MOESAN
Elite member
- Messages
- 5,895
- Reaction score
- 1,297
- Points
- 113
- Location
- Brittany
- Ethnic group
- more celtic
- Y-DNA haplogroup
- R1b - L21/S145*
- mtDNA haplogroup
- H3c
partly linked to this thread even if giving more weight to metrics and general autosomals than to Y-DNA:
Brachycephaly, bones metrics andevocations of environmental conditions :
after a very too confident classicalanthropology relying entirely or almost on cranial measures and funnyinterpretations, we know nowaday the domination of adaptative magicinterpretations whose goal is to evacuate any worth of metrics.Science knows apparently the same mods as fashion trade...
some basic facts : Europe SEAMShaving known a trend towards brachycephaly since the Middle Agesuntil the 1900's ; someones saw the origin of brachycephaly inhighlands (poor for 'iode'), in Great Europe at least, others saw inthis process a general trend without any selective charactere (andwithout any explication too!) - in the last years, thedebrachycephalization seams linked to stature encrease, asbrachycephalization seamed linked to a decrease of stature*
--*(Celtsof La Tène Period : 1m67 (France Marne) to 1m 70 (Ireland), butRomans (nobility or not?): 1m62 – Germanic tribes of the GreatWanderings period : 1m72 to 1m74 – Bretons of Brittany andFrank or Norman riders from Normandy in the X°C., 1m70, Bretons ofBrittain at the time 1m68 to 1m70 – French people around 1880 AC :1m60-1m62, Swede Recrues same date : 1m68 only (1930 :France people : 1m65, Sweden 1m73)...
Others facts : in anhomogenous population for metric measures that could evolve not bymutations but by modifications linked to environment, we can expect a« bell » form for the statistic curve : for, say, aCephal-Index of 82 in a population, we may expect a curve summitbetween the 81 and 83 indexes, the curve going down almost regularlyon the two sides of it – but when we compare curves obtained fordifferent populations showing very different C-I means, we see thatthe summit of the curve is excentred to the lowest indexes in themore dolichocephalic populations, and to the highest indexes in themore brachycephalic ones, whatever the period and the evolution ofthe means. We can see some secondary summits corresponding apparentlyto other expressions of the crossings and maybe to some « homozygoticpure » indexes...
concerningenvironment+selection, Western Norway shows always morebrachycephalic means than Eastern Norway, though it is in a seacoastal area. The context is mountainous but the population is as awhole living on the shores, so... ? As a whole too, the highestregions of Spain showed (in the XX°C.) the most dolichocephalicpopulations, the lowest the contrary ;
One can say theacquisition and the lost of brachycephaly can require some time, andit is sure ! And I add that the first apparition of a trendtowards meso-brachycephaly in Europe is old enough, dating from theOffnet-Solutré findings (10000BC-8000BC), and the Mugem findings(fewer brachycephalic men and when?) -
concerning the increasingof brachycephalic between Antiquity and Middle-Ages, we have to relyon burying places studies : It is very hard to get a completefigure of Europe on this basis : I add that I am almost surethat the sepultures examined for barbarian Bronze Age or Iron Agesare for the most the sepultures of ruling castes, not the basicpopulation ones : yet the Pompei population (near Napoli) ofRoman times was sub-brachycephalic (big frequence of 'alpinid' types)and surely enough was more representative of the whole population ofthis country;
some scientists seamtaking the modifications of means in a same place according to timesas a genuine purely local evolution : this bias is found veryoften ; I read in an Eupedia thread (old enough) a linked oldscholar's text that explained with a very striking certitude that thediverses tribes living at antique times in Venetia was showing nomodification with time (!), at the exception of a « modest »75 to a nowaday (1930's?) 85 C-I change explained as a normal commonall-european brachycephalic phenomenon !!! Very easy indeed !No use in searching some historical fact (emigration, colonization,invasion, plague...) to explain modification... when some historicfacts can trouble this kind of idyllic picture some authors sweapthem as a fly on the table corner... (too few invaders, indaptedinvaders, 100% endogamy for centuries and centuries...) -
When we look at thecranial evolution in France from Paleolithic to our era, we seedifferent directions and different regional evolutions at differenttimes : a seamingly genuine trend towards mesocephaly 74 >>76 (everywhere in occident) and after brachycephaly >> + >82 (in Alps for the most) among cromagnoids descendants, at theMesolithic period and in Neolithic, the apparition of small lightboned « mediterraneans » of more than a type moredolichocephalic (72) intruding among the previous population – inBrittany, stayed at the tail concerning brachycephalization, we see aset of different sub-dolichocephals taking one on another atMegalithic times, beginning the true brachycephalization by thewives mediation at the Eneolithic/Chalcolithic ages, the bulkof men-women brachycephalization taking place at the Iron Ages ;evetime, the propagation (in no mountains zones!!!) appears as comingfrom East (Parisian Bassin) ; no internal localbrachycephalization here ; the rural folk of 1950's Brittanystill showed cantons oppositions for C-I as for other phenotypicaltraits (running from 79 to 86, the most brachycephalic in the eastern« gallo(roman » cantons as a whole – GIOT) -
