Greying Wanderer
Elite member
- Messages
- 533
- Reaction score
- 86
- Points
- 0
I meant that the process started 6-10 ky ago. That's what we see from ancient dna, that first alleles related to these processes show up in European genome at about this time. I hope you agree that it was a slow long process in both cases, which lasted till today, and that it was not a sudden revolution?
I think both processes were likely long but I'm not so sure about slow.
With skin lightening I think it was more likely a sequence of rapid changes with long gaps. So for example I think there was some extra skin lightening in the far north very early - multiple regional versions - and then a lull until people became more mobile and the different groups mixed (edit: and thus picked up multiple ones) and then maybe a second lull until agriculture.
#
On LP although intuitively it makes sense that it would increase slowly over time personally I don't think it did exactly.
I think the gene evolved wherever a long time ago but didn't expand much until it arrived at the atlantic coast because it was necessary there for permanent settlement (cos rainfall -> acid soils -> low wheat yield). Neolithic farmers settled but couldn't sustain their usual population density without the extra calorie boost from LP imo so the first people who arrived who had it expanded dramatically into both Britain and Ireland. I think later invasions from the continent reduced the level of LP in Britain from its Irish peak of 90%+ and then it slowly went up again from there.
One the reasons behind thinking this is it looks to me from Maciamo's maps like the "Irish" R1b was initially more widespread and was pushed back by the continental and north sea streams.
"Irish" http://cache.eupedia.com/images/content/Haplogroup-R1b-L21.gif
"Alpine" http://cdn.eupedia.com/images/content/Haplogroup-R1b-S28.gif
"North Sea" https://thecampblogbymike.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/haplogroup-r1b-s21.gif
Obviously that's just a guess without much evidence yet but i think we'll find that Bronze Age samples with the "Irish" clade of R1b will have a substantially higher percentage of LP than the continental clades and the eventual pattern will be
- neolithic farmers: none
- Irish R1b: very high
- continental R1b and A-S: lower
- moderns: high again
#
nb if the conifer line was further south back then the same argument could apply to northern Europe as conifers make the soil acid as well so farmers coming up from the south might have hit a wall when they crossed the conifer line
#
edit
all speculation of course but easily disprovable if early Irish clade samples don't have much higher rates of LP than later mixed clades.
Last edited: