Solutrean hypothesis: Native American Clovis Culture & NW Europe: (ydna Q, mtdna X2)

As someone who not only entertains the Clovis/Solutreans connection, but supports it... I think Solutean's main "proof" revolves around the maternal X2 we see centered around what is New York State. I haven't heard another good explanation of this haplogroup's curious location, and it's the key facet of this entire controversial conjecture. Of course this is only my opinion-- as we all know everyone has one.

problem is x2 in American Natives is a sperate subclade, not found in Eurasia ..
 
I don't think that supporters of the Solutrean hypothesis are being racist, I just think that they're wrong. The greatest evidence against it is the temporal difference of a few thousand years. By the time Clovis appears, SW Europe was no longer Solutrean.

I agree. What also intrigues me is the position of Q1a2a1a2 (L804) on the phylogenetic tree. Here is the current sub-structure of the Q1a2a1 (L54) branch:

· Q1a2a1a (CTS11969)

  • Q1a2a1a1 (M3): the main subclade of Native Americans
  • Q1a2a1a2 (L804): found in Germany, Scandinavia and Britain (possibly Hunnic)
    • Q1a2a1a2a (L807): observed in Britain
· Q1a2a1b (Z780): found among Native Americans, notably in Mexico

· Q1a2a1c (L330): the main subclade of the Mongols, also found among the Kazakhs and Uzbeks, as well as in Ukraine, Turkey and Greece (probably Mongolian and Turkic)


On the ydna Haplogroup Q project webpage where they list the locations for the L804+ people of their most distant known ancestor on their direct male line, the breakdown comes out as follows:

England 8
Scotland 2
Ireland 2(one unique surname)
Sweden 1
Germany 1
Norway 1
United Kingdom 1
Unknown Origin 2


Addressing this in particular: As Aberdeen indicated, this is not solid evidence of which direction migrations happened, it is only evidence of a relationship of some sort. The relationship is just as predicted by conventional models as it is by the Solutrean hypothesis, however the conventional methods would support a North Eurasian connection as opposed to the SH Atlantic connection. So, which has more support based on modern distribution patterns? I would argue that the Scandinavian tendency of L804 (and apparent Scandinavian origin of British samples) as well as the distribution of its closest relative clades is much more indicative of a North Eurasian connection. What looks remotely Solutrean about it?
 
I'm not totally sold on Solutrean, but I think it is now more likely than it was last week.


After reading some of the other comments, here's a few points that I'd like to make.

1. Although C-V20 is Euro-unique, Mesolithic "La Brana I" would have been only a descendant of Paleolithic Solutrean. So it is perfectly concievable that the European Solutreans were upstream of both C-V20 and Jomonese C-M8, at least. Also, while C-V20 has survived at asterik levels in Europe, there may have been other clades that did not survive, or at least are virtually undetectable as of yet.

2. A number of sites in the Americas that are intermediate between Clovis and Solutrean time frames may preceed the Bearing ice bridge in the LGM. This puts us back to boat arguments or possibly another route, possibly across the arctic.

3. People are forgetting that the Bearing Strait was not a one-way street. It's possible that some Siberian subclades of Q are descended from American ones. It could be the same for C clades in Northern Japan as well.
 
It's also possible that C entered the Americas via the conventional Bearing crossing route.

It could be just another example of the 50th parallel hunting culture that spanned across the north of the globe.
Maybe Solutrean and Clovis are related via a North Eurasian ancestor but not necessarily through an Atlantic connection.
 
2. A number of sites in the Americas that are intermediate between Clovis and Solutrean time frames may preceed the Bearing ice bridge in the LGM. This puts us back to boat arguments or possibly another route, possibly across the arctic.
Even if they did this in boats, it is much easier to jump islands on small boats through Bering Sea (chain of Aleutian Islands) than traverse long distances at once going through Atlantic.
beringcc.gif





3. People are forgetting that the Bearing Strait was not a one-way street. It's possible that some Siberian subclades of Q are descended from American ones. It could be the same for C clades in Northern Japan as well.
It is very plausable.
 
Even if they did this in boats, it is much easier to jump islands on small boats through Bering Sea (chain of Aleutian Islands) than traverse long distances at once going through Atlantic...

True, but then we have the issue of where Solutreans/Clovis spear-heads were found. Not to mention the pesky myth about giants with red hair.
 