I do not eliminate theway-of-living-environment aspect at all but I know it can not offerus all the keys of brachy-debrachycephalization ; by instance, asurvey on the same(???)departements (cantons are parts of departments, these last ones beingmore unprecise for surveys) some 15 years later show adebrachycephalization more or less tiny in Brittany, Poitou, Anjou,Maine and Normandy (10 departements of a region that contains 16 butBrittany complete here) with a decrease of C-I running from 0,5 to2,0 according to the places (someones can be suspected of strongimmigration of other french people, others having a faster or slowerlife-level evolution due to economic orientations and ruralemigration) – Here yet, debrachycephalization was associated tostature increase – so the last Middle Ages « mechanical »and not genetic part of brachycephalization until the industrialrevolution in Europe could be seen like stature decrease as theresult of (agricultural) sedentarization associated with « worst »feeding (less meat?), harder works in pre-adolescence times beforethe skeleton would have been formed, more short inbreeding... But donot forget that brachycephals was already numerous at bronze-IronAges in some parts of Europe, and that civil cemeteries of theseperiods showed certainly more level folks than the cheftainssepultures of previous times. Keep in mind too that even in anancient population of 35 Frisian of Leeuwarden showing a mean C-Iof 78,26 you find 1 indiviual with the C-I of 88, and 1 of 85 and 2of 84 compared to 10 under 77 ! Poor bad feed brachycephals ormountain climbers ? In the same family you can find a dolichoand a brachy so : evdient genetic background too.
So without any proof, howcan we imagine brachycephaly could take place ? The adaptativeaspect
can have two aspects :a personal during-life adaptation by plastical adaptative variabilityfurnished by the genome, not genetically acquired and nottransmittable to following generations and a collective genetic longterm adaptation by selection keeping the most adapted genes :the ones that improve survival in some natural conditions and thatare linked to some cranial features, either creating them orindirectly linked to them in the genome ; I see this evolutionas acquired and dificult to loose, only by an other selective factor-
What is striking is thatin Europe we see a kind of brachycephaly taking place pace by pace(result : 'alpine type') in West and an other type ofbrachycephalic coming on sight abruptly enough in West and East andCentre, at the Eneolithic-Chalcolithic time :
aSurvey about Greece(PANAGIARIS1993 according to DIENEKE) speaks about apparition of brachycephalicpeople at the bronze Ages in Greece (Pelopponese), Creta, and ineastern Saka-land (people came from Pamir-Ferghana), excluding aphenomenon by population isolation in Greece proper – someprototypes of a future dinaric type appeared too incentral-northwestern Europe about 3000 BC : I am unaware of theprecise place of very first apparition of types on this direction ;for some old scientists the first apparition of dinarid types inAnatolia—South-Caucasus is about the 2000 BC or a few centuriesbefore, coming from the Balkans as they thought... I red too that theKurgan culture of southern Russia showed a majority ofdolichocephals, the most of high stature but not all of them (thesmallest : some « danubian mediterraneans »?), andtoo some brachycephals, more on the dinaroid side ; these lasttypes was found also very far, in light proportions, among steppicpopulations of south Siberia in a considered future I-E population.Whatever people can conclude of it, some of the present daypopulations of these areas show a majority of Y-R1a (as in ancienttimes) and Y-I2a1a + some Y-I2a2 not yet detected in ancient Y-DNA(but the story is not closed) : I say we have there an opendoor, not an answer...
Iam still tempted to see in the territory of Cucuteni-Pripoljecultures the place where East Anatolian or Near-Eastern farmers orpastors (Y-G2 + some Y-J2?) mixed with Balkans-Carpathians« autochtons » (Y-I2...? + some Y-E1b « alpha » ?)developping a high standard culture (on material criteria) beforegetting in touch with steppic tribes (Y-R1a +???).
Whatsoeverthe conditions that gave birth to the so called « dinaric »phenotype : selection on a certain genetic basis or mixture onan as certain genetic basis, these conditions seam yet to me linkedgeographically to central-eastern Europe (from mesolithic times ?or is it the admixture with neolithic people ? I have no answerfor now... but the metric surveys over the Carpathian Bassin arerecent enough : Chalcolithic ? And a survey by R. PINHASI &M. PLUCIENNIK (2004) about mesolithic to neolithic sites in southernEurope and Near-East-Anatolia did not furnish C-I data, telling onlythat the Khirokitia (Creta) neolithic population showed a peculiar« short-headness and paedomorphic features » - firstmeso-brachycephals there, but when exactly ???
