10% of R1b-M269 among aboriginals of Canary Islands (Guanches)

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Tomenable

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A mystery (though maybe not so much) is R1b-M269 among pre-conquest (pre-1400) aboriginals of Canary Islands:

http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?1655-R1b-in-North-Africans&p=103098&viewfull=1#post103098

Aboriginal (Guanches is the umbrella term for them all) haplogroups (samples dated to 2270 - 690 years ago):

Guanches spoke Berber-related language, and were at the Neolithic stage of culture/tech when Europeans invaded them:

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

E1b1b1b* M81 ---- 8 ---- 26,67%
E1b1b1a* M78 ---- 7 ---- 23,33%
J1* M267 -------- 5 ---- 16,67%
R1b1b2 M269 --- 3 --- 10,00%
K* M9 ----------- 3 ---- 10,00%
I* M170 --------- 2 ---- 6,67%
E1a* M33 -------- 1 ---- 3,33%
P* M45 ---------- 1 ---- 3,33%

This one sample of P-M45 is probably also R1b (but could be R1a, Q or R2 too). This K-M9 is not basal K, but some haplogroup which is descended from K, which couldn't be tested further downstream due to poor quality of sample. I-M270 could be either I2 or I1.

Now I'm wondering if R1b samples are closer to 2270 years old, or closer to 690 years old.

No dating for each sample separately is given, just for the whole set of them all:

Source: http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2148-9-181.pdf

These samples are not so old (from period ca. 270 BC - ca. 1325 AD), but pre-conquest.

The Canary Islands were conquered by the Crown of Castille in years 1402 - 1496 AD:

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

That said, in Ancient times the Canary Islands were visited by Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Mauretanians, Romans, etc.:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canary_Islands_in_pre-colonial_times

So that R1b could somehow "penetrate" the islands during Ancient or Early Medieval times.

I think establishing what downstream subclades of R1b-M269 were those, would be very helpful.
 
one would rather expect R1b-V88 than R1b-M269
also 2 x I-M170 are a surprise
and no G2a ?
 
^ It is believed that Guanches spoke a language related to Berber, and indeed most of their Y-DNA appears to be typically North African (E1b-M81, J1-M26 and E1a-M33). E1b-M78 is more typical in north-eastern Africa IIRC (including Egypt) as well as in the Horn of Africa. But as you have pointed out, R1b1b2 M269, P-M45 and I-M170 are surprising. They probably came in another wave of immigration. As for their technology and culture - it is possible that they had once been more advanced, but later declined back into the Neolithic stage of development (by year 1400 AD).

and no G2a ?
Click to expand...

G2a was only involved in spreading agriculture in Europe. In North Africa, distinct lineages were spreading agriculture.

Reconstruction of a Guanche settlement (they lived as Stone Age farmers, fishermen, hunters, etc.):

1280px-Pueblo_Chico_Guanchen2.jpg


Modern artistic depiction of an aboriginal Guanche man:

ed8036bad391d848f0c120d4a2396372.jpg


Spanish-made depiction of captured Guanche warriors:

a98234196de3d29af03b2a55e3591fc5.jpg


According to conquest-era Spanish descriptions, many Guanches had light hair colours and light eyes.

Though blue eyes is not really surprising considering what we know at the moment about Mesolithic hunters.

Today light pigmentation can still be found among various Berber groups of North Africa, by the way.
 
It is uncertain when exactly did ancestors of Guanches come to their islands (and was that one immigration, or more waves).

If I recall correctly, it is believed that Canary Islands were first settled by humans relatively late - at some point after year 1000 BC.

At that time everyone in the region already knew metalworking, if I'm not mistaken. But in 1400 AD, Guanches had no metal items.

This suggests, that Guanches at some point must have forgotten how to process metals, sliding back into the Stone Age.
 
Plenty of people could have brought R1b-M269 to the Canaries or Morocco before 690 years ago : Bronze and Iron Age Celtiberians, Romans, and even the Vandals (although less likely). I think it is just drift from the Iberian peninsula through intermarriages at one point or another.
 
