Mezolithic-Neolithic vs. Chalcolithic-Early Iron Age Y-DNA landscape of Europe

bicicleur said:
hunter gatherers in general were mobile small groups, but there are some exceptions

the caves in and near Mount Carmel in the Levant have been populated by humanoids for over 600.000 years because of good hunting grounds and lots of nuts and fruits to be collected
first there was homo Palestinensis who was expelled by Neanderthal some 200.000 years ago, and Neanderthal was expelled by homo sapiens sapiens some 50.000 years ago

also Moravia in Europe was a good place before the ice age, when northern Europe was a cold steppe ; Moravia was a corridor between the northern European plain (northern Germany & Poland) and the Carpathian basin ; every spring and every automn herds of animals would pass through this corridor between their winter and summer grazing fields ; there were permanent HG settlements in Moravia ; it was allready densely inhabited by Neanderthals ; 48000 years ago the Bohunicians came to this place ; it is the oldest European culture that is assigned to homo sapiens sapiens, they settled here before the Balkans were settled

as to the European mesolithic, there were several good fishing and hunting territories :
the best territory was Doggerland, which unfortunaltely for the HG drowned
then there were the Atlantic, North Sea and Baltic coast, with the Sado valley in Portugal, the Swifterbant and Ertebölle people, the southern Swedish lakes (Motola)
and the Danube gorges, where large sturgeon fish came to spawn every spring
Click to expand...

Those are good examples of high value static food sources (that Moravia one is particularly interesting) that might force HGs to become sedentary or semi-sedentary even if they didn't want to simply because the food source was too good (or maybe even started the process by separating out from a population of HGs those who could stay still and those that couldn't).

It's interesting if you list the possible sources of such static food sources
- wetlands
- coastal fishing
etc

as some of them - like wetlands - might produce a lot of food leading to a sedentary HG lifestyle but they wouldn't necessarily be suitable for evolving farming cos wetlands aren't the right environment for sheep/goats and maybe not right for wild cereals either.

So it seems to me farming/herding would most likely start in regions which had both a really good static food source and also had sheep/goats nearby and maybe wild cereals as well - hence why i'm interested in places that had a lot of fruit trees which also overlapped with wild goats.
 
Tomenable said:
By the way, most of modern city dwellers can be described as "supermarket foragers". :)
Click to expand...

Indeed. When a friend of mine, who was flirting with being a vegetarian, heard her husband rhapsodizing about how men are hunters and warriors, she told him to go hunt a pizza for her dinner then. :LOL: How times have changed, yes?

I, on the other hand, love wild game like quail or even wild boar, so the men can go out and hunt with my blessing...I'll even cook it for them. :) I'm a hypocrite, so I'd prefer not to do the killing myself.
 
Angela said:
I realize people on the net are playing with the data and slicing and dicing it in different ways. They've done it before, only to be found wrong when we get the next set of ancient samples and analysis from the academics.
Click to expand...

Blogging amateurs have been right many times. Europeans have been viewed as a mix of"Mediterranean" and "North European" for many years, even before ancient DNA. "Mediterranean" was already known to have equal relation to "SouthWest Asian"(Because of ENF) and "North European"(Because of WHG), and "North European' was known to have almost equal relation to "West Asian"(Because of Yamnaya, and shared ancestry between ANE, WHG) and "Mediterranean"(Because of WHG). In PCAs the ANE, WHG, and ENF signals were already detected, but no one knew exactly how to interpret the PCAs yet.

Angela said:
I have a feeling that "Near East" in their scheme may be their designation for what Lazaridis called "Basal Eurasian".
Click to expand...

It's suppose to represent the Near Eastern ancestors of EEF. So, just less WHG and more Basal Eurasian. Everything you need to know about it is on the Eurogenes blog.

Angela said:
They may or may not be right about these percents.
Click to expand...

No one is saying the scores in ANE K8 are law. It's like anyother ADMIXTURE.

Angela said:
All these analyses are doing, in my opinion, is confusing people. Or, perhaps it's just part of the continuing saga of trying to lower the "Near Eastern" portion in the Yamnaya as much as possible.
Click to expand...

Angela said:
The fact is that the modern Armenians and Iraqi Jews whose genomes best fit or match the 50% non ancient Karelian portion of the Yamnaya are Near Easterners...
Click to expand...

Until Haak 2015's leaks, most posters at Eurogenes thought Yamnaya would turn out mostly Near Eastern. It's clear Yamnaya-types made Europe less ENF. WHG is high in all of Europe, and differences are mostly ENF vs ANE.

