress in an area that has been both intentionally and unintentionally held back.<br />
<br />
One gray area that will inevitably become illuminated going forward is the fact that Afroasiatic has many far flung relationships with extinct and extant pre-Semitic languages in the Middle East. What I'm interested in is not whether Basal Eurasian has something to do with this (those who are not in denial already know that this is likely), but, to what extent Eurasian languages were influenced and how many African migrations were involved:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>These arguments speak for the Levantine [origin of Afroasiatic]:</b> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Distant relationship of Afroasiatic with Kartvelian, Dravidian, Indo-European and other Eurasiatic language families within the framework of the Nostratic hypothesis (Illič-Svityč 1971-84; Blažek 2002; Dolgopolsky 2008; Bomhard 2008). <b><u>Lexical parallels connecting Afroasiatic with Near Eastern languages which cannot be explained from Semitic: Sumerian-Afroasiatic lexical parallels indicating an Afroasiatic substratum in Sumerian</u></b> (Militarev 1995). <b><u>Elamite-Afroasiatic lexical and grammatical cognates explainable as a common heritage</u></b> (Blažek 1999). <b><u>North Caucasian-Afroasiatic parallels in cultural lexicon explainable by old neighborhood</u></b> (Militarev, Starostin 1984). </i><i><a href="https://www.phil.muni.cz/jazyk/files/AAmigrationsCORR.pdf" target="_blank">Blažek</a></i></blockquote>
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As you can see in the excerpt above, this evidence of contact was used by various linguists (as well as bloggers) as evidence that Afroasiatic can't possibly be African. However, this hypothesis against the African origin of Afroasiatic has now completely imploded, as it relies on the mistaken notion that Levantines weren't partially African, genetically and linguistically. Now that African Y chromosomes have been observed among Natufians, linguists who oppose an African origin of Afroasiatic can no longer pretend to be ignorant about the skeletal record and claim that Afroasiatic doesn't become associated with Africans until it arrives in Africa in the early Holocene. </div>
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North Caucasian, Kartvelian and Indo-European languages show evidence of interactions with Afroasiatic. We already know that Caucasus hunter gatherers had Basal Eurasian (<a href="http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/151116/ncomms9912/full/ncomms9912.html" target="_blank">Jones et al 2015</a>), so that <i>potentially </i>explains the observed linguistic relationships between Afro-Asiatic on the one hand and North Caucasian and Kartvelian on the other hand. As we've already discussed, the proto-Neolithic individuals in the northern Iraq (Shanidar cave) show the <i>same </i>morphological features that pull the Natufians in an African direction in morphometric analyses. If genetic analyses confirm that neolithic Iraqis have Basal Eurasian and/or other types of African ancestry, this can potentially explain the observed linguistic relationships between Sumerian and Afro-Asiatic. Lastly, Basal Eurasian in Hotu III and early Iranian farmers can <i>potentially </i>explain links between Afroasiatic and Elamite.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRlOgmPB6gSgKkw-AuQhCeUWBE9jc7OyR2lCRdiaOvge642okzmt0-Vui_bD7cCb_uJlCoPGaAKEUV94G6uuQN6YHuiTRasUhyphenhyphen9ZM84-aTGfrAgl-05v14rN419A0OER8USj5Ir5Yn0w_I/s1600/Shanidar+cave+%252B+Memphis+dynastic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="157" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRlOgmPB6gSgKkw-AuQhCeUWBE9jc7OyR2lCRdiaOvge642okzmt0-Vui_bD7cCb_uJlCoPGaAKEUV94G6uuQN6YHuiTRasUhyphenhyphen9ZM84-aTGfrAgl-05v14rN419A0OER8USj5Ir5Yn0w_I/s400/Shanidar+cave+%252B+Memphis+dynastic.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: left;">Shanidar Cave proto-Neolithic individual (left). Wouldn't look out of place among mid-holocene Nubians and Egyptians as shown by its general resemblance to the dynastic Egyptian skull from Memphis (right). Images taken from <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02438114" target="_blank">Agelarkis 1993</a> and <a href="https://books.google.nl/books?id=0JhAAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=A+natural+history+of+quadrupeds,+and+other+mammiferous+animals&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwicqKDczd7NAhUkKsAKHXwLDhQQuwUIITAA#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Martin 1841</a>, respectively.