quote:Providing the strongest evidence yet that humans are still evolving, researchers have detected some 700 regions of the human genome where genes appear to have been reshaped by natural selection, a principal force of evolution, within the last 5,000 to 15,000 years.
The genes that show this evolutionary change include some responsible for the senses of taste and smell, digestion, bone structure, skin color and brain function.
Many of these instances of selection may reflect the pressures that came to bear as people abandoned their hunting and gathering way of life for settlement and agriculture, a transition well under way in Europe and East Asia some 5,000 years ago.
Under natural selection, beneficial genes become more common in a population as their owners have more progeny.
Three populations were studied, Africans, East Asians and Europeans. In each, a mostly different set of genes had been favored by natural selection. The selected genes, which affect skin color, hair texture and bone structure, may underlie the present-day differences in racial appearance.
The study of selected genes may help reconstruct many crucial events in the human past. It may also help physical anthropologists explain why people over the world have such a variety of distinctive appearances, even though their genes are on the whole similar, said Dr. Spencer Wells, director of the Genographic Project of the National Geographic Society.
The finding adds substantially to the evidence that human evolution did not grind to a halt in the distant past, as is tacitly assumed by many social scientists. Even evolutionary psychologists, who interpret human behavior in terms of what the brain evolved to do, hold that the work of natural selection in shaping the human mind was completed in the pre-agricultural past, more than 10,000 years ago.
"There is ample evidence that selection has been a major driving point in our evolution during the last 10,000 years, and there is no reason to suppose that it has stopped," said Jonathan Pritchard, a population geneticist at the University of Chicago who headed the study.
Dr. Pritchard and his colleagues, Benjamin Voight, Sridhar Kudaravalli and Xiaoquan Wen, report their findings in today's issue of PLOS-Biology.
Their data is based on DNA changes in three populations gathered by the HapMap project, which built on the decoding of the human genome in 2003. The data, though collected to help identify variant genes that contribute to disease, also give evidence of evolutionary change.
The fingerprints of natural selection in DNA are hard to recognize. Just a handful of recently selected genes have previously been identified, like those that confer resistance to malaria or the ability to digest lactose in adulthood, an adaptation common in Northern Europeans whose ancestors thrived on cattle milk.
But the authors of the HapMap study released last October found many other regions where selection seemed to have occurred, as did an analysis published in December by Robert K. Moysis of the University of California, Irvine.
Dr. Pritchard's scan of the human genome differs from the previous two because he has developed a statistical test to identify just genes that have started to spread through populations in recent millennia and have not yet become universal, as many advantageous genes eventually do.
The selected genes he has detected fall into a handful of functional categories, as might be expected if people were adapting to specific changes in their environment. Some are genes involved in digesting particular foods like the lactose-digesting gene common in Europeans. Some are genes that mediate taste and smell as well as detoxify plant poisons, perhaps signaling a shift in diet from wild foods to domesticated plants and animals.
Dr. Pritchard estimates that the average point at which the selected genes started to become more common under the pressure of natural selection is 10,800 years ago in the African population and 6,600 years ago in the Asian and European populations.
Dr. Richard G. Klein, a paleoanthropologist at Stanford, said that it was hard to correlate the specific gene changes in the three populations with events in the archaeological record, but that the timing and nature of the changes in the East Asians and Europeans seemed compatible with the shift to agriculture. Rice farming became widespread in China 6,000 to 7,000 years ago, and agriculture reached Europe from the Near East around the same time.
Skeletons similar in form to modern Chinese are hard to find before that period, Dr. Klein said, and there are few European skeletons older than 10,000 years that look like modern Europeans.
That suggests that a change in bone structure occurred in the two populations, perhaps in connection with the shift to agriculture. Dr. Pritchard's team found that several genes associated with embryonic development of the bones had been under selection in East Asians and Europeans, and these could be another sign of the forager-to-farmer transition, Dr. Klein said.
Dr. Wells, of the National Geographic Society, said Dr. Pritchard's results were fascinating and would help anthropologists explain the immense diversity of human populations even though their genes are generally similar. The relative handful of selected genes that Dr. Pritchard's study has pinpointed may hold the answer, he said, adding, "Each gene has a story of some pressure we adapted to."
Dr. Wells is gathering DNA from across the globe to map in finer detail the genetic variation brought to light by the HapMap project.
Dr. Pritchard's list of selected genes also includes five that affect skin color. The selected versions of the genes occur solely in Europeans and are presumably responsible for pale skin. Anthropologists have generally assumed that the first modern humans to arrive in Europe some 45,000 years ago had the dark skin of their African origins, but soon acquired the paler skin needed to admit sunlight for vitamin D synthesis.
The finding of five skin genes selected 6,600 years ago could imply that Europeans acquired their pale skin much more recently. Or, the selected genes may have been a reinforcement of a process established earlier, Dr. Pritchard said.
The five genes show no sign of selective pressure in East Asians.
Because Chinese and Japanese are also pale, Dr. Pritchard said, evolution must have accomplished the same goal in those populations by working through different genes or by changing the same genes — but many thousands of years before, so that the signal of selection is no longer visible to the new test.
Dr. Pritchard also detected selection at work in brain genes, including a group known as microcephaly genes because, when disrupted, they cause people to be born with unusually small brains.
Dr. Bruce Lahn, also of the University of Chicago, theorizes that successive changes in the microcephaly genes may have enabled the brain to enlarge in primate evolution, a process that may have continued in the recent human past.
Last September, Dr. Lahn reported that one microcephaly gene had recently changed in Europeans and another in Europeans and Asians. He predicted that other brain genes would be found to have changed in other populations.
Dr. Pritchard's test did not detect a signal of selection in Dr. Lahn's two genes, but that may just reflect limitations of the test, he and Dr. Lahn said. Dr. Pritchard found one microcephaly gene that had been selected for in Africans and another in Europeans and East Asians. Another brain gene, SNTG1, was under heavy selection in all three populations.
"It seems like a really interesting gene, given our results, but there doesn't seem to be that much known about exactly what it's doing to the brain," Dr. Pritchard said.
Dr. Wells said that it was not surprising the brain had continued to evolve along with other types of genes, but that nothing could be inferred about the nature of the selective pressure until the function of the selected genes was understood.
The four populations analyzed in the HapMap project are the Yoruba of Nigeria, Han Chinese from Beijing, Japanese from Tokyo and a French collection of Utah families of European descent. The populations are assumed to be typical of sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia and Europe, but the representation, though presumably good enough for medical studies, may not be exact.
Dr. Pritchard's test for selection rests on the fact that an advantageous mutation is inherited along with its gene and a large block of DNA in which the gene sits. If the improved gene spreads quickly, the DNA region that includes it will become less diverse across a population because so many people now carry the same sequence of DNA units at that location.
Dr. Pritchard's test measures the difference in DNA diversity between those who carry a new gene and those who do not, and a significantly lesser diversity is taken as a sign of selection. The difference disappears when the improved gene has swept through the entire population, as eventually happens, so the test picks up only new gene variants on their way to becoming universal.
The selected genes turned out to be quite different from one racial group to another. Dr. Pritchard's test identified 206 regions of the genome that are under selection in the Yorubans, 185 regions in East Asians and 188 in Europeans. The few overlaps between races concern genes that could have been spread by migration or else be instances of independent evolution, Dr. Pritchard said.
I've included this as an item that may hopefully be of interest to the forum.
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Dr. Richard G. Klein, a paleoanthropologist at Stanford, said that it was hard to correlate the specific gene changes in the three populations with events in the archaeological record, but that the timing and nature of the changes in the East Asians and Europeans seemed compatible with the shift to agriculture.
Read between the lines. The good doctor can't understand the 10800 year figure for Africans.
