Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
Tomenable, so far as I can tell, no one posting here personally cares which ancient group was "lighter" except you, most certainly not me. I fail to see why the possession of adaptations for environment or the vagaries of history and its invasions and their effect on pigmentation should be a source of "pride", but maybe it's just that I'm not emotionally invested in these things and have a more analytical frame of mind.
I have only been trying patiently to correct your mis-statements of fact, such as that the Anatolian farmers had no derived SLC45A2.
You also seem to forget that it was I who told you to look back at Mathiesen et al and Fire-Haired's excellent chart. I also told you to re-check the data for the SHG and EHG.
As to Fire-Haired's statement, that's an unfair criticism of it on your part, if I may say so. He never mentioned the EHG. It was a summary of general observations. He has provided links to his sheets numerous times and assumed, no doubt, that people would read and remember them. As I said, not everyone has an obsessive interest in ranking ancient peoples by exact percentages of derived de-pigmentation snps. General trends are enough.
As to how the Yamnaya became "darker" than the EHG, I don't know precisely how it happened. We know the pigmentation snps for our few EHG samples and there's some variation. Might there have been even more variation on the steppe before the "admixture"? I don't know. We do know that CHG was derived for SLC24A5, but these are very old samples. I don't know, and neither does anyone else, what depigmentation snps the population which mixed with EHG so much later actually carried. I can see how admixture between the EHG and a population which carried no derived SLC42A5 could result in people who had lower SLC42A5 than the EHG. I don't understand, however, how the Yamnaya people could have less SLC24A5 than the CHG when all those samples are SLC24A5 derived.
So, there are processes and migrations which we might not as yet completely understand. Perhaps there was a later migration into the steppe from a population with a slightly different pigmentation profile, as perhaps Alan is suggesting. Also, we have to keep in mind that these are small sample groups which we are discussing. Some might say that's also true of WHG, but I think that's a little different situation. They uniformly don't carry depigmentation snps, whether they were in Spain, Belgium, Switzerland or Hungary. They were also an extremely homogenous group. I think the speculation that this is the group that migrated from the Franco-Cantabrian refuge is probably correct, and they did not possess these depigmentation alleles. Their relatives in the far north might have gotten them from some other ancient group, and then selection operated on it in those areas with very low solar exposure.
I think there may be unknown migrations into Europe as well, into Greece at least, and perhaps into other adjoining areas as well. There was the release of information about the Greek Bronze Age just recently which should give us some pause.
This is the anthrogenica thread where it is discussed.
http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?5044-An-interesting-article
The Bronze Age Greek samples from Macedonia are described as "dark" skinned. Now, I don't know whether that means "WHG" dark, or "CHG" like, or "MN" like. No snp information was provided. I think we can assume they were not "modern" European like, and so they didn't have high levels of derived SLC45A2. They also are testing Neolithic samples, but I don't know if they described their pigmentation anywhere.
There was some additional interesting information, however. The biggest change in autosomal dna was described as being from the early Neolithic to the mid-late Neolithic, and it was stated that there was very little change from the mid-late Neolithic to the Bronze Age.
"Highest genetic differences shows between the early to late Nelithic. Mid/Late Neo to Bronze Age has a low fst
Fu FS in Bronze age is -13+, showing a population expansion.
No structure in the Bronze Age, to this point. Possibly Neo to Bronze continuity. Going to do more testing of Bronze Age Cultures and eventual shotgun."
I guess we'll have to wait for more detailed information, but I think it's enough to see that the old, rather simplistic narratives were incorrect for pigmentation and perhaps even for the spread of the Indo-European languages.
As for your continued mantra that the yurt or brush hut dwelling hunter-gatherers of the steppe who couldn't farm, couldn't herd domesticated animals, and didn't even have them, and knew nothing of metallurgy or chiefdoms or possessed any of the the other "hallmarks" of "Indo-European" culture are "The Indo-Europeans", repeating something ad infinitum doesn't make it so. I'll stick with David Anthony. The Indo-European language, culture, and people formed on the steppe between about 4000-3000 BC. To claim "The Indo-Europeans" are the people of the steppe prior to any admixture is like claiming "The Mexicans are the Aztecs, when the Mexicans are mestizos genetically and most of their culture is Spanish."
Now, whether most of the genetic change that occurred in Central and Northern Europe was the result of the actual movement of the Samara Yamnaya people themselves or of culturally "Indo-Europeanized" and genetically related people and perhaps some Motala like people who also got Indo-Europeanized is another story. I've been saying since the Lazaridis paper came out that perhaps some of the claims were a bit exaggerated, which shouldn't be surprising considering David Anthony was a contributing author. As for a Motala like group perhaps moving south starting around the mid-to-late Neolithic, that was totally rejected when I first proposed it. Now let's see what further evidence shows.
Now, perhaps we should try to stick closer to the thread topic and the migration into Ireland.
I looked into the Greek Mesolithic a while back and came to the conclusion it is very atypical for Europe and probably came from the Levant sort of area. So I am not at all surprised that Greek Mesolithic and Neolithic may have been very similar and basically what we call EEF. However, Greece is very unusual for Europe in this respect and an exception to the rule of the Mesolithic hunters being long-time Europeans who contrasted with the incoming farmers. Personally I expect Greek hunters to be E people but again this is a rare Greece-specific thing and very unusual for Mesolithic Europe.
Alan:It looks like Mesolithic Greece was more related to Mesolithic Levant than mainland Mesolithic Europe. However there is also no doubt of population replacement during the Neolithic just that a group of Neolithic farmers from Anatolia "replaced" or mixed with the local Hunters and Gatherers who were genetically indistinguishable but culturally not farmers.