</td></tr>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="1"><b>1 </b></a>Throughout this article I use 'Mousterian' loosely as a catchall phrase to refer to the modern human makers of Mousterian-like tools in Afro-Eurasia. Terms like like 'Pre-Toba modern human OOA migrants' are too unwieldy to use repeatedly. In this article such a shorthand was useful, but I'm aware of the pitfalls. I would prefer the term MSA on the African continent where relevant<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2228479896251323115#top1"><sup>↩</sup></a></span><br />
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Egyptsearch 2.0.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01151811668848185638noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228479896251323115.post-42506486256680292792015-01-12T13:00:00.001-08:002016-07-04T07:41:31.319-07:00Let's face it: "Basal Eurasian" is heavily intertwined with African ancestry; might as well stop the collective denial<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNgi13U1QdZ-kwFUCYBWx0bSjSqhpe5T8Mb_A0t9EL1seK_IAot3XbytEUejWkgOMKRI2z7lTRg3oScJ5WylHnOnBMRrVtvo4s02w6w3NS4rs1k8yEIuezKSJGodzO6ONVIuKdFQ3Riotg/s1600/Mulhausen-Linearbandkeramik-Basal+Eurasian-Stuttgart-skeletal+remains.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNgi13U1QdZ-kwFUCYBWx0bSjSqhpe5T8Mb_A0t9EL1seK_IAot3XbytEUejWkgOMKRI2z7lTRg3oScJ5WylHnOnBMRrVtvo4s02w6w3NS4rs1k8yEIuezKSJGodzO6ONVIuKdFQ3Riotg/s320/Mulhausen-Linearbandkeramik-Basal+Eurasian-Stuttgart-skeletal+remains.png" /></a></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>These non metric attributes all support the view that most of the Neolithic inhabitants of Europe tie more closely together with each other than with the living representatives of the areas in question. <b>The principal exception to this generalization is</b> [...] <b>the Muhlhausen sample</b>, which ties <b>closer</b> metrically to the living inhabitants of the Middle East and <b>North Africa</b>.</i></blockquote>
<br />
The excerpt above describes the North Africa-affiliated "Muhlhausen" LBK sample [<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1325007/" target="_blank">Brace et al 2005</a>]. This is the <i>exact</i> same sample <a href="http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2013/12/23/001552" target="_blank">Lazaridis et al 2013</a> would turn to almost ten years later, to sample the now infamous "Basal Eurasian" carrier—Stuttgart. But those who've convinced themselves that the Stuttgart individual is merely an odd looking individual in an otherwise perfectly European looking population, are in for a big surprise.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>There have been several reports now, dealing with the genomes of early European farmers, and there is one genetic feature they all seem to have in common. This shared genetic feature was minted "Basal Eurasian" when its existence was first inferred back in late 2013 [<a href="http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2013/12/23/001552" target="_blank">Lazaridis et al 2013</a>], and it has been subjected to speculation in the anthro-blogosphere ever since.<br />
<br />
While some bloggers seem to have hit the nail on its head in their discourse on this genetic "anomaly", others seem to be hopelessly groping in the dark, coming up with all sorts of far-fetched explanations that can't be reconciled with other data involving early European farmers (e.g. skeletal data), that has been accumulating for decades.<br />
<br />
If there is one thing we can be absolutely certain of, it's that a genetic anomaly this consistently found among early European farmers and which is this sizable (inferred to comprise approximately 44% of the genome of the 'Stuttgart' individual in whom it was first inferred), will express itself beyond just autosomal makeup; we'd expect its underlying essence to manifest itself through all sets of ancestry informative markers, including non-genetic ones.<br />
