Northern-Centrism: Just Stop It!!

[sparkey]

Hey guys, what's my bias? :wary2:

 

[Angela]

we all like to go on a hunting trip
but we're allways happy to return to the cave where the women are

Ah...but if a farmer comes along and builds a snug little house with plank or smooth stone floors that you can keep clean and that no wild animal can enter, a nice legume and grain patch and a few fruit trees so you don't have to walk 5-10 miles a day foraging, some cows for milking so you don't have to nurse the children till they're 4 years old, and maybe even some wool from sheep and linen from flax so you don't have to just wear furs...well, you might find the little woman is in that house, not waiting in the cave. Not that the farmer wouldn't go hunting occasionally too, of course, it's just that he wouldn't be alternating all his time between hunting, raiding nearby groups, and laying around telling stories with his buddies. He'd be farming too.

Originally Posted by epoch
You have an observable bias favoring political correctness. That is a tunnel vision just as any bias. Most of us are aware of our biases. I'm not sure if you are, though.

Originally Posted by bicicleur
I'm sorry, Lebrok, but I have the same impression
Just want you to be aware of that

I think there's some confusion here. To me, political correctness is when you espouse an opinion because it's the majority opinion in your culture, or in some cases the prevailing opinion of the center left political spectrum, not because you believe it, but because it's expedient to do so. If you believe in something that the larger culture now believes and say so, you're not being "politically correct", you're being honest about your opinions.

I think I know LeBrok well enough to say that he's an honest man, and the opinions he states stem from his belief system. For what it's worth, I would say the same thing about myself.

If you go with the definition of the term as "language, actions, or policies seen as being excessively calculated to not offend or disadvantage any particular group of people in society", I don't think he's "politically correct", and neither am I.

If you take it to mean being against racism and religious bigotry, and for dealing with other human beings out of respect for our common humanity, and giving people equal rights, then I guess I'm politically correct. I wouldn't call that political correctness, however. I'd call it common decency. One could also call it simple Christianity.

However, for what it's worth, I'm totally against the kind of thought control that is taking over places like college campuses; it's liberal, Marxist fascism and a denial of free speech.

arvistro

I have nothing against farming per se
One of Latvian self identifications is nation of ploughmen. Arāju tauta. Despite being mostly WHG genetically (Altentoft gave what 0.x% of ENF to us?).

But, when it goes like - only farmers are capable of this or that innovation or passing language.. Nah.. Especially when farmer is treated as genes not as profession, then it feels like "only Whites are capable of.." statements.
​

With all due respect, I think you've misinterpreted what's been written. I don't want to rehash the whole argument here because it's not the thread for it, and we've gone over it all before ad nauseam. To summarize it briefly, although the hypothesis didn't originate with me, I do think there is some validity to the idea that hunter-gatherers adopt farming with great difficulty, and it may be not just because it is a culturally different life style, but also because there may be some variation in allele frequencies relating to the ability to focus for long periods of time, plan, delay gratification, and do repetitive tasks between the two groups, which were selected for over time.

I'm not saying those differences were there in the first groups of hunter-gatherers who started to develop farming. I'm saying they might have been selected for over the thousands of years it took to develop farming and animal husbandry. I also don't think anything in the history of the Neolithicization of Europe disproves that. It took a long time for hunter--gatherers to adopt farming there as everywhere else. There's no indication that after a few generations whole bands of hunter-gatherers just suddenly adopted farming, which used to be the model of cultural diffusion. So far it looks as if there was a hiatus of at least a thousand years, and when it took place, it seems to have taken place in the context of at least some gene flow.

I wouldn't take Allentoft's ENF number very seriously. He thinks it's all down to Kostenki.

Arvistro:Baltics was the only region in Europe where pots arrived without agriculture.

Also
Pottery originated before the Neolithic period, with ceramic objects like the Gravettian culture Venus of Dolní Věstonice figurine discovered in the Czech Republic date back to 29,000–25,000 BC,[7] and pottery vessels that were discovered in Jiangxi, China, which date back to 20,000 BC.[8]

Early Neolithic pottery have been found in places such as Jomon Japan (10,500 BC),[9] the Russian Far East (14,000 BC),[10] Sub-Saharan Africa and South America.

Agreed.

 

[LeBrok]

Hey guys, what's my bias? :wary2:

Definitely skewed towards people with head coverings. Not mentioning exclusive celebration of I2 famous individuals.

