quote:Since as far as I can remember (2014) there has been an obsession with a particular set of people across the many layers of the bioanthropology community. Researchers and enthusiasts alike sought the means to properly identify and label this mysterious group as they hadn’t really been known by anyone prior. It’s been quite difficult as these people lived and died but hadn’t left behind any bones, culture or industry. They merely contributed to the genepool of those who’d go on to invent farming in the middle east. I’m referring to Basal-Eurasians. A population who weren’t African (“Sub-Saharan African”) but not quite Eurasian either. So who were they? Long story short, I don’t know and will continue to not know until something else can substantiate their existence, like say… an industry, burials or even culture. However I mentioned them to segue into a subjectively more interesting title of people, who’s existence was labeled by the same set of individuals who titled Basal-Eurasian. I’m speaking about Ancestral North Africans (ANA). Considering the fact that an argued point was that the previously mentioned Basal-Eurasians were resident North Africans, it felt appropriate to draw comparisons between the two hypothetical groups. Though the differences are more compelling, as the later group, Ancestral North African, might actually have bones, industries and a culture to tie them to. Some of which will be touched upon below. And like how Basal Eurasian is set to be ancestor shared by all modern day West Eurasians, ANA ancestry might be a component in virtually all Africans today.
Later in the blogpost are some statistics showing the amount of ANA admixture in various African and West Eurasian populations. The late dynastic/Roman period Egyptian sample from Abusir el-Meleq is included here.
posted
The biggest surprise for me is that ANA peaks in certain Nilotic groups (Shilluk, Dinka, Datog, etc.) along with Afroasiatic-speaking ones. I would have expected it to be associated primarily with Afrasans and related North Africans if we are to identify it with pre-OOA. Instead it seems to be commonplace in many "biologically SSA" groups as well as North African ones.
posted
All branches lead back to the trunk if human DNA is based on a single origin in Africa. If that theory is accurate, then all roads lead back to Africa.
The PROBLEM, for Eurocentrics anyway, is when those roads converge in Africa along with "modern" behaviors like farming,civilization, etc. Because,in their models, these "modern" behaviors are assumed to have came about on the branches and not the trunk. Hence Basal Eurasian is just a nice way of saying "ghost African" population but not directly giving credit to Africans as a fundamental component of this evolutionary package. Of course another big part of this is the lack of ADNA from Africa and the Nile Valley going back 10,000 years or more. Using ADNA from Europe while having no ADNA of similar time depth from Africa only reinforces existing assumptions and models, especially when the algorithms are always weighted towards actual ADNA (Eurasia) versus estimated or theoretical ADNA (Africa)
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quote:Originally posted by Doug M: All branches lead back to the trunk if human DNA is based on a single origin in Africa. If that theory is accurate, then all roads lead back to Africa.
The PROBLEM, for Eurocentrics anyway, is when those roads converge in Africa along with "modern" behaviors like farming,civilization, etc. Because,in their models, these "modern" behaviors are assumed to have came about on the branches and not the trunk. Hence Basal Eurasian is just a nice way of saying "ghost African" population but not directly giving credit to Africans as a fundamental component of this evolutionary package. Of course another big part of this is the lack of ADNA from Africa and the Nile Valley going back 10,000 years or more. Using ADNA from Europe while having no ADNA of similar time depth from Africa only reinforces existing assumptions and models, especially when the algorithms are always weighted towards actual ADNA (Eurasia) versus estimated or theoretical ADNA (Africa)
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You don't have to have aDNA we know the origin of these ancient people via archaeology which illustrates these people moving out of Africa into Eurasia.
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-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Doug M: All branches lead back to the trunk if human DNA is based on a single origin in Africa. If that theory is accurate, then all roads lead back to Africa.
The PROBLEM, for Eurocentrics anyway, is when those roads converge in Africa along with "modern" behaviors like farming,civilization, etc. Because,in their models, these "modern" behaviors are assumed to have came about on the branches and not the trunk. Hence Basal Eurasian is just a nice way of saying "ghost African" population but not directly giving credit to Africans as a fundamental component of this evolutionary package. Of course another big part of this is the lack of ADNA from Africa and the Nile Valley going back 10,000 years or more. Using ADNA from Europe while having no ADNA of similar time depth from Africa only reinforces existing assumptions and models, especially when the algorithms are always weighted towards actual ADNA (Eurasia) versus estimated or theoretical ADNA (Africa)
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You don't have to have aDNA we know the origin of these ancient people via archaeology which illustrates these people moving out of Africa into Eurasia.
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True. But we know the Euro establishment of Anthropology and Archaeology is based on ignoring Africas role in human history and as such this shouldn't be surprising. But some people actually think that DNA will make things better.
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quote:Originally posted by Doug M: All branches lead back to the trunk if human DNA is based on a single origin in Africa. If that theory is accurate, then all roads lead back to Africa.
The PROBLEM, for Eurocentrics anyway, is when those roads converge in Africa along with "modern" behaviors like farming,civilization, etc. Because,in their models, these "modern" behaviors are assumed to have came about on the branches and not the trunk. Hence Basal Eurasian is just a nice way of saying "ghost African" population but not directly giving credit to Africans as a fundamental component of this evolutionary package. Of course another big part of this is the lack of ADNA from Africa and the Nile Valley going back 10,000 years or more. Using ADNA from Europe while having no ADNA of similar time depth from Africa only reinforces existing assumptions and models, especially when the algorithms are always weighted towards actual ADNA (Eurasia) versus estimated or theoretical ADNA (Africa)
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You don't have to have aDNA we know the origin of these ancient people via archaeology which illustrates these people moving out of Africa into Eurasia.
