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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2012-02 > 1329105196


From: "Anatole Klyosov" <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] Out of Africa
Date: Sun, 12 Feb 2012 22:53:16 -0500
References: <mailman.1550.1329101608.1055.genealogy-dna@rootsweb.com>


>
Anatole Klyosov:
>1) Do you define haplogroup A (according to the
> ISOGG-2012, for instance) as having SNPs M91 and P97 and the principal
> SNPs?

> Bonnie Schrack <>

> No.

> I don't think you really want to learn from my insight, since your ideas
> are already formed, but I do have data that, no doubt, you would like to
> hear about. No problem, all the data is being shared freely.

My response:

Thank you Bonnie for your insight. It is not that my "ideas" are formed
(they are always in progress), this would be too little for a discussion. I
have DATA, which give a principally different picture compared with that you
have outlined here.

The format of this Forum does not allow me to lay out data, to show graphs,
the base haplotypes of each and every one haplogroup and their principal
subclades. So let us wait until the data and their interpretations are
published in their entirety.

You are quite right, it does not matter how to call branches of the newly
re-designed haplogroup A. The main thing is that it is not the "good old"
haplogroup A anymore. By "haplogroup A" you now call the "alpha-haplogroup",
or the "root", or "Adam", or whatever, which is by default the ancestral
haplogroup of both the Africans and non-Africans. However, since the
Africans and non-Africans are equally derived from this "alpha-haplogroup",
we do not know where the ancestor lived. With the "good old" haplogroup A it
was simple - it is the African haplogroup, at least for a long time. With
the "alpha-haplogroup", I repeat, we do not know where it lived. The SNPs do
not tell us where the common ancestor lived. Neanderthals, for starters,
have not lived in Africa, therefore their ancestor, our cousin, did not live
in Africa either.

Furthermore, there are more serious evidences that haplogroup A is not an
ancestral one for any other haplogroup, including haplogroup B. I can tell
you which evidences, however, before that, let me ask you a simple question:
if haplogroup B descended from haplogroup A, how much time should be between
them? Haplogroup B is right next one on the haplogroup tree after haplogroup
A, correct?

If you cannot answer this question, let it be just your guess. Let it be a
wild guess, O.K.?

And then we continue.

Last but not least:

> If you're complaining of Zhivotovsky's and such "population" mutation
> rates, which give much *older* dates than genealogical mutation rates,
> that's interesting, since by substituting genealogical rates, the dates
> of these earliest splits within A would be dated much more recently,
> easily within the period of modern humans.

It is incorrect.

I will explain when we continue. It is a very interesting story.


