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Archiver > GENBRIT > 2006-01 > 1137550680


From: "Rob" <>
Subject: Re: Most recent common ancestors
Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 02:18:00 -0000
References: <1137338990.456458.231910@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com> <mo4ms15t5bs77ev0ds8bhs690882gdmb15@4ax.com> <1137393583.764351.82280@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com> <dqfnp4$11q$1@newsg4.svr.pol.co.uk> <1137537283.462245.280940@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>


Bronwen,

Do not Inuit's come from Iceland? Is Iceland not a part of Europe?

As for Vikings in America's there is a growing belief due to artefactual
recovery that the Vikings more by error than attempts landed in the US there
are also a few claims that the Romans did but we scotch on that idea.

Yes I knew about the Skull that was believed to be from Early Japanese
tribes.

As for sickle cell I stand corrected.

Yes I was referring to the recent discoveries of Mongolian geno types found
in some native Americans.

Rob

<> wrote in message
news:...
>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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