 

[bicicleur 2]

Ah...but if a farmer comes along and builds a snug little house with plank or smooth stone floors that you can keep clean and that no wild animal can enter, a nice legume and grain patch and a few fruit trees so you don't have to walk 5-10 miles a day foraging, some cows for milking so you don't have to nurse the children till they're 4 years old, and maybe even some wool from sheep and linen from flax so you don't have to just wear furs...well, you might find the little woman is in that house, not waiting in the cave. Not that the farmer wouldn't go hunting occasionally too, of course, it's just that he wouldn't be alternating all his time between hunting, raiding nearby groups, and laying around telling stories with his buddies. He'd be farming too.

and when you're tired of milking the cows everyday
and sitting between the shit and the flies
and a knight comes with shining armor
and he offers you a place on his horse
what would be your next move?

 

[LeBrok]

I think there's some confusion here. To me, political correctness is when you espouse an opinion because it's the majority opinion in your culture, or in some cases the prevailing opinion of the center left political spectrum, not because you believe it, but because it's expedient to do so. If you believe in something that the larger culture now believes and say so, you're not being "politically correct", you're being honest about your opinions.

I think I know LeBrok well enough to say that he's an honest man, and the opinions he states stem from his belief system. For what it's worth, I would say the same thing about myself.

If you go with the definition of the term as "language, actions, or policies seen as being excessively calculated to not offend or disadvantage any particular group of people in society", I don't think he's "politically correct", and neither am I.

If you take it to mean being against racism and religious bigotry, and for dealing with other human beings out of respect for our common humanity, and giving people equal rights, then I guess I'm politically correct. I wouldn't call that political correctness, however. I'd call it common decency. One could also call it simple Christianity.

However, for what it's worth, I'm totally against the kind of thought control that is taking over places like college campuses; it's liberal, Marxist fascism and a denial of free speech.

Absolutely Angela, I gave them a benefit of a doubt, that they meant Politically Correct, as an inclusive and egalitarian accommodation towards others.

One thing should be noticed and emphasized, that we don't shy from talking and pointing differences between races or sexes, at all. I started many threads specifically dedicated to the differences, and even their genetic causes. How politically correct is this? Not very in most common meaning of this word, but it is from one angle. It is all expressed in spirit of tolerance, understanding, equality and respect to all involved and implicated. We are different, yet equal and worth the same.

 

[Angela]

and when you're tired of milking the cows everyday
and sitting between the shit and the flies
and a knight comes with shining armor
and he offers you a place on his horse
what would be your next move?

Well, we're jumping a couple of thousand years, aren't we, all the way to the Middle Ages? A knight in shining armor, adept at troubadour love poetry, and with a nice castle and silk clothes and jewels to offer is not exactly the same thing as a herder of cattle and sheep who would expect his women to live out of wagons. Particularly when the native culture is more advanced.

Still, if these steppe herders, if this is the group you had in mind, had just burned down the whole village and killed off most of the men, or even if the culture was just disintegrating because of climate change, most women might go along even if they were still surrounded by **** and flies (herding is a messy business, too), because their survival was at stake.

I should be clear though that we're not talking about me, my dear Bicicleur. I'm faithful and loyal to an absolute fault, even when, in the beginning, it was definitely against my economic advantage. In these kinds of situations, whatever the cultures involved, if my man, assuming he hadn't been maltreating me, of course, had been killed by some invader, for instance, I'd be the type to put some water hemlock in the killer's food! The promise of a softer life would certainly not make me stray from a beloved mate.

Ed. Of course, if the survival of one's children is at stake, then it's a whole new ballgame, with different rules.

 

[Salmon]

first came hunter/gatherers
then came hunter/gatherers that probably tended to some root plants or leafy plants.
then came hunter/gatherers that domesticated hunting partners/wolves
then came hunter/gatherers that took their experience with dogs and applied it to goats.
these hunter/gatherers did less hunting with semi-tame goats and other small animals around.
these hunter/gatherers had to feed their non-carnivorous animals plant material. They had to move around, learn where good plants grew.
these hunter/gatherers gave up on hunting full time... they retained their hunting skills as pests like predators were still around.
these early pastoral people would wander around with the dogs and ungulates.
these people noticed that some flat pieces of land always had a lot of food for their plant eating animals. They grew plants there that they would consume from time to time. It worked.
these people started chewing on the weed their goats ate. They found some had seeds in them.
over time they grew more plants, grew food for their plant eating animals, and used their dogs for help.
after some time certain farmers got bold and wanted to domesticate the big plant eating animals. They succeeded.