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Dr. Pritchard estimates that the average point at which the selected genes started to become more common under the pressure of natural selection is 10,800 years ago in the African population and 6,600 years ago in the Asian and European populations.
quote:Rasol writes: Yes, very interesting Calypso.
It bolsters much of what we discuss here regarding the anteriority of the African neolithic and the notion that a new technolgy and way of life was introduced into the Levant and Europe from Africa.
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote: Pleistocene connections between Africa and SouthWest Asia: an archaeological perspective.
By Dr. Ofer Bar-Yosef, 1987; The African Archaeological Review; Chapter 5, pg 29-38.
“The Mushabians moved into the Sinai from the Nile Delta, bring North African lithic chipping techniques.”
“Thus the population overflow from Northeast Africa played a -definite role- in the establishment of the Natufian adaptation, which in turn led to the emergence of agriculture as a new subsistence system.”
Dr. Richard G. Klein, a paleoanthropologist at Stanford, said that it was hard to correlate the specific gene changes in the three populations with events in the archaeological record, but that the timing and nature of the changes in the East Asians and Europeans seemed compatible with the shift to agriculture. Rice farming became widespread in China 6,000 to 7,000 years ago, and agriculture reached Europe from the Near East around the same time.
Skeletons similar in form to modern Chinese are hard to find before that period, Dr. Klein said, and there are few European skeletons older than 10,000 years that look like modern Europeans.
This is all hog wash. First of all there are no skeletons of modern Chinese dating to 10,000 years. The earliest Mongoloid people in China and elsewhere were the Indonesian/Filipino type.The contempory Chinese are decendants of the Zhou who did not arrive in China until after 1700 BC.
There are no contemporary European that are anologous to the Old Europeans (c.4000-3500 BC) let alone, related to Grimaldi and Cro-Magnon (another African type) skeletons dating to 10,000 BC. Moreover, as pointed out in a recent news story the ancient Europeans and contemporary Europeans have different genes and do not show continuity.
The skeletal evidence for Asians and Europeans do not go back to 10000 BC, therefore the conclusions of this paper are unfounded. This paper is propaganda. Even if there were Indo-European speakers at 10,000 BC these people were nomadic and failed to practice agriculture at this early date.
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-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Clyde Winters wrote: Moreover, as pointed out in a recent news story the ancient Europeans and contemporary Europeans have different genes and do not show continuity.
Hi Clyde, Are you refering to the research that found discontinuity between the original farmers and contemporary Europeans? I think the same research found continuity between the original hunter-gatherers and contemporary population.
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: This is all hog wash. First of all there are no skeletons of modern Chinese dating to 10,000 years. The earliest Mongoloid people in China and elsewhere were the Indonesian/Filipino type.The contempory Chinese are decendants of the Zhou who did not arrive in China until after 1700 BC.
There are no contemporary European that are anologous to the Old Europeans (c.4000-3500 BC) let alone, related to Grimaldi and Cro-Magnon (another African type) skeletons dating to 10,000 BC. Moreover, as pointed out in a recent news story the ancient Europeans and contemporary Europeans have different genes and do not show continuity.
The skeletal evidence for Asians and Europeans do not go back to 10000 BC, therefore the conclusions of this paper are unfounded. This paper is propaganda. Even if there were Indo-European speakers at 10,000 BC these people were nomadic and failed to practice agriculture at this early date.
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LOL Sorry Clyde, but the only one spouting hogwash is YOU. Where is the evidence of Austronesians (Indonesian-Filipinos) in China [if that's what you mean]?! If Chinese are "recent" arrivals as you claim, then where did they originate?? You are aware that human remains have been found in China dating from the Mesolithic that look like Native Americans or such.
Posts: 26321 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote: LOL Sorry Clyde, but the only one spouting hogwash is YOU. Where is the evidence of Austronesians (Indonesian-Filipinos) in China [if that's what you mean]?! If Chinese are "recent" arrivals as you claim, then where did they originate?? You are aware that human remains have been found in China dating from the Mesolithic that look like Native Americans or such.
I am surprised to discover you know much about African history but none about your own. The earliest remains in China are of "Negro" people. Next we have the Classical Mongoloids or Austronesian speakers.
Archaeological research makes it clear that Negroids were very common to ancient China. F. Weidenreich ( in Bull. Nat. Hist. Soc. Peiping 13, (1938-30) noted that the one of the earliest skulls from north China found in the Upper Cave of Chou-k'ou-tien, was of a Oceanic Negroid/ Melanesoid " (p.163). This is the so-called Peking Man. This would place people in China during the Mesolithic looking like African/Negro people , not native American.
These blacks were the dominant group in South China. Kwang-chih Chang, writing in the 4th edition of Archaeology of ancient China (1986) wrote that:" by the beginning of the Recent (Holocene) period the population in North China and that in the southwest and in Indochina had become sufficiently differentiated to be designated as Mongoloid and OCEANIC NEGROID races respectively…."(p.64). By the Upper Pleistocene the Negroid type was typified by the Liu-chiang skulls from Yunnan (Chang, 1986, p.69).
Negroid skeletons dating to the early periods of Southern Chinese history have been found in Shangdong, Jiantung, Sichuan, Yunnan, Pearl River delta and Jiangxi especially at the initial sites of Chingliengang (Ch'ing-lien-kang) and Mazhiabang (Ma chia-pang) phases ( see: K.C. Chang, The archaeology of ancient China, (Yale University Press:New Haven,1977) p.76) . The Chingliengang culture is often referred to as the Ta-wen-k'ou (Dawenkou) culture of North China. The presence of Negroid skeletal remains at Dawenkou sites make it clear that Negroes were still in the North in addition to South China. The Dawenkou culture predates the Lung-shan culture which is associated with the Xia civilization.
Many researchers believe that the Yi of Southern China were the ancestors of the Austronesian, Polynesian and Melanesian people.
In the Chinese literature the Blacks were called li-min, Kunlung, Ch'iang (Qiang), Yi and Yueh. The founders of the Xia Dynasty and the Shang Dynasties were blacks. These blacks were called Yueh and Qiang. The modern Chinese are descendants of the Zhou. The second Shang Dynasty ( situated at Anyang) was founded by the Yin. As a result this dynasty is called Shang-Yin.
The Yin or Classical/ Oceanic Mongoloid type is associated with the Austronesian speakers ( Kwang-chih Chang, "Prehistoric and early historic culture horizons and traditions in South China", Current Anthropology, 5 (1964) pp.359-375 :375). Djehuti your Austronesian or Oceanic ancestors were referred to in the Chinese literature as Yin, Feng, Yen, Zhiu Yi and Lun Yi.
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-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:The skeletal evidence for Asians and Europeans do not go back to 10000 BC, therefore the conclusions of this paper are unfounded.
I think I understand what you are saying, however literally skeletal evidence of Europeans goes back to 35,000 BC and for Asians and Australians to 50/60 thousand BC - however much or however little they resemble modern Europeans or Asians - they are the ancestors of the modern populations.
[once again we see the need to distinguish phenotype and genotype]
The reason I understand what you are saying is that - you are defining Asian and European as physically closely resembling modern northEast Asians and Europeans.
This is true - to a degree - although it is also subjective and subject to bias amongst anthropologists - especially those who use race-typologies like K-zoid, N-groid and M-gloid - which because they are inherently nonsensical - can then be "pronounced" or denied, pretty much whenever and where-ever they want.
Colin Groves is notorious for playing this game.
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote: I think I understand what you are saying, however literally skeletal evidence of Europeans goes back to 35,000 BC and for Asians and Australians to 50/60 thousand BC - however much or however little they resemble modern Europeans or Asians - they are the ancestors of the modern populations.
[once again we see the need to distinguish phenotype and genotype]
The reason I understand what you are saying is that - you are defining Asian and European as physically closely resembling modern northEast Asians and Europeans.