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True. But we know the Euro establishment of Anthropology and Archaeology is based on ignoring Africas role in human history and as such this shouldn't be surprising. But some people actually think that DNA will make things better.
Good point, but Eurocentrists will flip the script-even with DNA--to make this or that group "white". People forget that skeletons and other material used to get aDNA is recovered from an archaeological context.
DNA can not identify the race of the skeleton or skull possessing the DNA, because any member of the varied races can carry the same genome. But craniometrics identify specific racial identity.This means that the artifacts recovered at these sites and the measurements of the skull, pelvis and etc., usually point to the origin of the skeleton etc.Given this fact aDNA proves very little about racial identity without archaeological evidence.
-------------------- C. A. Winters Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Doug M: All branches lead back to the trunk if human DNA is based on a single origin in Africa. If that theory is accurate, then all roads lead back to Africa.
The PROBLEM, for Eurocentrics anyway, is when those roads converge in Africa along with "modern" behaviors like farming,civilization, etc. Because,in their models, these "modern" behaviors are assumed to have came about on the branches and not the trunk. Hence Basal Eurasian is just a nice way of saying "ghost African" population but not directly giving credit to Africans as a fundamental component of this evolutionary package. Of course another big part of this is the lack of ADNA from Africa and the Nile Valley going back 10,000 years or more. Using ADNA from Europe while having no ADNA of similar time depth from Africa only reinforces existing assumptions and models, especially when the algorithms are always weighted towards actual ADNA (Eurasia) versus estimated or theoretical ADNA (Africa)
What does this have to do with the OP?
Posts: 1793 | From: New York | Registered: Jul 2016
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Remember how this site turns African Americans into North Africans when assigned to five groups? Maybe its not European admixture.
Posts: 1257 | From: howdy | Registered: Mar 2014
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quote:Originally posted by Doug M: All branches lead back to the trunk if human DNA is based on a single origin in Africa. If that theory is accurate, then all roads lead back to Africa.
The PROBLEM, for Eurocentrics anyway, is when those roads converge in Africa along with "modern" behaviors like farming,civilization, etc. Because,in their models, these "modern" behaviors are assumed to have came about on the branches and not the trunk. Hence Basal Eurasian is just a nice way of saying "ghost African" population but not directly giving credit to Africans as a fundamental component of this evolutionary package. Of course another big part of this is the lack of ADNA from Africa and the Nile Valley going back 10,000 years or more. Using ADNA from Europe while having no ADNA of similar time depth from Africa only reinforces existing assumptions and models, especially when the algorithms are always weighted towards actual ADNA (Eurasia) versus estimated or theoretical ADNA (Africa)
What does this have to do with the OP?
ANA is a theoretical population that has not actually been identified from any actual ancient DNA.
from the site:
quote: What is ANA?
Ancestral North African (ANA) is supposedly a population which had diverged from an early east African population similar to the “pure” ancestors of Mota.1 They would hypothetically be the “pre-Basal Eurasians” or more descriptively, the “African Basal Eurasians.” However if this population existed, they would have contributed Admixture to the ancestors of not only present day North Africans but also to West and East Africans (and historical South Africans by extension).1,2 To put this into perspective, If the description holds true for this “Ghost” North African population, then the common genetic profile for Bantu speakers should accompany this ghost admixture.
North Africans by all logic should be one of the primary branches off the trunk of all human DNA. And from that branch comes all non Africans. Whether or not this includes all Africans is simply a question based on the lack of actual ancient DNA from Africa 5,000 years old. Compare that to DNA from Europe that is over 30,000 years old. Basal Eurasian is partly a side effect of this and also partly due to the fact that the paper where it originated excluded Africans from the study of the spread of agriculture in Europe.... As if Africans had no role in the origin and spread of agriculture.
Ultimately you don't see "ghost populations" in Europe because they have large amounts of ancient DNA to use in their ancient population models.
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posted
I still don't understand the point that you were trying to make.
I also don't see evidence of North African being a "primary" branch of all human DNA. First of how would you even denote that.
Lets say 300,000 years ago there were humans in North Africa who'd contribute to the modern human genepool how are you quantifying how much that'll relate to which population today?
Also I don't see how Eurasians or Eurocentrics are important here... They have little to do with what's being investigated, Other than being the recipients of North East African DNA as it was shown by Prepottery neolithic samples.
You do know that an emerging theory is that all Africans will have Eurasian Admixture right? and it's gaining traction. The alternative to that could probably be what we can call ANA admixture, it can explain patterns of Eurasian/African proximity as we approach the modern era.
Posts: 1793 | From: New York | Registered: Jul 2016
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quote:Originally posted by Elmaestro: I still don't understand the point that you were trying to make.
I also don't see evidence of North African being a "primary" branch of all human DNA. First of how would you even denote that.
Lets say 300,000 years ago there were humans in North Africa who'd contribute to the modern human genepool how are you quantifying how much that'll relate to which population today?
Also I don't see how Eurasians or Eurocentrics are important here... They have little to do with what's being investigated, Other than being the recipients of North East African DNA as it was shown by Prepottery neolithic samples.
You do know that an emerging theory is that all Africans will have Eurasian Admixture right? and it's gaining traction. The alternative to that could probably be what we can call ANA admixture, it can explain patterns of Eurasian/African proximity as we approach the modern era.