It's also possible that C entered the Americas via the conventional Bearing crossing route.

It could be just another example of the 50th parallel hunting culture that spanned across the north of the globe.
Maybe Solutrean and Clovis are related via a North Eurasian ancestor but not necessarily through an Atlantic connection.

Perhaps there's was a small hunting culture somewhere in Siberia that created the precursor to the Solutrean and Clovis cultures, and at some point it split in two, with the future Solutreans going west and the future Clovis types, composed of Q and/or C men and X2 women, going east and crossing the Bering Straits into the Americas. The limited archeological evidence of the pre Solutrean and pre Clovis culture may be buried in a riverbank in some remote part of southern Siberia. I also think it's possible that both groups went west and one of them continued on across the Arctic ice to the Americas, but if that did happen, you're not going to find any archeological evidence of it. And a Bering Straits crossing is admittedly a much more likely scenario, simply because a person who's adapted to arctic living could easily cross on a small boat or even walk across at certain times of the year during certain periods during the past several thousand years. If the Straits are frozen, you just walk across, but I don't see that happening in the north Atlantic.
 
Perhaps there's was a small hunting culture somewhere in Siberia that created the precursor to the Solutrean and Clovis cultures, and at some point it split in two, with the future Solutreans going west and the future Clovis types, composed of Q and/or C men and X2 women, going east and crossing the Bering Straits into the Americas. The limited archeological evidence of the pre Solutrean and pre Clovis culture may be buried in a riverbank in some remote part of southern Siberia. I also think it's possible that both groups went west and one of them continued on across the Arctic ice to the Americas, but if that did happen, you're not going to find any archeological evidence of it. And a Bering Straits crossing is admittedly a much more likely scenario, simply because a person who's adapted to arctic living could easily cross on a small boat or even walk across at certain times of the year during certain periods during the past several thousand years. If the Straits are frozen, you just walk across, but I don't see that happening in the north Atlantic.

ever heard of Dyuktai culture, eastern Siberia ?
14-19000 years ago
they were mammoth hunters and developped Solutran-like spearpoints
it is from these Clovis descend, 13000 years ago

Clovis spearpoints dissapeared after extinction of mammoths and large mammals in nothern America
Solutrean spearpoints dissapeared after extinction of mammoths and large mammals in western Europe

where did Dyuktai people come from? from Mal'ta : they were R1
who were their wives : X2
who went west from Mal'ta : R1a and R1b
who were their wives : X2 and U5 and others
 
Yes, I was thinking of the Mal'ta folk, but so far we don't have any evidence that the Solutreans were Y haplotype R.
 
I agree that the position of L804 on the haplogroup Q tree isn’t solid evidence of a Solutrean connection, but I think that the evidence favouring the Solutrean hypothesis in general is accumulating, with that being one of the clues.

Regarding the ANE component comprising 19 percent of the makeup of the 8,000 ybp Motala6 guy in Sweden, that’s where more fun begins, because now we don’t just have the Y-chromosome and mtdna to work with; we have the whole genome. Maybe in the near future they could subdivide the ANE component further into different components, such as a Native American component, a proposed Indo-European component, etc. And perhaps we could ascertain whether or not the ANE component of Motala6 is closer to the Native American component.

Also, regarding haplogroup X, I wasn’t aware until recently that in the sub-structure of X2, X2a and X2b are on one sub-branch, and X2c, X2d, X2e and X2f are not on it, at least according to Family Tree DNA: http://www.familytreedna.com/public/x/default.aspx?section=results In this paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1180497/?tool=pmcentrez they analyzed nine haplogroup X sequences from the Altai, and all nine belonged to X2e, so that Altai connection of X2 to the Americas hypothesis seems to me to be a bit weakened now due to this.

Oxford geneticist Bryan Sykes says in this video (from about 2:15 to 3:40) that he thinks haplogroup X most likely came to America from Europe around 10,000 years ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jTAueCy4O0

In Stanford and Bradley’s book “Across Atlantic Ice” they say Solutrean-like artifacts found at three different sites along America’s east coast have been dated to fall within the Solutrean Date Range. These sites are named in the book as: “Cinmar”, “Miles Point”, and “Cactus Hill”. They say: “The artifact assemblage from Miles Point includes biface projectile points, blades, scrapers, and burins that are technologically close to artifacts found in Solutrean levels 4, 5, and 6 in La Riera Cave that date to 20,970 +- 50 RCYBP.”