Brachycephaly, bones metrics andevocations of environmental conditions :
after a very too confident classicalanthropology relying entirely or almost on cranial measures and funnyinterpretations, we know nowaday the domination of adaptative magicinterpretations whose goal is to evacuate any worth of metrics.Science knows apparently the same mods as fashion trade...
some basic facts : Europe SEAMShaving known a trend towards brachycephaly since the Middle Agesuntil the 1900's ; someones saw the origin of brachycephaly inhighlands (poor for 'iode'), in Great Europe at least, others saw inthis process a general trend without any selective charactere (andwithout any explication too!) - in the last years, thedebrachycephalization seams linked to stature encrease, asbrachycephalization seamed linked to a decrease of stature*
--*(Celtsof La Tène Period : 1m67 (France Marne) to 1m 70 (Ireland), butRomans (nobility or not?): 1m62 – Germanic tribes of the GreatWanderings period : 1m72 to 1m74 – Bretons of Brittany andFrank or Norman riders from Normandy in the X°C., 1m70, Bretons ofBrittain at the time 1m68 to 1m70 – French people around 1880 AC :1m60-1m62, Swede Recrues same date : 1m68 only (1930 :France people : 1m65, Sweden 1m73)...
Others facts : in anhomogenous population for metric measures that could evolve not bymutations but by modifications linked to environment, we can expect a« bell » form for the statistic curve : for, say, aCephal-Index of 82 in a population, we may expect a curve summitbetween the 81 and 83 indexes, the curve going down almost regularlyon the two sides of it – but when we compare curves obtained fordifferent populations showing very different C-I means, we see thatthe summit of the curve is excentred to the lowest indexes in themore dolichocephalic populations, and to the highest indexes in themore brachycephalic ones, whatever the period and the evolution ofthe means. We can see some secondary summits corresponding apparentlyto other expressions of the crossings and maybe to some « homozygoticpure » indexes...
concerningenvironment+selection, Western Norway shows always morebrachycephalic means than Eastern Norway, though it is in a seacoastal area. The context is mountainous but the population is as awhole living on the shores, so... ? As a whole too, the highestregions of Spain showed (in the XX°C.) the most dolichocephalicpopulations, the lowest the contrary ;
One can say theacquisition and the lost of brachycephaly can require some time, andit is sure ! And I add that the first apparition of a trendtowards meso-brachycephaly in Europe is old enough, dating from theOffnet-Solutré findings (10000BC-8000BC), and the Mugem findings(fewer brachycephalic men and when?) -
concerning the increasingof brachycephalic between Antiquity and Middle-Ages, we have to relyon burying places studies : It is very hard to get a completefigure of Europe on this basis : I add that I am almost surethat the sepultures examined for barbarian Bronze Age or Iron Agesare for the most the sepultures of ruling castes, not the basicpopulation ones : yet the Pompei population (near Napoli) ofRoman times was sub-brachycephalic (big frequence of 'alpinid' types)and surely enough was more representative of the whole population ofthis country;
some scientists seamtaking the modifications of means in a same place according to timesas a genuine purely local evolution : this bias is found veryoften ; I read in an Eupedia thread (old enough) a linked oldscholar's text that explained with a very striking certitude that thediverses tribes living at antique times in Venetia was showing nomodification with time (!), at the exception of a « modest »75 to a nowaday (1930's?) 85 C-I change explained as a normal commonall-european brachycephalic phenomenon !!! Very easy indeed !No use in searching some historical fact (emigration, colonization,invasion, plague...) to explain modification... when some historicfacts can trouble this kind of idyllic picture some authors sweapthem as a fly on the table corner... (too few invaders, indaptedinvaders, 100% endogamy for centuries and centuries...) -
When we look at thecranial evolution in France from Paleolithic to our era, we seedifferent directions and different regional evolutions at differenttimes : a seamingly genuine trend towards mesocephaly 74 >>76 (everywhere in occident) and after brachycephaly >> + >82 (in Alps for the most) among cromagnoids descendants, at theMesolithic period and in Neolithic, the apparition of small lightboned « mediterraneans » of more than a type moredolichocephalic (72) intruding among the previous population – inBrittany, stayed at the tail concerning brachycephalization, we see aset of different sub-dolichocephals taking one on another atMegalithic times, beginning the true brachycephalization by thewives mediation at the Eneolithic/Chalcolithic ages, the bulkof men-women brachycephalization taking place at the Iron Ages ;evetime, the propagation (in no mountains zones!!!) appears as comingfrom East (Parisian Bassin) ; no internal localbrachycephalization here ; the rural folk of 1950's Brittanystill showed cantons oppositions for C-I as for other phenotypicaltraits (running from 79 to 86, the most brachycephalic in the eastern« gallo(roman » cantons as a whole – GIOT) -
