Thanks for your extensive reply, LeBrok. A few comments:
There is no doubt that catching flu from killed animals is minimal, however it still can occur occasionally from bodily fluids during butchering. Giving thousands of years of hunting wild boar and wild birds and catching occasional flu gave HG some immunity to this pathogen.
Direct human infection from birds is rare, though there have been a few cases reported from workers on large chicken farms and chicken slaughterhouses, but none of the European cases spread that flu further to other humans. Conversion from bird to human flu in general needs a mammal vessel. So far, pigs, seals and bats are proven to have acted as such a vessel, dogs at least seem to have the potential, and I personally think more research on rodents, especially squirrels, is required in this respect.
It's not clear whether pig/boar were original hosts, or only became so with the spread of agriculture. Equestrian flu isn't well researched, but the one and only study that I have seen, from Germany in 1980, had 11 out of 20 deer samples showing antibodies to in total 3 different flu strains, one of which later spread to humans (via horses?). HGs catching the flu when butchering deer is of course a possibility, but when the deer is already dead, and outside temperatures are above freezing, the risk is rather minimal. I think the main issue for HGs in warmer climates is caves (cool, dry, no sunlight) and bats (which also aren't well researched for their flu reservoir and transmission potential). And, in fact, cave-dwelling Mesolithic Europeans appear to have been quite resilient to the spread of EEFs (and their diseases?) - Iberia / SW France is a point in case here.
My take on this would be that EEF could have brought intensity and faster mutation of pathogens due to much higher population density and closeness and interaction of various domesticated animals. Although these new strains affected them and surrounding HGs equally, HGs might have not been exposed to all of them (living far away), later paying higher consequences being attacked by completely (for them) new strains, unlike EEF.
EEF and HG would have been attacked by same strains with different intensity according to genetic immunity of both groups. The most important questions would be how often both groups were decimated by really bad cases of flu? Once in generation, once in 100 years or even more rarely?
I will comment on this in more detail I the thread related to the recent Brotherton study on Neolithic population exchange in the Elbe-Saale region, which actually inspired me to look deeper into the possible effect of diseases on the haplogroup composition.
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...-Mid-Neolithic?p=435557&viewfull=1#post435557
However, here my current line of thinking as concerns
NHG:
From 5,500 BC on, the Baltic Sea became flooded from the west, around 4,500 BC the former sweetwater lake had turned brackish.
Seals immigrated from the North Sea and quickly became the main food source along the SW Baltic coast (25-40 % of all animal bones, second only to
deer). Given that seals are potent flu conversion vessels, and flu viruses can survive much longer in brackish than in saltwater, Ertebolle culture HGs should have gained substantial exposition to new strains [
Under a "out of Doggerland" scenario, one might assume that Ertebolle populations had already gained substantial seal flu resistance much earlier,.]
Hazelnut was cultivated around Ertebolle settlements, as food, but also as the branches were used for various devices such as fish traps. This should have increased exposition to (flu-bearing)
rodents. The same applies to attested rasp- and blackberry cultivation, and flu-bearing
bats. Several late Ertebolle settlements on the Danish isles show substantial shares (~30%) of bones of
fur-bearing animals (another known source of flu infections), apparently hunted for their pelts. Dogs typically make up for 1-4% of all mammal bones. Dog burials together with their "master" are known from some Ertebolle sites (Skateholm), quite common in Funnelbeaker graves, and the tradition appears to have continued uninterruptedly to early Medieval Saxon graves. As such it is fair to assume that the Ertebolle culture had already
domesticized dogs. Genetic analysis of excavated pig bones shows that from 4,700 BC on, the Ertebolle culture did not any more rely exclusively on boar, but had imported
domesticated pigs (Anatolian DNA) from the south, and was most likely raising them systematically. In short, latest by the mid-5th milennium BC the Ertebolle culture had assembled an impressive package of substantial exposition to almost all known influenza hosts.