In Across Atlantic Ice they do mention the Dyuktai culture. In their cluster analysis by “technology” dendrogram, the Dyuktai stone tools cluster most closely with the Beringian samples. However, in their cluster analysis by “tool type” dendrogram, their “Early Dyuktai” samples cluster most closely with their “Pre-Clovis” samples, and their “Late Dyuktai” samples cluster most closely with their Clovis and Solutrean samples. The authors say these two results were their only surprises in their analysis, and they say they may be attributed to small sample sizes. And they also say: “This analysis does not take flaking technology into account, so we do not think it is the best method to investigate possible historical connections.”

And here’s a picture of Patrick Stewart beside a reconstruction of Kennewick Man: http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ldb4e9uCds1qdlosqo1_400.jpg
 
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I'm of the opinion that mainstream archeologists don't want to consider Solutreans Theory because it would "open a can of worms". I've heard rumblings of South American findings that don't fit ANY models (too old in some cases-- hints of Australian DNA or skeltal reports in others). I think ancient humans were better sailors than we realize with our current understanding.

Patrick Stewart link is a trip by the way! To what y-haplogroup do we think he might belong?
 
I've heard the same thing about some South American findings not fitting any models. Your guess is as good as mine.

Yeah, it would be interesting to know Patrick Stewart's Y-haplogroup, and his ANE percentage (mine's 13.7%). I'll go out on a limb and guess C this time.
 
Really you have him pegged as a C?

I would put him solidly in the "I" lineage.
 
Well, seeing how La Brana was C and no one guessed it right, I thought I'd say why not.

But now that I think about it more, the eyes and wide jaw make me want to lean toward Q now.
 
I found this study of mtdna results for 16 Native North American tribes: http://www.researchgate.net/publica...Americans_from_the_southeastern_United_States (Click where it says “FULL-TEXT” and go to page 4 where it has the table of haplogroup frequencies.)

The Algonquin tribes all have the highest occurrences of haplogroup X. For the Micmac tribe (located in the Maritime provinces of Canada) 3 out of 6 belong to haplogroup X. Although admittedly, 6 is a small sample size. But the Wisconsin Chippawa and the two Ojibwa tribes (all located around the Great Lakes area) have the next highest frequencies of X, all at least 25%, and they have sample sizes of 62, 33, and 26. (I think Chippawa might just be another name for Ojibwa)

The two Cherokee tribes have the highest frequencies of mtdna haplogroup C. (52.5% and 43.3%, respectively) I suspect that the ANE component from the Mal'ta boy correlates with mtdna haplogroups X and C among Native North Americans. According to Eupedia, “C1 has also been found among modern Basques and Catalonians,” http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1a_Y-DNA.shtml Again, right where Stanford and Bradley propose the Solutreans started their voyage “Across Atlantic Ice” to America from.
 
The Algonquin tribes all have the highest occurrences of haplogroup X. For the Micmac tribe (located in the Maritime provinces of Canada) 3 out of 6 belong to haplogroup X. Although admittedly, 6 is a small sample size. But the Wisconsin Chippawa and the two Ojibwa tribes (all located around the Great Lakes area) have the next highest frequencies of X, all at least 25%, and they have sample sizes of 62, 33, and 26. (I think Chippawa might just be another name for Ojibwa)

The two Cherokee tribes have the highest frequencies of mtdna haplogroup C. (52.5% and 43.3%, respectively) I suspect that the ANE component from the Mal'ta boy correlates with mtdna haplogroups X and C among Native North Americans.

The oral history of the Ojibwe/Chippewa state they migrated from the east coast. The Lenape who are called the “Old Ones” or “Grandfathers” in several Algonquin languages are thought to be the ancestral population. At contact the Lenape inhabited the area just south of the Míkmaq.

There is no connection between the Algonquin and the Iroquoian tribes (Cherokee), The Algonquin are patrilineal and the Iroquoian are matrilineal. Even today, there is almost no intermarriage between those tribes.

So finding a male/female haplogroups (X/C) connection between the Algonquin/Iroquoian tribes is not likely. If haplogroups X/C are found in those tribes then they arrived separately, because the Iroquoian tribes say they migrated to the northeast from the southwest US.
 
