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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2007-09 > 1188646358


From: "Lawrence Mayka" <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] Abstract: Ancient DNA as a Means to InvestigatetheEuropean Neolithic
Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2007 06:32:38 -0500
In-Reply-To: <497416.63195.qm@web86605.mail.ird.yahoo.com>


First, the author does not dispute, but rather cites, the now
well-established fact that northern European lactase persistence is a very
recent allele, descended from a single individual who lived between 5000 and
10,000 years ago. The author of this paper does not mention that
individual's geographical location, but another recent paper mentioned on
this list provides evidence of an origin in the Caucasus.

Second, the author clearly mentions "five of the hunter-gatherer samples
sharing a haplotype not found among any published modern populations." No
similar extinction is reported for the farmers of 5000 years ago. On the
contrary, "The farming samples did not differ from modern Swedes whereas the
hunter-gatherers did." The most parsimonious interpretation of these facts
is that the farmers were of a stock ("tribe") different from that of the
hunter-gatherers; and that the hunter-gatherers underwent a depopulation
almost amounting to extinction, whereas the farmers spawned the bulk of the
modern Swedish population.

Third, the fact that 50% of Swedish farmers of 5000 years ago had the
lactase persistence allele, even though it was not found in Central European
samples only a couple thousand years older, illustrates its rapid sweep
across Europe--or alternatively, its northern European origin, if one
rejects the evidence of an origin in the Caucasus.

> [mailto:] On Behalf Of Alan R
> Very interesting. It kind of backs up my own feeling
> that lactose persistence must have been widespread in
> low frequencies prior to farming and that the arrival
> of farming with dairying present from the beginning
> (that is the latest finding) gave a major selective
> advantage to those hunters-gatherers with the lactose
> persistence and thus their descendants proliferated.
> This would have been a localised process repeated in
> every locality through Europe and beyond and does not
> in itself demand any external demic input (as is
> sometimes erroneously portrayed).


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