<br />
For instance, we'd expect academic descriptions of the skeletal remains of certain early European farmers to contain references to phenotypical traits that are atypical of early Holocene Europe. This is, in fact, precisely what we're seeing.<br />
<br />
Skeletal analysis of early European farmers who have little genetic input from local hunter gatherers, are known to exhibit a relative craniofacial similarity with tropically adapted prehistoric North Africans [<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1325007/" target="_blank">Brace et al 2005</a>; <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19341322" target="_blank">Ricaut & Waelkens 2008</a>]. The general rule seems to be: the more prehistoric farmers interact with hunter gatherers, the less they resemble North Africans [<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1325007/" target="_blank">Brace et al 2005</a>; <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1767/20131337.abstract?sid=07e095d1-d691-409e-b0cf-cda9c10a0556" target="_blank">von Cramon-Taubadel et al 2013</a>; <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0018442X0800084X" target="_blank">Gallagher et al 2009</a>].<br />
<br />
However, limb index-oriented research such as Galagher et al 2009 may be more difficult to interpret given the essentially unchanged limb proportions of many European hunter gatherers, who often still display strongly elevated limb indices, well into the Mesolithic [<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248498902895" target="_blank">Holliday et al 1999</a>]. Hence, full body measurements are required to differentiate between elevated limb indices which result from <i>recent</i> ancestry from warmer regions vs elevated indices which are retentions from the original OOA migrations [<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248496901116" target="_blank">Holliday et al 1997a</a><br />
<br />
That the morphometric commonalities turn out to especially involve features historically used to identify African ancestery, is a curious, almost comical result, given past attempts to "flip the script" and attribute this affinity squarely to both populations belonging to a "Mediterranean", and ultimately, non-African, meta-population [<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.1330360603/abstract" target="_blank">Brace et al 1993</a>; <a href="http://jnls.cup.org/abstract.do;jsessionid=0D8F11A9E21D9081A91857099102AA45?componentId=2645096&jid=%3CjournalId%3E" target="_blank">Strouhal 1971</a>]. But I'm getting ahead of myself, first things first.<br />
<br />
Exotic influences among early European farmers are, in and of themselves, not that surprising. Early European farmers are after all, not native to Europe. Since the popular narrative places their ultimate origin somewhere in or around the fertile crescent, a degree of differentiation relative to aboriginal European hunter gatherers is to be expected, right?<br />
<br />
This is where the popular narrative crumbles. Early farmer immigrants aren't merely different from aboriginal Europeans; they also different from other Middle Eastern farmers in a way that intimates that they're only partially related to truly aboriginal Middle Easterners.<br />
<br />
What we consistently see is a morphological spectrum along which expanding European farmers plot according to their degree of assimilation with local European hunter gatherers. The farmers most endogamous after having set foot in Europe (e.g. Nea Nikomedea, Mulhausen) plot on one end of the spectrum and West Eurasian hunter gatherers plot on the other end [<a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0006747" target="_blank">Pinhasi & von Cramon-Taubadel 2009</a>, <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2011/02/17/rspb.2010.2678.full" target="_blank">von Cramon-Taubadel & Pinhasi 2011</a>].<br />
<br />
Not very surprisingly, the exogamous farming colonists who assimilated with hunter gatherers (e.g. some of the LBK farmers) and the aboriginal Europeans who may have adopted agriculture on their own terms, cluster somewhere in the middle.<br />
<br />