Thanks for the info. In the study I linked to there were no instances of haplogroup X among the Iroquoian tribes, whereas there was a good amount among the Algonquin tribes. Mtdna C1 seems likely to me to be an older lineage in the Americas, based on its wide distribution there. It also seems to me to have no less diversity in Europe than in East Asia, based on the number of mutations on the C1e (and C1f) branches, compared with the C1a branches. There’s a tree listing those mutations in a diagram on page 165 of this paper: http://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/2440/74221/1/02whole.pdf So far, most of the earliest evidence of human settlement in the Americas has been found on the East Coast of North America, but as the authors say in the book “Across Atlantic Ice”: “Of course, wherever we look, be it North Atlantic or North Pacific, we must keep in mind that the best evidence is undoubtedly below the waves on the continental shelves. This is also true in southwestern Europe.”
 
Thanks for the info. In the study I linked to there were no instances of haplogroup X among the Iroquoian tribes, whereas there was a good amount among the Algonquin tribes. Mtdna C1 seems likely to me to be an older lineage in the Americas, based on its wide distribution there.

It seems we’re NOT talking about the same thing.

Because your reference was to Y-DNA; I mistakenly thought you were pointing out

1. "mtDNA X" was predominate in the Algonquin
2. “Y-DNA C” was predominate among the Cherokee
3. that combination only found in North America, had a correlation with European DNA/ANE

I didn’t notice you were talking about mtDNA in both cases, I’m somewhat confused as to the point you were making.

“Y-DNA C” is only found in North America, predominately in the west; where as “mtDNA C” is found throughout the Americas.

I don’t see how mtDNA C & X would indicate an affinity with Europe, since mtDNA C is found primarily in Asia.
 
Yeah, I know it’s confusing with the different C haplogroups. I think y-dna C and mtdna C mirror each other though in that they likely were both much more prevalent in Europe in ancient times compared with today, though I think that came about through different migrations. Mtdna C has turned up in many ancient dna results in Europe: http://www.ancestraljourneys.org/mesolithicdna.shtml Also, to my knowledge there is only one distinct subclade of mtdna C1 found in East Asia, whereas there are two distinct subclades of C1 found in Europe, C1e and C1f, at least according to the paper I linked to: http://digital.library.adelaide.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/2440/74221/1/02whole.pdf with C1f being found in ancient dna dating to 7,500 years ago in northwestern Russia next to Finland. The other subclades of C1: C1b, C1c, and C1d are said to be unique to Native Americans.

In another link I gave: http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1a_Y-DNA.shtml if you scroll down to a heading in the middle of the webpage that says: “The maternal lineages (mtDNA) corresponding to haplogroup R1a” it gives a paragraph listing places where some of the ancient mtdna C has been found. Included there are the 4,000-year-old fair-haired Tarim mummies from northwestern China, 14 out of 20 of which belong to mtdna C4. C4c is a unique clade among Native Americans. Regarding the C1 that it says there has been found among modern Basques and Catalonians, I guess we’ll have to wait and see what subclades they belong to.
 
if you scroll down to a heading in the middle of the webpage that says: “The maternal lineages (mtDNA) corresponding to haplogroup R1a” it gives a paragraph listing places where some of the ancient mtdna C has been found. Included there are the 4,000-year-old fair-haired Tarim mummies from northwestern China, 14 out of 20 of which belong to mtdna C4. C4c is a unique clade among Native Americans. Regarding the C1 that it says there has been found among modern Basques and Catalonians, I guess we’ll have to wait and see what subclades they belong to.

Origin and Post-Glacial Dispersal of Mitochondrial DNA Haplogroups C and D in Northern Asia
Excerpt: The present-day variation of haplogroups C and D suggests that these mtDNA clades expanded before the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), with their oldest lineages being present in eastern Asia.

The pre-LGM origin of mtDNA C is in East Asia. Native American mtDNA originates from this period.

All other variants of mtDNA in East/Northeast Asia stem from post-glacial re-colonization of northern Asia and the reason Native Americans and North/East Asians are not more closely related.

mtDNA C entered Europe during the middle Holocene and European mtDNA is not closer to Native American mtDNA than the East/Northeast Asian mtDNA is.

Native Americans have NO genetic connection to Europeans; in spite of the fact Europeans and Native Americans have a genetic connection to Northeast Asia.
 

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