GENEALOGY-DNA-L Archives

From: "Dora Smith" <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] New Scientist article: mtDNA diversity, ancient and modern,in the UK
Date: Thu, 2 Aug 2007 18:20:53 -0500
References: <ca0.17a65056.33e32294@aol.com>

I'm having trouble following the technical details in this paper. If I
understand correctly, they examined remains from a half dozen burial sites,
found no haplogroup H anywhere, and conclude that their calculated
coefficient of diversity decreased from 99 to 96 or something, whatever that
means, while their actual chart shows the only change to be an influx of
haplogroup T (from mainland Europe). That chart doesn't include comparisons
with modern genetic diversity, which since it includes a completely
different genetic distibution I don't see how they can say there is less
variation. I think the number of burial sites sampled is too small. The
people in them are likely to belong to small inbred village populations; not
alot of genetic diversity. The lack of haplogroup H proves that they can't
really base conclusions about ancient ethnic diversity on this sample.

The time periods studied are from teh 4th through the 11th century, and the
influx of haplogroup T would be from migrations from the mainland during
that time.

I don't see how it is possible to base conclusions about roles of the plague
on this.

Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, TX

----- Original Message -----
From: <>
To: <>
Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2007 7:05 AM
Subject: [DNA] New Scientist article: mtDNA diversity, ancient and modern,in
the UK


> Modern mtDNA shows less diversity, perhaps because the Black Plague
> eliminated rare haplotypes (genetic drift, a random, "stochastic" effect)
> or because of
> some unknown selection bias.
>
> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12393-black-death-casts-a-genetic-shadow
> -over-england.html
>
> The DOI (Digital Object Identifier) link to the technical article appears
> to
> be broken at the moment. Use this instead:
>
> http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/content/apv8161868j01071/fulltext.pdf
>
> There are other news items about the article. Try searching for the author
> <
> Hoelzel> at http://news.google.com.
>
>
> Ann Turner
>
>
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• [DNA] New Scientist article: mtDNA diversity, ancient and modern,in the UK by

  • Re: [DNA] New Scientist article: mtDNA diversity, ancient and modern,in the UK by "Dora Smith" <>

  • Re: [DNA] New Scientist article: mtDNA diversity, ancient and modern,in the UK by