What I am saying is that the site referenced by the OP is making the argument of ANA as a primary branch of African DNA based on theoretical logic not ancient dna.
Only in Africa are they relying on theoretical frameworks because of the lack of ancient DNA. So of course there will always be new theories about how DNA lineages spread. And because most models or frameworks are weighted heavily to actual DNA samples, the ancient models will always be skewed towards Europe and Asia because of the large amounts of ancient DNA from Europe and Asia. However, if OOA is true, and all humans originated in Africa over 200,000 years ago, then for OOA to be valid all human DNA has to originate from the African trunk. Otherwise, OOA is invalid. And if OOA is valid, and humans first arose South of the Sahara, then the only way for them to get into Europe and Asia is through North Africa. And therefore, for these "Ancient North Africans" to be Eurasian before Eurasians even existed makes no logical sense.
And Eurocentrics are involved because, again, the whole idea of "Basal Eurasian" ultimately comes from a paper where Africans were explicitly excluded from the development and spread of agriculture in Europe. I have talked about this many times going back to when the paper was first published. The point being that Africans were always involved in the development and spread of agriculture. But because they were left out of any DNA models in this study of the spread of farming, you get these "ghost populations" floating around as a result. And thus all the rampant speculation and theoretical discussions about what these ghost populations should be all of which are related to ancient African DNA. Which again, points out the problem of the lack of ancient DNA from Africa. So yes, part of it is Eurocentrism in implicitly denying Africa's role in the origin and spread of agriculture in Europe. But the other part is the lack of ancient DNA samples from Africa. As a result of this combination of Eurocentric methodologies and the lack of ancient DNA from Africa you get nonsense theories of Eurasian DNA in Africa before Eurasians in Eurasia.
Keep in mind when this article first came out, some people were claiming that DNA science was the holy grail of understanding human evolution. Yet now here we are going 180 degrees in the opposite direction saying we don't need ancient DNA at all to create models of ancient humans in Africa. What happened to getting the DNA from Africa? Models are only as good as the data used in them and if you don't have any hard data, then the models are always going to be flawed.
When talking of ancient DNA from Africa, there has to be a time scale on which the branches are labeled. AMH originated in Africa over 300,000 years ago. And there have been more recent discoveries of AMH like humans in North Africa also upwards of 300,000 years ago. Obviously over the span of 300,000 years a lot has happened. All these graphs are based on what happened AFTER OOA and then try to work backwards to understand what happened in Africa which is impossible. Case in point, what does "Ancestral North African" mean if there have been AMH populations in North Africa at various times going back over 300,000 years? It is only relevant to the origin of the Eurasian DNA branches 200,000 years later and potential migrations after. That is a huge time skip.
The biggest issue and seemingly focus of concern in most of these papers is trying to identify ancient "back migration" into Africa from Eurasia. Which is very odd considering the time scale of African DNA is vastly older than the existence of anything called Eurasian, which again shows a major slant towards ancient DNA from Eurasia.
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I looked at revoiye's "Breakdown" post, and there's something about their methodology that seems a bit suspect to me.
quote:(O) would be ASW as indicated in a previous post, here represented by Mbuti, (C) would be ASA represented by the samples of Ballitobay, (A) would be ANA1 a population more closest to ANA’s progenitors and represented by the non “basal” ancestry in Mota. (B) would be ANA2 represented by the non Eurasian portion of Taforalt, (X) would be West Eurasians represented by Sunghnir IV and (Y) would represent an early East Eurasian represented by the earliest Hoabinhian sample.
What grounds do they have for assuming Mota's "non-basal" ancestry would form a clade with Taforalt's indigenous African ancestry to the exclusion of OOA groups? I would have thought the phylogeny would look more like this:
Somehow back migration theory seems but the latest tool of anthropology keeping Africa at a nursery/kindergarten level. I dunno, it mostly seems BM theory is just the 21st century's way of saying nothing was accomplished in Africa solely by 'pure' indigenees. It took help from outside Africa. No longer in terms of Hamites, dark caucasians, etc., but by 'impersonal' gene flow (sic) from Eurasians supposedly migrating back to a place that they never came from and leaving what archaeological traces where along the way?
Shoo, I dunno.
What African peoples with perfected statecraft had it before back migration admixture? Ah dang, even pastoralism? But Eurasians have civilizations and cultures having no post OoA migration admixture until after already established?
I jus dunno.
Is that line of thought a descent into madness? I grew up reading Toynbee who proposed Africans responsible for no civilization. It was standard. The current two gens teaches if not they themselves read that. Has it no at least subliminal effect on approaches to population genetics? Science isn't divorced from sociology. Scientists are members of socirty
I dunno
Can science be divorced from sociology when scientists are members of society?
quote:Originally posted by BrandonP: I looked at revoiye's "Breakdown" post, and there's something about their methodology that seems a bit suspect to me.
quote:(O) would be ASW as indicated in a previous post, here represented by Mbuti, (C) would be ASA represented by the samples of Ballitobay, (A) would be ANA1 a population more closest to ANA’s progenitors and represented by the non “basal” ancestry in Mota. (B) would be ANA2 represented by the non Eurasian portion of Taforalt, (X) would be West Eurasians represented by Sunghnir IV and (Y) would represent an early East Eurasian represented by the earliest Hoabinhian sample.
