Re: Europeans descend from Basques

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

> --- In cybalist@..., "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> > A very good idea. One problem however is that between the

Neolithic

> > and Roman Iron Age, cremation is the only form of burial (at

least

> > here in Denmark), and you won't get much DNA from ashes.
>
> Torsten,
>
> Have there been any recoveries of bog corpses which date to before
> the Roman Iron Age?
>
>

As for as I know, they have only been dated approximately, within
several hundred years, which means they could be either Celtic or
Roman Iron Age. It is not common to see those periods as being
divided by an invasion, which means precise dating has not been an
issue. But one should note that highest number of bog corpses, with
the nastiest deaths have been found in North Germany and Denmark. If
one conjectures an invasion around that time, new scenarios why they
were killed come to mind. People were not that different then.

> > > [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?

> >
> > Even a defeated army will try to stay together. Once it's broken
> up,
> > that's it. They're doomed.
>
> But armies would be irrelevant in the time period I was discussing.
> Only bands existed then. While Olson did not define what he meant

by

> "trickle" I don't believe he meant to imply that it was necessarily
> movement of isolated individuals. It could have occurred as

movements

> of bands. Given the long time period involved (c. 25, 0000 years),
> and the low population density of Europe (c. 100,000 total

population

> at max)it may have taken only about one new band every few years to
> account for the amount of added gene lines. Also, it did not have

to

> involve great distances at any one time; my back-of-the-envelope
> rough calculation is that an average rate of 4 km per generation
> suffices to cover the distance from the Urals to the Atlantic.
>
> [Note: Olson is not implying that bands maintained some sort of
> genetic purity as they travelled from one end of Europe to the

other.

> What travelled were the genes, and intermarriage between

neighboring

> bands could account for that.]

Marriage? Erh - OK. We're not talking Cimbri here, are we?

> >
> > And BTW, Hengist and Horsa didn't do much trickling either, did
> they?
> > Or William?
>
> Again irrelevant, since they existed at a time when society was
> organized at a level more complex than band. Furthermore, they

would

> be counter-examples if someone had claimed that "trickling" was the
> only way populations spread, but merely showing some cases where it
> didn't occur in no way is disproof of it occurring in other cases.
> (And by the way, weren't there Saxons in Britain before H&H and
> Normans in England before Wm.?)
>
> Regards,
> Ned

We're probably talking past one another. You are talking about
Neolithic migrations, I about Iron Age ones.

Torsten