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From: Bonnie Schrack <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] Out of Africa
Date: Wed, 15 Feb 2012 18:11:49 -0500


Hi Lindsey,

Yes, many of us are familiar with that paper. We have a few project
members who match that Yorkshire family. It's a very interesting
cluster of A1a, with members in Germany and Scandinavia, but not in
America. Like many other unusual clades found in Europe, it may very
likely have been spread by the Romans.

Anatole wrote:
> Of course I do remember that?paper by Jobling, Tyler Smith et al (2007). Only three mutations in seven individuals (having the 17 marker haplotypes) place their common ancestor?around 1690+/-180 CE. Those are likely of haplogroup A1a?with its SNP M31 (G->C), which is still G in, say, R1a, but C in those Africans. This is important to know, because it means that it is, I repeat, C in the Africans but G in the Europeans,*therefore, the Europeans did not descend from Africans.* ?

This answer by Anatole is an amusing logical fallacy. Supposedly,
because the members of the African A1a haplogroupshare a derived allele,
and because European haplogroups do not have that derived allele,
therefore all Europeans do not descend from all Africans! Is anyone
here really simple-minded enough to swallow that?

A1a *branches off above (before, upstream of) *the V221 and P108 SNPs.
These are two equivalent SNPs, which ISOGG, and FTDNA, and all published
scientific papers that include either of these SNPs, consider to be part
of the A haplogroup (even if Anatole cannot accept this). Downstream of
V221 and P108, we have the branches A2 and A3 and BT, which are
siblings. All Europeans are definitely descended from BT, on that we
all agree (hopefully!). They are therefore positive for V221 and P108.

Since A1a has already branched off *before* the V221 and P108 SNPs,
naturally *the SNPs that define A1a, such as M31, *and which are derived
in members of A1a only, are not going to be positive in any of the other
clades of A or in other haplogroups.

To be as plain and simple as possible, the tree-trunk that runs
*through* A and down to BT, CT, etc., does not pass through A1a.
Therefore what is found *within* A1a is irrelevant to the question of
what SNPs are derived in Europeans.

Now, there are other SNPs in the branch*upstream* of A1a, which are
shared by both A1a and its sibling branch, A1b-T (Cruciani's A2-T).
These *shared * SNPs, then, aren't specific to A1a, and don't include
M31. As of today Thomas Krahn lists them as including V161, V168,
V171, V174, V203, V238, V241, V250, L985, L989, L990, L1002, L1003,
L1004, L1009, and L1013, the latter eight just discovered in our WTY of
the Jones lineage, which has set a record for the number of SNPs
discovered in a WTY!

Every man in the world who isn't a member of the earliest branch, A0,
should be positive for these 16 SNPs. Those who want to make it look as
though our ancestors didn't come from Africa in the last 100,000 years
(or so) are forced to argue that all of these SNPs occurred during the
remote times of the evolution of Homo, before there were any modern
humans, and before the hominins (such as Homo Erectus) departed for
Eurasia. Cruciani, on the other hand, estimates that these SNPs
occurred between 108,000 and 142,000 years ago, within the time of
modern humans. We also have Larry Mayka's estimate of about 75,000
years between A1a and A3a, which would be close to the time of V221 (the
branch point of A1a and A2-T, including A3a.)

It should be telling that Anatole is so eager to convince people that
Europeans "did not descend from Africans" (his words, even though I
believe he admits that his hominin ancestors did come from Africa), that
he would seize on something like this about M31 and A1a, trying to make
it look as though it were an argument for his version of
paleoanthropology, even though anyone who takes a quick look at the
phylogenetic tree can easily see that it's at best, irrelevant, and in
fact, misleading.

I have just noticed that a much longer posting by Anatole, full of
nonsense, is waiting for an answer, so now to that...

Bonnie


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