Re: Europeans descend from Basques

--- In cybalist@..., "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

> --- In cybalist@..., "ehlsmith" <ehlsmith@...> wrote:

>>....but for whatever it is worth I have just
> > finished reading a summary of Richards et al.'s findings
> in "Mapping
> > Human History: Discovering the Past Through Our Genes" [Steve
> Olson:
> > Houghton Mifflin: 2002]. Olson discusses this study on pages 172-
> 174.
> > He makes the point that while 22% of European mitochondrial DNA

can

> > be traced to the spread of agricultural people from the Middle
> East,
> > on the other hand only 10% can be traced to the original

settlement

> > of Europe by homo sapiens. Fully 60% appears to have come from

the

> > Middle East and western Asia during the time between those two
> > events; Olson says "probably as a result of a continuous trickle

of

> > people".
> >
> > To me this would seem to both support the suggestion that the
> > precursor to Vasconic could have come into Europe well after its
> > initial settlement, and also suggest that the precursor to PIE
> could
> > have came into Europe before the spread of agriculture. 60% of

the

> > mtDNA pool seems to imply an awful lot of movement into Europe,
> even
> > if each individual component was too small by itself to leave

much

> of
> > an impact on the archaeological record.
> >
> > Ned Smith
>

[TP]> Perhaps it did leave an archaeological record. Cf. in

>
> http://www.rastko.org.yu/arheologija/ajovanovic-nekropole.html
>
> "
> The preceding discussion suggests that the native tradition had

very

> little influence on the appearance of inhumation graves in the

early

> imperial period in the territory of Yugoslavia. The skeleton graves
> of this period were an alien form associated with immigrants from

the

> Orient. This conclusion is supported by the location and

distribution

> of these graves, the time of their greatest use (which is
> contemporaneous with the appearance of Oriental cults and intensive
> settlement of immigrants from the Orient in the Balkan provinces),
> the results of the anthropological analyses of the osteological
> material from some sites (Viminacium), and the character of the
> accompanying material.
>
> "
> ...
> "
> Consequently, the inhumation graves from the early imperial period
> should be attributed to immigrants from the Orient who began to
> settle in large towns in the 1st century and came in larger numbers
> in the 2nd century and at the beginning of the 3rd century A.D., as

a

> result of the economic policy of the Antonian and Severian emperors.
>
> The inhumation graves from the 2nd century A.D. in Dacia (Apulum,
> Romula) and in the Hungarian part of the province of Pannonia (e.g.
> Intercisa) have the same ethnical and cultural traits.
>
> All the general interpretations of the problem of inhumation in the
> early imperial period assume, in varying degrees, the presence of

an

> Oriental sepulchral component. The views concerning this problem

can

> be classed into three basic groups:
>
> - that inhumation is a result of intensive contacts and mutual
> influences between the eastern Mediterranean and Italy;
>
> - that inhumation is a result of the merging of eastern sepulchral
> traditions and of a renaissance of the earlier Italian funerary
> forms, particularly manifested in the decoration and form of stone
> sarcophagi found in Rome at the end of the 1st and in the first

half

> of the 2nd century A.D.: and
>
> - that inhumation is a consequence of the Christian diaspora.
>
> Although apparently different, these this have some basic elements

in

> common: they all postulate influences from the East and their

merging

> with the native sepulchral tradition, and they treat the chronology
> of these phenomena in the same way.
>
> "
>
> In other words, a rather massive orientalization within a short

span

> of time.
>
> If the immigration I (or rather Snorri) proposed (Tauri(Crimea) ->
> Taurisci (Slovenia, Pannonia, Bohemia) -> Hermun-duri, Turingi,
> Tungri (Thuringia) -> South Jutland, Fyn -> Swedish Uppland

actually

> happened, it might account for a good deal of the 60% of Middle
> Eastern origin of the European gene pool. The one place I have some
> quantative information is the supposed entry of these "Tur" people
> into Denmark: On the transition from Celtic to Roman Iron Age (ca

50

> BCE - 0) the number of finds increases dramatically. Perhaps Snorri
> didn't call then "Asiamenn" without reason.

By implication, the results cited by Olson would indicate that about
8% of the mtDNA must be associated with post-Neolithic movements into
Europe (which is still a good amount). I really cannot say how the
researchers conclude that the 60% is to be attributed to the period
between first settlement and the spread of agriculture, but was just
reporting that they had come to that conclusion. However, just my own
humble opinion- if such a large component of the European gene pool
did not arrive until the late Iron Age it ought to be very easy to
prove. Testable DNA could probably still be extracted from many
graves predating that time- if the hypothesis Olson reported is
correct, those should reveal the same 60%; if yours is correct it
should be missing. Furthermore, if the influx of such a huge
component of the gene pool occurred in a very short time shouldn't
there be a rather large variation among its frequencies in various
populations? In otherwords, it would be very much higher in areas
directly settled by your proposed invaders, and quite lower in
peripheral areas, such as Ireland or Iberia. It is my understanding
that a variation of that magnitude was not found.

[TP]> I don't believe in people trickling. It was not a safe thing to
do

> then.

Most genetic historians whose work I have read of do seem to believe
in it though. As far as safety goes, that is a relative term-
travelling off over the horizon to unknown territory might have been
unsafe, but would it have been as unsafe as staying put when you knew
you were about to die of starvation or be overwhelmed by an enemy?

Ned