tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post2093662636297553848..comments2024-01-04T04:11:55.717+02:00Comments on Dienekes’ Anthropology Blog: Ancient Nordic mtDNA (Melchior et al. 2010)Dienekeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02082684850093948970noreply@blogger.comBlogger23125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-14408053933984013662010-08-14T05:54:55.858+03:002010-08-14T05:54:55.858+03:00I dont think we can make too much of the drop in I...I dont think we can make too much of the drop in I. We are talking about 7 people. If 5 had been found there would be no significant difference.<br /><br />Of more interest to me is the deviant T in the Ancient Britains. Why is it so high in comparison with close neighbours?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11000684388615334278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-33839686091948440292010-08-05T01:34:09.097+03:002010-08-05T01:34:09.097+03:00Just a last comment. We talk about extinction of m...Just a last comment. We talk about extinction of mtDNA I, but do we see any mtDNA signatures among the T2's J's and so forth which are present in ancient samples but extinct. In other words, are any of the *exact* HVR1 sequences considerably lower?<br /><br />I only see 2 separate signatures for mtDNA I in the sample. The modal for I, and I4. Let's make sure we're not mixing apples and oranges. It's likely that many maternal branches went extinct, let's not just look at the letters.AWoodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14966600445259901063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-80040431548531066192010-08-04T22:42:04.677+03:002010-08-04T22:42:04.677+03:00The interesting things happening historically arou...The interesting things happening historically around 1000 CE in the region include the Norman Conquest, the Little Ice Age, Leif Erickson's colonization of North America and its failure, and Viking coastal invasions. There was a lot of out migration at the time, possibly driven by the Little Ice Age's impact on crops which was probably more extreme at the climate extremes than in places with moderate climates. <br /><br />One of the discoveries that has been made historically, as sources have expanded beyond European ones to cover both sides of conflicts, is that a lot of the famous waves of invasions (e.g. the Sea People invasions at the end of the Bronze Age, the Huns into Rome, and the Uralic speaking people's invasion that lead to Hungary much later), is that a lot of historic invasions had more of a "push" motive than a "pull" motive. So, the inference that "something was rotten in Denmark" and the vicinity around 1000 CE, pushing people to look for greener pastures, isn't an unreasonable one.<br /><br />The Christianization factor is also plausible.<br /><br />I'd be inclined to see a decline in hap I on a population basis, if due to selection, rather than in-migration (with in-migration perhaps from captives gathered up in Viking raids), to be a product of population structure in the area, rather than true genetic trait based selection. For example, perhaps people with hap I were predominantly crop farmers, while people with different haps tended to be hunters, fishers, herders and raiders. If crop farming were bad for a few generations (as it was in Ireland during the potato famine, and in Sicily at around the same time), and crop farmers had to starve or migrate to better locations, this would look like selection, although the coincidence of hap I genes and the fact that they were from a population that ended up crop farming in Scandinavia didn't flow from any hap I associated traits.Andrew Oh-Willekehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02537151821869153861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-11780379365461634842010-08-04T19:18:57.857+03:002010-08-04T19:18:57.857+03:000,0011 and 0,0016, between southeast Germany and S...<i>0,0011 and 0,0016, between southeast Germany and Sweden/Norway.</i><br /><br />I guess it is much smaller than that between, say, Denmark and north Germany or even between Sweden/Norway (especially Norway) and north Germany. <br /><br /><i>Not to beat a dead horse - but it's not a theory in the vulgar sense - it is pretty much established and widely-accepted historical account. The Hanse really was (and continued to be, and in some sense still is) an incredibly powerful social agent in the north for half a millennium.</i><br /><br />I am sure some details of the linguistic Germanization of Scandinavian languages that are due to the Hanseatic Leage are well documented. But I guess most of the details of the linguistic Germanization of Scandinavian languages aren't so clear from linguistic history, so for them there is room for possibilities other than the Hanseatic connection (like my above speculation).Onur Dincerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05041378853428912894noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-77972884180570839152010-08-04T14:12:54.959+03:002010-08-04T14:12:54.959+03:00Probable that the great plague is responsible of t...Probable that the great plague is responsible of the change. Scandinavia was devastated from the plague , as other regions of Europe, but it saved others of it, for unknown reasons.<br />The effects of the great plague were lasting and only after two centuries the population still started to growth.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-57022531295406714622010-08-04T11:51:09.016+03:002010-08-04T11:51:09.016+03:00the Hanseatic League theory