This is true - to a degree - although it is also subjective and subject to bias amongst anthropologists - especially those who use race-typologies like K-zoid, N-groid and M-gloid - which because they are inherently nonsensical - can then be "pronounced" or denied, pretty much whenever and where-ever they want.
I don't think the contemporary European and Chinese people are descendants of the original Black population which lived in Europe and Asia; and I do not believe that the Chinese are descendants of the Austronesian speaking people.
If you look at the textual evidence and the skeletal record contemporary Chinese and European people come out of nowhere after 1500 BC, the European Sea People came from the North and attacked Egypt, and the Chinese (Hua) people came from the North and ran the Black Qiang and Yueh tribes, along with the Austronesian Yin (classical mongoloid or Austronesian spekers) off the Chinese mainland back into Southeast Asia or on to the Pacific Islands.
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-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
The hunter-gatherer lifestyle would imply low population densities because large areas of land would be needed to adequately provide the needs of each individual. The low population densities of these foraging cultures would make skeletal remains more difficult to find but there is no need to introduce unknowns - such as populations that arise from nowhere.
The whole point of posting this article is to provide more evidence of the anteriority of the agricultural revolution and of animal domestication in Africa.
As Rasol has pointed out in his reply this revolution was carried into the Levant and Europe.
Range expansion occured because this new lifestyle lead to greater population densities and thus the need for more arable land and grazing territory.
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
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I am surprised to discover you know much about African history but none about your own. The earliest remains in China are of "Negro" people. Next we have the Classical Mongoloids or Austronesian speakers.
Well Winters, the earliest remains anywhere on th globe were "negro" including Europe, what exactly is your point?
quote:Archaeological research makes it clear that Negroids were very common to ancient China. F. Weidenreich ( in Bull. Nat. Hist. Soc. Peiping 13, (1938-30) noted that the one of the earliest skulls from north China found in the Upper Cave of Chou-k'ou-tien, was of a Oceanic Negroid/ Melanesoid " (p.163). This is the so-called Peking Man. This would place people in China during the Mesolithic looking like African/Negro people , not native American.
Well since ALL non-Africans are descended from Africans this is not really surpring. And we also have the negroid remains of Lucy in South America who pre-dates the Olmecs by the way.
quote:These blacks were the dominant group in South China. Kwang-chih Chang, writing in the 4th edition of Archaeology of ancient China (1986) wrote that:" by the beginning of the Recent (Holocene) period the population in North China and that in the southwest and in Indochina had become sufficiently differentiated to be designated as Mongoloid and OCEANIC NEGROID races respectively…."(p.64). By the Upper Pleistocene the Negroid type was typified by the Liu-chiang skulls from Yunnan (Chang, 1986, p.69).
I wouldn't say 'dominant'. Even by dynastic Chinese times black populations were a minority but still acknowledged. One of the ancient Kingdoms of Malaysia were said to be ruled by a very dark queen.
quote:Negroid skeletons dating to the early periods of Southern Chinese history have been found in Shangdong, Jiantung, Sichuan, Yunnan, Pearl River delta and Jiangxi especially at the initial sites of Chingliengang (Ch'ing-lien-kang) and Mazhiabang (Ma chia-pang) phases ( see: K.C. Chang, The archaeology of ancient China, (Yale University Press:New Haven,1977) p.76) . The Chingliengang culture is often referred to as the Ta-wen-k'ou (Dawenkou) culture of North China. The presence of Negroid skeletal remains at Dawenkou sites make it clear that Negroes were still in the North in addition to South China. The Dawenkou culture predates the Lung-shan culture which is associated with the Xia civilization.
Well that depends on what you call 'negroid'. Kenewick Man in North America and even some Africans were called "caucasoid"!
quote:Many researchers believe that the Yi of Southern China were the ancestors of the Austronesian, Polynesian and Melanesian people.
But there are others that suggests the indigenous people of Taiwan were the ancestors of Austronesian speakers and may have even been responsible for the spread of Neolithic culture in East Asia! Certain genetic studies seem to support this.
quote:In the Chinese literature the Blacks were called li-min, Kunlung, Ch'iang (Qiang), Yi and Yueh. The founders of the Xia Dynasty and the Shang Dynasties were blacks. These blacks were called Yueh and Qiang. The modern Chinese are descendants of the Zhou. The second Shang Dynasty ( situated at Anyang) was founded by the Yin. As a result this dynasty is called Shang-Yin.
And where is the evidence that Xia were black?!! You even claim a Manding connection to Japanese, so there ends the story.
quote:The Yin or Classical/ Oceanic Mongoloid type is associated with the Austronesian speakers ( Kwang-chih Chang, "Prehistoric and early historic culture horizons and traditions in South China", Current Anthropology, 5 (1964) pp.359-375 :375). Djehuti your Austronesian or Oceanic ancestors were referred to in the Chinese literature as Yin, Feng, Yen, Zhiu Yi and Lun Yi.
More broke-down evidence in the form of poor linguistics. Posts: 26321 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: This is a good question which the Indo-European specialist are trying to determine today. I won't give my opinion on this issue in this forum.
LMFO Way over Winter's head as usual! Posts: 26321 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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The evidence is contradictory concerning Indo-European origins. Originally Europeans were proud of the fact that they were nomads. As a symbol of their heritage they made the creation of the wheel and the domestication of the horse as symbols of Indo-European civilization.
In the 19th Century linguist began to "reconstruct" Proto-Indo-European the imagined ancestral language of people speaking these related languages. I say that Proto-Indo-European , like my Paleo-African reseaches is imagined because we have no text supporting the Proto/Paleo-languages we reconstruct. This research suggested that Indo-Europeans may have come from the Black Sea area. The only problem with the linguistic discoveries is that much of the cultural lexical is of unknown origin.
Renfrew attempted to link the IE people to the early farmers in Anatolia and Europe. This view was rejected because there is no evidence for farming playing a major role in IE civilization. Moreover, if farming terms are limited to geographically neighboring IE languages they suggest that these terms could be either innovations for this group of languages or borrowing from a a former language spoken in the area when the IE speakers arrived.
This conflicted with the popular view that the first IE speakers were Kurgan nomads . And in recent years some researchers have pointed out the fact that the Kurgan people may not have even domesticated the horse.
The Anatolia hypothesis had a good fit for Indo-European origin, because of Hittite. Indo-Europeanist claim that Hittite was the first IE language. The Hittite language is called Nesa.
The only problem with this theory was it was later found that the earliest rulers of the land were Kaska and Hatti speakers who spoke non-IE languages called Khattili. The gods of the Hattic people were Kasku and Kusuh (< Kush).
The Hattic people, may be related to the Hatiu, one of the Delta Tehenu tribes. Many archaeologist believe that the Tehenu people were related to the C-Group people. The Hattic language is closely related to African and Dravidian languages for example: English … Hattic … Egyptian ….. Malinke (Mande language)
powerful ….ur …..wr'great,big' …. Fara
protect ….. $uh …. Swh ….. solo-
head ….. tup ….. tp ……. tu 'strike the head'
up,upper …tufa ….tp …….dya, tu 'raising ground'
to stretch …. put …. pd ……. pe, bamba
to prosper …. falfat … -- …..find'ya
pour ….. duq ….. --- …. du 'to dispense'
child ….. pin,pinu …--- …… den
Mother …….na-a ….. -- …. Na
lord ….. sa …..-- ….. sa
place ….. -ka ….--- …. –ka
The languages have similar syntax Hattic le fil 'his house'; Mande a falu 'his father's house'.
This suggest that the first Anatolians were Kushites, a view supported by the Hattic name for themselves: Kashka.
The Hittites adopted much of Hattic culture. There were other languages spoken in Anatolia, including Palaic Luwian and Hurrian.
The languages of the Hittites: Nesa, was a lingua franca used by the Luwian and Palaic speakers.
