Re: Interpreting the Y-Chromosome Research

Michal, you wrote:
<<I don't agree that we have no clues at all. Firstly, the 09 lineage had
quite recent (just one node back) ancestors with three groups that are
dominant (or it's close to be dominant) in Near East and northern Africa
(the "89 only" group), in Caucasus and Near East (the 172 lineage), in
Europe (the 170 lineage) and one group that is rare and present mostly in
Southern Asia (the 52 + 69 group).>>

If I'm right about this being a cladistic tree, you may be reading the
ancestry incorrectly. The M172 mutation (Underhill's haplotype 58) or any of
Haplogroup VI is not an ancestor to mutation M09 (haplotype 87). It is a
completely separate branch off haplotype 71 (M89). Each branch could have
occurred any time in the existence of haplotype 71 (which apparently exists
even to this day in a form with no sign of subsequent mutation.) The ONLY
thing that a phylogenic tree tells you is the necessary order of events, but
nothing about absolute time. And in the case of two parallel branching
decendents, it will not even tell you which one branched off first, or the
time interval between the branchings. And the odds are always they were not
simultaeneous.

In fact, there is no way in telling in a phylogenic tree whether M172 arose
5000 years before M09 or 5000 years after. (Ave mutations from the root
might justify some inference re absolute time, but this is complicated by the
fact that mutation rates ordinarily vary by 1000's of years.) On a tiny
scale, it's like the situation I heard of where a man had a grandchild who
was older than his brother. In deep time lineage, this sort of thing happens
more often than not. Some of these existing anchor haplotypes are in theory
10's of 1000's of years old and could have mutated different descendents at
vastly different times.

All we really know is that each of these two mutations (09 and 172) happened
in different individuals somewhere, and both of these individuals were
carrying M89 traits (haplotype 71), but neither was carrying ANY parallel or
later mutations (e.g., 170, 62, 52 or 69.) If you look at Table 2 in
Underhill, you'll see for example that the last "defining mutation" of
Haplogroup VI (yellow) is nothing more than the presence of M89 but the
absence of M09.

So, the haplotypes or mutations you mentioned above don't tell us where or
when 09 happened or if it did or did not predate those mutations you mention.

Steve