Posted on 09/28/2009 8:11:25 PM PDT by BGHater
A few weeks ago I posted on a paper, Genetic Discontinuity Between Local Hunter-Gatherers and Central Europe's First Farmers.Another one is out in the same vein, Ancient DNA Reveals Lack of Continuity between Neolithic Hunter-Gatherers and Contemporary Scandinavians:
The driving force behind the transition from a foraging to a farming lifestyle in prehistoric Europe (Neolithization) has been debated for more than a century...Of particular interest is whether population replacement or cultural exchange was responsible...Scandinavia holds a unique place in this debate, for it maintained one of the last major hunter-gatherer complexes in Neolithic Europe, the Pitted Ware culture...Intriguingly, these late hunter-gatherers existed in parallel to early farmers for more than a millennium before they vanished some 4,000 years ago...The prolonged coexistence of the two cultures in Scandinavia has been cited as an argument against population replacement between the Mesolithic and the present...Through analysis of DNA extracted from ancient Scandinavian human remains, we show that people of the Pitted Ware culture were not the direct ancestors of modern Scandinavians (including the Saami people of northern Scandinavia) but are more closely related to contemporary populations of the eastern Baltic region. Our findings support hypotheses arising from archaeological analyses that propose a Neolithic or post-Neolithic population replacement in Scandinavia...Furthermore, our data are consistent with the view that the eastern Baltic represents a genetic refugia for some of the European hunter-gatherer populations.
The Saami are of interest because of their cultural and genetic uniqueness. They, and to a lesser extent Finns, have very high frequencies of mtDNA haplogroup U5, which is generally associated with the first modern human settlers of Europe. This haplogroup has been found in the papers which looked at hunter-gatherer populations in other regions of Europe. Additionally, the present expanse of the Saami is sharply contracted from heir range even 500 years ago, they were marginalized, assimilated and exterminated as Norwegians, Swedes and Finns spread north in the early modern period. But it turns out that particular lineages of found in these samples, in particular the 19 which were Pitted War Culture (PWC) are more common among the Latvians and Lithuanians. This table from the paper shows all the individuals and the frequencies in various nations. The gray are the 3 individuals from the Funnel Beaker Cultural/Trichterbecher Kultur (TRB):
The issue here is that for 1,000 years, between 3000 and 2000 BCE, the hunter-gatherer culture and the farmers "co-existed." Scandinavian is relatively marginal for many crops which were optimized for the Middle East and Mediterranean, so it is likely that hunter-gatherers in northern Europe had long experience (or at least vague knowledge) of sedentary populations over the horizon. One of the likely issues with the irruption of relatively dense living farmers among hunter-gatherers is that the historical record suggests decimation from disease, ecological marginalization, and finally outright genocide, among the latter due to the former. But if the lands which the hunter-gatherers inhabit are ecological inhospitable to farming then it is possible that the natural limit on the spread of agriculture will give the hunter-gatherers "demographic breathing" room and time to develop immunities. It seems that this sort of thing occurred in much of Scandinavia before the coalescence of a mixed-agricultural system which combined cereal production and cattle culture. By the time the farmers expanded north the hunter-gatherers likely had some coping mechanisms biologically (immunity) and culturally (diffusion can occur, and knowledge of what happened to the south would encourage caution).
I am intrigued by an "East Baltic refugia," because this is a case where perhaps the old-line physical anthropologists were correct, as they did posit and East Baltic race. Look at this PC chart:
Southern Italy and Latvia are at two ends of the distribution. In the context of these populations the southern Italians should be the most Neolithic, that is, derived from the pulse coming out of the Middle East. It is peculiar that Lithuania and Latvia are so distal, especially in relation to Russia. Historically Latvia and Lithuania have always been relatively "late to the game," they were the last regions to accept Christianity within Europe excepting the Saami. In some whats genetically they resemble Finno-Ugric peoples and not other Indo-European speakers (e.g., high frequencies of TAT). If there are candidates for populations who are the "original Europeans," I think it is reasonable to add the Baltic peoples to the Saami and Basque in the list of top contenders.
There are some issues:
1) They needed bigger sample sizes for the TRB.
2) Bigger sample sizes would be nice, period, in this case.
3) mtDNA tells you only show much. It is the maternal lineage, so perhaps the paternal lineage exhibits more continuity? (I'm skeptical, but it would be nice to know)
4) The PWC samples were from an island. Islands are often genetically strange because of their isolation. A mainland site would be less concerning.
5) In general, there are lots of weird discontinuities in mtDNA from what I can tell. We might want to be careful as to the reliability of this locus in giving us a fine-grained snapshot of population history.
Bryan Sykes might want to reconsider The Seven Daughters of Eve. Looks like Lilith's seed might have won out....
Citation Malmstro¨m et al., Ancient DNA Reveals Lack of Continuity between Neolithic Hunter-Gatherers and Contemporary Scandinavians, Current Biology (2009), doi:10.1016/j.cub.2009.09.017
H/T Dienekes
Rene ping.