 

[Tomenable]

Davidski has a typical polish anti-german bias:

Originally Posted by davidski

Honestly, I doubt there were any Germanics in Poland prior to (...)

And you have a serious pro-German bias if you equate Germanics = Germans.
(which you just did if you called that anti-German bias, instead of anti-Germanic bias)

It would be like saying, that Slavs = Poles and Moscow is a Polish city.

You can't say that all Germanics are the same and share common ancestry, because there are large genetic differences both in frequencies of uniparental markers (Y-DNA plus mtDNA) and in autosomal DNA, within and between distinct Germanic-speaking populations, like for example the Swedes on one hand, the Austrians on the other hand, or the Dutch on one hand, the Norwegians on the other hand.

I'm not saying "there were no any Germanics in Poland during the Iron Age", but I'm disappointed that nobody is willing to pay more attention to East-Central European aDNA samples from Allentoft's study (and from other studies too), both when it comes to autosomal DNA and uniparental markers. I would do this myself but I have no experience in calculating admixtures or determining subclades.

BTW - in this recent dissertation by Anna Szécsényi-Nagy:

http://ubm.opus.hbz-nrw.de/volltexte/2015/4075/pdf/doc.pdf

In point 4.3.5 the author writes about the Test for Population Continuity (TPC). It is calculated with a 2013 formula:

https://github.com/joepickrell/tpc

Genetics should provide answers, because languages can change without much gene flow and archaeological cultures can also change as the result of cultural transition instead of demic diffusion. On the other, it is impossible to transmit genes culturally.

For example African-Americans speak a Germanic language (English), so technically they are Germanic too (being Germanic has always been defined by one's language). Mexicans speak Spanish, yet most of their ancestry is Native American (or Native Mexican, to be precise). Egyptians speak Arabic, yet according to Joel Irish they are mostly descended from Ancient Egyptians. Etc.

Empires such as Roman Empire, Arab Caliphate, Turkish Empire, the Holy Roman Empire or the USA - spread languages via cultural transition. Empires mentioned here, were spreading respectively Latin, Arabic, Turkish, German and English languages. Nobody claims, that all people in modern Iberia and France are descended from Latin-speaking colonists from Italy who settled there.

Nobody also claims, that all of English-speaking Americans are descended from people from England. Etc.

During the Bronze Age some kind of Proto-Germanic language was spoken only in Scandinavia, while in East-Central Europe people used other languages. We now have got a lot of Bronze Age DNA from East-Central Europe, including Y-DNA.

Now of those Bronze Age samples from Central and East-Central Europe were people who spoke Germanic.

It will be interesting to check whose genetic ancestors those people were, which of modern populations descend from them.

 

[Greying Wanderer]

I myself have hundreds of agenda's. Most of them contradictory. I keep changing agenda's every so many hours, to keep a fresh perspective. But also to confuse the enemy...

Same here, keeps it fun

 

[Tomenable]

In case of Kennewick Man, the recently published study has established, that his most direct modern descendants, are people of the Colville tribe. If such a precise conclusion was possible with Kennewick Man, why should it be any harder to establish e.g. whose ancestor was RISE [put a number here]?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colville_tribe

Here is what authors of the study on Kennewick Man wrote about this:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vnfv/ncurrent/full/nature14625.html

Among the Native American groups for whom genome-wide data are available for comparison, several seem to be descended from a population closely related to that of Kennewick Man, including the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation (Colville), one of the five tribes claiming Kennewick Man. (...) Kennewick Man has ancestry proportions most similar to those of other Northern Native Americans (Fig. 1c, Supplementary Information 7), especially the Colville, Ojibwa, and Algonquin. (...) among the groups for which we have sufficient genomic data we find that the Colville, one of the Native American groups claiming Kennewick Man as ancestral, show close affinities to that individual or at least to the population to which he belonged. (...) These findings can be explained as: (1) the Colville individuals are direct descendants of the population to which Kennewick Man belonged, but subsequently received some relatively minor gene flow from other American populations within the last ~8.5 thousand years, in agreement with our findings above; (2) the Colville individuals descend from a population that ~8.5 thousand years was slightly diverged from the population which Kennewick Man belonged or (3) a combination of both.

