The concep of a "mediterranean" race/mediterranean genetics

[Cambrius (The Red)]

i don't know why europeans are so interested in making racial clasifications (esp certain countries )... the world population is destined to interbreed more and more, just like neanderthals interbreed with other humans in the past. some day all these useless racial clasifications will be obsolete.

The truth is that people are continuing to marry within their own race in great part, despite the high level of interracial semiotics being projected by mass media. I doubt there will ever be massive racial interbreeding as the primal mind gravitates towards what is most familiar corporeally. In social psychological research, participants tend to perceive physical characteristics similar to theirs more favorably than those that are dissimilar. The notion of race will always be with us, in one form or another. Unfortunately, there will always be "The Other".

 

[Antigone]

i don't know why europeans are so interested in making racial clasifications (esp certain countries )... the world population is destined to interbreed more and more, just like neanderthals interbreed with other humans in the past. some day all these useless racial clasifications will be obsolete.

That is a bit of a generalisation, SOME are interested in making racial classifications but not ALL. However, I think you will find those with the inherent need to classify all and sundry wherever you go, not just Europe.

I agree with the rest of your comment though, people have done and will continue to intermarry and breed. At the basic level, people are people the world over and ethnicity, culture etc is merely a window dressing.

 

[Wilhelm]

i think it's safe to say that spain saw a process of great intermixing with its people. So in every spaniard there is a drop of iberian and celt. And the ancient division on iberian celt doesn't exist anymore. However besides the question on the origins of iberians, i think the mediterranean genes of south europeans comes from the fertile crescent. Has anyone some info on neolitic place of origin?

Palaeolithic contribution in Europe, Andalusia has the most after Sardinia :

 

[Triskel]

Celts were R1b like Italics. The Mediterranean component is related to I2 imo (Sardinian, Basque, Iberian, Paleolithic). J2 is more dinarid. Iberia is a mix of R1b (paternal line predominally) and I2 (maternal), with other minimal influences.

 

[Wilhelm]

Celts were R1b like Italics. The Mediterranean component is related to I2 imo (Sardinian, Basque, Iberian, Paleolithic). J2 is more dinarid. Iberia is a mix of R1b (paternal line predominally) and I2 (maternal), with other minimal influences.

The R1b distribution follows an Western pattern, there is not such thing as mediterranean :

 

[sparkey]

I2 (maternal)

Uh...

 

[Cambrius (The Red)]

I2 is a Y-DNA (paternal) haplogroup. I mt-DNA is maternal.

 

[Triskel]

The R1b distribution follows an Western pattern, there is not such thing as mediterranean :

Yeah, I don´t said it. R1b is principally Atlantic/celtic, probably braquicephally (Alpine types). Sardinians are the most Mediterranean people, they have a considerable percentage of I2, and in autosomal are very european and very paleolithic.

 

[Triskel]

I said that R1b males procreate with local females (daughters of I2 fathers). I know that females havent´t Y chromosome.

 

[Cambrius (The Red)]

The R1b distribution follows an Western pattern, there is not such thing as mediterranean :

I'm not really sanguine with this latest map but the bottom line is that R1b peaks / saturates in the west.

 

[sparkey]

I said that R1b males procreate with local females (daughters of I2 fathers). I know that females havent´t Y chromosome.

Alright, thanks for clearing that up. I was thinking that you couldn't have meant maternal Y-DNA, because that obviously doesn't exist, and Iberians don't have significant haplogroup I mtDNA, either. So, you're getting at a certain truth... namely, that Iberians are much more recently European on their patrilines than on their matrilines. Although I will make one more comment, re: Basques: Basques are overwhelmingly R1b, not I2... IIRC, the only ethnic group that has higher R1b than the Basques are the Welsh. I don't know of a good reason to assume that the Basque culture is directly related to Paleolithic Europeans, as opposed to having been brought over alongside Italo-Celtic culture, or sometime in-between.

 

[Mzungu mchagga]

i agree with mzungu mchagga, but there are clines of genes that are more present in certain areas, and they define also physical pheatures.

Europe without the region of the alpine chain would be poorer, with heavy industrialization only in england, ruhr, scandinavia and catalonia.
althought on the italian side of the alpine chain people are wealthy not because of industrializations and entreprises, but for the third sector and social right policies.
also people who live in the alps are loyal, honest, and great workers, this is true for all the people who lives there (germans, french, italians, austrians, etc..), because life in the mountain is not easy, in the past people lived on the valley between the mountains and a certain spirit of protection among the people of the valley is what makes this people with balls, mussolini said that the hardest workers and loyal people were the italians who lived in the alps.

It's not that I deny physical differences between populations. It's just that:

1. different average phenotypes between different populations often don't correlate with their autosomal DNA and real degree of relation (as already explained by Wilhelm)

2. correlations between those phenotypes and character traits are nonsense, as those characteristics were historically usually influenced by geographic environment, subsequent nutrition and social systems and then socialisation. In today's world of globalisation they are getting outdated. (as I explained in my previous post)

3. therefore I see no sense or practical usage of this kind of classification, except for the fun factor

 

[Mzungu mchagga]

i don't know why europeans are so interested in making racial clasifications (esp certain countries )... the world population is destined to interbreed more and more, just like neanderthals interbreed with other humans in the past. some day all these useless racial clasifications will be obsolete.

