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From:
Subject: Re: Most recent common ancestors
Date: 17 Jan 2006 14:34:43 -0800
References: <1137338990.456458.231910@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <mo4ms15t5bs77ev0ds8bhs690882gdmb15@4ax.com> <1137393583.764351.82280@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com> <dqfnp4$11q$1@newsg4.svr.pol.co.uk>
In-Reply-To: <dqfnp4$11q$1@newsg4.svr.pol.co.uk>


I am not sure what you mean by "Mongolian blood" unless you are
referring to the recent tracing of some Native American genotypes to a
particular valley in Mongolia. It is also true that the blood types of
Mongolians and that of Native Americans are completely different. What
Viking connections? There are many Scandinavian-Native American
communities today in the Western Subarctic but they do not derive from
the time of the Vikings.

"Race" is a social construct not a biological fact. When a skull, for
example, is identified as "Caucasian" or "African" forensically, the
reference is to which modern gene pool the skull most closely resembles
rather than to "race" - especially since skulls from racially mixed
people may favor one genetic line over the other. A recent controversy
has existed over the "racial" identity of "Kennewick Man", found in the
state of Washington. Because the skull was different from those of
modern Native Americans, the press ran off with the incorrect
assumption that it was "Caucasian" (therefore, "white" people were in
American earlier than "Indians"). In fact, the skull did not resemble
that of Modern Europeans, either. It most closely resembled the Ainu,
aboriginal populations of Japan and Sakhalin Island. The Ainu and the
"Indians" of the Northwest Coast were known to be in contact prior to
the arrival of Europeans in the area.

As for sickle cell trait, you are incorrect to restrict the population
to the Caribbean area. The cell is found among all African groups,
inside and outside of Africa, and, as well, is found in some American
Indians, Europeans and South Pacific Islanders. It appears to have
conferred some degree of protection against malaria originally. Of
course, it might also appear in people with mixed ancestry and could
lead to illness if both parents have ancestors from an affected grouo
and carry the trait. I never suggested that all humans are of a single
gene pool; a gene pool is more local and accounts for the existence of
specific traits (think of Huntington's chorea for example). I only said
that humans are a single species and subspecies - if you believe that
is untrue, tell me what human subspecies you know about?

How do you figure that Siberia and Alaska were ever European? Europeans
have had a notoriously difficult time establishing any sort of foothold
in either place. See my earlier post about the connection between
Siberian and Alaskan Inuit people and the *ancient* boat technology
that they used. There is a reason why the umiak, kayak and shark-bowed
Aleut watercraft are still around and are the still the best technology
for their areas. The USSR used to complain about how it was able to
assimilate non-Russian ethnic groups throughout their claimed territory
except in the Siberian region. It seems that when they put up their red
tents on the tundra in the middle of an aboriginal community, they
would get up one morning and find themselves alone. They never
successfully assimilated these people. If you go to the Native villages
in Arctic and Subarctic US and Canada, you will find that while many
foreign objects and ideas have been accepted by the Native people, they
are generally less assimilated than Native people elsewhere in North
America. At the time the US "bought" Alaska from Russia, neither
government would have been capable of governing it without the help of
aboriginal people. In World War II, Inuit women worked in factories to
make parkas for the US military because it was the most effective
outerwear in the climate. Just google the genome project - it's not a
secret. Most of it is dedicated, however, to the medical benefits of
mapping the human genome and only incidentally to the geographic
mapping of traits. - Bronwen

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