But what is particularly interesting about these data, for present purposes, is that the used Natufian and PPN samples don't plot as the outgroups in multivariate space we would expect them to, if they truly were ancestral to early European farmers.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgApjIwYhXA7LJg8nzYMurCXnkXKBiAb_I99qw1lJw3ZFCCEmkVGlIEprCTn0qxxswrgoMkH8NLsEOGJQBvYu0YpBd4ZI-b4dq8u2TfKQAJQZ2T60J2a-eSTn_yfSnQlPPOXkjvdejX6Te-/s1600/Early+European+farmers+plot+away+from+WHG+populations.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgApjIwYhXA7LJg8nzYMurCXnkXKBiAb_I99qw1lJw3ZFCCEmkVGlIEprCTn0qxxswrgoMkH8NLsEOGJQBvYu0YpBd4ZI-b4dq8u2TfKQAJQZ2T60J2a-eSTn_yfSnQlPPOXkjvdejX6Te-/s320/Early+European+farmers+plot+away+from+WHG+populations.png" /></a></div>
<blockquote>
<i>Early European farmers (depicted as blue and green centroids) plot as an outgroup to all West Eurasian populations in <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2011/02/17/rspb.2010.2678.full" target="_blank">von Cramon-Taubadel & Pinhasi 2011</a>, necessitating partial ancestry from a non-West Eurasian source which scores similarly negative along PCO I.</i></blockquote>
By plotting in between European farmer colonists and Mesolithic Europeans, these Natufian and PPN populations create the impression that they and their Levantine ancestors are part of a larger West Eurasian hunter gatherer meta population. Using Lazaridis' terminology: craniofacially, they plot like a WHG-like population, whose intermediate status indicates that they're just another admixture recipient of the ancestral population we're looking for, as opposed to the source.<br />
<br />
The faillure of a representative set of seemingly native Palestinian, Syrian and Anatolian samples to plot in a way that is suggestive of ancestor status, is a huge blow to the notion that native Levantine groups constitute the ancestral populations from which European farmer colonists radiated. It also means that that ancestral population is still out there.<br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>
Backtracking the footprints of European farming colonists back to their unknown source population</h3>
<br />
Basically, we're dealing with a "ghost" population (let's call them population X for now) which, before appearing on our radar in a major way in the form of the first European farmer colonists, seems to have primarily made its existence known to us by admixing with the archaeologically visible Natufian and PPN populations. They seem to pop in and out of visibility in the regional skeletal records throughout time and space as follows:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>At first a pulse from the ancestral homeland of Population X expands into the Epi-Palaeolithic Levant (from elsewhere).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>At times Population X interacts with the autochtonous populations in the Fertile Crescent, creating seemingly hybrid (i.e. local and non-local) Natufian populations. Think of the Hayonim Natufian sample whose range of various body measurements seems to accomodate the African Wadi Kubbaniya and Nazlet Khater samples better than older Levantine Ohalo II H2 sample [<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/7785722/" target="_blank">Hershkovitsch et al 1995</a>], and seems completely different from the more cold adapted El Wad Natufians [<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oa.2315/abstract" target="_blank">Holliday 2013</a>].</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Judging by how radically out of place some Levantine samples seem to be, even moreso than the Hayonim sample, it looks like the main body of the still expanding Population X may have left behind colonies en-route to Anatolia (think of the Natufian Shuqbah sample as described by Arthur Keith). Either that or there were more pulses than the one(s) that eventually set up colonies in Anatolia and Europe.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>strong footprints of this north-bound population then seem to dissapear from the skeletal record in the region of northern Palestine and Syria. Then, for the first time in several millenia, we encounter populations morphometrically related to the hybrid Natufians again at the doorstep of Europe. At this point, some of them have become what we archaeologically know as the Central Anatolian "Catal Hoyuk" population.</li>
</ul>
<br />
