Tukuler
multidisciplinary Black Scholar
Member # 19944
posted
Thanks to Kefi's actual Maurusian era Taforalt mtDNA study there's no doubt Eurasian lineage existed in coastal and tell Mechta-Afalou ages well before Islamic white slave trade or even chalcolithic trade in non-human goods between North Africa and South Europe.
Kefi's data, though limited where it differs from rCRS by no more than a three variant haplotype in 12 samples, is authentic. The problem is her obvious bias against Africa sub-Sahara.
Even though she admits one sample possibly is L, M, or N, she nonetheless ignores it and categorically states there was no SSA contribution.
This led me to wonder how far her bias prejudiced the haplogroup assignments of the non-rCRS samples.
The fact is some polymorphisms are associated with more than one haplogroup.
Using Watson 1997's full sequences of over 150 control region haplotypes with their associated L haplogroups I present valid alternatives to Kefi's interpretation which, without decisive coding region data as in Herrnstadt (2002), are just as possible.
I appreciate and solicit any corrections, precisions, or updates to Watson (1997).
There's only an ~1500 year difference in the coalescence ages of H1 and H3 in the Maghreb and Iberia (the elder and source of no little then 50% of those markers per Frigi 2010).
Haplogroups must not be confused for skin colour, facial features, or phenotype. Nor does mtDNA alone tell the complete deep ancestry story, nrY chromosomes must also be considered.
Whereever any coastal to tell Maghrebi and pre-Sahara NW Africa genetics may have originated, by historic times there are written observations on the majority colour of the Maurs, Numidians, and Aithiops of the region which can't be ignored. Painted and plastic art reveals some types were not dark and there were types whose facial profiles' do resemble western Eurasians.
A look at today's uniparentals in the region will conclude the prominence of the African components despite major phenotype similarities to Arabian penisulars or South Europeans.
NOTE: Ennafaa's Libyan nrY seems to mistake J as A,B,E(xEb1b1a,b).
Supra-Saharan North Africans are of African stock at base, increasingly augumented by Eurasian settlers, colonistss, and conquerers spanning the entire Holocene epoch all the way from Maurusian to modern times.
Posts: 8179 | From: the Tekrur straddling Senegal & Mauritania | Registered: Dec 2011
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Unfortunately the whole problem with any discussion of ancient North African genes always goes back to the populations used in the samples and the geographic definition of North Africa. If North Africa is to be considered as only the most coastal Areas of North Africa not extending more than a few hundred miles inland, then it isn't an accurate reflection of the complete picture and skews the influence of said "Eurasian" populations. North Africa spans an area larger than western Europe and America combined and includes all of the Sahara desert, which itself is larger than the continental United States. Therefore, focusing on populations closest to the coast is not a reflection of all North African populations and historic population movements.
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Tukuler
multidisciplinary Black Scholar
Member # 19944
posted
@Beyoku - Ennafaa 2011 mtDNA nrY Tunisia
@DougM - I've clearly defined coastal, tell, and pre-Sahara NW Africa and this thread particularly focuses on Maurusian Taforalt just across from Iberia and possible "sub-Sahara" gene profiles so there should be no confusion. Stick to the definitions, deal with the data, no problem.
That is unless you don't like the data. In which case chose a report and broach a thread to analyse what's in it. See if you can escape H1 and H3 anywhere in the Sahara proper from Ghadames, Hoggar, and Air westwards.
Posts: 8179 | From: the Tekrur straddling Senegal & Mauritania | Registered: Dec 2011
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@DougM - I've clearly defined coastal, tell, and pre-Sahara NW Africa and this thread particularly focuses on Maurusian Taforalt just across from Iberia and possible "sub-Sahara" gene profiles so there should be no confusion. Stick to the definitions, deal with the data, no problem.
That is unless you don't like the data. In which case chose a report and broach a thread to analyse what's in it. See if you can escape H1 and H3 anywhere in the Sahara proper from Ghadames, Hoggar, and Air westwards.
I probably meant to post this in the other thread on North African back migrations.
Posts: 8896 | Registered: May 2005
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@DougM - I've clearly defined coastal, tell, and pre-Sahara NW Africa and this thread particularly focuses on Maurusian Taforalt just across from Iberia and possible "sub-Sahara" gene profiles so there should be no confusion. Stick to the definitions, deal with the data, no problem.
That is unless you don't like the data. In which case chose a report and broach a thread to analyse what's in it. See if you can escape H1 and H3 anywhere in the Sahara proper from Ghadames, Hoggar, and Air westwards.
Hmm so there is no supplemental material to see the direct frequencis of A,B,E,(xE1b1b)? That is dissapointing.
Posts: 2463 | From: New Jersey USA | Registered: Dec 2007
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Tukuler
multidisciplinary Black Scholar
Member # 19944
posted
What's disappointing about tables S5 and S6?
posted
Recapitulating some personal observations posted elsewhere:
The authors started out with 31 EpiPaleolithic specimens, and they tell the reader that they were left with working with 26 specimens after eliminating certain named specimens for one reason or the other, which was then reduced to first 24 and then 23 specimens. Yet, we come to learn that even those 23 specimens were reduced further down to just 21 specimens that were used in the final analysis. In the above, the authors named yet another two specimens, both alleged to be closely related to one specimen retained in the final analysis; the names of the three related specimen were given above as follows; Taf V-5, Taf V-7 and Taf V-20. One of these, we are not told specifically which one, was to have been considered in the final analysis, while the other two [again, we are not told which two of the three closely related specimens] would have been eliminated from the study.