It is surprising Iraqi_Jew and Armenian fit best as the non-EHG 50% of Yamnaya, considering how high ENF they have. Amateurs using the similar methods created by the authors of Haak 2015, have found other Caucasus pops work just as well. Yamnaya is an ~50/50 mix of EHG and a Near Eastern pop with lots of ANE(aka Teal), that's all we can be confident of.

Amateurs have the same tools as academics. They're not biased either.
 
Angela said:
I really don't know where all this hating on farmers comes from in our European members.
Click to expand...

I wonder if this is significant in terms of the various ancestry arguments. It seems to me from reading around that a lot of people want their ancestors to be one thing or another i.e. civilized farmers and pyramid builders or scary tattooed steppe nomad pastoralists or fur-clad mammoth hunters (my personal favorite) and I wonder if the preferred proportions among different populations varies depending on how recently barbarian a population are.

The thought struck me when I was reading an English-language East Asian historical forum when the topic of steppe nomads came up and there was zero romantic appeal of that to the people on the forum, in fact quite a lot of disdain, whereas among a lot of northern euros and some north south Asians it's a big thing.

Although we're all pretty much domesticated now I wonder if the most recently farmer-ed populations have a higher percentage who still have a nomadic gene in them so they still hanker for it.
 
Fluffy said:
I'm sure J2 will show up in the Neolithic era, with more ancient DNA testing IMO.
Click to expand...

Something like a founder effect(s) and expansion must have occurred to explain how popular J2 is today, if it did arrive in the Neolithic.
 
Angela said:
I think it has more to do with looking into the future, with foreseeing possible "bad" situations arising, and being able to plan for them...what if something happens to those particular trees, or the rains don't come on time? Or, wouldn't it be better to have more than one kind of plant, or a better plant that produces more fruit? Wouldn't it also be better to have the animals penned up near the stream and the fields, and they can give birth here so we have an unending supply of them right to hand? We can also use the manure to keep those fields fertile. Then, why don't we see if we can make the animals bigger and fatter and easier to handle or more docile.

It also has to do with being able to defer gratification for years maybe while all these plans are brought to fruition.

So, I think it's foresight, planning ability, focus, frustration tolerance, the ability to delay gratification. I also think LeBrok has hit on something: it's a desire to control the environment, not see oneself as a part of it.

I've also wondered if ADHD is really our name for a type of neurological processing that used to be functional but isn't any longer.
Click to expand...

Agree about ADHD. I think the first step in human domestication by cereals (yuk yuk) may have been sanding off or at least reducing the desire to be always moving.
 
Tomenable said:
Angela in another thread wrote that usually only people with 120 or higher IQ are capable of innovative thinking.

So most people aren't innovative but societies with higher average IQ will have higher number of innovative individuals.

However, you don't need a population in which everyone is 120 or higher to adopt an innovation.

That's what I wrote - you don't need to be Karl Benz in order to drive a car.

The guy who came up with an idea to grow plants was smart, but his tribe didn't need to be smart to follow his idea.

That's why Equatorial Guineans can be farmers with average IQs of 59 - if that measurement was correct.
Click to expand...

When watching the documentaries about Amazon Jungle tribes, I'm always "surprised" how similar all the people in the tribe are. Well, surprised from Western point of view, where in Europe and America everybody is quite different in looks and behavior. In small tribes, they all look like brothers and sister, look the same, walk the same, talk the same and like same things. They have pretty much the same genome. I'm assuming, by their similar genetics and same environment, that they all have the same IQ. Let's say their IQ is 80 to 85, across the board.
If it is true that we need IQ 120 to innovate, that would mean that these people won't invent anything. Perhaps their progress, and all closed group hunter gatherers, happens only by lucky accidents?

The guy who came up with an idea to grow plants was smart, but his tribe didn't need to be smart to follow his idea.
Click to expand...
They accidentally spilled few seeds by their hut, and noticed after a rain, that new grass is growing from these seeds. Still one needs an imagination, that it can be done on a bigger scale, big enough to feed the whole family. Plus, instead of eating collected seeds, one needs to throw them away on the ground. One needs courage and a lot of optimism, lol.
Or maybe, it got really crowded and violent around the wiled fields, and there was a need to move the wheat into a safer place, a private peaceful land? As long as they understood that new plants grow from seeds, they could have done the "transplanting". Often a need is a mother of invention.
 