The Hurrians spoke a non-IE language.Formerly,linguist suggested that the Hurrians were dominated by Indic speakers. Linguist of the IE languages were fond of this theory because some of the names for the earliest Indo-Aryan gods,chariots and horsemenship are found in Hurrian. This made the Indo-Aryan domination of Hurrians good support for an Anatolia origin for the IE speakers.This theory held high regrads until Bjarte Kaldhol studied 500 Hurrian names and found that only 5, were Indo-Aryan sounding. This made it clear that the IA people probably learned horsemenship from the Hurrians, and not the other way around.
Hurrian …. Sanscrit
Mi-it-ra ….. Mitra
Aru-na …… Varuna
In-da-ra ….. Indra
At the base of Nesite, the language of the Hittites is Hattic. Since this language was used as a lingua franca, Nesa was probably not an IE language as assumed by IE linguist. This along with the fact that Diakonoff and Kohl point out that the Hittites never defeated the Kaska; and the Hurrians introduced horse-drawn war chariots for military purposes indicate that Anatolia probably was not a homeland for the IE speakers.
Finally, this review of the theories about IE languages is complicated and on-going.
Are you trying to define Asian and European so that they also do not exist in the past?
No I am saying that there is no textual or skeletal evidence for the Modern Chinese (Mongoloid) group who call themselves Hua, and Modern European type called Caucasian until after 1500 BC.
As most of you know I don't believe mtDNA can really tell us the whole story of mankind's history over the past 10,000 years. This was proven when they published the study last year showing that the contemporary Europeans had little if anything genetically in common with the Old Europeans who began civilization on the Continent.
In addition, when you read the literature many researchers admit that some genetic evidence they find out of place in a specific country they just don't bother to report it. As a result, I read the mtDNA literature, but linguistic, skeletal remains and textual evidence informs most of my writing on history.
A positivist view of history (i.e., that the people who live in an area today probably lived in the same area in the past) may not give you the whole story. For example, if you look at Chinese history, we find that the first Chinese Empire was Xia it was founded by Mande speaking people; next in line was the first Shang Civilization it was founded by the Dravidian speakers; the Second Shang Empire was founded by the Classical Mongoloid people, the people who live in Indo-China the Pacific Islands and Indonesia today; while the Zhou Dynasty was founded by the contemporary Chinese. Naturally their was mixing among the races but this is the general frame for the rise of civilization in China.
The most interesting thing I have been thinking about over the years is the ancient history of the Austro-Asiatic speakers. It is clear from Paul Kekai Manansala’s research on the relationship between the Sumerian language and the Austro-Asiatic language family that the speakers of these languages are genetically related.
My earlier research had made it clear that the Dravidian and Mande speaking people expanded across West, South and East Asia together after 3000 BC. The close relationship between the Austro-Asiatic and Sumerian-Dravidian-Mande group of languages has made me reconsider some of my earlier hypotheses.
Given the close relationship of Sumerian and Austro-Asiatic indicate that the later group had lived in close proximity to one another prior to 3000 BC, since the Sumer civilization rose in Mesopotamia a few centuries thereafter. Also, I have seen no evidence of the Sumerians settling parts of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, even though their own records do record a possible migration to Dilmun > the Indus Valley.
My original hypothesis saw the Classical Mongoloid or Yi people of China, being pushed out of China into Southeast Asia (all the way back to India), Indonesia and the Pacific by the Hua tribes of the Zhou Dynasty. These people thus replaced the Dravidians in Southeast Asia,and the former African speaking groups that lived in South China (especially Yunan) and the Pacific Islands. Other African and Dravidian speaking groups from Kansu and Xianjiang Provinces in China made their way back to India via Central Asia.
Now I have a number of questions regarding the origin of the AustroAsiatic speakers:
Did Classical Mongoloid people leave Africa before the Dravidian and Niger-Congo speakers to found ciivlizations in Asia?
Did the Classical Mongoloids originate in China?
Did the Classical Mongoloids found Mehrgarh in India and Catal Huyuk?
Was the first civilization of the Classical Mongoloids the Shang-Anyang Civilization?
Given the evidence I believe the Classical Mongoloid or AustroAsiatic people originally lived in Africa.
Almost all of your methodologies in some ways mirror extreme Eurocentric fallacy [aka Dienekes, et. al, ad nauseum].
These fibbers define the modern african race as - negroes - and then claim negroes - 'don't exist' in the past.
Are you trying to define Asian and European so that they also do not exist in the past?
Interestingly, from my observations of Mr. Winters' various hypothesis; from the Olmecs, Mande speakers, Berbers, to the Dravidians and Pacific Islanders, he seems to posit the origins of extra-African cultures to early "Africans", and at the same time posit African cultures/accomplishments to extra-African folks. For example, the origins of the Olmec cultural complex is attributed to the Mande speakers of West Africa, while the Berber languages are attributed to a Germanic group.
quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters:
rasol
quote:
Are you trying to define Asian and European so that they also do not exist in the past?
No I am saying that there is no textual or skeletal evidence for the Modern Chinese (Mongoloid) group who call themselves Hua, and Modern European type called Caucasian until after 1500 BC.
As most of you know I don't believe mtDNA can really tell us the whole story of mankind's history over the past 10,000 years. This was proven when they published the study last year showing that the contemporary Europeans had little if anything genetically in common with the Old Europeans who began civilization on the Continent.
The said publication would be...
quote:Clyde Winters:
In addition, when you read the literature many researchers admit that some genetic evidence they find out of place in a specific country they just don't bother to report it. As a result, I read the mtDNA literature, but linguistic, skeletal remains and textual evidence informs most of my writing on history.
A positivist view of history (i.e., that the people who live in an area today probably lived in the same area in the past) may not give you the whole story. For example, if you look at Chinese history, we find that the first Chinese Empire was Xia it was founded by Mande speaking people; next in line was the first Shang Civilization it was founded by the Dravidian speakers; the Second Shang Empire was founded by the Classical Mongoloid people, the people who live in Indo-China the Pacific Islands and Indonesia today; while the Zhou Dynasty was founded by the contemporary Chinese. Naturally their was mixing among the races but this is the general frame for the rise of civilization in China.
The most interesting thing I have been thinking about over the years is the ancient history of the Austro-Asiatic speakers. It is clear from Paul Kekai Manansala’s research on the relationship between the Sumerian language and the Austro-Asiatic language family that the speakers of these languages are genetically related.
My earlier research had made it clear that the Dravidian and Mande speaking people expanded across West, South and East Asia together after 3000 BC. The close relationship between the Austro-Asiatic and Sumerian-Dravidian-Mande group of languages has made me reconsider some of my earlier hypotheses.
...Which was discredited here.
quote:Clyde Winters:
Given the close relationship of Sumerian and Austro-Asiatic indicate that the later group had lived in close proximity to one another prior to 3000 BC, since the Sumer civilization rose in Mesopotamia a few centuries thereafter. Also, I have seen no evidence of the Sumerians settling parts of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, even though their own records do record a possible migration to Dilmun > the Indus Valley.
My original hypothesis saw the Classical Mongoloid or Yi people of China, being pushed out of China into Southeast Asia (all the way back to India), Indonesia and the Pacific by the Hua tribes of the Zhou Dynasty. These people thus replaced the Dravidians in Southeast Asia,and the former African speaking groups that lived in South China (especially Yunan) and the Pacific Islands. Other African and Dravidian speaking groups from Kansu and Xianjiang Provinces in China made their way back to India via Central Asia.
Now I have a number of questions regarding the origin of the AustroAsiatic speakers:
Did Classical Mongoloid people leave Africa before the Dravidian and Niger-Congo speakers to found ciivlizations in Asia?
Did the Classical Mongoloids originate in China?