What grounds do they have for assuming Mota's "non-basal" ancestry would form a clade with Taforalt's indigenous African ancestry to the exclusion of OOA groups? I would have thought the phylogeny would look more like this:
You're correct the accepted phylogeny is the second image. But nothing can be done with that. In the first image a and b are both ANA populations Mota wouldn't be either. Mota would supposedly be basal to both. Shared drift between mota an Tafforalt is supposed to parse ANA apparently.
quote:Another concern is the assumptions made regarding ANA ancestry. The biggest concern in how ANA relates to deep African ancestry. The method I used earlier consistently assumed that ANA would be purely downstream from Mota, but it might not be so. [...]
But Doug... The OP is showing explicitly African DNA in Non Africans everyone always assumed had none or "backmigrated." Ancestral North Africans aren't and weren't Eurasians (see the critique of Pagani the bottom of the page). You could have just said "nothing matters unless we have aDNA." I'd understand that line of reasoning. But I don't see the Eurocentricity here.
quote:He (Pagani) went on to even state that North Africans would have needed to be biologically Eurasian at the time in order to explain continuity.37 Such extreme scenarios are not necessary to explain the relationship between the ancient individuals in question. We don’t yet know to which extent North Africans had been bottle-necked or contributed to/received contributions from neighboring Eurasian populations in order to make such assertions on the requirements of their genetic history. However put, there is a case to be made that regardless of the importance of actual Eurasian admixture in North Africa, there was an indigenous presence outside of the diversity that categorizes Non-African populations.
quote:You're correct the accepted phylogeny is the second image. But nothing can be done with that. In the first image a and b are both ANA populations Mota wouldn't be either. Mota would supposedly be basal to both. Shared drift between mota an Tafforalt is supposed to parse ANA apparently.
Well, as you might have seen on Anthrogenica (where I also shared the revoiye blog post), some people claim what's being called "ANA" here is more synonymous with what some people call "Neo-African", which I gather is basically the majority of African ancestry apart from what you see in Mbuti and Khoisan types. And I can see why they think that if "ANA" is peaking in South Sudanese Nilotes.
quote:Originally posted by Elmaestro: Wtf is a Neo African lol?
I wouldn't know for sure myself, TBH.
You think the additional ANA in Israeli PPNB relative to Natufians might reflect another wave of African (possibly early Afroasiatic) migrations into the Levant during the Neolithic? Proto-Semitic languages probably came into being after one of those.
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Idk if additional African ancestry speaks to Afroasiatic movement. But it only seems obvious that Israel could have had additional Ancestry from Africa since. You have to keep in mind something though...
Notice how Natufians ANA% is more drastically effected by Mota's Basal ancestry, in this case the more Ballito bay ancestry is deducted the least drift is shared with Natufians. These Natufians most probably have more African ancestry than "pure ANA." So formal stats will undoubtedly show Natufians with more African-related ancestry but the ratio of ancestry with just Taforalt (as opposed to Mota, Ballitobay or Mbuti) seems to be higher in the Israeli PPNB sample.
I'm looking forward to seeing how this'll translate to chalcolithic and bronze age Samples of the Levant though...
Posts: 1793 | From: New York | Registered: Jul 2016
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quote:Originally posted by BrandonP: I looked at revoiye's "Breakdown" post, and there's something about their methodology that seems a bit suspect to me.
quote:(O) would be ASW as indicated in a previous post, here represented by Mbuti, (C) would be ASA represented by the samples of Ballitobay, (A) would be ANA1 a population more closest to ANA’s progenitors and represented by the non “basal” ancestry in Mota. (B) would be ANA2 represented by the non Eurasian portion of Taforalt, (X) would be West Eurasians represented by Sunghnir IV and (Y) would represent an early East Eurasian represented by the earliest Hoabinhian sample.
What grounds do they have for assuming Mota's "non-basal" ancestry would form a clade with Taforalt's indigenous African ancestry to the exclusion of OOA groups? I would have thought the phylogeny would look more like this:
You're correct the accepted phylogeny is the second image. But nothing can be done with that. In the first image a and b are both ANA populations Mota wouldn't be either. Mota would supposedly be basal to both. Shared drift between mota an Tafforalt is supposed to parse ANA apparently.
quote:Another concern is the assumptions made regarding ANA ancestry. The biggest concern in how ANA relates to deep African ancestry. The method I used earlier consistently assumed that ANA would be purely downstream from Mota, but it might not be so. [...]
But Doug... The OP is showing explicitly African DNA in Non Africans everyone always assumed had none or "backmigrated." Ancestral North Africans aren't and weren't Eurasians (see the critique of Pagani the bottom of the page). You could have just said "nothing matters unless we have aDNA." I'd understand that line of reasoning. But I don't see the Eurocentricity here.
quote:He (Pagani) went on to even state that North Africans would have needed to be biologically Eurasian at the time in order to explain continuity.37 Such extreme scenarios are not necessary to explain the relationship between the ancient individuals in question. We don’t yet know to which extent North Africans had been bottle-necked or contributed to/received contributions from neighboring Eurasian populations in order to make such assertions on the requirements of their genetic history. However put, there is a case to be made that regardless of the importance of actual Eurasian admixture in North Africa, there was an indigenous presence outside of the diversity that categorizes Non-African populations.
The OP is making up a theoretical construct. African DNA history is 10x older than anything in Eurasia. It is impossible to model ancient African DNA on Eurasian DNA. You need ancient DNA data from Africa as old and older than 30,000 years. 300,000 years is 10x older than 30,000.