We know Catal Hoyuk descends from hybrid Natufians because this PPN population exhibits the same morphology, albeit more watered down, that seemed completely out of place in the Levant during the Natufian period. The exact same situation in the Levant is now reproduced in Anatolia, in the sense that regional skeletal remains to their west and southwest, that are seemingly mostly biologically native, either possess closer affinity with native West Eurasian hunter gatherers or are intermediate [<a href="http://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/DocumentaPraehistorica/article/view/30.1" target="_blank">Pinhasi et al 2003</a>].<br />
<br />
It is at this point on their journey along the Mediterranean Basin, that this branch of Population X morphometrically embodies what most early anthropologists would agree is a good, and arguably one of the first, sample to exhibit what they called the "Eurafrican" and "Mediterranean" morphology.<br />
<br />
Given its complete anomaly status among native samples in Western Eurasia and its tracable evolution from earlier Natufian hybrids in the Levant, any blogger or academic who talks about "Mediterranean" as a morphometric phenomenon that arose in isolation in West Eurasia, is groping in the dark.<br />
<br />
No amateur blogger with self-manifactured narratives about "Mediterraneans" emerging in isolation in the Mediterranean basin can obfuscate the fact that prehistoric European farmers have a very particular and relative relationship with the hybrid Natufians [<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1325007/" target="_blank">Brace et al 2005</a>], but not with the seemingly autochtonous Natufians [<a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0006747" target="_blank">Pinhasi & von Cramon-Taubadel 2009</a>, <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2011/02/17/rspb.2010.2678.full" target="_blank">von Cramon-Taubadel & Pinhasi 2011</a>, <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1767/20131337.abstract?sid=07e095d1-d691-409e-b0cf-cda9c10a0556" target="_blank">von Cramon-Taubadel et al 2013</a>].<br />
<br />
The "isolated Mediterranean" fairytale also can't be reconciled with the fact that the hybrid Natufians group on the side of northeast Africans and European farmers [<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1325007/" target="_blank">Brace et al 2005</a>; <a href="https://www.academia.edu/1652463/A_bridge_between_West_and_East_A_craniofacial_perspective_on_Anatolian_biological_diversity_and_Turkish_population_history_and_structure" target="_blank">Schmidt and Seguchi 2008</a>], while the seemingly native Natufians group away from northeast Africans and European farmers and towards West Eurasians [<a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/280/1767/20131337.abstract?sid=07e095d1-d691-409e-b0cf-cda9c10a0556" target="_blank">von Cramon-Taubadel et al</a>].<br />
<br />
Descriptions of Natufian and PPN remains consistently report post bregmatic depression, among other features consistent with Sub Saharan African ancestry [<a href="http://www.persee.fr/doc/paleo_0153-9345_1992_num_18_2_4574" target="_blank">Meiklejohn et al 1992</a>; <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02438114" target="_blank">Agelarakis 1993</a>; <a href="http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/paleo_0153-9345_1994_num_20_2_961" target="_blank">Hershkovitz et al 1994</a>; <a href="https://www.academia.edu/3003346/PhD._Pratiques_fun%C3%A9raires_param%C3%A8tres_biologiques_et_identit%C3%A9s_culturelles_au_Natoufien_une_analyse_arch%C3%A9o-anthropologique._Th%C3%A8se_de_Doctorat_en_Anthropologie_Biologique._Universit%C3%A9_Bordeaux_1_Talence_non_publi%C3%A9_" target="_blank">Bocquentin 2003</a>]. Strangely, despite proximity to Africa, the prospect of these being a marker of recent African ancestry is typically not seriously considered, as in [<a href="http://www.persee.fr/doc/paleo_0153-9345_1992_num_18_2_4574" target="_blank">Meiklejohn et al 1992</a>], where it is treated as an artificial deformation.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1DVkJDeagabxtgNzO2US_4uWXYHZ8EmvIf8QUe5YGOzCpp2vIK_hxeNjDxflrVFv6Mm8tP_NbDw0DMoCtQDQ94772-jZsX79AEwQYNYg_pde2jXZaju_ou2W0XrR47sfsynw2IM6AlpuC/s1600/Natufian+skull+with+post-bregmatic+depression+Bocquentin+2003.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1DVkJDeagabxtgNzO2US_4uWXYHZ8EmvIf8QUe5YGOzCpp2vIK_hxeNjDxflrVFv6Mm8tP_NbDw0DMoCtQDQ94772-jZsX79AEwQYNYg_pde2jXZaju_ou2W0XrR47sfsynw2IM6AlpuC/s320/Natufian+skull+with+post-bregmatic+depression+Bocquentin+2003.png" /></a></div>