Did the Classical Mongoloids found Mehrgarh in India and Catal Huyuk?
Was the first civilization of the Classical Mongoloids the Shang-Anyang Civilization?
Given the evidence I believe the Classical Mongoloid or AustroAsiatic people originally lived in Africa.
I find it interesting that you downplay the importance of genetics on the likes of the theories that you [or any other person for that matter] come up with. Yet, I don't see how you could claim to know the distinct identities of these folks, without support of bio-anthropology, in the first place. You have to understand that, people are biological entities, and as such, have to leave clues about their "presence", which is where human anatomy and molecular genetics, hand in hand, come to play. Thus, for example, if you claim the Dravidians were in so and so place, at so and so time, not only do you need archeology and linguistics to back your claims, but your hypothesis has to also take into account Dravidian gene pool, as well as the socio-ethnic complex of any potential inhabitants of the locales involved.
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Thus, for example, if you claim the Dravidians were in so and so place, at so and so time, not only do you need archeology and linguistics to back your claims, but your hypothesis has to also take into account Dravidian gene pool, as well as the socio-ethnic complex of any potential inhabitants of the locales involved.
I don't think you need genetic evidence to support linguistic, anthropological and archaeological evidence. Just because the genes don't support a fact does not make the genetic evidence correct. If archaeology, linguistics and anthropological research support a conclusion , while genetic research does not it says that the genetic research is incorrect.
People accept the genetic evidence because "surprisingly" it supports a Eurocentric view of the world. This is why so many new comers to this forum see you guys as Afrocentric researchers, which you are not, because of the way you interpret the genetic research you read.
You can pretend to yourselves that race does not exist, here on this forum . And that genes, not facial features and skin color determine and explain who we are; but in the real world, and even in the genetic papers you cite race is paramount.
posted
*sigh* We all know about Winter's agenda to associate language to a 'race' typology.
quote:The evidence is contradictory concerning Indo-European origins. Originally Europeans were proud of the fact that they were nomads. As a symbol of their heritage they made the creation of the wheel and the domestication of the horse as symbols of Indo-European civilization.
A big but common mistake is to associate Indo-European speakers with ALL Europeans. All archaeological as well historical evidence shows that the ancestors of the majority of Europeans were NOT originally Indo-European speaking peoples.
quote:In the 19th Century linguist began to "reconstruct" Proto-Indo-European the imagined ancestral language of people speaking these related languages. I say that Proto-Indo-European , like my Paleo-African reseaches is imagined because we have no text supporting the Proto/Paleo-languages we reconstruct. This research suggested that Indo-Europeans may have come from the Black Sea area. The only problem with the linguistic discoveries is that much of the cultural lexical is of unknown origin.
You are correct about this. Indo-European speakers but NOT all Europeans.
quote:Renfrew attempted to link the IE people to the early farmers in Anatolia and Europe. This view was rejected because there is no evidence for farming playing a major role in IE civilization. Moreover, if farming terms are limited to geographically neighboring IE languages they suggest that these terms could be either innovations for this group of languages or borrowing from a a former language spoken in the area when the IE speakers arrived.
The latter hypothesis seems to be the case.
quote:This conflicted with the popular view that the first IE speakers were Kurgan nomads . And in recent years some researchers have pointed out the fact that the Kurgan people may not have even domesticated the horse.
How does it conflict with the Kurgan theory? And if the Kurgans didn't domesticate the horse then who did, Africans?! LOL
quote:The Anatolia hypothesis had a good fit for Indo-European origin, because of Hittite. Indo-Europeanist claim that Hittite was the first IE language. The Hittite language is called Nesa.
Correction. Hittite is the first recorded IE language, NOT the first of them all.
quote:The only problem with this theory was it was later found that the earliest rulers of the land were Kaska and Hatti speakers who spoke non-IE languages called Khattili. The gods of the Hattic people were Kasku and Kusuh (< Kush).
You are correct about all of this except of the 'Kush' part. Again associating any and every word similar to Kush. LOL
quote:The Hattic people, may be related to the Hatiu, one of the Delta Tehenu tribes. Many archaeologist believe that the Tehenu people were related to the C-Group people. The Hattic language is closely related to African and Dravidian languages for example:
English … Hattic … Egyptian ….. Malinke (Mande language)
powerful ….ur …..wr'great,big' …. Fara
protect ….. $uh …. Swh ….. solo-
head ….. tup ….. tp ……. tu 'strike the head'
up,upper …tufa ….tp …….dya, tu 'raising ground'
to stretch …. put …. pd ……. pe, bamba
to prosper …. falfat … -- …..find'ya
pour ….. duq ….. --- …. du 'to dispense'
child ….. pin,pinu …--- …… den
Mother …….na-a ….. -- …. Na
lord ….. sa …..-- ….. sa
place ….. -ka ….--- …. –ka
NOPE.
quote:The languages have similar syntax Hattic le fil 'his house'; Mande a falu 'his father's house'.
This suggest that the first Anatolians were Kushites, a view supported by the Hattic name for themselves: Kashka.
NOPE.
quote:The Hittites adopted much of Hattic culture. There were other languages spoken in Anatolia, including Palaic Luwian and Hurrian.
The languages of the Hittites: Nesa, was a lingua franca used by the Luwian and Palaic speakers.
The Hurrians spoke a non-IE language.Formerly,linguist suggested that the Hurrians were dominated by Indic speakers. Linguist of the IE languages were fond of this theory because some of the names for the earliest Indo-Aryan gods,chariots and horsemenship are found in Hurrian. This made the Indo-Aryan domination of Hurrians good support for an Anatolia origin for the IE speakers.This theory held high regrads until Bjarte Kaldhol studied 500 Hurrian names and found that only 5, were Indo-Aryan sounding. This made it clear that the IA people probably learned horsemenship from the Hurrians, and not the other way around.
Hurrian …. Sanscrit
Mi-it-ra ….. Mitra
Aru-na …… Varuna
In-da-ra ….. Indra
Correct except for one thing. These were not Hurrians but Mitanni. While the majority of Mitanni spoke Urartu which is a language related to Hurrian, the elite apparently spoke Indo-European.
quote:At the base of Nesite, the language of the Hittites is Hattic. Since this language was used as a lingua franca, Nesa was probably not an IE language as assumed by IE linguist. This along with the fact that Diakonoff and Kohl point out that the Hittites never defeated the Kaska; and the Hurrians introduced horse-drawn war chariots for military purposes indicate that Anatolia probably was not a homeland for the IE speakers.
Finally, this review of the theories about IE languages is complicated and on-going.
It sure is, but no Africans involved unless you count the spread of Neolithic.
Posts: 26321 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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Thus, for example, if you claim the Dravidians were in so and so place, at so and so time, not only do you need archeology and linguistics to back your claims, but your hypothesis has to also take into account Dravidian gene pool, as well as the socio-ethnic complex of any potential inhabitants of the locales involved.
...
Just note: That is me you are citing, not Rasol.
Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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Correct except for one thing. These were not Hurrians but Mitanni. While the majority of Mitanni spoke Urartu which is a language related to Hurrian, the elite apparently spoke Indo-European.
Bjarte Kaldhol studied 500 Hurrian names and found that only 5, were Indo-Aryan sounding. Are disputing the research of Dr. Kaldhol?
This theory of an Indo-Aryan elite that ruled Mitanni always had some unresolved problems. For instance, only the male members of the ruling dynasty had Indo-Aryan names (e.g, Tasaratha ) and not the queens. But still, the evidence seems quite firm.
Then a Norwegian scholar, Bjarte Kaldhol, delivered a series of bombshells on the Indology list. In a remarkable series of posts, starting with this one, he proceeded to show that current scholarship in Hurrian rejects this theory. No one has provided a refutation, so I can only assume that he is correct. Here is a longish quote from one of his posts , more than just the state of affairs, it points to how that might have arisen (the $ is a "th"-like sound, my comments in {}).