 

[Tomenable]

In case of Kennewick Man, the recently published study has established, that his most direct modern descendants, are people of the Colville tribe. If such a precise conclusion was possible with Kennewick Man, why should it be any harder to establish e.g. whose ancestor was RISE [put a number here]?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colville_tribe

Here is what authors of the study on Kennewick Man wrote about this:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vnfv/ncurrent/full/nature14625.html

Among the Native American groups for whom genome-wide data are available for comparison, several seem to be descended from a population closely related to that of Kennewick Man, including the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation (Colville), one of the five tribes claiming Kennewick Man. (...) Kennewick Man has ancestry proportions most similar to those of other Northern Native Americans (Fig. 1c, Supplementary Information 7), especially the Colville, Ojibwa, and Algonquin. (...) among the groups for which we have sufficient genomic data we find that the Colville, one of the Native American groups claiming Kennewick Man as ancestral, show close affinities to that individual or at least to the population to which he belonged. (...) These findings can be explained as: (1) the Colville individuals are direct descendants of the population to which Kennewick Man belonged, but subsequently received some relatively minor gene flow from other American populations within the last ~8.5 thousand years, in agreement with our findings above; (2) the Colville individuals descend from a population that ~8.5 thousand years was slightly diverged from the population which Kennewick Man belonged or (3) a combination of both.

^ So now I expect something like this:

Among the European groups for whom genome-wide data are available for comparison, several seem to be descended from a population closely related to that of RISE [number] including the [ethnic group name], one of the five ethnic groups claiming RISE [number]. (...) RISE [number] has ancestry proportions most similar to those of other Europeans (Fig. 1c, Supplementary Information 7), especially the [ethnic group name], [ethnic group name], and [ethnic group name]. (...) among the groups for which we have sufficient genomic data we find that the [ethnic group name], one of the European groups claiming RISE [number] as ancestral, show close affinities to that individual or at least to the population to which he belonged. (...) These findings can be explained as: (1) the [ethnic group name] individuals are direct descendants of the population to which RISE [number] belonged, but subsequently received some relatively minor gene flow from other European populations within the last ~[number] thousand years, in agreement with our findings above; (2) the [ethnic group name] individuals descend from a population that ~[number] thousand years was slightly diverged from the population which RISE [number] belonged or (3) a combination of both.

When will we see results like this ???

 

[Twilight]

I don't know, personally I welcome all my ancestors. I even have an evolving graph of my ancestry; Prehistoric, Ancient Civilizations and Geneological ancestry.
If I come across as a Nornthern European Centrist, I really don't mean it and apologize you are more than welcome to PM me about it and mention what I can do better. ^_^

 

[moore2moore]

This is an important thread. I hope my reply doesn't come across as too simplistic, and I hope it doesn't crush too many people's dreams. But I ask everyone do to the following exercises:

1. Imagine a pedigree chart. I trust many of us, interested in genealogy, have done them. 14 generations back, by the year 1600 AD or so, each of us has 16,384 ancestors. The ancestor who bears your mtDNA or Y-DNA haplogroup, at that point in time, you share 0.01% of your DNA with him or her. And that is by 1600 AD. It is far less with those from prehistory. I always get a good, math-based chuckle at those who cherish their Haplogroup above all else. It's a tiny fraction of your DNA.

2. Imagine said pedigree chart again. By the time you get 25-30 generations back, your number of ancestors would number in the millions or billions. So many, in fact, that it would outnumber the people who were on the earth at the time. At some point, we will all have so many ancestors that we are related to everyone who had children at that one point in time, whose lines survive to the present. By most mathematicians' estimates, in Europe, that window ranges from 2000 BC - 800 A.D. I want this to sink in. I get a large, hearty belly laugh by those who are obsessed with the Haplogroups of European royalty. Or by some odd claim that they are descended from Steppe Overlords. Every European alive today is a descendant of Charlemagne.

3. Read the history of the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths. Apply it to your genetic theories. Challenge yourself.

