1. There are genetic reasons for linking Danes with North Germans. A
recent BBC program on the Vikings attempted to assess their impact on
the peopling of Britain by comparing Y chromosomes. The reference
groups used were Irish (for local Celtic population), Norwegians and
Danes (for the Vikings) and North Germans (for the Anglo-Saxon
invaders). I can't remember whether Friesians or Dutchmen were
included. Although the Norwegian impact could be identified, the
Danish and North German Y chromosomes were not different enough (or
were they not different at all?) to distinguish the descendants of
the Danes from the descendants of the Anglo-Saxon invaders.
I recall that the conclusions were that
(a) The Shetlanders were only half-Norse. I am not sure what the
other 50% was.
(b) Northern England was more Germanic than Celtic. I do not
remember the Norse non-Norse split.
(c) Southern England was more Celtic than Germanic.
2. The numbers in Table 5 of
http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~macaulay/papers/richards_2000.pdf do not
seem to be a strong indication of any pattern of recent immigration
outside the Eastern Mediterranean:
(a) 7.4 +- 3.3 implies a better than 1 in 7 chance of being less than
4.1 and a better than 1 in 7 chance of being greater than 10.7.
(b) These numbers are unreliable:
(i) On one hand, they are inflated by the assumptions behind the
Bayesian analysis. The data was based, in the analyses, on the
assumption that a 'founder lineage' taken at random had an 'a priori'
1 in 5 (or 1 in 6 in the extended model, not used for Table 5) chance
of being in the 'other, later' category. In other words, if the data
had been totally inconclusive, the paper would have divided the
origins equally between the assumed migration episodes!
The central percentage estimates for 'recent/Bronze Age' in Table 5
are all higher than the 'fs' entry in Table 4. At first sight, this
seems wrong. The only explanation I can see is that for Table 5, the
allocation to migration events for, e.g., SE Europe, was made using
only the evidence for SE Europe. As there were more samples for the
whole of Europe than for SE Europe, the a priori distribution (20% to
each migration episode) had a visible, greater influence on the
results for SE Europe than on the results for the whole of Europe.
(ii) If you look at Table 3, you will see that the dating is far from
precise, and if you read the discussion of the statistical
techniques, you will see that even these error bars are optimistic.
(iii) On the other hand, these numbers don't include the commonest
type of mtDNA, which accounts for 16% of Europeans. It seems
particularly common in the Neolithic and later immigrant groups!
Table 4 shows that when this type is included (and statistical
methods abandoned!), the number of recent arrivals significantly
increases. (I am strongly tempted to perform an internal
reconstruction on this paper. It shows signs of intense
methodological debate.)
3. The most obvious erratics are African (in SW Europe) or East
Eurasian (common in NE Europe, but seen elsewhere) . What haplotypes
would be typical of Sundaland? You should be able to use the list of
founders in the paper to identify the erratics. (You may discuss the
mechanics with me off-list. I worry that this discussion is straying
off-topic.)
Richard.
-----Original Message-----
From: tgpedersen [mailto:
tgpedersen@...]
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2002 12:26 PM
To:
cybalist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [tied] Re: Europeans descend from Basques
--- In cybalist@..., "ehlsmith" <ehlsmith@...> wrote:
> --- In cybalist@..., "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
> > --- In cybalist@..., "ehlsmith" <ehlsmith@...> wrote:
>
<Snip>
These are Richards' numbers (Table 5) for percentages of genes
originating from a proposed Bronze Age invasion from the Middle East,
ordered by European population group (they call their
method "Procrustean"; later actual invasions (eg 500 BCE and 0 CE)
would show up in this category). Why they insist (like everybody
else, except the Danes, perhaps this could be used in an operational
definitiopn of what Danes are?) on grouping the Danes with Poles,
Czechs and Germans as Central North Europeans, I shall never know.
Anyway:
SE Europe 8.2 +- 3.3
Eastern Med 19.5 +- 3.7
Central Med 4.6 +- 1.6
Alps 6.9 +- 2.7
NC Europe 8.9 +- 3.5
W Med 6.3 +- 2.5
Basque Country 5.4 +- 2.6
NW Europe 4.6 +- 1.5
Scandinavia 7.4 +- 3.3
NE Europe 5.5 +- 3.0
If that is not consistent with an invasion from the Middle East to
the Eastern Mediterranean to North Centyral Europe to Scandinavia, I
don't know what is.
And by the way, here are the "errratics". I wonder if any of them
would be consistent with a Sundaland origin?
SE Europe 2.6
Eastern Med 2.9
Central Med 3.3
Alps 1.4
NC Europe 1.5
W Med 6.5
Basque Country 2.6
NW Europe 1.3
Scandinavia 1.6
NE Europe 2.7
<Snip>
Torsten