<blockquote>
<i>A Natufian skull pictured in <a href="https://www.academia.edu/3003346/PhD._Pratiques_fun%C3%A9raires_param%C3%A8tres_biologiques_et_identit%C3%A9s_culturelles_au_Natoufien_une_analyse_arch%C3%A9o-anthropologique._Th%C3%A8se_de_Doctorat_en_Anthropologie_Biologique._Universit%C3%A9_Bordeaux_1_Talence_non_publi%C3%A9_" target="_blank">Bocquentin 2003</a> exhibiting many features consistent with recent African ancestry, including post-bregmatic depression (see the slight depression along the length of the vault of this skull).</i></blockquote>
<br />
Thus, it seems that the hybrid Natufians (but not the autochtonous ones) have dual ties with both early farmer colonists in Europe, as well as dynastic Nubians and other Africans. This is mirrored in treemix analyses, in which "Basal Eurasian" behaves the exact same way, by forming a "missing link" between Sub-Saharan Africans and prehistoric farmers [<a href="http://m.sciencemag.org/content/344/6185/747" target="_blank">Skoglund et al 2014</a>, figure 2b].<br />
<br />
<br />
<h3>
If "Basal Eurasians" were Africans, why do we mainly observe Eurasian haplogroups in prehistoric farmer aDNA?</h3>
<br />
Some bloggers have used the paucity so far of "Sub-Saharan" haplogroups in early farmer ancient DNA, as proving that "Basal Eurasian", or even tropically adapted features, are, in the case of early neolithic Europeans, not external in origin. Others have pointed out that, since "Basal Eurasian" has affinity with living West Asian populations (i.e. the Bedouin sample), it should be regarded as native West Asian in origin.<br />
<br />
The first objection is not something someone who has done their homework, would seriously stand by. At present, there is no solid understanding of the dynamics of how haplogroup profiles change throughout the ages. All of our ideas that seem to be working well in explaining haplogroup phenomena come from living populations and they, very tellingly, didn't allow us to predict correctly what ancient populations would be like, genetically.<br />
<br />
The Y-DNA associated with early neolithic farmers seems to belong mainly to G, a likely correlate of Lazaridis' WHG component, since it's a West Eurasian Y-DNA haplogroup. The mainly mtDNA N derived haplogroups in European farmers also seem to be correlates of Lazaridis' WHG component, since they're West Eurasian markers.<br />
<br />
In other words, we can identify European haplogroups that are analogous to WHG and ANE, but there don't seem to be any non-West Eurasian haplogroups that can be assigned to "Basal Eurasian" (a non-West Eurasian component). Based on the phylogenetic requirements of what it'd mean to be "basal" to Eurasians, detractors would have to find some sort of novel M or N lineage to prove "Basal Eurasian" is not African.<br />
<br />
A very tenuous thing to entertain, given the narrow gap between mtDNA M and N on the one hand, and L3 on the other hand. Not to mention, the fact that such lineages have never surfaced in living descendants of Near Eastern farmers. At present, the best translation of the notion of being "basal" to Eurasians in haplogroup language, is belonging to mtDNA L3, L4, L6 and Y-DNA DE (which has been proven to branch from a node that is basal to Eurasian CF [<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2336805/">Karafet et al 2008</a>], even though some still perpetuate the self-serving myth that it's a sister clade to CF).<br />
<br />
Many people don't know that genes on the mtDNA genome contribute to the generation of cellular (and therefore bodily) heat, among other phenotypes responsive to climatic natural selection [<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0587.2010.06540.x/abstract" target="_blank">Heulin et al 2011</a>]. This means that individuals whose ancestors originate in a different eco-zones than the ones they inhabit, are potentially subject to purifying selection acting directly on their mtDNA genome (as opposed to just a maladaptive allele) [<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0587.2010.06540.x/abstract" target="_blank">Heulin et al 2011</a>; <a href="http://m.pnas.org/content/100/1/171.full" target="_blank">Mishmar et al 2003</a>; Huang et al 2014].<br />