People used to think the Goths were bad-ass, uncivilized, warlike, mighty (insert "supreme" adjective here) Germanic overlords who conquered much of the Roman world. But anyone who knows the history understands that the truth is a little kinder to them (kinder, depending on if you believe being peaceful and not purposefully killing people is a good thing).

The Goths were not some mighty tribe hell-bent on destruction, who willfully took over the Roman Empire. Just the opposite: they started out from modern South Sweden because of FAMINE. They were so weak, they were forced to WANDER for centuries. Finally, they invaded the Roman Empire, because the Huns EVICTED them from their steppe lands in modern Ukraine.

In other words, one of the baddest-ass people in most people's minds were refugees, forced to emigrate not because they wanted to conquer, but because they themselves had been evicted from their homelands by famine (first) and then another people (the Huns).

What does this do to the R1b Steppe fantasies? Surely any logical person could admit it's a possibility.

4. If that is too hard on you, let's imagine something happening today. The population of Lebanon is about 2 million people. Aside from the districts controlled by terrible people, many of the coastal folks are pretty wealthy, modern, and diverse. They don't have extraordinarily high birthrates.

All hell has broken loose near them, in a country you may have heard a lot of recently. It's called Syria. In the last two years, Lebanon...has been swamped with 2 million Syrian refugees.

In other words, the population of the country has doubled, in a generation, from an influx of refugees.

Now imagine the Lebanese bear Haplogroup L, we will call it. Imagine like many wealthier people today, they're not having 20 kids each. More like 1 or 2.

Imagine the Syrian refugees bear Haplogroup S, we will call it. Imagine like many poorer people today, they DO have many kids...

The "old" samples within this area we call Lebanon will all be Haplogroup L. A future archaeologist would find that to be the case.

The "new" samples, after a few generations, will be like 75-25%, with Haplogroup S clearly "winning out." The cause is a mix of migration -- plus different cultural attitudes toward having kids.

Is it safe to say that the Syrian refugees were "selected for?" (No).

That the Syrian men were "more attractive" to women? (No).

That they bore some kind of genetic advantage, that made them fitter? (Again, no.)

What does this do to the cherished R1b theories?

In many instances, mathematical modeling and common explanations destroys much of the aDNA snobbery.

 

[Fire Haired14]

"Every European alive today is a descendant of Charlemagne."

This was media-sensationalized claimed. It isn't true and would take a lot to prove.

Besides that I agree with your post and a big reason I made this thread. There's ethnocentrism on genetic-blogs and its usually Northerncentrism. Even non-Northern posters, want to say they're people are northern. You can't discuss ancestry without the image we have of people and ethnic-egos getting involved. This is why genetic blogs are cursed with racism.

It makes sense to change the way you see someone when you're talking about recent ancestry because it actually does affect someone's behavior. However when you're talking about distant ancestry it isn't relevant, and most people don't understand this.

Ancient ancestry is more a biological subject then a origin of who we are subject. None of us popped out of no where. We have parents who have parents and so on. So, ancient ancestry tells us who those very distant parents were. That's it. Ancient ancestors are nothing more than sperm-donors.

 

[Alan]

This is an important thread. I hope my reply doesn't come across as too simplistic, and I hope it doesn't crush too many people's dreams. But I ask everyone do to the following exercises:

1. Imagine a pedigree chart. I trust many of us, interested in genealogy, have done them. 14 generations back, by the year 1600 AD or so, each of us has 16,384 ancestors. The ancestor who bears your mtDNA or Y-DNA haplogroup, at that point in time, you share 0.01% of your DNA with him or her. And that is by 1600 AD. It is far less with those from prehistory. I always get a good, math-based chuckle at those who cherish their Haplogroup above all else. It's a tiny fraction of your DNA.

2. Imagine said pedigree chart again. By the time you get 25-30 generations back, your number of ancestors would number in the millions or billions. So many, in fact, that it would outnumber the people who were on the earth at the time. At some point, we will all have so many ancestors that we are related to everyone who had children at that one point in time, whose lines survive to the present. By most mathematicians' estimates, in Europe, that window ranges from 2000 BC - 800 A.D. I want this to sink in. I get a large, hearty belly laugh by those who are obsessed with the Haplogroups of European royalty. Or by some odd claim that they are descended from Steppe Overlords. Every European alive today is a descendant of Charlemagne.

3. Read the history of the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths. Apply it to your genetic theories. Challenge yourself.

