Europe's conquering heroes? Likely farmers: study

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Europe's conquering heroes? Likely farmers: study

WASHINGTON, Jan. 19, 2010 (Reuters) — The conquerors who spread their seed across Europe in ancient times were prosperous farmers who imported their skills from the Middle East, researchers reported on Tuesday.

A study of the Y chromosome -- passed down with very little change from father to son -- suggests that the men of Europe are descended from populations that moved into Europe 10,000 years ago from the "Fertile Crescent", which stretches from Egypt across the Middle East into present-day Iraq.

"Maybe, back then, it was just sexier to be a farmer," Dr. Patricia Balaresque of Britain's University of Leicester said in a statement.

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More here.

I don't think it was a question of sexy, you just ate more regularly.

Hmmm, this is a brand new article so I will have to read it.

By all acounts though, the jury is still far from out as to the age & origin of R1b1b2.

Don't go making proclamations just yet!

Most British men are descended from ancient farmers

OK, I'm back after reading this through during my lunch break.

I've also perused Dieneke's site as well as Maju's & DNA Forums.

What it boils down to are the rates of mutations. There are different ways to calculate genetic mutation rates and some debate has been going on in the the genetic genealogy circles as to what rate calculation is the best. In this particular article, they use the so-called "pedigree rate" which makes things look younger as opposed to other methods.

So, in short, while it seems certain that R1b1b2 entered Europe from the east, the question is, when? 25,000 years ago or only 10,000?

Anyhoo, I've attached a PDF of the actual article for anyone who is interested.

Another thing to keep in mind in these PC times with sensationalist headlines like "European men are descended from Middle East Farmers" is this: let's say for the sake of argument that is ineed so and that the mighty R1b was carried into Europe by a bunch of farming usurpers from the east. In modern day populations of the Middle East, R1b is rare to non-existent. Therefore, all the R1bs left, creating a vaccum for the J & E lineages that now dominate the Middle East. The highest percentages of one clade or another of R1b in the east are found in Anatolia (15%) and amongst Ossetians (43%).

My money is still on one of two scenarios: R1b is either a lineage of the Paleolithic/Mesolithic times in Europe or, it actually came to Europe after the introduction of agriculture on the backs of horses from the steppes.

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Originally Posted by Allenson

My money is still on one of two scenarios: R1b is either a lineage of the Paleolithic/Mesolithic times in Europe or, it actually came to Europe after the introduction of agriculture on the backs of horses from the steppes.

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R1b is probably a Paleolithic lineage. Most Paleolithic Europeans adopted agriculture through cultural diffusion, not demic diffusion.

According to Kalevi Wiik, demic diffusion happened only in the blue area, everything outside that area was cultural diffusion. The black dots shows the border between demic and cultural diffusion.

http://i49.tinypic.com/n21myh.jpg


Kalevi Wiik also states that agriculture was brought to Europe by 3 clans: E3b, J2 and G2.

http://i45.tinypic.com/2h6vf5l.jpg

Like most of the time, Dienekes made an excellent evaluation of the paper, so there is little to add from the theoretical, genetic side of things.

Funnily the authors of the newspaper try to interpret the results in harmless and "politically correct" way, make stupid and worthless comments without significance.

The real facts are, if that theory would be proven, that Neolithic males exterminated the aboriginal male population in an area so wide, nobody ever had considered and robbed in a more or less peaceful way the females. How does that fit into the "peaceful development", "multicultural harmony" and "matriarchal farmers" crap?

We can find Neolithic proves for war, conflicts, mass murder of males-robbed females etc., the question is not whether it happened, but from which time on it was an important issue and how important was it for selective processes. I consider it very important, especially in the Late Neolithic and Bronze Age without a doubt, it was responsible for the progressive racial developments at that time in a climatic optimum and spread robust leptodolichomorphs to all favourable places.

But this was intensified later and came from the East in Late/Postneolithic waves mostly.

I still dont believe that R1b1b2 spread primarily in Neolithic times so far, but rather in an at least Mesolithic continuity for a large portion, but I consider it as an less likely option so to say and expect more clear cut results and arguments from the future research.

But even if accepting a late and rapid expansion of R1b1b2, I agree that the path from Southern Russia is MUCH more likely.

We have to consider that the Neolithic movements happened in various steps. So there were original Neolithic settlers, then there were mixed and assimilated cultures. As soon as the locals assimilated, they had the same advantage. So local European groups from early Neolithicised areas, especially South Eastern Europe, had the same advantages then, probably even more, once they adapted to the regional demands and became somewhat more effective "militarily" too, as former higher hunters and more specialised on animal husbandry, mobile, more herder-warrior style of life than the earliest farmers.

So there were, in my opinion, secondary centers from which better adapted Neolithic groups expanded to the rest of Europe, the LBK, Corded and Kurgan cultures being among the most prominent and important ones, all from the East, whereas a primary wave expanded along the Mediterranean shores and being closer related to the "classic Neolithic markers". Whereas those played an important role for the secondary centers too, the bulk was SE-Eastern European in origin it seems.

Additionally, at that time, from a racial point of view, only the introduced traits and "cultural bag" with the associated selective regime really mattered, regions at that time meant little, dont forget we deal with a post-Ice Age period in which we had very different conditions shortly before.

As I pointed out in the linked thread below, Catalhöyük f.e. represents highly progressive, leptodolichomorphic robust Mediterranoids, the character of the population there changed since then and the various strains of leptodolichomorphs split further up too.