"Just to give you an idea of how almost invisible the Indo-Aryans are at Nuzi and in the whole kingdom of Arrapha:
Among the five or six hundred names indexed in AASOR 16, I could find only five that have an Indo-Aryan "ring". Less than one percent. They are all found on two pages out of twenty-three, so, there are twenty-one non-IA pages. If I ask you to explain these names etymologically, I believe I shall have to wait ad Kalendas Graecas. Here they are - they can be read in many more ways than indicated:
1. Parda$sua? Farda$sua? Barda$sua? Farda$swa? Farda$sfa? etc.
{The point being that seeing Indo-Aryan in these names may simply be reader's bias.}
Except for Biriazzana, son of the Hurrian Pai-Tilla, and Purusa father of Hudib-Abu, both Hurrians, nothing is known about their families, I think. They are all men.
We have thousands of Akkadian administrative and legal texts from Nuzi, some of them at Harvard. They are full of Akkadianized Hurrian words. I do not remember to have seen any Indo-Aryan Rechtstermini among them. Where is the Indo-Aryan ruling class? This may sound polemical, but I would like to see some facts.
Also, I would like to point out that marianni does not mean "Streitwagenkaempfer" {chariot fighter}. It is simply a term denoting a social class - women and children could also be mariannena. There are mariannena who do not even possess a cart or a horse. One might object that this could have been a late development, but that would be speculative. Is marianni really a Hurrianized Indo-Aryan word? Or is it Hurro-Urartean marij-anne, as Diakonoff thought?
The other Hurrian social classes and groups are termed haniahhe, ehele, hup$e, unu$$uhuli etc. - all Hurrian words. There are no traces of an Indo-Aryan administrative language. Did it ever exist? Cord Kuhne, who in his article in Studies on the Civilization and Culture of Nuzi and the Hurrian, vol. 10, p. 203-221, "Imperial Mittani: An Attempt at Historical Reconstruction", starts by stating that "the haphazard and often ambiguous state of the historic documentation available allows only for an incomplete picture, resulting in many gaps that can be bridged only by hypotheses". But he proceeds to write history in a Herodotean vein, without reference to Hurrian glyptic art, religion, or archaeology, where he would have found nothing to substantiate claims like these:
"It seems probable that the 'Hurrian troops' meant by our annalistic texts were drawn from a recent wave of Hurrian invaders who had descended from the mountainous flanks of northwestern Iran and superseded the older Hurrian ethnic layers, eventually expanding the territory of settlement...
In support of a fairly recent arrival of a substantial part of these Hurrians is the convincing theory that their military and political success, and perhaps even their emigration, was due to the leading role of a group of Indo-Arians [sic et not aliter]... Perhaps they searched, together with their new partners, for better homesteads in the lush plains of Mesopotamia and provided successful leadership..."
This is where the cat escapes from the bag, as we say in Norwegian. The Hurrians, who were not Aryans, needed successful leadership.
{Demonstrating the importance of being Norwegian -- not having a German bias.}
My main objection (besides the curious idea that the steppes of Mesopotamia were "lush") is that there is nothing to substantiate the massive invasion envisaged. His linguistic argument - that the Hurrian language changed after the assumed invasion, is not tenable. In fact, the Akkadian language changed much more than Hurrian during the six hundred years from 1950 to 1350. Hurrian was spread over a vast area, and there were several dialects, but no Indo-Aryan influence can be detected either in vocabulary or syntax. No pure IA words are attested - only Hurrianized ones.
Kuhne does not refer to archaeology and religion, which demonstrate that the holy cities of the Hurrians were located in the Khabur triangle and in the area east of Tigris. Te$$ub is called The Great Lord of Kumme, which is thought to have been located in this area, and other Hurrian deities were connected to Ninuwa, Nagar/Nawar, and Halab, as well as to mountains and rivers in this part of Syria and Iraq.
None of the Hurrian kings who are claimed by some to have been Aryans, worshipped Indian or Iranian gods. Their gods are known. They were Syro-Mesopotamian deites, because the Hurrians were a North Syrian people rooted in this country, with very old traditions. In fact, if we turn to page 277 in op.cit., we find an article by Marie-Claude Tremouille, "La religion des Hourrites: etat actuel de nos connaissances", which concludes in the following way (this time translated for the benefit of lurkers, please forgive me if my English does not render the French text as well as it deserves):
"The documentation that we possess today shows that the Hurrians venerated the same gods and followed the same religious practices as did the other contemporaneous peoples in the Near East. Pressed to the extreme, one might even be led to ask oneself if there ever was a 'religion of the Hurrians'."
But she points to the excavations going on at Urgi$/Urkesh and Nagar (Tell Mozan and Tell Brak) and expresses the hope that they might bring us "quelques lumieres plus vives" {some light and clarity ?}. This is true. The capital of Mittani, Wa$$ukkanni/U$$ukkanni, has yet to be found. While Tell Brak tells the same story as Nuzi and Alalah, Wa$$ukkanni might tell another story. But I don't think it will be THAT different.
So, it appears that the Indologists were basing their view of Mitanni using scholarship from around World War II. But remember, the Nazis were proponents of a theory of racial superiority of blonde, blue-eyed supermen, Aryans, the originators of the Indo-European family of languages, and carriers of civilization. The Aryans supposedly went around conquering the world, subjugating and civilizing inferior people. Thus, the reading of Indo-Aryan into Hurrian may simply be an artifact of Nazi ideology (innocently and uncritically) adopted by later scholars. Or current Hurrian scholarship may simply be rejecting the Nazi past by stripping out a real Indo-Aryan presence from Mitanni. In any case, it has been a while since scholars of Sanskrit and of Hurrian have spoken to one another.
I hope the reader has found this to be a useful digression. Perhaps the reader has an increased appreciation of the difficulty of research in the humanities. "Truth" in the humanities has very different connotations from that in science.
What I've quoted from Bjarte Kaldhol does not touch on all the points raised by Mallory; but the arguments on these are similar. If the evidence of Indo-Aryan influence on Hurrian is unclear, then the argument about pre-Rigvedic forms of words found in Hurrian is more a matter of interpretation than of fact. With that understanding, we are in a position to examine why many arguments persist about how the Rig Veda is much older than the consensus view, and why they are not easily dismissed, even if they are wrong. We shall examine these arguments in part III.
Thus, for example, if you claim the Dravidians were in so and so place, at so and so time, not only do you need archeology and linguistics to back your claims, but your hypothesis has to also take into account Dravidian gene pool, as well as the socio-ethnic complex of any potential inhabitants of the locales involved.
I don't think you need genetic evidence to support linguistic, anthropological and archaeological evidence. Just because the genes don't support a fact does not make the genetic evidence correct. If archaeology, linguistics and anthropological research support a conclusion , while genetic research does not it says that the genetic research is incorrect.
If you feel that you as a person, who hypothetically speaking, happens to have relatives living outside the U.S., cannot be determined to be related to those relatives via genetic analysis! Basically, what you are saying is that human genealogical content, cannot be evidence of human presence Posts: 5964 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: You falsify a hypothesis based on abundance of evidence.
Incorrect. That is an example of confirmation bias, and burdan of proof fallacy.
see, the following....
It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory - if we look for confirmations.
Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory - an event which would have refuted the theory.
Every "good" scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.
A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.
Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.
Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. - Karl Popper's Falsification Principle
Your linguistics arguably violate every one of the above principals:
* The selective trivial word lists - that seek only to confirm relationships where you desire them be found.
** The anti-scientific posturing against genetics - in which you essentially claim that genetics cannot be used to "disconfirm" your hypothesis on geneology, , so rendering your hypothesis effectly non falsifiable and hence - non scientific from the start.