People used to think the Goths were bad-ass, uncivilized, warlike, mighty (insert "supreme" adjective here) Germanic overlords who conquered much of the Roman world. But anyone who knows the history understands that the truth is a little kinder to them (kinder, depending on if you believe being peaceful and not purposefully killing people is a good thing).

The Goths were not some mighty tribe hell-bent on destruction, who willfully took over the Roman Empire. Just the opposite: they started out from modern South Sweden because of FAMINE. They were so weak, they were forced to WANDER for centuries. Finally, they invaded the Roman Empire, because the Huns EVICTED them from their steppe lands in modern Ukraine.

In other words, one of the baddest-ass people in most people's minds were refugees, forced to emigrate not because they wanted to conquer, but because they themselves had been evicted from their homelands by famine (first) and then another people (the Huns).

What does this do to the R1b Steppe fantasies? Surely any logical person could admit it's a possibility.

4. If that is too hard on you, let's imagine something happening today. The population of Lebanon is about 2 million people. Aside from the districts controlled by terrible people, many of the coastal folks are pretty wealthy, modern, and diverse. They don't have extraordinarily high birthrates.

All hell has broken loose near them, in a country you may have heard a lot of recently. It's called Syria. In the last two years, Lebanon...has been swamped with 2 million Syrian refugees.

In other words, the population of the country has doubled, in a generation, from an influx of refugees.

Now imagine the Lebanese bear Haplogroup L, we will call it. Imagine like many wealthier people today, they're not having 20 kids each. More like 1 or 2.

Imagine the Syrian refugees bear Haplogroup S, we will call it. Imagine like many poorer people today, they DO have many kids...

The "old" samples within this area we call Lebanon will all be Haplogroup L. A future archaeologist would find that to be the case.

The "new" samples, after a few generations, will be like 75-25%, with Haplogroup S clearly "winning out." The cause is a mix of migration -- plus different cultural attitudes toward having kids.

Is it safe to say that the Syrian refugees were "selected for?" (No).

That the Syrian men were "more attractive" to women? (No).

That they bore some kind of genetic advantage, that made them fitter? (Again, no.)

What does this do to the cherished R1b theories?

In many instances, mathematical modeling and common explanations destroys much of the aDNA snobbery.

That's actually close to what I have been saying some time ago. I don't think the PIE were some kind of raiders who came across the world. I rather see them as your typical "refugees ", herders leaving, or more precisley being forced out of their home cultures/lands for search of new home for their animals to grass. No one in the ancient times left their home out of adventurousness, it was far too risky cause you couldn't know what even just hundreds of miles away was awaiting you.

No one takes such a risky journey if he doesn't has a serious reason.

 

[LeBrok]

This is an important thread. I hope my reply doesn't come across as too simplistic, and I hope it doesn't crush too many people's dreams. But I ask everyone do to the following exercises:

1. Imagine a pedigree chart. I trust many of us, interested in genealogy, have done them. 14 generations back, by the year 1600 AD or so, each of us has 16,384 ancestors. The ancestor who bears your mtDNA or Y-DNA haplogroup, at that point in time, you share 0.01% of your DNA with him or her. And that is by 1600 AD. It is far less with those from prehistory. I always get a good, math-based chuckle at those who cherish their Haplogroup above all else. It's a tiny fraction of your DNA.

2. Imagine said pedigree chart again. By the time you get 25-30 generations back, your number of ancestors would number in the millions or billions. So many, in fact, that it would outnumber the people who were on the earth at the time. At some point, we will all have so many ancestors that we are related to everyone who had children at that one point in time, whose lines survive to the present. By most mathematicians' estimates, in Europe, that window ranges from 2000 BC - 800 A.D. I want this to sink in. I get a large, hearty belly laugh by those who are obsessed with the Haplogroups of European royalty. Or by some odd claim that they are descended from Steppe Overlords. Every European alive today is a descendant of Charlemagne.

I believe, the numbers were mentioned few times on Eupedia.
In second paragraph you mentioned that after going few generation back we are starting to have more common ancestors. Typically in villages, wayback, population was very well mixed after few hundred years of seclusion, unless there was some new population influx for some reason. In such villages going back few generations practically everyone was related, had same ancestors. It is like they all were at the distance of third cousin, if they were tested by 23andMe.