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/130827/ncomms3348/full/ncomms3348.html
http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/1712/5/chapter_4.pdf
Flu infections are difficult to trace from the Ertebolle archaeological record, as most sites were only used for a limited period before they became submerged by the rising Baltic Sea. Nevertheless, Scandinavia witnessed at least two periods of volcanic winters around 4,500-4350 BC, and it would be a miracle if those hadn't caused flu epidemics. A rapid cooling sets in in Scandinavia around 4,100 BC, contemporarily with the transition to the Funnelbeaker culture, which is described as quick in the south (Mecklenburg/ Holstein), abrupt in the north (Jutland), but as subtle blend-over in Southern Sweden. Demic expansion is genetically proven, but there is no evidence of violent conflict associated to it. Did a (swine) flu epidemic pave the way for EEF on the Cimbrian peninsula, but not make it across the Öresund?
Aside from swine import, there are other indications of regular contact between the Ertebolle culture and LBK/ Rössen further south, The oldest "Ertebolle"-pottery found (Schlamersdorf near Bad Segeberg) dates to around 5,000 BC, has apparently been produced in the Rhineland, and corresponds date-wise to the earliest imported amber found there. Flint adzes and, less frequently, axes were imported from the Harz and Silesia during the 5th millennium BC, a few copper items (Slovakia) have also been found at Ertebolle sites. There has also been cultural interchange between SW Sweden and the Narva culture in Lithuania and Latvia, e.g. Swedish flint sickles apparently produced for export across the Baltic Sea during the 5th millennium BC. Locally produced Ertebolle ceramic has several parallels to Narva culture ceramic, both in ornamental design and in function (blubber lamps). Moreover, cereal imprints have occasionally (5 times) been found on Ertebolle sherds, interpreted as signs of grain import across the Baltic Sea.
http://what-when-how.com/ancient-eu...urope-transition-to-agriculture-70004000-b-c/
Whether these contacts were intensive enough to disseminate "northern" influenza strains to
EEF further south may be debated. Aside from humans, boar may have served as transmission channel. Domesticized pigs were commonly left grazing in open oak forests, and there is genetic evidence of substantial incorporation of European boar DNA into the originally Anatolian swine gene pool. In any case, interaction intensified during the Funnelbeaker period. Around 4,000-3,700 BC, Central Europe experienced a cold and dry phase, during which EEF should at latest have gotten the flu. The Brotherton study documents a massive genetic break around this period in the Elbe-Saale region:
mtDNA H subclades of near eastern origin, which dominate the LBK and Rössen samples, get extinct, to be later replaced by subclades that are today mainly West Atlantic (H3, H4) or (south-)east European (H2, H5, H6, H10).
Another study comes to the same result with respect to
mtDNA U5 EEF: Outside the basal clade, only one out of nine early Neolithic sub-clades made it to the late Neolithic. Obviously, NHG (Funnelbeaker) U5b wasn't concerned, otherwise they wouldn't have become the dominating mtDNA haplogroup in the Elbe-Saale region during the late third millennium BC Bernburg culture (though U5b may have had other health issues, which subsequently affected its frequency).
Coming back to the
OT: The Funnelbeaker itself, and associated ceramic innovations such as the first jugs, point to a drink-based culture. Aside from fresh milk, beer might of course also be considered, but cattle herding appears to have predated systematic cereal production by several centuries. As one paper puts it:
http://www.uni-kiel.de/ufg/bereiche/dateienJMueller/ber_rgk_89_mueller.pdf
A combination of flat-based Gatersleben elements [Elbe-Saale] and funnel-necked Michelsberg types [Rhine-Weser] should have resulted in funnel beakers
Add to this the world's most renowned dairy cow breed, the Holstein-Frisian, and the area where lactose tolerance matured (though not necessarily originated) becomes clear. Holstein Frisians have "only" been bred systematically for some two millennia, but they represent a combination of the original Anatolian/ LBK cattle )mtDNA T3), with Italian / Alpine Aurochs (mtDNA T*) crossed in via Bavarian breeds. Their yDNA is exclusively Anatolian Y1.
http://www.pnas.org/content/103/21/8113.full#T1