Perhaps a relatively minor issue, it is of note that Taf V-5's and Taf V-20's fragment sequences start earlier and end earlier than that of Taf V-7, with the former's sequences between positions 16054 and 16317 having been compared against those of the Cambridge Reference Sequence, while the latter's was read from 16081 and 16404; what if mutations in positions prior to 16081 in Taf V-7's case and after 16317 in either Taf V-5's or Taf V-20's case were different from those of either Taf V-5 or Taf V-20, and V-7 respectively; could there be mutations here that could drastically alter what the authors would call the "most likely haplogroups" that these specimens' markers fall into? Something to ponder, but at any rate, along with the earlier named three contaminated specimens, the aforementioned two closely-related specimens would have amounted to five specimens being eliminated, reducing the 31 specimens down to 26. However, the authors provide the reader with a table consisting of 23 individual specimens, and all three of those closely related individuals were in it! What they did not tell the reader, nor did they identify them by name or tag, and hence, possibly leaving an unsuspecting reader scratching his/her head, is that five more specimens were excluded from the study, which were not included in the aforementioned table. These undeclared left-out specimens are namely; Taf VI-9, Taf XVII-18, Taf XIX-7, Taf XXI, and Taf I—missing specimens not named! The reader is not offered explanation on why these were not made part of the study, and so left on his/her own, to wonder what might have been wrong with them. They could have been damaged, degraded or contaminated; any or a combination of any of these could have affected sequences of those specimens. Had the authors therefore eliminated those aforementioned specimens with inconsistent and therefore dubious sequences, they would have been left with fairly small amount of individual DNA material to work with, and even then, the results would not be unequivocal, given that a good deal of their overall sample size would have been purged from the final analysis; the integrity of the so-called "good" DNA would have been put to question as well. Through it all, the authors could not even get themselves to firmly assign the sequences into a specific haplogroup set.Posts: 7516 | From: Somewhere on Earth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Tukuler
multidisciplinary Black Scholar
Member # 19944
posted
quote:Originally posted by Tukuler:
Thanks to Kefi's actual Maurusian era Taforalt mtDNA study there's no doubt Eurasian lineage existed in coastal and tell Mechta-Afalou ages well before Islamic white slave trade or even chalcolithic trade in non-human goods between North Africa and South Europe.
Kefi's data, though limited where it differs from rCRS by no more than a three variant haplotype in 12 samples, is authentic. The problem is her obvious bias against Africa sub-Sahara.
Even though she admits one sample possibly is L, M, or N, she nonetheless ignores it and categorically states there was no SSA contribution.
The fact is some polymorphisms are associated with more than one haplogroup.
Using Watson 1997's full sequences of over 150 control region haplotypes with their associated L haplogroups I present valid alternatives to Kefi's interpretation which, without decisive coding region data as in Herrnstadt (2002), are just as possible.
I appreciate and solicit any corrections, precisions, or updates to Watson (1997).
. A few years ago I showed Kefi's data confirms so-call subSaharan Africa L in nascent Holocene Taforalt.
Now Secher is pointing out the same. However, no word on the other possible L I identified.
It soon come.
Primary and secondary radiations of U6 branches with different coalescence ages were tentatively correlated with different North African lithic cultures, such as the Aterian, Dabban, Iberomaurusian or Capsian; and perhaps more speculatively, with the spread of the Afroasiatic language family. The Aterian was thought to have existed between 40–20 kya but recent archaeological age determinations, based on thermal luminescence, have pushed back this period, to 90–40 kya [14-16]. As the estimated age for the whole of haplogroup U6 is around 35 kya, this removes the Aterian from consideration for association with the genetic signal for dispersal in North Africa [8,9]. However, as U6 persists in modern day African populations we can assume a maternal continuity since around 35 kya, the age of this haplogroup. This continuity has received some support from ancient DNA studies on iberoMaurusian remains, with an age around 12 kya, exhumed from the archaeological site of Taforalt in Morocco [17]. In this analysis, haplotypes tentatively assignable to haplogroups H, JT, U6 and V were identified, pointing to a local evolution of this population and a genetic continuity in North Africa. On the other hand, only one haplotype harbored the 16223 mutation, which if assigned to an L haplogroup would represent a sub-Saharan African influence of about 4%. This would equate to a frequency five times lower than that found in current Moroccan populations (20%) and would support the proposal that the penetration of sub-Saharan mtDNA lineages to North Africa mainly occurred since the beginning of the Holocene onwards [18].
Bernard Secher with Fregel González et al The history of the North African mitochondrial DNA haplogroup U6 gene flow into the African, Eurasian and American continents BMC Evolutionary Biology 2014, 14:109 doi:10.1186/1471-2148-14-109
Secher's last sentence above attempts to restrict, or lesser qualify, a supposed SSA influence which quantified is minor nearly insignificant at 4%.
But his L age comment "mainly occurred since the beginning of the Holocene onwards" applies not to L alone but to all the Taforalt fossil data except U6 and maybe JT. The much flaunted H is not earlier than the L. It too is from the Holocene onwards. Tunisian L goes back 20k per Frigi (2010). Why wouldn't Taforalt L too?
North African L2 is old enough to be at the very beginning of Maurusian industry unlike H1 and H3.
Posts: 8179 | From: the Tekrur straddling Senegal & Mauritania | Registered: Dec 2011
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