The Eurocentrism comes again from the fact that the whole starting point for all of this was the Lazaridis paper where they used ancient DNA from all over Europe and the Levant to model the spread of farming. They explicitly omitted any African DNA from this paper and thus found "ghost populations" which they labeled as "Basal Eurasian". "Basal Eurasian" has no meaning or relevance to ancient African DNA and using "Basal Eurasian" as a starting point to model ancient African DNA is the problem because it is backwards. All these various trees trying to model out various "basal" concepts are simply ridiculous because ancient African DNA is basal to all other human DNA.
Again, I posted my commentary on this 5 years ago:
The only reason "North Africa" is even relevant here is because of the fact that nobody has found the unique African DNA lineage in North Africa that is not one of the lineages labeled "subsaharan" in most DNA reference databases. Obviously the implication is that North Africa was the way point for human migrations out of Africa into Eurasia. So again, African DNA as a whole is still "basal" to all other human DNA. But to try and recover any ancient unique DNA Lineages from North Africa going back before or during OOA using Eurasian DNA alone is almost impossible and will always be modeled as Eurasian "backmigration" because of the lack of ancient African DNA from North Africa going back upwards of 30,000 years.
And, to the point of the flaws of using this methodology of starting with Europe to model ancient African DNA just look at the following:
quote: Error found in study of first ancient African genome
Finding that much of Africa has Eurasian ancestry was mistaken.
An error has forced researchers to go back on their claim that humans across the whole of Africa carry DNA inherited from Eurasian immigrants.
This week the authors issued a note explaining the mistake in their October 2015 Science paper on the genome of a 4,500-year-old man from Ethiopia — the first complete ancient human genome from Africa. The man was named after Mota Cave, where his remains were found.
Although the first humans left Africa some 100,000 years ago, a study published in 2013 found that some came back again around 3,000 years ago; this reverse migration has left its trace in African genomes.
Again, the fact that the Mota sample is only 4,500 years old while most Eurasian ancient DNA over 10,000 years old is a big part of the problem. There is no way to understand African ancient DNA going back over 100, 200 or 300 KYA using even 50,000 year old Eurasian DNA. You need African DNA of similar ages from all over Africa to really understand the relationship between ancient DNA in Africa and the branching during and after OOA.
Using Ballitobay as a reference is no better because that DNA is only 2300 years old:
quote: It’s been about 2000 years since a young boy died on what is today a beach in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province. In the 1960s the child’s remains were exposed to wind and rain. It was carefully excavated and taken to the museum in Durban and later to Pietermaritzburg. Over the past four years I have worked with a team of researchers who reconstructed the DNA of the boy from Ballito Bay and other ancient individuals, and what we’ve discovered changed what we know about deep human history.
The boy lived about 2000 years ago, which helped us to recalculate the time at which humans like us – Homo sapiens – first split or branched from archaic or pre-modern human groups to between 350 000 and 260 000 years ago.
Previously, it was thought that we emerged just a little less than 200 000 years ago. This was mostly based on the shape of fossil skulls found in Ethiopia, and on earlier work on the DNA of people currently living in southern Africa, such as Khoe-San groups.
Then, earlier in 2017, a skull from Morocco that looks like a combination of us and older human groups was dated to about 300 000 years ago. This age also overlaps with that of Homo naledi in South Africa.
How on earth can you expect to unravel the ancient African DNA tree that is over 300,000 years old from 2500 year old DNA samples? This is absurd.
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Tukuler
multidisciplinary Black Scholar
Member # 19944
posted
Nowhere near you age requirement DougM but oldest for Inner Africa is our Mt Hora baby girl ~8000 yrs ago.
Only a handful of research articles/reports will use her aDNA. Can't remember the oldest male sample from Malawi. Mt Hora evinces ancestries exemplary of today's
South Africa Khoe South Africa San Sudan NE Afr Nuba Atlantic Africa Jola Ta-nzania E Afr Pemba
yesterday's Ethiopia NE Afr Mota (earliest in Levant Natufian)
These dates allow for Africa "helped" into cattle cult pastoralism by "back-migrating" Göbekli Tepe Anatolians or whomever.
Data is data yet reason balks at "back-migration" deep into southeast Africa at a time cosmic shift of the West African Monsoon was greening the Sahara encouraging north movement evinced in cichlid fish swimming north from L Tanzania to an African Humid Period lake in Tunisia. Nor any archaeology or cultural finds like the ones spread from Anatolia to Iberia and beyond.
Europe was introduced to the Neolithic by Anatolis. North Africa by Inner Africans labeled Saharo-Sudanese
Just as AI face recognition makes gross errors because of the computer scientist social bias so I think molecular genetic tools do in the field of population genetics.
=-=-=
3 main Coastal North Africa bi-directional routes to Europe.
Isn't there pre-LGM L2 in Iberia? It's no 30-70-110kya OoA but maybe indicative of possible migration from Maghreb to adjacent western Mediterranean Europe if only delved into.
quote:Originally posted by Tukuler: [QB] Nowhere near you age requirement DougM but oldest for Inner Africa is our Mt Hora baby girl ~8000 yrs ago....
Data is data yet reason balks at "back-migration" deep into southeast Africa at a time cosmic shift of the West African Monsoon was greening the Sahara encouraging north movement evinced in cichlid fish swimming north from L Tanzania to an African Humid Period lake in Tunisia.
I know you are educated and capable of writing clearly like Doug and zarahan but you frequently write in this very choppy style that might fit for poetry but not for clear and articulate discourse that is easily understood.
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Tukuler
multidisciplinary Black Scholar
Member # 19944
posted
Thx Kitty
I intentionally write so that readers slow down and don't skim/speed read me and even have to stop and think what it is I'm really saying as double and triple entendre often creeps in. I don't write for New Media 30 second attention span types. No apology. Slow down, stop and think when reading me or don't bother reading my posts. That, or come back in 24, 'cos I will have tweaked the post.
I was the only one ever passing the English entry exam, graded 100, at the technical institute I matriculated 40 yrs gone. Have dipped and dabbed at German and Spanish. Use book French for Afr hist sources. Studied Kenyan KiSwahili. Read Hebrew (biblical and prayerbook). Only winked at Arabic. Toucouleur wince and Adamawa Ful smile at my meager Pulaar or Fulfulde.
At this stage in life my American English writing style sometimes ain't making it for 21st century grammatical English
I rarely write poetry some doggerel here and there wwhen feelin tha flow.
I choose column inch style for my posts because of high school and college journalism. Doesn't exist anymore. Ustabee u hadda cover the H &/t 5 Ws very first paragraph. Now your major journal articles read like click bait and you may still not get H&5Ws even after reading the whole dang article.
OK I break the rule 'prose never rhymes'. Is it poem-like just because I try and align every line to a certain character length? It's the same as reading any articles in print whether 2 columns or 8 columns wide. Sometimes a line ends to continue next line because I don't want to use a comma or I think a natural pause is good phrasing.
Professionally I have written user guides and installation manuals for global application and global release of new product for a major multi-national corp. As an amateur I was published in Bible Review (a now folded BAS magazine) letters page, you know, that Kushite & Leopard's Spots analogy interpreted in a positive light through Afrikan Eyes.
I don't at all write the way I speak to people face to face. I came up in an age when common spoken and academic written English differed and constantly read books written in the late 19th early 20th centuries where sometimes more than half the book is footnotes. I usta talk to the micro-cassette then transcribe when writing letters to friends and family.
I know I have a run-on sentence problem
but tell just what is unintelligible in my post immediately following up Doug writing "How on earth can you expect to unravel the ancient African DNA tree that is over 300,000 years old from 2500 year old DNA samples?"
Again thx 4 tellin me. Gimme suggestions for improvement. I just may heed 'em. "Who are my teachers? All of them!" i.e., I try and learn from everybody.
See? I wrote "try and learn" insteada "try to learn" though its odd and unnatural to me.
Just as AI face recognition makes gross errors because of the computer scientist social bias so I think molecular genetic tools do in the field of population genetics.
Funny you should mention that but AI is all data driven. Because AI is supposed to model the real world and in data science the whole point is to understand the 'bias', or better put preferences, inherent in all groups and individuals as agents. As in, how many customers like this brand of shampoo versus another brand and so forth or how likely is some individual to respond positively to certain political campaigns. But AI isn't supposed to fix bias because the world isn't perfect and all the data from the world shows that there is bias of all kinds.
That said, the data provided for training determines the behaviors of the resulting system. Similarly in any kind of complex statistical model, such as AI algorithms, the data provided as input is always going to determine the outputs. That And many of these ancient genetic models are also based on statistical methods which will always be weighted towards actual DNA samples versus "theoretical" DNA values due to lack of actual data.
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I guess here would be good to repost this..
Also, the first time I've heard the hypothesis that Anatomical Modern Humans originated in North Africa specifically was from the geneticist Stephen Oppenheimer's work on mtDNA.
I still fail to understand how he is able to pinpoint it to the North region instead of Sub-Sahara or what the difference is at that point.
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: I still fail to understand how he is able to pinpoint it to the North region instead of Sub-Sahara or what the difference is at that point.
There is of course the recent argument that H. sapiens may be a "composite" species that came about after populations from different regions of the continent intermixed. Some people have taken to calling it "African multiregionalism":
There is of course the recent argument that H. sapiens may be a "composite" species that came about after populations from different regions of the continent intermixed. Some people have taken to calling it "African multiregionalism"
In this video at 57:19 Carina Schlebusch talks about new research about Africa´s distant past. In the same video we can also see lectures with Svante Pääbo and Anders Götherström.
quote:The genetic history of Africa based on modern and ancient DNA. Carina Schlebusch, Associate Professor at the Department of Organismal Biology, Uppsala University
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Then again, this talk of human origins in the North is likely just more OOA bias since that is where the ancestors of OOA happen to come from. That still does not explain why most of the genetic diversity in the continent is found in the Sub-Saharan region.
quote:Originally posted by BrandonP: There is of course the recent argument that H. sapiens may be a "composite" species that came about after populations from different regions of the continent intermixed. Some people have taken to calling it "African multiregionalism":
Unfortunately most of the article is behind a paywall, but the caption summarizes it thus:
quote:Several new discoveries suggest that our species didn’t arise from a single point in space. Instead, the entire continent was our cradle.
Yes, I've heard of the intra-African multiregional hypothesis and I've actually the read the study it's based on.
Posts: 26504 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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^ The problem with the second model on the right is that it implies subspecies distinction with bouts of geneflow between them, however genetics shows that this is not the case. The genetic isolation that has occurred among different populations was not long enough to constitute them as subspecies and that the MRCA between them is more recent suggesting a branching process.
The human species has lived in Africa longer than anywhere else and humans until the last 8 to 10,000 years were mobile foragers who followed migrating herds. See here.
The cross-validated, statistically significant inferences in human evolution over the past 2 million years from nested clade phylogeographic analysis [52,54]. Vertical black lines indicate genetic descent in a location, whereas diagonal black lines indicate gene flow between different areas. Red arrows indicate significant range or population expansions.