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Saami, how we love ya, how we love ya, my dear old Saami... |
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My mtDNA is 'V' as are 52% of the Skolt Sami
Where Do The Finns Come From?
Sydaby ^ | Christian Carpelan
Not long ago, cytogenetic experts stirred up a controversy with their "ground-breaking" findings on the origins of the Finnish and Sami peoples. Cytogenetics is by no means a new tool in bioanthropological research, however. As early as the 1960s and '70s, Finnish researchers made the significant discovery that one quarter of the Finns' genetic stock is Siberian, and three quarters is European in origin. The Samis, however, are of different genetic stock: a mixture of distinctly western, but also eastern elements. If we examine the genetic links between the peoples of Europe, the Samis form a separate group unto themselves, and other Uralic peoples, too have a distinctive genetic profile.
[snip]
9,000 year old Cheddar Man has mtDNA U5a as does my dad's mother, Mrs Smith.
BTW, just picked up another thing Skolt have to worry about ~ this dates from our history of being serious seal hunters ~ B12 deficiency.
Worth getting a blood test for it.
Thanks, I'll do that.
Darn! My father’s folks came from northern Finland, near Tornio. Now my doctor has me taking 1000 mcgms of B~12 daily. Coincidence!?
The pills (sublingual) allow you to bypass the gut to get the B12 "inside". Fortunately you don't need much of it. They used to give shots of this stuff once a month and some genius figured out how to make it taste like cherry juice.
Regarding Finland, they have racially different groups there. First you have your Skolt, Northern and Inari Sa'ami. Then there are people like the Pomars, then the Swedes, then the guys who call themselves Finns but are like Estonians (Suomi?). There are some others ~ there would be some Samoyads around more than likely, and finally there are immigrants from the deep souf'.
Recently the Swedes discovered Arabic and Middle Eastern immigrants appear to have a very low birthrate these days ~ it's possible their haplogroups simply don't breed well in the North. A thought along that line is that the two most common haplogroups found among Europeans and Middle Easterners are NOT found among the Sa'ami or the Saudi Arabians. Then, in India it was just discovered there are only two main lines of people ~ those who have haplogroups common among Middle Eastern Persian types and those who have haplogroups common among the Andaman Islanders. Obvious question is what happened to the others?
We all may well be designed for specific habitats. If so, and considering this place doesn't get 45 days of continual night (for example), or even 1 day for that matter, we may all be living outside our range, eating food not good for us, and suffering all the ills that befell critters who stray from their natural range.
I was just reading many restaurants in Canada are now adding seal meat to their menus. May take a visit up there!
What happens is they have some deciduous teeth that don't have an adult tooth form under them and push it out.
All of that answers lots of questions around here ~ can't think of a family member without some problem like that.
The really big discovery is that today's Skolt Sa'ami clearly have larger teeth than their ancestors 200 years back. Their tooth size, if not that of other people, reflects diet. You'd think guys eating lots of reindeer would have plenty of calcium, but they did not, until recently, have the same access as others to plants.
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TOO COLDDDDD UP THERE!!
>> Pinging the other FReeper Sa’ami <<
Well, I’m a U5b — so I guess there now should be three of us Lapps on your list!
Good point about habit. I find it interesting that so many Scandinavian immigrants settled in MN. ancestry on both sides of me goes back to Sweden and Norway (not too long ago). I find I am highly adaptable to temperature. I’m never too hot or too cold it seems. The super dry and cracked skin on my hands during winter also seems to be a Scandinavian trait.
Although, no Saami history appears in my records were all blonde and red heads.
You also need a rather "perfectly round" head. The Sa'ami, through the forces of random chance, are going through a "round head" cycle these days.
As far as "climate range" is concerned, I definitely think that's a very real factor.
This weekend Tiger Woods' wife was featured in the news (much to her distress). So, there were a lot of "other than posed" pictures floating around.
I could not help but notice that she had an "uneven bite" and out of 10 teeth showing, 5 were slightly turned.
Her family are from a Sa'ami region in Northern Sweden.
It is possible American Sa'ami keep more than their fair share of orthodontists in business!
This weekend Tiger Woods' wife was featured in the news (much to her distress). So, there were a lot of "other than posed" pictures floating around.
I could not help but notice that she had an "uneven bite" and out of 10 teeth showing, 5 were slightly turned.
Her family are from a Sa'ami region in Northern Sweden.
It is possible American Sa'ami keep more than their fair share of orthodontists in business!
All of my granparents were from Norway - and we’ve traced it back 500+ years (all Norwegians).
But, my one grandfather had very dark features. Olive/brown skin, brown eyes, brown hair. My dad figured it must have been some genes left over from a Viking raid to the Mediterranian.
Later my dad was on a trip to Norway and finally made it way up north and visited the Saami and figured it out! One of the relatives lives in a nice house near the coast, but took him to visit where his herd was. Living out of tents, etc.
My dad asked him how many reindeer he had. The relative replied “only if you tell me how much money you have in the bank” :)
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