You have yet to subject your hypothesis to the stringent qualifications of science.
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posted
Speaking for myself, Brother, you got that ever so right! The top contributors here have all at one time or another clarified themselves of the Afrocentric label and the cultural bias inherant to most of its subsets.
quote:Originally posted by Clyde Winters: ... so many new comers to this forum see you guys as Afrocentric researchers, which you are not,
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
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** The anti-scientific posturing against genetics - in which you essentially claim that genetics cannot be used to "disconfirm" your hypothesis on geneology, , so rendering your hypothesis effectly non falsifiable and hence - non scientific from the start.
You have yet to subject your hypothesis to the stringent qualifications of science.
Science is based upon hypothesis testing. Dr. B.B. Lal claimed that the pottery used by the Megalithic people of South India was identical to the red-and-black pottery used the Nubians that he excavated in Africa. This led to hypothesis 2: if the people shared archaeological features, Africans and Dravidians probably shared culture features. This hypothesis was confirmed, and led to hypothesis 3: the Dravidians and Africans should speak genetically related languages. This hypothesis was also confirmed. This puts abundance of support behind the theory that Africans and Dravidians are related and the Dravidians originally came from Africa.
You claim genetic evidence does not support this relationship. If this hypothesis is correct you should be able to find supporting evidence for this theory. There is no supporting evidence for this theory because most geneticists believe that the M haplogroup originated in Africa. It is only a matter of time as genetic research advances that we will discover that they are one.
But until then, if you are correct that the Dravidians are not related to Africans and only recently migrated to India, you should be able to produce evidence that the linguistic, anthropological and archaeological evidence is false. Until you do this your theory remains unconfirmed.
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-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
Another way that you can tell, that a hypothesis is on the right track, is if it receives independent corroboration. In this case the findings (see highlighted text in article above) of Dr. Pritchard and his colleagues, I believe, supports the idea that Africans were pioneers in adopting an agricultural lifestyle. As the language of the article suggests, their findings, regarding Africans, were unexpected to the research team. With a strong hypothesis lines converge.
A hypothesis that introduces more unknowns than it eliminates, muddying the water rather than clarifying, is on the wrong track.
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Dr. B.B. Lal claimed that the pottery used by the Megalithic people of South India was identical to the red-and-black pottery used the Nubians that he excavated in Africa. This led to hypothesis 2: if the people shared archaeological features, Africans and Dravidians probably shared culture features.
This hypothesis was confirmed
Nope - see prior post on confirmation fallacy.
Your above statement confirms nothing beyound the existence of pottery which is found as far east as Japan at least as early if not earlier than in South India.
quote: and led to hypothesis 3: the Dravidians and Africans should speak genetically related languages.
That is a non-sequitur. Whatever is the case of the pottery would tell us nothing - in and of it itself - about language.
quote: This hypothesis was also confirmed.
Nope. You still confirmed nothing - for the all noise, you have said absolutely nothing other than that the Dravidians had pottery.
So what? The neolithic Japanese had pottery too.
Eventually almost all civilisations produced pottery - does it follow that they all speak AFrican languages? No. Does it follow that they are all descendant from Neolithic Africans? No.
quote: This puts abundance of support behind the theory that Africans and Dravidians are related and the Dravidians originally came from Africa.
Again no - absolutely no proof of anything has been offered in your reply - only overblown claims.
quote:You claim genetic evidence does not support this relationship.
Incorect. The correct statement is that geneticists and linguists correctly state that the evidence does not support your claims.
quote: If this hypothesis is correct
Burdan of proof fallacy. No hypothesis is offered here.
Only the observation that your claims are utterly baseless.
Unless and until you provide some - sound - basis for them - that is not a hypothesis - it is a fact.
quote: you should be able to find supporting evidence for this theory.
Again Burdan of Proof fallacy - your theory, your lack of evidence - your problem.
You simply make ridiculous claims supported by no scholarhip, and ask us to 'DIS-prove' them.
But you can't prove a negative - or disprove a nothing - and that is what your hypothesis amounts to - nothing.
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Calypso: Another way that you can tell, that a hypothesis is on the right track, is if it receives independent corroboration. In this case the findings (see highlighted text in article above) of Dr. Pritchard and his colleagues, I believe, supports the idea that Africans were pioneers in adopting an agricultural lifestyle. As the language of the article suggests, their findings, regarding Africans, were unexpected to the research team. With a strong hypothesis lines converge.
A hypothesis that introduces more unknowns than it eliminates, muddying the water rather than clarifying, is on the wrong track.
A hypothesis that introduces more unknowns than it eliminates, muddying the water rather than clarifying, is on the wrong track.
This is why the genetic evidence disputing a Dravido-African connection must be rejected it has no support in relation to this reality. The linguistic, anthropological, and archaeological evidence proves that there is something wrong in the interpretation of the Dravidian genetic evidence. Researchers are trying to make the Dravidians original inhabitants of India when all the evidence, including oral traditions point to a recent migration of Dravidian people into South India, from Africa, Kumarinadu, and a back migration from China and Southeast Asia due to the Chinese pressure.
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-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Dr. Winters writes: This is why the genetic evidence disputing a Dravido-African connection must be rejected.
You've reversed the matter.
You don't reject the evidence for the sake of the hypothesis, but rather you reject a hypothesis when falsified by the evidence - as your hypothesis most certainly has been.
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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To challenge genetics you'd need to show us precisely where and how the science is faulity - and you can't do that with word lists either.
It is easy to attack genetic research, especially in regards to the Dravidian origin in India thesis. The geneticist support this theory by claiming that the ancient Dravidian expansion in India was due to agriculture, and the cultivation of wheat. And the Dravidian languages are not related to any other language except Elamite.
The ancient Dravidians were cattle herders and they grew millet, African millets instead of wheat. The Dravidian languages are not isolate languages they are genetically related to African languages .Once you knock down the idea that the Dravidians spoke a isolate language, cultivated wheat and were agriculturalist, the genetic evidence has nothing to support it. The absence of supporting evidence for the genetics will show that the science is faulty.
But this won't last long. Once geneticists see that the anhtropological, linguistic and archaeological evidence indicates that Dravidian and Africans are closely related they will stop pretending that the Dravidian M haplogroups are different from African M haplogroups so their "science" won't appear "faulty". Geneticist only know about Dravidian history, linguistics and etc., from a Eurocentric perspective. The geneticists don't even know that Dravidians have written their own history for thousands of years and have their own ideas about their roots not found in popular text on Indian history.
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-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Rasol Wrote: Of course, it's the word lists that are not directly relevant to geneology - not genetics, which by definition provides the most direct possible evidence of your ancestry - namely your own genes.
To challenge genetics- pertaining to geneology - you'd need to show us precisely where and how the science is faulity - and you can't do that with word lists either.
This is the crux of the matter indeed Rasol. Dr Winters is questioning the ability of genetics to make meaningful claims regarding geneology but his critique of genetics is not based upon an examination of its internal principles but, after the fact, because it fails to validate his theories. I suspect that if it confirmed his notions he'd love it.
Dr. Winters I don't mean to impugn your character in any way by the above remarks but you can't justify rejecting genetic data because it undermines your theory. Genetic findings are not part of a hypothesis, as you stated above, its data plain and simple. It IS the reality.
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote: This is the crux of the matter indeed Rasol. Dr Winters is questioning the ability of genetics to make meaningful claims regarding geneology but his critique of genetics is not based upon an examination of its internal principles but, after the fact, because it fails to validate his theories. I suspect that if it confirmed his notions he'd love it.
No I reject the genetic data because it is contrived to support the current research paradigm supported by the Academie. Any population movement supported by the Academie, is "surprisingly" supported by the "genetic" data.
