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From:
Subject: Re: [DNA] R1b Among Native American Men
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2005 07:40:44 EST


In a message dated 10/30/05 1:05:50 PM Pacific Standard Time,
writes:

> Ann, thank you for piercing the veil on this. I note the Hammer paper
> identifies its study populations precisely, and the AME group (n=273) is
> about 55% Navajo/Cheyenne/Pima and 45% Mayan/Mixtec/Wayu. Given what I
> believe is the demographic dominance of mestizo populations in Mexico and
> some Central American countries, perhaps an overall admixture rate of 12
> percent is not out of the question. I admit I was thinking parochially when
> I read the initial post, and I just didn't see how there could be a 12% R1b
> rate among Huron, Seminole, Creek, Sioux, Hopi, Miwok, Inuit, etc. -- all
> the groups whose territories lie within Canada and the US.

I must also admit that my image of "Native Americans" is colored by the
region where I grew up -- the Plains and the Southwest tribes. "Native Americans"
are not a monolithic category. Likewise, my image of "Europeans" is influenced
by the dominance of Western European samples in our databases. However, I
still find it puzzling that only 30% of the European sample was R1b. There were 86
Greeks, 62 Italians, 58 Romanians, 34 Germans, 44 Russians, and 43 British.

In another paper by Hammer's group, data for 18 different Native American
populations are broken out, and a big chunk of the Rs come from one tribe -- the
Sioux (so there goes my mental image again).

http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/21/1/164

Oppenheimer was basing his statement about R1b being "higher than could be
explained by recent European admixture" on the 30% / 12% ratio, and I'm still
not comfortable with that.

Ann Turner



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