<br />
This would cause entire mtDNAs of a particular ancestry to dwindle in frequency, with the Y chromosomes of males with ecologically maladaptive mtDNAs suffering the same fate. This potentially explains not only the seemingly skewed pattern we see in early farming Europe (i.e. WHG haplogroup profiles, but partially "Basal Eurasian" genomes), but also the fact that the first ancient E-V13 Y-haplogroup and the most ancient mtDNA L lineages so far have been found in Spain [<a href="http://m.pnas.org/content/108/45/18255.full" target="_blank">Lacan et al 2011</a>; <a href="http://www.tesisenxarxa.net/handle/10803/795;jsessionid=F948FA3D98AAAFCB0365548C53AE2161.tdx1" target="_blank">Fernandez et al 2005</a>], which has a climate similar to that of coastal North Africa)<br />
<br />
Strouhal [<a href="http://jnls.cup.org/abstract.do;jsessionid=0D8F11A9E21D9081A91857099102AA45?componentId=2645096&jid=%3CjournalId%3E" target="_blank">Strouhal 1971</a>] cites an anecdote detailing the seemingly absurdly high, lopsided mortality among ethnic Sudanese soldiers in an Egyptian army in 1824. The supposed death toll was 17.000 out of 20.000 soldiers, while the Egyptians remained healthy under similar conditions. Mind you, this supposedly took place in southern Egypt (Aswan), not in the Levant or Europe. But then again, the desert temperatures fall so drastically at nightime in the Sahara that it might as well be.<br />
<br />
If one speculates that backfiring efficient heat dissipation (due to their highly tropically adapted bodyplans) was the cause behind much of the ethnic differences in cold resistance, it could be argued that those with maladaptive mtDNA mutations contributing to reduced protection against cold, would be especially vulnerable. However, Strouhal cites pneumonia as one of the causes of death, suggesting there is more to this catastrophy than mere cold.<br />
<br />
In any case, I would expect to see a drastically different mtDNA landscape in this population after such an ill-prepared military campaign, possibly with already present "Eurasian" mtDNAs (already having gone through similar selection in the Upper Palaeolithic during OOA), predominating in the surviving Sudanese population.<br />
<br />
To illustrate my point, I'm putting up my own minor investigation into the autosomal ancestry of the neolithic Avellaner cave specimen from Spain, and the results seem to support my case. While only 1/13 African haplogroup has been found in this sample (n=7), their probabilities of being Sub-Saharan in the 3 population analysis seem to be much higher than one would predict from the presence of the E-V13 carrier.<br />
<br />
Ave01 — 11% probabilty of being SSA (K1a - G2a)<br />
Ave02 — 10.5% probabilty of being SSA (K1a - G2a)<br />
Ave03 — 1.2% probabilty of being SSA (H3 - G2a)<br />
Ave04 — 82.4% probabilty of being SSA (T2b - x)<br />
Ave05 — 1.5% probabilty of being SSA (T2b - G2a)<br />
Ave06 — 23.3% probabilty of being SSA (K1a - G2a)<br />
Ave07 — 10.8% probabilty of being SSA (U5 - E1b1b1a1b [V13])<br />
<br />
Microsattelite data taken from [<a href="http://m.pnas.org/content/108/45/18255.full" target="_blank">Lacan et al 2011</a>] and processed using <a href="http://cracs.fc.up.pt/popaffiliator" target="_blank">popaffiliator</a><br />
<br />
It should be pointed out that, since these specimen originate from Spain, they may have come in contact with the (pre)predynastic Egyptian influenced southern neolithic pulse, which entered mainland Europe via Spain, from Africa. (For those unaware of this migration, it's not a controversial one; there is plenty of data pointing in this direction [<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1150856/">Anderung et al 2005; </a>; <a _blank="" href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajhb.22601/full">Pardinas et al 2014</a>]).
<br />
<br />
If so, this would make these results less extrapolatable to other European farmers that entered mainland Europe via the Aegean as some of those SSA probabilities could potentially mean SSA in a literal sense, as opposed to "Basal Eurasian".
