Posted on 12/24/2010 7:06:25 AM PST by SunkenCiv
The archaeology of North Africa remains enigmatic, with questions of population continuity versus discontinuity taking centre-stage. Debates have focused on population transitions between the bearers of the Middle Palaeolithic Aterian industry and the later Upper Palaeolithic populations of the Maghreb, as well as between the late Pleistocene and Holocene.
Results: Improved resolution of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroup U6 phylogeny, by the screening of 39 new complete sequences, has enabled us to infer a signal of moderate population expansion using Bayesian coalescent methods.
To ascertain the time for this expansion, we applied both a mutation rate accounting for purifying selection and one with an internal calibration based on four approximate archaeological dates: the settlement of the Canary Islands, the settlement of Sardinia and its internal population re-expansion, and the split between haplogroups U5 and U6 around the time of the first modern human settlement of the Near East.
Conclusions: A Bayesian skyline plot placed the main expansion in the time frame of the Late Pleistocene, around 20 ka, and spatial smoothing techniques suggested that the most probable geographic region for this demographic event was to the west of North Africa. A comparison with U6's European sister clade, U5, revealed a stronger population expansion at around this time in Europe.
Also in contrast with U5, a weak signal of a recent population expansion in the last 5,000 years was observed in North Africa, pointing to a moderate impact of the late Neolithic on the local population size of the southern Mediterranean coast.
(Excerpt) Read more at 7thspace.com ...
Population expansion in the North African Late Pleistocene signalled by mitochondrial DNA haplogroup U6full author list:
Luisa Pereira, Nuno Silva, Ricardo Franco-Duarte, Veronica Fernandes, Joana Pereira, Marta Costa, Haide Martins, Pedro Soares, Doron Behar, Martin Richards, Vincent Macaulay
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What does that mean in English?
what does this mean?
lol
Location, location, location...
I'll admit it's a sort of an enigma that anybody could earn his living turning up monkey bones and human footprints in the same place and claiming that to be evidence of a monkey with human-like feet (Lucy) rather than evidence of a human with a pet monkey having lived near the spot...
You make a very interesting point, Pet Monkey. Dogs were said to be with cave men so why not train a monkey to harvest fruit and such?
Folks all got fat in the Ice Age.
I will suggest that to the cavemen. They haven’t thought of it before.
Yeah. And if you couldn’t train the monkey you could always eat him.
Haplogroup U5
Among the oldest mtDNA haplogroups found in European remains of Homo sapiens is U5. The age of U5 is estimated at 50,000 but could be as old as 60,500 years. Approximately 11% of total Europeans and 10% of European-Americans are in haplogroup U5.
The presence of haplogroup U5 in Europe pre-dates the expansion of agriculture in Europe. Bryan Sykes' popular book The Seven Daughters of Eve calculated that it arose 45,000-50,000 years ago in Delphi, Greece and named the originator of haplogroup U5 Ursula. However the details related to location and age are speculative. Barbujani and Bertorelle estimate the age of haplogroup U5 as about 52,000 years ago, being the oldest subclade of haplogroup U.
My dad's mother (Mrs. Smith) has mtDNA U5a as does 9,000 year old. Cheddar Man
About 50% of the Sa'ami of Finland have haplogroup U5b, the other (about ) 50% have haplogroup 'V', same as me.
Whew. I had been wondering about this for a long time.
Do you know anything about getting a DNA test for (your) own ancestry? I see National Geographic has one for $100.
Been thinking of having it done. Some experienced input would help.
Merry Christmas!
“we applied both a mutation rate accounting for purifying selection”
Another of those artificial yard-sticks used to rationalize any conclusion you’d like.
I am still confused.
You could prolly even train one to be POTUS.
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