Actually few Canary Islanders I know have facial features quite similar to that artistic reconstruction.
Another characteristic trait I believe is their height: all my acquintances are higher than 1.90 cm ( and they are not related)
 
Maciamo said:
Plenty of people could have brought R1b-M269 to the Canaries or Morocco before 690 years ago : Bronze and Iron Age Celtiberians, Romans, and even the Vandals (although less likely). I think it is just drift from the Iberian peninsula through intermarriages at one point or another.
Click to expand...

yes, but why didn't they bring knowledge of bronze/iron working then?
forgotten as Tomenable claims?
strange
 
Kardu said:
Actually few Canary Islanders I know have facial features quite similar to that artistic reconstruction.
Click to expand...

Only ~30% of the gene pool of modern Canary Islanders is from aboriginal population (~42% maternal lineages, ~17% paternal lineages).

Source (page 9 of 14): http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2148-9-181.pdf

The remaining ~70% of the gene pool of modern inhabitants of these islands, is from Iberian (~68%) and Sub-Saharan (~2%) immigrants. There is a strong male bias in case of Iberian lineages (~83% paternal and ~55% of maternal lineages are Iberian; on average ~68%).

Of course these figures above refer only to uniparental DNA (mtDNA & Y-DNA), not to autosomal DNA, but probably proportions of these two types aren't so much different (they can be, but more likely they are similar - so probably also ~30% of autosomal DNA is indigenous).

So there is no surprise that only few od modern Canary Islanders resemble aboriginal pre-conquest population in terms of phenotype.

Interestingly, according to this data, in the 1600s-1700s these proportions were still quite different than today. At that time only ~56% of uniparental markers were Iberian (~63% paternal, ~48% maternal), ~36% aboriginal (~31% p., ~40% m.) and ~9% Sub-Saharan.

I was a fan of "Lost" TV series, one of characters - Richard (Ricardo) was a Canary Islander born in the 1700s, possibly an aboriginal one.

He emigrated to America in that series (of course he didn't get there, but to the mysterious island instead).

I wonder if some Canary Islanders with aboriginal ancestry emigrated to America also in reality.
 
bicicleur said:
yes, but why didn't they bring knowledge of bronze/iron working then?
forgotten as Tomenable claims?
strange
Click to expand...

Maybe strange, maybe not. It is not the only case known from history.

A commonly cited case of a similar technological regress is Tasmania. Tasmania was never part of the landmass of Sahul (Australia + New Guinea) so the only way how people could settle it, was by boats or rafts. Yet when Europeans discovered Tasmania, its inhabitants had no knowledge of producing boats or rafts. They also didn't know how to make a fire, even though surely people had had this knowledge already before the out-of-Africa migration (actually, already Homo Erectus probably knew how to make a fire). They knew how to sustain a fire, but not how to make it.

This is why there were wars for fire between Tasmanian tribes.

I would say that technology also regressed in China during the Ming and Qing dynaties, in the Easter Island (following the civil war between "Long-Ears" and "Short-Ears"), in some parts of the Americas as well. Not to mention the Great Zimbabwe and other Zimbabwe-like structures.

Great Zimbabwe was not just an isolated stone-made town, there were other very similar sites in this entire region:

http://s30.postimg.org/74c0vuca9/Zimbabwe_style_sites.png

Zimbabwe_style_sites.png
 
all of these cases are strange
how does a whole tribe lose it's knowhow?
it is so un-human
there must be some catastrophy to make that happen
 
bicicleur said:
yes, but why didn't they bring knowledge of bronze/iron working then?
forgotten as Tomenable claims?
strange
Click to expand...
Perhaps the metal ore is not there, therefore they couldn't make any metal tools?
 
bicicleur said:
all of these cases are strange
how does a whole tribe lose it's knowhow?
it is so un-human
there must be some catastrophy to make that happen
Click to expand...
I suspect they know how to make fire but in wet jungle climate is much easier to sustain existing fire than to make a new one, might be impossible to make a new one when it rains all the time.
 
Zimbabwe had gold. If miners came down from Arabia/Egypt after the gold and paid the surrounding tribes to herd cattle for them for food then either a) the gold might run out and the miners move away or b) the surrounding tribes might one day decide to stomp the miners for their gold.