Theoretically I think you are right. However, I fear before humanity has reached the one-world-race in a few hundred or more years, we've already got extinct (for other reasons). :sad-2:

 

[Triskel]

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Ish7688voT0/TMVdaRebw5I/AAAAAAAACxE/QuyuSf-JWgk/s1600/ADMIXTURE10.png

See Sardinians. They´re very homogeneous. They´ve a considerable percentage of I2. Sardinian pre-indoeuropean language had a clear link with basque. I2 only could be native paleolithic because south european component is different of West Asian (Neolithic farmers), and second major percentage is among basques, the third spaniards... (it increases to the west from Sardinia). Sardinia and Euskadi were isolated places where I2 native cro-magnon descendant culture and genetic survived better than in other places.

The bigger component in basques are south european too (related to I2 imo). In Spain the bigger percentages of paternal I2 are in the tradicional iberian/basque/preindoeuropean zones too. Basques are a matriarcal culture, their maternal line (I2 daughters imo) is more representative than the paternal r1b.

 

[sparkey]

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Ish7688voT0/TMVdaRebw5I/AAAAAAAACxE/QuyuSf-JWgk/s1600/ADMIXTURE10.png

See Sardinians. They´re very homogeneous. They´ve a considerable percentage of I2. Sardinian pre-indoeuropean language had a clear link with basque. I2 only could be native paleolithic because south european component is different of West Asian (Neolithic farmers), and second major percentage is among basques, the third spaniards... (it increases to the west from Sardinia). Sardinia and Euskadi were isolated places where I2 native cro-magnon descendant culture and genetic survived better than in other places.

I agree that Sardinians are unusually paleolithic... even their branch of I2 is unusually ancient among haplogroup I branches. But the pre-IE Sardinian language is unknown. Why assume that it was related to Basque?

The bigger component in basques are south european too (related to I2 imo). In Spain the bigger percentages of paternal I2 are in the tradicional iberian/basque/preindoeuropean zones too. Basques are a matriarcal culture, their maternal line (I2 daughters imo) is more representative than the paternal r1b.

The Basques are quite paleolithic in non-patrilines and group OK with Sardinians (but better with Spaniards). But we still see a lack of evidence regarding where Basque language and culture originated, and if we assume that it's paleolithically European, we're breaking the pattern that we see with Celtic language and culture in particular. For Celtic language and culture, it appears to be the Y-DNA haplogroup spread that correlates best with its spread.

 

[Wilhelm]

The bigger component in basques are south european too (related to I2 imo). In Spain the bigger percentages of paternal I2 are in the tradicional iberian/basque/preindoeuropean zones too. Basques are a matriarcal culture, their maternal line (I2 daughters imo) is more representative than the paternal r1b.

No, the bigger percentage of I2 in Spain is in Aragón/Castilla, and the highest maternal line of the Basques is the H1 ,which is authoctnous of the area, see the I2 :

 

[Cambrius (The Red)]

It's not that I deny physical differences between populations. It's just that:

1. different average phenotypes between different populations often don't correlate with their autosomal DNA and real degree of relation (as already explained by Wilhelm)

2. correlations between those phenotypes and character traits are nonsense, as those characteristics were historically usually influenced by geographic environment, subsequent nutrition and social systems and then socialisation. In today's world of globalisation they are getting outdated. (as I explained in my previous post)

3. therefore I see no sense or practical usage of this kind of classification, except for the fun factor

There is a level of correlation between autosomal DNA and phenotypes. However, that's not the case with respect to haplogroups.

 

[Triskel]

I agree that Sardinians are unusually paleolithic... even their branch of I2 is unusually ancient among haplogroup I branches. But the pre-IE Sardinian language is unknown. Why assume that it was related to Basque?



The Basques are quite paleolithic in non-patrilines and group OK with Sardinians (but better with Spaniards). But we still see a lack of evidence regarding where Basque language and culture originated, and if we assume that it's paleolithically European, we're breaking the pattern that we see with Celtic language and culture in particular. For Celtic language and culture, it appears to be the Y-DNA haplogroup spread that correlates best with its spread.

Actual sardinian has a clear basque substrate. See this... http://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com/2011/03/paleo-sardinian-language-relative-of.html

Other map:

See the pyrennes (basques)

Yeah H1 is related to I2. Both are authoctonous paleolithic. In general terms, in my opinion H and V is related to I (Y-DNA), U and K related to R1b and R1a. J (m-dna and Y-dna) and T are neolithic. But mt-dna is difficult to associate with their Y-DNA lines...

 

[Wilhelm]

There is a level of correlation between autosomal DNA and phenotypes. However, that's not the case with respect to haplogroups.

Exactly. Because the autosomal includes the SNP's that make your phenotype, such as pigmentation, but not the case with haplogrups.

 

[Mzungu mchagga]

Ah ok...
Just for interest, is there any study on that?

I thought to have read somewhere, but I can't recall where, that SNPs don't necessarily correlate with phenotypes of populations. SNPs might be very different, but due to convergent development in a similar environment phenotypes look very close to each other, or the other way round. What is it like with Europeans?