Haplogroup I - How do I resolve this?

[jdanel]

I have run into a conundrum and I am looking for a way to resolve it.


Here is the problem: Haplogroup I was founded about 30,000 years ago. Most(?) genetics guys seem to agree that the first group of modern humans to populate Europe were haplogroup I - there seem to be no other candidates. Therefore the modern human archaeological sites of Europe should date less than 30,000 years.


However, recent re-analysis of the fossils from the Grotta del Cavallo in Apulia and the Kents Cavern site in Cornwall both date to about 44,000 years ago and are both definitely modern humans, and so are therefore haplogroup I. (Or was it Haplogroup F, founded 48,000 BP, who repopulated Europe and left these fossils?)


This 15,000 year discrepancy also leads to another couple of problems: The Mousterian culture (300,000 BP to 30,000 BP) has been used as a marker of Neanderthals. The Aurignacian culture (ca. 45,000 to 35,000 years ago) that followed the Mousterian has also been used as a Neanderthal marker because it was thought that modern humans had not yet arrived in Europe. Furthermore, the Mousterian died out before the Neanderthals did, so the Neanderthals must have been using Aurignacian in the millenia before their extinction.


However the Grotta del Cavallo site has modern human teeth in a Mousterian assemblage that dates to before the spread of the Aurignacian.


It looks very much like the Aurignacian was invented and spread by haplogroup I (or was it F?) about 45,000 BP.


And it looks like the date of the founding of Haplogroup I, (and indeed all y dates) need to be multiplied by
1.5 or 2 to correspond to archaeological dates (and to mito dna dates?). How do we deal with these date problems?

 

[nordicwarrior]

Excellent question Jdanel. Leading experts in historical gene flow are wrestling with this very topic. For example, Spencer Wells of National Geographic fame is of the opinion that y-haplogroup R was actually the first into Europe. (Granted there aren't many left in this school of thought, but Well's theory illustrates the field of study is still unsettled.)

My thinking is that haplogroup I is a full 45,000 years old. This haplogroup may not have been spread throughout all of Europe for that long (possibly limited to the Balkans or Turkey for a decent chunk of time), but that's my solution to the age of hg I.

 

[sparkey]

I can't speak for everybody who comments about Haplogroup I, but my claim about Haplogroup I isn't that "the first group of modern humans to populate Europe were haplogroup I." My claim is: Haplogroup I is the only major surviving haplogroup to have survived in Europe since the European Paleolithic. (At least in the context of Western and Central Europe--Eastern Europe is a bit more murky.) The implication of the date conflicts is that the Y lines of Grotta del Cavallo and Kents Cavern are extinct. No problem there, most Y lines from that long ago are extinct. As for when Haplogroup I was introduced to Europe, it makes sense to me to guess that it arose out of an IJ population in Gravettian Culture, and afterwards existed in the Solutrean, etc. Those dates match up well.

 

[Anthro-inclined]

Think about how populations change over time, and what migration and technological innovation can do to change an ethnic landscape. Let me give you a modern day example of what could have happened in Europe many times over the last 45000 years. The America's had been populated for over 15000 years and experienced little genetic change until the arrival of Europeans and their technological innovations, now an indigenous haplogroup percentage in the America's was at 100 percent before the arrival of Europeans, and now it is at probably less than 1 percent in the US and Canada and at maybe 10 or less in south and Central America. But in Europe there are some possible haplogroups that are pre I like C7 and I think F3, just because of their tremendous age and geographical distribution.