As long as it is supported by invalid linguistic evidence, alleging a language family called Afro-Asiatic, which includes Berber when the linguistic evidence does not support this linguistic classification I must reject the science. This makes me believe that the geneticists don't really care about the truth they are just writing articles to increase their academic rank and get research grants.
You may see genetic research as your bride in your research. I hate to tell you this but genetic research is a whore. And many geneticists are pimping the science instead of always telling the truth.
Aluta Continua.....(The Struggle Continues) .
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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It's easy to "attack" any scientific discipline, especially if you don't understand and don't want to - since all that is required is for you to go on not understanding it.
But "attacking" is neither a form of proof, nor a technique of falsifiction. It is just a kind of a agrression and usually a symptom of fear. [of genetics and how it moots your hypothesis?]
quote:The geneticist support this theory by claiming that the ancient Dravidian expansion in India was due to agriculture, and the cultivation of wheat.
What geneticists state based on genetics - is that Dravidians are largely descendant of Upper Paleolithic Asians, and not neolithic Africans.
What you state - is largely unintelligible - in reference to this, such as....
quote:The ancient Dravidians were cattle herders and they grew millet, African millets instead of wheat.
The Ancient Dravidians raised domesticated Indian cattle - not African cattle.
Millet is Native to both Asia and Africa - and, it is grown in the tropics as far East as China.
The Dravdians also grew Asian Wheat, and had Asian sheep and goats.
Morever Nile Valley AFricans grew Mesopotamian wheat, and Asian goats.
quote:The Dravidian languages are not isolate languages they are genetically related to African languages
More non-sequiturs from you. That claim does not follow logically from your empty 'attack' on genetics, or facile observation about millet.
quote:Onnce you knock down the idea that the Dravidians spoke a isolate language, cultivated wheat, and were agriculturalist,
You haven't, but even if you did, none of those things lead to the conclusion that Dravidians are descendant from Neolithic AFricans.
quote:the genetic evidence has nothing to support it.
That genetic evidence stands unrefuted. It's your hypothsis that are unsupported by any of your arguments.
quote:The absence of supporting evidence[ for the genetics will show that the science is faulty.
The abscene of any evidence for your hypothesis, plus you inability to deal with the genetic evidence exposes your hypothesis as being both faulty and very weak.
quote:But this won't last long. Once geneticists see that the anhtropological, linguistic and archaeological evidence indicates that Dravidian and Africans are closely related they will stop pretending that the Dravidian M haplogroups are different from African M haplogroups
This argument might be less comical had you not confused maternal lineage M2, with paternal E3a-M2,
Perhaps you should stop pretending to "attack" genetics - and start trying to learn it.
Then and only then, will your hypothesis be taken seriously.
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Calypso writes: is is the crux of the matter indeed Rasol. Dr Winters is questioning the ability of genetics to make meaningful claims regarding geneology but his critique of genetics is not based upon an examination of its internal principles but, after the fact, because it fails to validate his theories. I suspect that if it confirmed his notions he'd love it.
I enjoy the conversation with Dr. Winters but I suspect even more:
I suspect he knows his hypothesis is - in deep trouble, and is testing the processes of bailing it out of trouble.
I'm willing to help him test it, for sporting saake, if nothing else. Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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The Ancient Dravidians raised domesticated Indian cattle - not African cattle.
Millet is Native to both Asia and Africa - and, it is grown in the tropics as far East as China.
The Dravdians also grew Asian Wheat, and had Asian sheep and goats.
Please post an article that the ancient Dravidian people cultivated wheat.
I invite you to also post to this forum any article that you can find that says the millet grown by the Dravidians originated in India. Also please post an article that shows that the Indus Valley millet originated in India instead of Africa.
Also please present evidence that the Sanga cattle of India was native to India, instead of Africa.
.
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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But "attacking" is neither a form of proof, nor a technique of falsifiction. It is just a kind of a agrression and usually a symptom of fear. [of genetics and how it moots your hypothesis?]
The Dravido-African relationship is firmly established, I have no fear about this.
.
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
^ So....let's keep learning about genetics instead of trying in futility to beat it off with the primative wooden club of anti-scientific posings.
The DNA trail leading back to the origins of today's cattle has taken some surprising turns along the way.
- By Daniel G. Bradley
The genes present in the 1.3 billion cattle living on the Earth today represent a stream of inheritance that stretches back 10,000 years. The founding event in the legacy of the domesticated farm animal was the capture of the formidable wild ox, or aurochs. Taming a long-horned beast six feet tall at the shoulder must have been a daunting task, but it was just one of a series of plant and animal domestications that forever changed the way most people live.
But just what is the genetic heritage of domestic cattle? Was more than one kind of aurochs brought under human control, and if so, how many ancestral species does that heritage encompass?
INDIA:
Our work has shown that the cattle of Europe, northern Asia, and Africa all have closely related DNA sequences and that they all belong to a group that corresponds most closely to the humpless cattle known as Bos taurus.
But the genes of the humped, zebu cattle native to India, known as Bos indicus, tell a different story. On the bovine family tree, zebu are ten times further removed from the three members of the B. taurus group than those three are from one another.
The Indian humped cattle belong to a genetically distinct group of their own. So the genetic evidence firmly sides with the archaeological findings: early farmers, in what are now Pakistan and India, did indeed capture and tame their own zebu-like version of the wild ox.
EUROPE:
The forebears of European cattle, then, were wholesale importations from the Near East.
Today a British cow's mitochondrial genes are much more similar to the genes of a cow-ancient or modern-from Syria or Turkey, than to the genes of the wild ox that used to roam the island.
AFRICA:
According to our genetic analyses, African cattle originated neither from Indian humped cattle nor from Near Eastern cattle.
Those findings support the separate-origins theory of cattle domestication favored by archaeologists, who had maintained that in Africa, too, cattle domestication was local. Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:Indian humped cattle belong to a genetically distinct group of their own. So the genetic evidence firmly sides with the archaeological findings: early farmers, in what are now Pakistan and India, did indeed capture and tame their own zebu-like version of the wild ox.
...and this is where most linguists root the origins of the Dravidian languages.
...and, this is where geneticist root the origins of Dravidian lienages - in Upper Paleolithic southern Asia.
Good luck Dr. Winters...you've much work to do. Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Dr. Winters, importation and exportation of food crops and livestock could easily have taken place along trade routes. Millet grows well in Africa and India so it doesn't really matter where it originated: one doesn't have to conclude that Tamils are expat Madingoes simply because they both planted pearl millet. BTW for a handful of Mandes to mushroom (no pun intended) into so many millions and millions (paraphrasing Carl Sagan)of Dravidians they must have grafted that millet with some good yohimbe.
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
^^As always Rasol, you put the science and logic on the front burner.
Posts: 1038 | From: Franklin Park, NJ | Registered: Aug 2005
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According to our genetic analyses, African cattle originated neither from Indian humped cattle nor from Near Eastern cattle.
Those findings support the separate-origins theory of cattle domestication favored by archaeologists, who had maintained that in Africa, too, cattle domestication was local.
Rasol if you re-read my post I said Sanga cattle.
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote: Millet grows well in Africa and India so it doesn't really matter where it originated: one doesn't have to conclude that Tamils are expat Madingoes simply because they both planted pearl millet.
I agree Calypso and per your parent post - there is much to be said for research into the myraid influence of the African neolithic.
Africa may have been the 1st region of the world to domesticate cattle.
African pottery - a precurser to sedantism - agriculure - food storage, etc.., is the earliest known, outside of Japan and predates both Mesapotamian and Indian.
There is little doubt that neolithic Africans poored out of the delta and into the Levant, and influenced the Levantine,Europe and Asia.
But, that's not the same thing as saying that the Dravidians come from Africa.
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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Way over Winter's head as usual! ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
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, so rendering your hypothesis effectly non falsifiable and hence - non scientific from the start.
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