GENEALOGY-DNA-L Archives

Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2008-02 > 1202985667


From: Alan R <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] reevaluating refugium's theory
Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:41:07 +0000 (GMT)
In-Reply-To: <000c01c86df2$c0a1c6c0$0c01a8c0@titi>


http://my.opera.com/macedonians/blog/2008/01/29/the-late-glacial-ancestry-of-europeans

I have now had a read of the above article which I
recently posted. It is written using rather
irritatingly over technical language with a plethora
of obscure terms and abbreviations but I think I get
the gist. The most important points are

1. The article does not really deal with the earliest
phases of the upper palaeolithic such as the initial
waves of modern human arrival in the aurignacian or
the gravetian.

2. It seems to argue that, for much of the upper
palaeolithic, the western refuge consisted of northern
and western coastal Iberia and that there were only
occasional expansions into France from Iberia, such as
that in the solutrian phase. Although it goes unsaid,
I assume this ancient population in Iberia derives
from the Aurignacian and Gravettian people who
occupied Europe in earlier times.

3. It argues that there was a brief intrusion into
France from eastern Europe marked by the Baguellian
phase. This happened a little before the LGM. The
latter input is linked to R1 but I find that a very
odd conclusion. The article is actually very light on
genetics. These people would then have been squeezed
south into part of the western refuge(mainly southern
France?) in the LGM.

4. The Magdalenian saw a spread from Iberia and France
northwards by two routes: the western coast on the one
hand and the Rhone-Rhine corridor on the other.

My observations:

This reevaluation (based on use of much finer
archaeological and environmental dating) seems to
indicate that Atlantic coastal Iberia alone formed a
constant western refugia and did so for a very long
time, not just the LGM. This population expanded into
southern France from time to time. The only
additional input into the west during this period was
into France and was an eastern one that arrived fairly
late, a little pre-LGM. So, we are dealing with two
populations:

1. In north/west Iberia: a much older long in-situ
one.

2. in France: a mixed one consisting of overspill from
Spain and a later input from the east.


I would contend that that fits rather well (if you
subtract the likely later Neolithic lineages etc) the
situation in these countries with Spain being very R1b
and France being a mix of R1b and I. I would
therefore contend that (contra the article's own
conclusion) that the late pre-LGM intrusion from the
east is unlikely to relate to R1 (the term the article
uses) but to some other group, perhaps I clades.
That's purely based on modern distribution but it
would be difficult to explain the modern distribution
if the late intrusion was R1b.


Alan



This thread: