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From: "David Faux" <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] Age of R1b
Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2008 10:22:52 -0700
References: <47325.24414.qm@web86606.mail.ird.yahoo.com><005d01c910f4$724f8b10$6400a8c0@Ken1><9241E62E-73B8-4B15-9D7C-CBDD1120F21E@vizachero.com>
In-Reply-To: <9241E62E-73B8-4B15-9D7C-CBDD1120F21E@vizachero.com>


You are not giving the full story here Vince. The only drastic decline they
note is in the LBK of Central Europe with no such demographic effect in
Poland or Denmark. The authors go on to say that, "The decline suggested
here on the basis of the radiocarbon evidence also fits in with an
increasing number of indications from other sources that far from being the
foundation of the subsequent Neolithic across large parts of central,
northern and northwestern Europe, in some respects at least it actually left
little trace."

So what happened. Studies of LBK sites such as Talheim in southern Germany
show that there appears to have been extreme levels of violence at this time
involving the extinction of entire villages of men, women and children. So
who was it that destroyed these folk? It could have been
internecine conflict between locat villages - albeit extreme. However it is
likely that the acculturated locals, who never disappeared, simply reclaimed
their territory. Are there groups who could "fit the bill"? Yes the
Mesolithic peoples of Switzerland and northern Italy who were living a
parallel existance at the time. Is there a Y haplogroup that could be
mapped on to this scenario? Yes, R-U152 and probably others.

It only takes a few very successful lineages that have survived in each
region through the Paleolithic and Mesolithic (e.g., R-U152, R-U106 and
R-U312) to suddenly expand via demographic events such as noted above to
explain everything described in this thread. Because the majority of R-P312
people today descend from only a few lineages does not in any way require
that they have moved from Central Asia (where not a single R-P312 has been
found and if it is there are 3rd Century BC documented Celtic migrations
that could explain any finds in Ukraine etc.). Why this fantasy wave from
the east when both the most recent autosomal studies (Lao et al. 2008) and
the archaeological data (Zeder, 2008) show conclusively that the demic flow
in Europe was from south to north.

R-M269 could be as old as the hills, but with just a few lineages surviving
to expand in Neolithic times, and more so in the Bronze Age, it is going to
look artificially young. The computer modeling of a Paleolitic expansion of
Klopfstein et al. (2006) shows a one to one correspondence with the
distribution of R-M269 in Europe today. I truly believe that everyone has
been led dreadfully astray by not realizing how the expansion at the node
points is best explained by refering to a few successful Paleolithic local
lineages.

There is a "rule of thumb" that seems to cross disciplines (e.g.,
archaeology and history and genetics), as seen via the expansions of the
Dark Ages. In small island situations there could be limited replacement,
otherwise the aboriginies rule. What genetic contribution did the Franks
make in their takeover - I know of no one who believes that most French
people are primarly descendants of the Franks - because there is nothing to
suggest that this is true. The Romano-Gaulish population survives to this
day with influences including cultural and genetic from various incomers,
most of whom were slain by the next set of maurading tribes such that there
is virtuallly no indication of the Suebi or Vandal kingdoms in Iberia. The
locals survived all this and thrived once the mosquitoes were gone (leaving
behing a few descendants of course such as the limited I1-M253 and R-U106 in
northern Italy).

Fantasy - now when can we get back to reality as seen by all population
geneticists.

However please note that what I am saying is that some of these very young
dates may be correct but you can't say that the substrate from which this
phenomenon was built was external (Central Asia) when a more parsionious
explanation does not require any demographic shift, only expansion, but from
the local hunter-gatherers who had survived the climatological changes of
the Mesolithic.

David K. Faux.


On 9/7/08, Vincent Vizachero <> wrote:
>
> A paper by Stephen Shennan and Kevan Edinborough has been much
> discussed lately on dna-forums. org. The abstract reads in part:
>
> > The dramatic rise in population associated with the arrival of
> > farming in these areas that is visible in the date distributions is
> > not surprising. Much more unexpected are the fluctuations during
> > the course of the Neolithic, and especially the indications of a
> > drop in population at the end of the LBK early Neolithic that
> > lasted for nearly a millennium. Possible reasons for the pattern
> > are discussed.
>
>
> Prehistoric population history: from the Late Glacial to the Late
> Neolithic in Central and Northern Europe
> Journal of Archaeological Science
> Volume 34, Issue 8, August 2007, Pages 1339-1345
>
> As an aside, the TMRCA dates for U106 and S116 that seem to rile some
> parties so much (the dates of which seem to range in the 3 kya to 5
> kya range) most probably predate the actual arrival of R-M269 in
> Europe. That arrival, by my estimation, could have pre-dated those
> TMRCA dates by one or more millenia. And whatever the absolute dates
> suggest, the features of R-M269 in Europe suggest to me that if must
> have been riding one of the earliest neolithic demic waves. I agree
> with Alan that it becomes harder to explain R-M269's features if it
> arrived later in the neolithic transition. We may well find that the
> early neolithic arrival of R-M269 was simply the setup for the
> subsequent rapid and immense expansion of R-U106 and R-S116.
>
> Vince
>
>
>
> On Sep 7, 2008, at 10:17 AM, Ken Nordtvedt wrote:
>
> > So I'd ask the question: does archaeology give any hints of some
> > very bleak > demographic periods around the times we are talking about?
>
>

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