4. If that is too hard on you, let's imagine something happening today. The population of Lebanon is about 2 million people. Aside from the districts controlled by terrible people, many of the coastal folks are pretty wealthy, modern, and diverse. They don't have extraordinarily high birthrates.

All hell has broken loose near them, in a country you may have heard a lot of recently. It's called Syria. In the last two years, Lebanon...has been swamped with 2 million Syrian refugees.

In other words, the population of the country has doubled, in a generation, from an influx of refugees.

Now imagine the Lebanese bear Haplogroup L, we will call it. Imagine like many wealthier people today, they're not having 20 kids each. More like 1 or 2.

Imagine the Syrian refugees bear Haplogroup S, we will call it. Imagine like many poorer people today, they DO have many kids...

The "old" samples within this area we call Lebanon will all be Haplogroup L. A future archaeologist would find that to be the case.

The "new" samples, after a few generations, will be like 75-25%, with Haplogroup S clearly "winning out." The cause is a mix of migration -- plus different cultural attitudes toward having kids.

Is it safe to say that the Syrian refugees were "selected for?" (No).

That the Syrian men were "more attractive" to women? (No).

That they bore some kind of genetic advantage, that made them fitter? (Again, no.)

Mathematical modeling of genetic mixing makes sense in first couple of generations, after two distinct populations encounter. After that, natural selection takes over and weeds out bad combinations, and rewards better fitted genes and their combinations, and new mutations. This slowly changes and evolves genome with generations, drifting away from point of initial mixing.
For example, this Amazon tribe, as many others came to existence from mixing of ancient Siberian and East Asian populations, not mentioning Neanderthal and Denisovan admixture, and who know what else. After few thousand of years of separation in the jungle, they became genetically very uniform, well mixed. They all look like brothers and sisters, because their genome is almost identical. Surely, some bottlenecking effect helps uniformity in these smaller groups, from time to time. The rest is in hands of natural selection, and some luck or lack of it.

What does this do to the cherished R1b theories?

You know that R1b was rather common in the Steppe during Mesolithic, and still is?

 

[LeBrok]

That's actually close to what I have been saying some time ago. I don't think the PIE were some kind of raiders who came across the world. I rather see them as your typical "refugees ", herders leaving, or more precisley being forced out of their home cultures/lands for search of new home for their animals to grass. No one in the ancient times left their home out of adventurousness,

I agree that there is usually underlying reason for huge migrations. However from recent history we know that adventurous parties of IE reach Americas, India and the rest of the world. And there was a time when IE could say that they conquered and owned the whole planet. I'm not sure if genetic predisposition to adventure, traveling, and war could be so easily dismissed.

it was far too risky cause you couldn't know what even just hundreds of miles away was awaiting you.

Once they had horses they could easily check what is hundreds miles away. Likewise, they could quickly escape on horseback in case of danger.

No one takes such a risky journey if he doesn't has a serious reason.

And what reason Alexander the Great had to go to India?

 

[moore2moore]

For some reason, those who cling to the horses and swords theory are always R1b.

 

[sparkey]

IMO we'd expect different expansion patterns from European R1b if we were looking for a "swamped with refugees" model versus a "rapid expansion of a smaller migrant population" model. The first would tend to produce a transplantation of the existing haplogroup diversity, no? Certainly in the case of Syrian refugees, the imaginary version of Haplogroup S in moore2moore's example would maintain its apparent ancientness that it had back in Syria. Not so with European R1b, where its calculated TMRCAs cut close to its approximate time of introduction.

That's not to say that the European R1bs were all desirable, fit warriors cut from the elite of their homeland. Just that the patterns seem to fit them having certain relative advantages over the existing European populations, even if they were originally from the bottom of their own society.

 

[Alan]

And what reason Alexander the Great had to go to India?

1. Ideological reason, expansional reasons. We are talking of a different timeframe and two different cultural environments. Thats why I was specifically speaking about PIE not Indo Europeans at all.

The PIE expanded as herders and had therefore completely different reasons. While later big empires/cultures expanded as warriors/soldiers to conquer lands.

For example the Medes and Persians came as simple nomads in search for new land for their animals and farming. Just the aggressive expansions plans and oppressing of the Assyrians forced the Medes to unify the tribes into a tribal confederation and build an empire. They didn't came as conquerers but simply as herders searching for new grassland for their animals and horses.

Same can be said about Tocharians.