LeBrok said:
When watching the documentaries about Amazon Jungle tribes, I'm always "surprised" how similar all the people in the tribe are. Well, surprised from Western point of view, where in Europe and America everybody is quite different in looks and behavior. In small tribes, they all look like brothers and sister, look the same, walk the same, talk the same and like same things. They have pretty much the same genome. I'm assuming, by their similar genetics and same environment, that they all have the same IQ. Let's say their IQ is 80 to 85, across the board.
If it is true that we need IQ 120 to innovate, that would mean that these people won't invent anything. Perhaps their progress, and all closed group hunter gatherers, happens only by lucky accidents?
Click to expand...

I think that maybe speaks to the point that innovations are more likely to occur in places with relatively high population densities (for the time period) - not just that higher effective population size leads to more genetic innovations but also maybe that larger populations have a higher chance of producing the kind of IQ outliers who produce cultural innovations.
 
Greying Wanderer said:
I think that maybe speaks to the point that innovations are more likely to occur in places with relatively high population densities (for the time period) - not just that higher effective population size leads to more genetic innovations but also maybe that larger populations have a higher chance of producing the kind of IQ outliers who produce cultural innovations.
Click to expand...

That's an excellent observation.
 
ADHD in our societies is considered a disorder, but among hunter-gatherers ADHD traits most likely tended to be favourable:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_vs._farmer_hypothesis

The hunter vs. farmer hypothesis states that attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children and its counterpart in adults, the adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, have their origins in a tendency in those individuals for behaviors characteristic of hunter-gatherer societies over those of farming societies. The hypothesis was proposed by Thom Hartmann and suggest that these conditions may be a result of a form of adaptive behavior.

Hartmann developed the hunter vs. farmer idea as a mental model after his own son was disheartened following a diagnosis of ADHD
Click to expand...

http://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/evolution

ADHD and Hunter-Gatherers

A study conducted at Northwestern University in 2008 examined two tribal groups in Kenya. One of the tribes was still nomadic, while the other had settled into villages. The researchers were able to identify members of the tribes who displayed ADHD traits. [Eisenberg, 2011]

Specifically, they examined the DRD4 7R, a genetic variant that researches say is linked to novelty-seeking, greater food and drug cravings, and ADHD symptoms.

Research showed that members of the nomadic tribe with ADHD—those who still had to hunt for their food—were better nourished than those without ADHD. Also, those with the same genetic variant in the settled village had more difficultly in the classroom, a major indicator of ADHD in civilized society.

The researchers also noted that unpredictable behavior—a hallmark of ADHD—might have been helpful in protecting our ancestors against livestock raids, robberies, and more. After all, would you want to challenge someone if you had no idea what he or she might do?

In essence, the traits associated with ADHD make for better hunters-gatherers and worse settlers.
Click to expand...

===================

Dan Eisenberg, who headed the Northwestern study, co-wrote in an article in San Francisco Medicine, which said that with better understanding of our evolutionary legacy, people with ADHD can pursue interests that are better for them and society.

“Children and adults with ADHD are often made to believe that their ADHD is strictly a disability,” the article stated. “Instead of understanding that their ADHD can be a strength, they are often given the message that it is a flaw that must be solved through medication.”

Peter Gray, Ph.D., a research professor in psychology at Boston College, argues in an article for Psychology Today that ADHD is, on a basic level, a failure to adapt to the conditions of modern schooling.

“From an evolutionary perspective, school is an abnormal environment. Nothing like it ever existed in the long course of evolution during which we acquired our human nature,” Gray wrote. “School is a place where children are expected to spend most of their time sitting quietly in chairs, listening to a teacher talk about things that don't particularly interest them, reading what they are told to read, writing what they are told to write, and feeding memorized information back on tests.”

Until recently in human evolution, children took charge of their own schooling by watching others, asking questions, learning through doing, and so forth. The very structure of modern schools, Gray argues, is why many children today have trouble adjusting to social expectations.

Gray argues that there’s enough anecdotal evidence to suggest that if children are given freedom to learn the way they do best—instead of being forced to adjust to the norms of the classroom—they no longer need medication and can use their ADHD traits to live more healthy and productive lives.
Click to expand...
 
Tomenable said:
ADHD in our societies is considered a disorder, but among hunter-gatherers ADHD traits most likely tended to be favourable:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_vs._farmer_hypothesis



http://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/evolution
Click to expand...

Wow, I didn't know someone had studied it.