Either way the miner's tech knowledge might disappear with them.

If it was the second case you might expect to find some Arabian/Egyptian mtdna left behind in that region.
 
bicicleur said:
how does a whole tribe lose it's knowhow?
Click to expand...

Cultural factors, social factors (some kind of class-based revolution, etc.), environmental factors and biological factors can play a role. When it comes to biological factors for example excessive inbreeding leading to loss of mental ability could play a role in case of isolated islands, like Tasmania. In case of Easter Island it was devastation of environment (they cut down all the trees) and subsequent civil war, which decimated the population.

If knowhow is considered sacred and limited just to some small class of the population (for example priests), it can be easily lost.

In Bell Beaker culture, knowledge of bronze smelting was limited just to chieftains, and bronze smelting was a magical ritual:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmHXBXG7Loo#t=383

"(...) This process was so important, the smiths had the richest graves. They were probably clan chiefs. At the beginning of the Bronze Age, you can imagine that much of the metalworking was actually undertaken by the chiefs themselves. And we now see this as a rather sort of a banal task that should be undertaken by workmen or craftsmen, by a sort of lower status people. But if you think of it as the magical transformation of one thing into another, then it's another way of showing off and demonstrating your power and your status, of securing your role in society. And so it's therefore very characteristic, that you find the moulds in rich graves, in the graves of the chiefs. So the people who were in charge of society, were in charge of the transformation of metal ores into slashing daggers and weapons. (...)"

Had the general population rebelled and killed their chieftains, they would have lost the knowhow of bronze smelting.

=========================

Even social break-down, social and economic disruption, and moral depression could cause such things (in English):

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b4381154;view=1up;seq=104
 
bicicleur said:
all of these cases are strange
how does a whole tribe lose it's knowhow?
it is so un-human
there must be some catastrophy to make that happen
Click to expand...

Could you forge metal if you went to live on a desert island? This same phenomenon needlessly happened in China during the great leap forward not very long ago. The whole country was under the impression anyone could do anything if they put their mind to it. They were told they needed steel so they started trying to smelt it themselves and ended up just scorching old iron they'd found in scrap. It was cringe-worthy because the system was so ignorant due to the communist dogma of not relying on experts.

I have also heard that the great Zimbabwe was made by Jews, not sure if this is just the Jews talking but they certainly did have some impact on Africa. Today some Ethiopians are convinced they're guarding the arc of the covenant.
 
^ There is no evidence that Zimbabwe and other similar structures were built by Non-Africans.

It even seems that to the south of Zimbabwe there was another petty kingdom, which predated it:

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

I wouldn't mind some ancient DNA samples of course. But most likely those were Bantu peoples.
 
Greying Wanderer said:
Just the odd Lemba thing - not evidence but interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemba_people
Click to expand...

Thanks, interesting!:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1914832/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1288118/

The results suggest that > or = 50% of the Lemba Y chromosomes are Semitic in origin
Click to expand...
The results reported above suggest a genetic history of the Lemba that is not incompatible with their oral tradition.

Clearly, there has been a Semitic genetic contribution
Click to expand...

Yet they look just like locals - photo of two Lemba men:

sat_24_-_lemba_494_300_80auto_s.jpg


Also:

http://haruth.com/jw/JewishLemba.html

Who is a "kohen"?
The scientists found that 45 percent of Ashkenazi priests and 56 percent of Sephardic priests have the cohen genetic signature, while in Jewish populations in general the frequency is 3 to 5 percent. The Bhuba (priestly) tribe of the Lemba have 53 percent. [!!]
Click to expand...
 
Maciamo said:
Plenty of people could have brought R1b-M269 to the Canaries or Morocco before 690 years ago : Bronze and Iron Age Celtiberians, Romans, and even the Vandals (although less likely). I think it is just drift from the Iberian peninsula through intermarriages at one point or another.
Click to expand...
There were no Bronze Age Celts. Halstatt culture was from Iron Age and later La tene Celts never settled Iberia.Morover almost all R1b in Iberia is from the Basques.
 
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