This video reinforces all the problems I pointed out earlier. They do not have near enough ancient DNA to actually do anything serious with ancient African biological diversity. And they keep focusing on branches of hominids both ancient and modern as the starting point to understand ancient African biological diversity. This includes "archaics" being exclusively identified with neanderthals and denisovans both of which are also African in origin. The fact is all archaic hominids originated in Africa and the ones that left are only a subset of those that stayed behind. The skulls they show of all these various archaic 'modern' humans are evidence of this much deeper history but somehow they still claim only the Eurasian branch of ancient hominids as 'archaics'. And of course they don't have any DNA from these ancient archaic 'modern' hominids either.
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I just got through watching the video and it is just a summary of her paper. She brings up the fact we all know that one of the proofs humanity originated in Africa is that Africans possess the greatest genetic diversity. The speculation is to how humans developed in Africa and where exactly in the continent. I agree with Doug that there is not enough ancient genetic data to answer it this though I agree with Schlebusch that true model for human origins and expansions within Africa may be a combiniation of more than one model.
However, what I find interesting is how ancient populations of North Africa are modeled as expected which is found in her paper North Africans are modeled as Eurasian admixed going back ≥ 15,000 years ago, with that Eurasian source being 'Natufian'. But as Swenet and others have pointed out Natufians are likely not as 'Eurasian' as many believe since they too may very well be an African derived population. Even the Loosdrecht paper she shows hints at that.
What's more is that there are still gaps in ancient (pre-Holocene) genomic data specifically in the regions below.
Let's not forget, Ancestral North African was originally labeled as "Eurasian" too until it was found to be not which is the topic of this thread. ANA makes up a significant part of Natufian ancestry itself.
Posts: 26504 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: However, what I find interesting is how ancient populations of North Africa are modeled as expected which is found in her paper North Africans are modeled as Eurasian admixed going back ≥ 15,000 years ago, with that Eurasian source being 'Natufian'. But as Swenet and others have pointed out Natufians are likely not as 'Eurasian' as many believe since they too may very well be an African derived population. Even the Loosdrecht paper she shows hints at that.
What's more is that there are still gaps in ancient (pre-Holocene) genomic data specifically in the regions below.
Let's not forget, Ancestral North African was originally labeled as "Eurasian" too until it was found to be not which is the topic of this thread. ANA makes up a significant part of Natufian ancestry itself.
I have to wonder what their evidence is for the 15-11 kya back-migration from western Asia is. Are they basing it on Iberomaurusian aDNA?
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ Correct. They are basing it solely on the Taforalt genome.
I do wonder where that Eurasian ancestry actually came from. Their MtDNA U6 is supposedly of West Asian origin, but on the other hand, the Iberian peninsula is almost a stone's throw away from their territory, so it seems probable to me that Taforalt's ancestors were intermixing with UP Iberians instead of all their Eurasian coming from the Middle East.
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^ That depends. Is Loosdrecht's Taforalt sample the one that has maternal U6?? As Swenet says, these experts tend to cause confusion (unwittingly or not) by using one sample to under the same archaeological moniker to represent all.
Posts: 26504 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ That depends. Is Loosdrecht's Taforalt sample the one that has maternal U6?? As Swenet says, these experts tend to cause confusion (unwittingly or not) by using one sample to under the same archaeological moniker to represent all.
quote:Mitochondrial consensus sequences of the Taforalt individuals belong to the U6a (six individuals) and M1b (one individual) haplogroups, which are mostly confined to present-day populations in North and East Africa.
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ Correct. They are basing it solely on the Taforalt genome.
I do wonder where that Eurasian ancestry actually came from. Their MtDNA U6 is supposedly of West Asian origin, but on the other hand, the Iberian peninsula is almost a stone's throw away from their territory, so it seems probable to me that Taforalt's ancestors were intermixing with UP Iberians instead of all their Eurasian coming from the Middle East.
And yet still the only thing we seem to get is a component which is vaguely Natufian... And when we break that down we get a component that's vaguely WHG (Villabruna like)... I wonder what a physical comparison of pre Natufian Near Easterners and South-west European Hunter gatherers will show us. Maybe all the answers are already discoverable through previous studies.
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LOL Never mind. After looking at the study again, I had forgotten that all the Taforalt samples in his study were represented in the PCA chart but because they are almost on top of each other, it looked like only one sample.
quote:Originally posted by Elmaestro:
quote:Originally posted by BrandonP: I do wonder where that Eurasian ancestry actually came from. Their MtDNA U6 is supposedly of West Asian origin, but on the other hand, the Iberian peninsula is almost a stone's throw away from their territory, so it seems probable to me that Taforalt's ancestors were intermixing with UP Iberians instead of all their Eurasian coming from the Middle East.
And yet still the only thing we seem to get is a component which is vaguely Natufian... And when we break that down we get a component that's vaguely WHG (Villabruna like)... I wonder what a physical comparison of pre Natufian Near Easterners and South-west European Hunter gatherers will show us. Maybe all the answers are already discoverable through previous studies.
Has it not been established that the Natufian-like ancestry in Taforalt is somehow older than that of the Natufians?? Why is it assumed that it were 'Natufians' who introduced this ancestry to the Maghreb. As for Villabruna, I don't know, but mt hg U5 was common to that region. I can't help but to think of Grimaldi, so who knows what the extent of the hunter-gatherer populations in Europe were connected to Africa.