The whole issue relates somewhat to this thread:
http://www.theapricity.com/forum/sho...d.php?p=152702

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descended from populations that moved into Europe 10,000 years ago from the "Fertile Crescent"

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Actually even a large portion of the Anatolian Neolithic people descendend from assimilated groups it seems, which, like Catalhöyük, were closer to the European forms than those from further South, the Natufians like being described by some, in particular.

Some thoughts:

This would give credibility to the theories that ancient middle eastern populations such as the ancient Sumerians resembled those of modern Europe.

The time period coincides with rising sea levels, perhaps these farmers fleeing areas which are now underwater and bringing technology with them are the origin of the Atlantis/hyperborea legends.


Also of relevence to some threads of a few months ago:

By contrast, recent genome-wide SNP typing
surveys find a basic south–north division or gradient,
including greater diversity in the south, but they provide no
indication of the time-depth of the underlying events, which could in
principle involve contributions from the original colonization,
postglacial Paleolithic recolonization, Neolithic expansion, and later
contact between Africa and southern Europe

Indeed, the Black Sea was a very important route for the possible expansion of Neolithics to "inform" and help to build up the Eastern steppe cultures, the Kurgan cultures in particular.

Additionally, we shouldnt forget that after the Ice Age, the climate still changed, it wasnt always as stable as today. Some areas in the Middle East and North Africa which were good lands for farmers and herders at the beginning, allowed a certain population growth, became "overloaded" and dried out later. So, both in North Africa, the Middle East and parts of the Eastern European steppe region, we deal with people which adopted the Neolithic innovations successfully, but got problems in their habitat and most likely began to move in a big scale once the situation deteriorated.

In later times, the same principle can be applied to Northern Europe, in which the population level rose in a favourable climatic and cultural period, but became unbearable later, leading to a quite violent regional development and over-regional expansion of the various Nordic people, especially the Nordid variants which grew the strongest "in the good times of the North".

Thats the principle of immigration, build up, regional deterioration and expansion, repeated by various people, but especially the Northern Europeans, steppe people and desert-oasis people, all being more warlike and having a strong animal husbandry tradition alike, which made them better nourished, better organised, more warlike, more mobile etc. and of course more progressive racially.

The really interesting thing about R1b is its presence among Chadic speakers and in various parts of Africa, always in a position and context, which suggests Afro-Asiatic Europid expansions. Now that comes, at least to me, as a surprise, because R1b is not really the haplogroup I assocated with Afro-Asiatics in the past and its rather weak among most later ones - probably because of new waves from the Near East which came later to North Africa?

However, I think thats also an important issue to be studied.

The story of the Hausa is somewhat similar to that of some other people which came under the influence of warlike, high standing and well organised people, rather from patriarchal herder-warrior traditions:

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Between 500 CE and 700 CE Hausa people, who had been slowly moving west from Nubia and mixing in with the local Northern and Central Nigerian population, established a number of strong states in what is now Northern and Central Nigeria and Eastern Niger.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hausa_people

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Origin myths among the Hausa claim that their founder, Bayajidda, came from the east in an effort to escape his father. He eventually came to Gaya, where he employed some blacksmiths to fashion a knife for him. With his knife he proceeded to Daura where he freed the people from the oppresive nature of a sacred snake who guarded their well and prevented them from getting water six days out of the week. The queen of Daura gave herself in marriage to Bayajidda to show her appreciation. The two gave birth to seven healthy sons, each of whom ruled the seven city states that make up Hausaland. The rise of the Hausa states occurred between 500 and 700 A.D., but it was not until 1200 that they really began to control the region. The history of the area is intricately tied to Islam and the Fulani who wrested political power from the Hausa in the early 1800s through a series of holy wars.

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Interesting is also:

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to fashion a knife for him. With his knife he proceeded to Daura where he freed the people from the oppresive nature of a sacred snake who guarded their well and prevented them from getting water six days out of the week.

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Sounds like a primitive cult of another leadership, probably a more religious-superstitious one, probably even by female priests? Hard to tell, but it seems the newcomers simply destroyed it.

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Leadership in the early Hausa states was based on ancestry. Those who could trace their relations back to Bayajidda were considered royal.

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http://www.uiowa.edu/~africart/toc/people/Hausa.html

Today most Hausa are just Northern Sudanids, yet some still show Europoid influences and historically that might have been stronger in the upper class. It seems Afro-Asiatic Europids entered the region, subjected the regional people and cult, intermarried with the leading class and forming a blood aristocracy.

It would be also interesting to know the exact time of expansion of these R1b carriers in the region, whether they can be associated to the Chadic migration and expansion.

Compare with:
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2010/01...-speakers.html

and

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Cruciani and his colleagues suggest that R1b1a (V88) entered Africa when the Sahara was a green and fertile region, dotted with huge lakes. The global warming after the Last Glacial Maximum released a mass of water from melting glaciers. Monsoons drenched the Sahara. Until recently it was thought that a change in climate around 5,500 years ago (3,500 BC) suddenly dried out the Sahara, creating the vast desert we see today. The Cruciani paper follows this thinking. It was probably written before new data was published in 2008 that suggested that the process of drying out was more gradual. Sedimentary cores taken from Lake Yoa indicate that the area grew more arid over a period from 6,000 to 2,700 years ago.

So the date of the southward spread of Proto-Chadic does not have to be before 3,500 BC.

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http://dna-forums.com/index.php?/blo...r1b-in-africa/