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Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2008-05 > 1211390781


From: "Michael Walsh" <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] M222/S21/S28
Date: Wed, 21 May 2008 12:26:21 -0500


David F., I agree that mutational rate calculators can be misleading.
Current sample sizes and selection are probably very limiting. Convergence
of non-singular event markers must also be accounted for, per your example
of 12/12 haplotype matching. However, I think they can be instructive,
just not conclusive. I agree that the math and the archeology,
climatology, etc. must be taken in context. As long as none of the
disciplines are conclusive, it is most instructive to consider all of them.

You see the only viable bottleneck in the timeframes discussed is the
Younger Dryas. I understand that archeology can help understand military
and cultural change, but can it (or anything) help depict a plague related
bottleneck. We know in historic times, plagues had a significant impact in
Europe. For example:
- Great Plague of Athens (430–427 BC)
causal agent: bubonic plague/smallpox/measles/typhus/anthrax/typhoid?
-Antonine Plague (165–180 AD)
causal agent: smallpox/measles?
- Plague of Cyprian (250 AD)
causal agent: smallpox/measles?
- Plague of Justinian (541–542 AD)
causal agent: viral hemorrhagic plague or possibly bubonic plague
- Plague of Emmaus (18 A.H. / 639 A.D.)
causal agent: unknown
- Plague of Constantinople (747–748 AD)
- The "Black Death" (1347–1351 AD)
causal agent: viral hemorrhagic plague or possibly bubonic plague

"The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of Europe's
population <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_demography>";. Certainly,
pre-historic times must have had epidemics.

I can't believe that epidemics didn't have significant impacts on the
genetic make-up of Europe. Certainly, some clades or sub-clades (or
autosomal mixtures) had survival advantages. Surely, some of these
epidemics impacted the "elite" city dwellers more than the poor country and
frontier folk.

Is there anything in archeology other than general human activity, that can
give us any signposts of pre-historic epidemics? Obviously, climate could
be an associative factor, but not necessarily in all cases.


Original Message From: "David Faux" <>
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Message-ID:
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...I have said all along that the mutational rate calculators are misleading
and plain wrong......... If there was a bottleneck in Bronze Age times I
don't see it in the archaeological record.....
The only viable possibility would be the 500 year "mini ice age" of the
Younger-Dryas during the Mesolithic. .....
.....There is no evidence of a mass replacement of population in the Bronze
Age, and only limited in relation to the Neolithic. After the severe
bottleneck of the LGM, and the expansion seen in the archaeological record
occurs at the juncture of the Mesolithic and the Neolithic but largely among
indigenous populations which were already well established in the areas that
their ancestors likely still occupy to this day...............


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