Regards,

Anatole Klyosov

************************************************
Bonnie:

> Anatole,
>
> You wrote:
>
>> Back to haplogroup A. It would be very useful and educational if you
>> kindly answer the following questions, which I numbered for your
>> convenience: 1) Do you define haplogroup A (according to the
>> ISOGG-2012, for instance) as having SNPs M91 and P97 and the principal
>> SNPs?
>
> No.
>
> The ISOGG tree now seen on the site has nothing to do with me, as it was
> created before all the discoveries of the past year, and before I became
> responsible for this haplogroup.
>
> Due to some problems that have had to be dealt with by another person
> involved with the ISOGG tree, which I could not have any effect upon,
> the actual 2012 tree has still not been posted. I've posted it, in the
> meantime, at DNA-Forums in the A haplogroup section, with ongoing updates.
>
> This tree, regardless of whether it's seen at ISOGG or elsewhere, is,
> and will be for some while, in the process of having many branches added
> and re-defined, so the specific names of the clades should not be taken
> overly seriously. What matters is the branching structure, the
> positions of the SNPs and tested samples. The names will no doubt be
> worked out better when the dust has settled, in a little while.
>
> M91 and P97 are SNPs that are derived in BT and all downstream
> haplogroups, and ancestral in A. They were previously used to define A
> when its true structure was not known.
>
>> 2) Then, do you believe that other haplogroups descended from
>> haplogroup A? Or maybe from haplogroup B?
>
> Yes, all the other haplogroups do descend from haplogroup A; there are
> no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I'll go into more detail below.
>
> The complaints about the illogical naming of A clades are
> understandable, but it's impossible to do it within the normal rules.
> As Cruciani laconically put it, A is not a monophyletic clade. It isn't
> one clade at all; it's a collection of distinct clades. We are simply
> using the label "A" for all the clades that branch *upstream of BT*.
>
> There are certainly SNPs that are derived in all members of Hg. A, but
> these would also be derived in all modern humans, so they are not very
> useful for defining A!
>
> Notice that Cruciani, despite having discovered the basic structure, did
> not have the nerve to propose new names for any of the branches. That
> has been left to us mere mortals!
>
> At a minimum, there are at four major haplogroups within what we're
> calling the A haplogroup: A0, A1, A2 and A3 (some of these with major
> splits at their base, which could arguably be considered separate
> haplogroups). However, even if we renamed these as U, V, W, and X, it
> would not resolve the inconsistency that BT is not going to be called
> something like A1b3, which it would if we were following more usual,
> logical naming conventions.
>
> To re-state the basic structure, the earliest split is between A0 (a new
> name) and A1. Then A1 splits into A1a and A1b. A1b then splits into
> three branches. Regardless of what names you want to give them, one of
> the three branches is BT, the node from which B and all the other
> haplogroups descend. First B branches off from it, and then all the
> others from CT, the brother branch of B.
>
> You can see that BT is downstream of A1b because the SNPs P108 and V221,
> which define that node, are derived in all three branches, A2, A3, and
> BT, but ancestral in the other A clades, A0 and A1a. P108 used to be
> defined in the reverse direction, like P97 and M91, but now we know that
> it's ancestral in the earlier A clades, and derived in most men.
>
> We just received some A2 WTY results, from a San sample donated by the
> U. of Arizona, and sure enough, that sample has a the derived T at P108,
> and the earlier Armenian A3 WTY had a T as well, but our new A0 WTY for
> Jones, has the ancestral C for P108. We also have P108 C results for
> A1a members of our project. If anyone checks the WTY result for all the
> other haplogroups, P108 will be T.
>
>> 3) If not, not from haplogroup A and not from haplogroup B, but, say,
>> from haplogroup BT, then where the haplogroup BT might have appeared?
>> In Africa? >From which haplogroup, if not from A? And when, what do
>> you think? Thank you. I would appreciate to learn from your insight.
>
> I don't think you really want to learn from my insight, since your ideas
> are already formed, but I do have data that, no doubt, you would like to
> hear about. No problem, all the data is being shared freely.
>
> Anatole wrote:
>> Haplogroup A is the oldest one. However, it is not ancestral to
>> non-Africans. Furthermore, it is not ancestral to haplogroup B as well.
>
> You're wrong about this, and it's something so plain and simple, the way
> the phylogenetic tree is structured, with a great redundancy of SNPs,
> that you will ultimately not be able to wiggle out of it, without
> claiming that a bunch of SNPs don't actually exist, or something silly
> like that.
>
> Or, I suppose, to avoid having "A" be ancestral to BT, you could reject
> the name of "A" for all the clades ancestral to BT (A1 and A1b) and call
> them something else -- using "A" only to refer to A2 and A3, the brother
> clades to BT. But what would be the point of those semantics? Your
> real aim is to avoid acknowledging your African ancestry, your descent
> from *modern humans* in Africa, which in fact, we all share.
>
> The question of how far back you should include humans in haplogroup A
> is immaterial when we're dealing with living humans, who are all clearly
> modern (regardless of any claims). But should we include humans from
> long ago, that weren't fully modern, in haplogroup A? I don't think so
> -- the point of our haplogroups is to find the branching structure of
> the lineages of modern humans.
>
> Until proven otherwise, I would expect even the earliest hg. A lineages
> to converge within the period of the existence of modern humans in
> Africa. No doubt there was occasional admixture from archaic humans who
> were living side by side with them -- just as we mixed with the
> Neanderthals -- but that need not affect the phylogenetic tree, any more
> than it did in Europe, where there are certainly not any Neanderthal
> haplogroups!
>
> The dating to 142,000 years ago by Cruciani for the A0/A1 split is
> significant. Archaic humans need not be invoked in that time frame.
> If that split had been dated to 500,000 or 1,000,000 years ago, it might
> have been another story.
>
> If you're complaining of Zhivotovsky's and such "population" mutation
> rates, which give much *older* dates than genealogical mutation rates,
> that's interesting, since by substituting genealogical rates, the dates
> of these earliest splits within A would be dated much more recently,
> easily within the period of modern humans.
>
> Bonnie

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