Another interestin thing. Greek farmers were dark skinned, while Anatolian and Central European farmers were light skinned. Could that mean the Anatolian farmer went directly into Central Europe?
It had to arise somewhere where it could spread both north to the EHG/SHG
The First Eastern Migrations of People and Knowledge into Scandinavia: Evidence from Studies of Mesolithic Technology, 9th-8th Millennium BC: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00293652.2013.770416?journalCode=sarc20
Abstract:
In this paper a team of Scandinavian researchers identifies and describes a Mesolithic technological concept, referred to as ‘the conical core pressure blade’ concept, and investigates how this concept spread into Fennoscandia and across Scandinavia. Using lithic technological, contextual archaeological and radiocarbon analyses, it is demonstrated that this blade concept arrived with ‘post-Swiderian’ hunter-gatherer groups from the Russian plain into northern Fennoscandia and the eastern Baltic during the 9th millennium bc. From there it was spread by migrating people and/or as transmitted knowledge through culture contacts into interior central Sweden, Norway and down along the Norwegian coast. However it was also spread into southern Scandinavia, where it was formerly identified as the Maglemosian technogroup 3 (or the ‘Sværdborg phase’). In this paper it is argued that the identification and spread of the conical core pressure blade concept represents the first migration of people, technology and ideas into Scandinavia from the south-eastern Baltic region and the Russian plain.
Shows that Neolithic transition took place in Greece earlier than in Western Anatolia.
Perhaps Greek hunters invented agriculture independently all by themselves?
That mutation probably spread to SHG directly from EHG, during the 9th-8th Millennia BC:
True. There are many different genetic conditions that are like this - they can have good or bad effects depending on the situation. I am a heterozygous carrier (single copy) for HFE Hereditary Hemochromatosis/Haemochromatosis (the so-called "Celtic Curse"), which helps the body store enough dietary iron under famine conditions (which have been depressingly common in Ireland over the centuries), but which (especially when one has two HH genes) can cause self-poisoning of internal organs.
Thanks for finding that, Tomenable. We should make a sticky for this data perhaps, so we have it in one place.
So:
WHG 163.1-5'3"
Oetzi 165 or 5'4"
Anatolian farmers: ? (Mathiesen said they were taller than European Neolithic but I couldn't find a precise figure. Anyone know?
Yamnaya 175 so 5'7-8
EHG 173.2 so 5'6-7, a little shorter than Yamnaya.
So, we still have to find an explanation for the much greater height of this Irish sample, yes? Has someone checked the height? That seems like a really big increase. Still, I've seen families where the American diet results in a three to four inch increase between father and sons in one generation.
Tomenable, there's a mountain of literature on how selection based on climate favors certain body types and individual features. People evolved to fit their environment. They didn't burst fully formed from the head of Zeus. Just look it up.
That doesn't mean migration and admixture doesn't have a role to play, however, after the type has been "set".[/QUOTE
possible explanations:
- evolution concerning body proportions depends on factors as way of life (diet, physical activities) with complexe effects but evolving quickly, post-birth for the most, between fecondation and birth also according to diet of the mother (parents to children, and also between these children) and natural (climatic) selection, with slow evolution over a lot of generations by genetic selection
- elites selection: it seems to me the more warlike the population the more high statured the elites (justified or not by efficacity)
- 3 men is very few to calculate the mean stature of a population, even the elite's one. COON wrote the Iron Age Irishmen were about 1m70 as a mean.
Just to recall it, surely you knew already that
@Tomenable,
There's a low chance any Pre-Historic European groups were very noticeable taller than each other. There's hardly any height diversity in Europe today. In most parts of the world the genetic height is 5'6-5'8.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cro-Magnon#Physical_attributes
There's a possible simple explanation for why
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergmann's_rule
Although I'd still imagine that rule would require a high calorie (and protein?) intake to physically build and fuel the larger size so bigger but fewer might be the trade off?
It's just speculation but if they were bigger when it was colder they may have shrunk gradually as it got warmer.
Very simplistic and hardly confimed this Bergmann's law, indeed; for I tink. Other theorie exist, different (by instance "the farther from the population center the taller". Maybe all of them contain a part of truth giving way to a multicaused result. I think in a same group the smallest are more resistant as a whole than the tallest, compared to their dimensions. the taller the lower performance index. Maybe I'm wrong?
Fire-Haired
You affirm things without any proof, sometimes, spite some interestings posts where you put true data.
Cro-Magnon cousins were about 1m74 or more, Mugem Mesolithic were about 1m58, Teviec 1m55, other Mesolithic groups between 1m63 and 1m65 in the West Europe, taller in the East. In Brittany Teviecoid people were replaced during the megalithic period by men about 1m67/1m68...
even today, spite modifications due to way of life the old differences keep on as a whole; in the 1930 the national means were between 1m63 and 1m73, the regional means were between 1m60 and 1m76, without speaking of the pure central Saami (about 1m55).
some old means were not too serious (means taken among army recrues, among migrants of specific regions) but as a whole the most of them were verified.
I admit there could have been pre-historic groups who were much taller than each other. The way I know the genetic height for most men is 5'6-5'8, is outside of the West essentially all men in the world are 5'6-5'8. Before the 1800s Western men were 5'6-5'8.
Isles Celts aren't noticeable tall. Irish, Scottish, Welsh, etc. are 5'9-5'10 on average today. Other posters brought up how tall(6'0) the Late Neolithic Irish were from a single site, and I was pointing out it is unlikely they were that tall on average. I think people want the Eastern(Steppe, Steppe admixed) newcomers to be macho giants, and I'm pointing out the reality that they weren't genetically much taller or bigger than EEF/MN.
Today Portugueses and Spanish people are always less tall than other Europeans
Today Greek people are taller than irish people,
This thread has been viewed 115519 times.