Christopher Gwinn wrote:
> Has anyone seen this article yet? I was wondering what relevance
some of the genetic data - specifically the genetic tree displayed -
has to Nostratic and PIE (note the close genetic ties between the
Basques and the Europeans).
>
> http://www.discovery.com/news/briefs/20001106/hi_hu_adam.html
Thanks Chris for this.
A few points that need to be added.
This way of displaying a genetic tree is best conceived as though one
were above the tree looking down on the ground. This gives the
pattern of the branches, but it does not show you where the trunk is.
Firstly it suggests that there is a very old African phase of
splitting populations, involving Central, Southern, Khoisan and Mali.
(The South West Branch of the tree)
Secondly, there are at least three separate movements "Out of Africa".
The first of these is the North West Branch, of about 75-80,000 years
BP. This is a branch that travelled east along the shorelines (as
mentioned in the article). The first off this branch were the Sahul
people - Australian and New Guinean (65-70,000 BP), then Cambodian
and lastly the Japanese, Taiwanese and Chinese. This suggests that
Japanese has closer links to Austronesian than to Altaic (Japanese is
often seen as a fusion of linguistic elements from these two). The
second feature to note is that Chinese is linked in here too.
Linguisticaly this is anomalous as Chinese is usually seen with the
Sino-Tibetan Family as a language that developed from the Upper
Paleolithic Ordosian culture of North China, imposed upon indigenous
Austric peoples of the south.
The second of these movements is for everyone else on the tree, and
is probably associated with the Aurignacian cultures of 40,000 which
left from North East Africa (hence Ethiopia and Sudan are part of
it), and travelled out onto the Eurasian steppe through the Middle
East. The people who split first in this wave and who travelled
furtherest are the Amerinds (Via Malaya, Mal'ta and Denali cultures)
(about 55,000 BP). The second most distant genetically are the "stay
at home" Africans. The position of the Sardinians is interesting
here. In previous posts I have suggested that they have best
preserved the "European Upper Paleolithic Genome" , 40,000 BP(whilst
Basque has best preserved the "European Upper Paleolithic Language").
The remaining groups would seem to be the "Gravetian" Eurasian Steppe
peoples, resulting in the Central Asian, Hunza and Indian peoples.
The last out of Africa movement would seem to be the Nostratics (Afro-
Asiatic 18,000 BP (Moroccan and Middle East) and European). The
position of the Basque, as close to the Eropean suggests that the
Basques have been closely genetically connected with their
neighbouring Indo-Europeans, whilst maintaining their own linguistic
uniqueness.
So where does the "trunk" of this genetic tree attach to the ground?
On a centroid analysis it would be half way along the line joining
the Malian with the fork of the first Out of Africans (the North West
Branch).
Hope this helps
Regards
John