<br />
<br />
Additionally, it should be noted that I've specifically used the three population analysis (as opposed to the 5 population analysis) because the populations used to model the North African and Near Eastern categories in the latter analysis are not devoid of outside genetic influences. The program is not concerned with correctly inputing ancestry in such a scenario; it merely assigns probabilities.Egyptsearch 2.0.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01151811668848185638noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2228479896251323115.post-43687612025874880582014-12-31T07:59:00.001-08:002015-01-14T04:35:21.941-08:00The seeming demise of the Egyptsearch forum--an insider's account of how everything suddenly went downhill<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhspNsdInl8TNf9SuHESM5qWUdRV9omukfPlJRYBNeBqYUrcYar2mmf_ZLMH_HZOHtYxWVlVjPNzlblVIAWWQN2JuWlKtI43xkkWXU_5GtwVybC9a7g8K744rpklJk8ZTS1dFff4ZozCO-t/s1600/sinking-ship.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhspNsdInl8TNf9SuHESM5qWUdRV9omukfPlJRYBNeBqYUrcYar2mmf_ZLMH_HZOHtYxWVlVjPNzlblVIAWWQN2JuWlKtI43xkkWXU_5GtwVybC9a7g8K744rpklJk8ZTS1dFff4ZozCO-t/s320/sinking-ship.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
The old Egyptsearch forum (ESF, henceforth) has been going through several turbulent changes the past couple of weeks. Forget the earlier dysfunctionalities that plagued this forum; these new problems could prove to be much more destructive, even irreversible.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>This new, unprecedented turn of events followed on the heels of a surprising public service announcement made by a veteran poster slash moderator, named Ausar. After posting for a decade under the self-professed identity of a native Upper Egyptian, he admitted that he wasn't who he had maintained he was, all along. Allegedly, he did it to add credibility to his view that the ancient Egyptians were Africans.<br />
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For those of you looking to somehow turn this into an inherently "Afrocentric" deception to resort to, for whatever it's worth: Ausar is not African (American), but Euro-American (as are most others who have historically tried to use this appeal to authority fallacy on ESF).<br />
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Following this admission, some suggested that he pass on his moderator account to someone with more commitment to offer. To those unfamiliar with the workings of the Egyptsearch forum, the notion of swapping pre-existing mod account credentials (complete with the former account owner's name and posting history) to a regular poster will seem like a very messy and roundabout way of appointing a new moderator, and I agree.<br />
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But with the owner of ESF abandoning his own site and regularly spitting in the face of the very people who are generating his traffic, and thus, ad-based income (the owner comes by unannounced every once in a while to silently delete threads), the aforementioned mod transition is just an example of the many desperate predicaments they've found themselves in, refusing to let go of something that's perpetually slapping them in the face.<br />
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Enter 8-9-2014, the day that the current moderator, who goes by the names of alTakruri, Tukuler and Ardo, was given the login credentials in a semi-nepotistic, undemocratic fashion (a forebode of what would later typify this illegitimate moderator's oppressive moderation regime). While it would be unfair to say that other members weren't asked to come forward and voice their willingness (I was specifically asked, but I declined), the end decision to suddenly appoint alTakruri and a second member, wasn't determined by way of votes or any other agreeable way.<br />
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The fact that this second member was absent during this whole time (and thus, one would think, unable to express willingness to volunteer), betrayes that conversations were being held behind the scenes, which were obviously more influential in Ausar's end decision than Ausar's outward show of deliberating in the open.<br />
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Fast forward to the day of this writing: it's now more than 2.5 months ago--plenty of time assess the effects his moderation regime of alienating everyone by throwing his bantam weight around and abusing a moderating account he wasn't authorized to use in ths first place (which I can only assume is illegal), is having on the forum he presides over.<br />
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The forum has become a shell of its former self, which says a lot, considering the already crappy state things were in before. You'd have to be extremely obtuse to force a forum deeper into the abyss with a mod than without one. During his short stint as a moderator, he has steered ESF to new lows that would have been unimaginable a couple of weeks ago.<br />
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ESF is now submerged in malware, Google has removed most ESF links from its search results, the few lurkers not initially repulsed by ESF, who have become members, seem to be walking away from the forum due to the current mod's regime, which seems entirely indistinguishable from Sammy's regime.<br />
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Even veteran posters seem reluctant to post in the subforum he moderates, where both the lingering threat and effects of his arbitrary and vindictive moderation are tangible. You can see him try to appear reasonable after his childish rants, but the fact is, those who have seen his true face, including instances when he went on murder and mutilation filled rants, have been disillusioned with him and his fake modesty for a long time.Egyptsearch 2.0.http://www.blogger.com/profile/01151811668848185638noreply@blogger.com26