A lot of my extended family have it. One of my uncles was a carpenter and he went around and around the world in a cycle: UK to South Africa to Oz/NZ to US/Can finding work for six months or so and then moving on again. He did that for about 20 years IIRC. Almost all of them do jobs like that (police, construction, military) where you never stay in the same place too long.
 
Greying Wanderer said:
In contrast, in a group of HGs, smart hunter, stupid hunter, strong hunter, weak hunter, are rewarded the same amount of food, therefore smart genes are not selected with same strong force as in farmers case.

I think equal sharing of food, is not exactly equal in amount of food. They don't weigh portions before eating. They all bring food and put it on one pile in a common kitchen. Food is prepared and everybody eats as much as they want from the same source. There is no separate stash for special individuals, there is no preferential treatment of individuals. They are all equal, there is no boss, no shaman, no special status, till the group grows big to hundreds of individuals. Only then special functions are created but a need of controlling and organizing such big group. Though, in such big groups we will see subgroups, and in these subgroups there will be a common kitchen.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
Tomenable said:
ADHD in our societies is considered a disorder, but among hunter-gatherers ADHD traits most likely tended to be favourable:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_vs._farmer_hypothesis



http://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/evolution



===================
Click to expand...
Good job Tomenable. It is interesting that East Asians like Chinese, Japanese and Koreans are so much better spending time behind school desks plus more hours of homework in homes. I believe they have much fewer cases of ADHD. The reason might be that they were longer farmers than European, or went through more intense genetic "farmer" selection, or later mixed less with HGs, or they didn't have so many invasions of steppe nomads like IE and Huns, which I assume brought more case of ADHD with them.

South Korea is a first country in the world to mandate by law maximum hours kids can spend (forced by parents) to extracurricular activity.
 
Are you sure about all hunters having same amount of food? That seems counterintuitive.
I somehow feel that farming ensured that even less successful members of society got enough to survive.
Do you have any studies showing that was the case? How about women still looking at well built men which is generally explained by them being better hunters? Why would they care if each hunter got same amount of food?
 
arvistro said:
Are you sure about all hunters having same amount of food? That seems counterintuitive.
Click to expand...
Because you are a farmer, and for you sharing doesn't come equal and is counter-intuitive to your nature and culture.
Actually, I have a very strong sense of justice, and for me it would be unfair if the spoils of the hunt are not divided equally among participants.

I somehow feel that farming ensured that even less successful members of society got enough to survive.
Click to expand...
Farmer society is stratified. There are rich that have more than most, there is middle class, and there a poor, beggars and homeless. The poor were the first to die from hunger. Sure, people always share if they have enough. But from time to time there were years of failed crops, and then there was nothing to share with the poor (usually not the smartest) and they died first. Unlike the rich (and usually smarter) who could feed more kids than anyone.
Do you have any studies showing that was the case? How about women still looking at well built men which is generally explained by them being better hunters? Why would they care if each hunter got same amount of food?
Click to expand...
It is the nature of small hunter gatherer groups. They are democratic communes with equal treatment of all, well at least equal among men, the hunters. Tell me how would you divide the meat from the wild boar, when only one man killed it? The one hunter eats all and nothing for the rest? Second day other hunter is lucky to kill, so only he will eat? There is no way to share in small group but equally, especially in times when there is not enough to eat to be full.
At least in a rough sense of equality. I'm sure there are some traditions, like the one that killed, can chose first his favorite part, the liver or heart, etc. They hunt together, they gather together, they eat together, they fight together. It is a natural state of equality, inclusiveness, democracy and cooperation.
This is what I learned, but unfortunately I'm not good bookmarking my sources. Just watch the documentaries I posted in previous posts, they are very informative.
 
arvistro said:
I think LeBrok was a bit biassed saying that in hunter society strong and weak, smart and stupid had same chances to procreate.

On ADHD:
It is wrong that adhd folk cant focus, they can hyperfocus.
Focus and hyperfocus:
http://www.additudemag.com/adhd/article/612.html
They cant focus on things not interesting to them (like me) and can hyperfocus on interesting things (like me):
http://elitedaily.com/money/10-successful-people-adhd/
Click to expand...

Perhaps this is an HG -> farmer transition: from a not-focused (most of the time) or hyper-focused (e.g. while tracking) HG trait to being averagely focused all the time trait?

So, why then women like well built men?
Click to expand...

I think a lot of stuff like that is simply signaling good physical health.


edit: farmer vs HG wars to replace nomads vs farmer wars :)
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

This thread has been viewed 99660 times.

Back
Top