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: LOL Never mind. After looking at the study again, I had forgotten that all the Taforalt the samples in his study were represented in the PCA chart but because they are almost on top of each other, it looked like only one sample.
quote:Originally posted by Elmaestro:
quote:Originally posted by BrandonP: I do wonder where that Eurasian ancestry actually came from. Their MtDNA U6 is supposedly of West Asian origin, but on the other hand, the Iberian peninsula is almost a stone's throw away from their territory, so it seems probable to me that Taforalt's ancestors were intermixing with UP Iberians instead of all their Eurasian coming from the Middle East.
And yet still the only thing we seem to get is a component which is vaguely Natufian... And when we break that down we get a component that's vaguely WHG (Villabruna like)... I wonder what a physical comparison of pre Natufian Near Easterners and South-west European Hunter gatherers will show us. Maybe all the answers are already discoverable through previous studies.
Has it not been established that the Natufian-like ancestry in Taforalt is somehow older than that of the Natufians?? Why is it assumed that it were 'Natufians' who introduced this ancestry to the Maghreb. As for Villabruna, I don't know, but mt hg U5 was common to that region. I can't help but to think of Grimaldi, so who knows what the extent of the hunter-gatherer populations in Europe were connected to Africa.
It actually isn't assumed academically that Natufians introduced that ancestry to the Maghreb. Every single test fails under that model. Academically they just settle on saying that Taforalt Ifri Ouberrid were partly Eurasian with Ancestry related to the Natufian... The extent of which Eurasian HG's have influenced Africa I believe was mistankingly exposed. Hopefully when I have time I can fully cover it.
Just look out for V88 being related to or represented in the Capsian, M1 and N being east Saharan, U6 being a prevailing old Eurasian lineage and Nazlet Khater being related to Central African or Northern Khoisanoid and possibly belonging to haplogroup B. I think shit will get wild once we get the right sample's DNA...
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^ I can understand your claims about the ancient occurrence of those haplogroups but Nazlet Khater (35-33k ya) perhaps too old to make any conclusions about, though I've heard Swenet postulate he may carry mtDNA hg L3K. What about younger Wadi Kubbaniya (21-19k ya)??
And I agree once the autosomal data is refined, I think the Euronuts will be the ones panicking.
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M and N being pre-OOA lineages is already something I am inclined to believe. That said, I feel we will need not only more aDNA from Northeast Africa, but also more remains to sample. As Swenet has mentioned, we don't even have remains from the region that we know represent the mainline ancestors of predynastic Egyptians. We have the remains of related populations (e.g. Olduvai I and pre-Mesolithic al-Khiday), but related doesn't mean ancestral.
Very likely, the ancestors we're looking for left their remains in spots throughout the Western and Eastern Deserts that either await discovery or haven't yet yielded skeletal remains. That being said, I have found that there are some possible links in material culture between Dakhleh Oasis in the Western Desert and predynastic Egypt, so there's at least one place to look for those ancestors.
EDIT: There is one report of Neolithic skeletal remains from Dakhleh Oasis out there, but I haven't been able to access the text yet:
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^ What's interesting about Al-Khiday is that as Swenet pointed out, the remains resemble Holocene Egypto-Nubians except with more robust (archaic?) features. This seems similar to the Mesolithic Nubians who resemble Sub-Saharan 'negro' types but also with more robust/archaic traits.
Posts: 26504 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ What's interesting about Al-Khiday is that as Swenet pointed out, the remains resemble Holocene Egypto-Nubians except with more robust (archaic?) features. This seems similar to the Mesolithic Nubians who resemble Sub-Saharan 'negro' types but also with more robust/archaic traits.
I've always wondered what was it exactly that made humans lose their robusticity and ultimately become more gracile? Was it primarily due to agriculture or something else?
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quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: ^ What's interesting about Al-Khiday is that as Swenet pointed out, the remains resemble Holocene Egypto-Nubians except with more robust (archaic?) features. This seems similar to the Mesolithic Nubians who resemble Sub-Saharan 'negro' types but also with more robust/archaic traits.
I've always wondered what was it exactly that made humans lose their robusticity and ultimately become more gracile? Was it primarily due to agriculture or something else?
I don't know if this applies to cranial morphology, but there is research suggesting that postcranial skeletal robusticity at least is correlated with biomechanical loads:
The postcranial skeleton of modern Homo sapiens is relatively gracile compared with other hominoids and earlier hominins. This gracility predisposes contemporary humans to osteoporosis and increased fracture risk. Explanations for this gracility include reduced levels of physical activity, the dissipation of load through enlarged joint surfaces, and selection for systemic physiological characteristics that differentiate modern humans from other primates. This study considered the skeletal remains of four behaviorally diverse recent human populations and a large sample of extant primates to assess variation in trabecular bone structure in the human hip joint. Proximal femur trabecular bone structure was quantified from microCT data for 229 individuals from 31 extant primate taxa and 59 individuals from four distinct archaeological human populations representing sedentary agriculturalists and mobile foragers. Analyses of mass-corrected trabecular bone variables reveal that the forager populations had significantly higher bone volume fraction, thicker trabeculae, and consequently lower relative bone surface area compared with the two agriculturalist groups. There were no significant differences between the agriculturalist and forager populations for trabecular spacing, number, or degree of anisotropy. These results reveal a correspondence between human behavior and bone structure in the proximal femur, indicating that more highly mobile human populations have trabecular bone structure similar to what would be expected for wild nonhuman primates of the same body mass. These results strongly emphasize the importance of physical activity and exercise for bone health and the attenuation of age-related bone loss.
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Never mind. After looking at the study again, I had forgotten that all the Taforalt samples in his study were represented in the 
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