Not to beat a dead ho...<i>the Hanseatic League theory</i><br /><br />Not to beat a dead horse - but it's not a theory in the vulgar sense - it is pretty much established and widely-accepted historical account. The Hanse really was (and continued to be, and in some sense still is) an incredibly powerful social agent in the north for half a millennium.eurologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03440019181278830033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-86323019425825524872010-08-04T03:49:46.459+03:002010-08-04T03:49:46.459+03:00What is the Fst distance between Germans and Scand...<i>What is the Fst distance between Germans and Scandinavian ethnicities?</i><br /><br />0,0011 and 0,0016, between southeast Germany and Sweden/Norway.aargiedudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02885756901119408472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-44549007187281760882010-08-03T15:17:58.254+03:002010-08-03T15:17:58.254+03:00I'm not sure what their conclusions were based...<i>I'm not sure what their conclusions were based on. Type casting R1b = Irish/Scot and R1a/I1 = Norse? Or did they use autosomal studies? If the latter, it will show you Norway, Denmark, and a lesser extent Sweden have closest affinity to UK/Ireland anyways. How can you prove directional gene flow?</i><br /><br />A very good example of such studies is Als et al.'s study "Highly discrepant proportions of female and male Scandinavian and British Isles ancestry within the isolated population of the Faroe Islands":<br /><br />http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v14/n4/full/5201578a.html<br /><br />It also investigates Icelanders and also compares mtDNA data with Y-chromosome data in Faroese. <br /><br /><i>Total population replacement, or even mostly replaced, doesn't mesh with the autosomal results. Thanks to the genetic distances calculated by Heath (2008) and McEvoy (2009), it can be seen that modern Danes are precisely squarely in the middle of their neighbors to the south, north, and west. The FST genetic distance between Denmark and England is barely 0,0004, an amazingly small distance. The English-Romania FST is 0,0024. England-Poland is 0,0027.</i><br /><br />What is the Fst distance between Germans and Scandinavian ethnicities?<br /><br /><i>Eh - I would attribute that language Germanization to the 500 years of Hanse trade connections. It's the most straightforward explanation - and the same that brought many English and later even some Creole words to Northern German harbor areas.</i><br /><br />My speculations and the Hanseatic League theory (I already knew it) don't necessarily contradict each other. The German importation to Scandinavia might have made trade connections between Germany and Scandinavia much easier.Onur Dincerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05041378853428912894noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-31641789513709075192010-08-03T12:11:35.845+03:002010-08-03T12:11:35.845+03:00I just saw that wikipedia agrees with me:
Die mit...I just saw that wikipedia agrees with me:<br /><br /><i>Die mittelniederdeutsche Sprache der Hanse, die die Lingua franca des Mittelalters in Nordeuropa war, beeinflusste die Entwicklung der skandinavischen Sprachen deutlich.</i><br /><br />http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanseeurologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03440019181278830033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-88240824964785504512010-08-03T11:49:30.478+03:002010-08-03T11:49:30.478+03:00Eh - I would attribute that language Germanization...Eh - I would attribute that language Germanization to the 500 years of Hanse trade connections. It's the most straightforward explanation - and the same that brought many English and later even some Creole words to Northern German harbor areas.eurologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03440019181278830033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-90777384866827118672010-08-03T06:49:35.625+03:002010-08-03T06:49:35.625+03:00My theory is that the early R1a1a Indo-European po...My theory is that the early R1a1a Indo-European populations of the North European plain were influenced by Iron Age migrants from the south, bringing with them R1b. These were, most likely, carriers of the La Tene culture, and their arrival eventually resulted in the formation of the Germanic language group.