I do not eliminate theway-of-living-environment aspect at all but I know it can not offerus all the keys of brachy-debrachycephalization ; by instance, asurvey on the same(???)departements (cantons are parts of departments, these last ones beingmore unprecise for surveys) some 15 years later show adebrachycephalization more or less tiny in Brittany, Poitou, Anjou,Maine and Normandy (10 departements of a region that contains 16 butBrittany complete here) with a decrease of C-I running from 0,5 to2,0 according to the places (someones can be suspected of strongimmigration of other french people, others having a faster or slowerlife-level evolution due to economic orientations and ruralemigration) – Here yet, debrachycephalization was associated tostature increase – so the last Middle Ages « mechanical »and not genetic part of brachycephalization until the industrialrevolution in Europe could be seen like stature decrease as theresult of (agricultural) sedentarization associated with « worst »feeding (less meat?), harder works in pre-adolescence times beforethe skeleton would have been formed, more short inbreeding... But donot forget that brachycephals was already numerous at bronze-IronAges in some parts of Europe, and that civil cemeteries of theseperiods showed certainly more level folks than the cheftainssepultures of previous times. Keep in mind too that even in anancient population of 35 Frisian of Leeuwarden showing a mean C-Iof 78,26 you find 1 indiviual with the C-I of 88, and 1 of 85 and 2of 84 compared to 10 under 77 ! Poor bad feed brachycephals ormountain climbers ? In the same family you can find a dolichoand a brachy so : evdient genetic background too.
So without any proof, howcan we imagine brachycephaly could take place ? The adaptativeaspect
can have two aspects :a personal during-life adaptation by plastical adaptative variabilityfurnished by the genome, not genetically acquired and nottransmittable to following generations and a collective genetic longterm adaptation by selection keeping the most adapted genes :the ones that improve survival in some natural conditions and thatare linked to some cranial features, either creating them orindirectly linked to them in the genome ; I see this evolutionas acquired and dificult to loose, only by an other selective factor-
What is striking is thatin Europe we see a kind of brachycephaly taking place pace by pace(result : 'alpine type') in West and an other type ofbrachycephalic coming on sight abruptly enough in West and East andCentre, at the Eneolithic-Chalcolithic time :
aSurvey about Greece(PANAGIARIS1993 according to DIENEKE) speaks about apparition of brachycephalicpeople at the bronze Ages in Greece (Pelopponese), Creta, and ineastern Saka-land (people came from Pamir-Ferghana), excluding aphenomenon by population isolation in Greece proper – someprototypes of a future dinaric type appeared too incentral-northwestern Europe about 3000 BC : I am unaware of theprecise place of very first apparition of types on this direction ;for some old scientists the first apparition of dinarid types inAnatolia—South-Caucasus is about the 2000 BC or a few centuriesbefore, coming from the Balkans as they thought... I red too that theKurgan culture of southern Russia showed a majority ofdolichocephals, the most of high stature but not all of them (thesmallest : some « danubian mediterraneans »?), andtoo some brachycephals, more on the dinaroid side ; these lasttypes was found also very far, in light proportions, among steppicpopulations of south Siberia in a considered future I-E population.Whatever people can conclude of it, some of the present daypopulations of these areas show a majority of Y-R1a (as in ancienttimes) and Y-I2a1a + some Y-I2a2 not yet detected in ancient Y-DNA(but the story is not closed) : I say we have there an opendoor, not an answer...
Iam still tempted to see in the territory of Cucuteni-Pripoljecultures the place where East Anatolian or Near-Eastern farmers orpastors (Y-G2 + some Y-J2?) mixed with Balkans-Carpathians« autochtons » (Y-I2...? + some Y-E1b « alpha » ?)developping a high standard culture (on material criteria) beforegetting in touch with steppic tribes (Y-R1a +???).
Whatsoeverthe conditions that gave birth to the so called « dinaric »phenotype : selection on a certain genetic basis or mixture onan as certain genetic basis, these conditions seam yet to me linkedgeographically to central-eastern Europe (from mesolithic times ?or is it the admixture with neolithic people ? I have no answerfor now... but the metric surveys over the Carpathian Bassin arerecent enough : Chalcolithic ? And a survey by R. PINHASI &M. PLUCIENNIK (2004) about mesolithic to neolithic sites in southernEurope and Near-East-Anatolia did not furnish C-I data, telling onlythat the Khirokitia (Creta) neolithic population showed a peculiar« short-headness and paedomorphic features » - firstmeso-brachycephals there, but when exactly ???