<br /><br />The pre-Germanic groups of Northern Europe show links to Eastern Europe, and the blond Kurgan "Europeans" of Central Asia, both in terms of Y-DNA (R1a1a) and mtDNA (lots of close matches). This isn't really surprising, since Corded Ware culture stretched all the way from present day Holland to Russia, and Corded Ware groups (Abashevo) were apparently key players in the formation of the early Indo-Iranians near the Urals.Polakhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08791738703122670119noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-34041372664089550022010-08-03T06:09:48.614+03:002010-08-03T06:09:48.614+03:00The decline in Danish mtDNA haplotype I would sugg...<i>The decline in Danish mtDNA haplotype I would suggest a roughly 80% influx of new Germanic (probably the first Indo-European wave), and 20% old populations (probably pre-Indo-European).</i><br /><br />Whatever altered their mtdna had to occur in the Middle Ages >>> The 13% mtdna I results are from 0 AD and 1000 AD, with 24 and 29 samples, respectively, and with frequencies of 13% and 14% for mtdna I.<br /><br /><i>This is positive selection of mtDNA H, not the fictitious mass migration of Indo-Europeans or intentional population replacement.</i><br /><br />This also has a serious problem, because non-H haplogroups, having no selection acting upon them, would diminish uniformly, ergo, mtdna I would still be the 2nd most important haplogroup in Denmark, as it was in 0 AD and 1000 AD. Note that the frequency of mtdna H was about 30%, so an increase to its current rate of 40% or 45% would only bring mtdna I down from 13% to 11%.<br /><br /><i>Maybe the early Christian Scandinavian kings imported people from already Christian lands like Germany to increase the number of their Christian subjects.</i><br /><br />Total population replacement, or even mostly replaced, doesn't mesh with the autosomal results. Thanks to the genetic distances calculated by Heath (2008) and McEvoy (2009), it can be seen that modern Danes are precisely squarely in the middle of their neighbors to the south, north, and west. The FST genetic distance between Denmark and England is barely 0,0004, an amazingly small distance. The English-Romania FST is 0,0024. England-Poland is 0,0027.<br /><br /><i>the maternal hg I has also decreased (4.5% in today's Icelanders)<br />Nordic settlers migrating to Iceland and the Faroe Islands married with Scottish/Irish women<br />the frequency of the maternal hg I in today's Icelanders is 4.5%, it is between the frequency of today's Scotland (5%) and Ireland (3%)</i><br /><br />It looks more likely that Iceland's mtdna I frequency simply reflects their Irish and Scottish origins, instead of a decrease from a higher rate back in Scandinavia.aargiedudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02885756901119408472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-51199205998142557232010-08-02T22:49:37.014+03:002010-08-02T22:49:37.014+03:00"This has been proven by the recent genetic s..."This has been proven by the recent genetic studies showing Scandinavian paternal haplogroups and Gaelic maternal haplogroups in the majority of Icelanders and the Faroe Islanders." <br /><br />-- I'm not sure what their conclusions were based on. Type casting R1b = Irish/Scot and R1a/I1 = Norse? Or did they use autosomal studies? If the latter, it will show you Norway, Denmark, and a lesser extent Sweden have closest affinity to UK/Ireland anyways. How can you prove directional gene flow?AWoodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14966600445259901063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-43210056002468594252010-08-02T22:43:16.153+03:002010-08-02T22:43:16.153+03:00"Positive selection on haplogroup H would hav..."Positive selection on haplogroup H would have reduced the frequency of non-H haplogroups across the board, not specifically of haplogroup I."<br /><br />-- Maybe there is some unknown selective pressure against mtDNA I that we have not discovered yet. Keep in mind these are small villages, and Denmark has a meagre 5 million people today in 2010. I would expect distant relationship amongst small villages about 1200 years ago, compared to the more metropolitan atmosphere of medieval Denmark. Perhaps "new blood" was brought in, or various disease have wiped out certain haplogroups. The point is...a scientific explanation is likely the culprit rather than anything romantic suggested by anyone so far.AWoodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14966600445259901063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-34027157087726710762010-08-02T21:43:43.406+03:002010-08-02T21:43:43.406+03:00If really haplogroups are unequal to fight off som...If really haplogroups are unequal to fight off some diseases (I remember reading this kind of things several times. I ain't wrong, am I?), is it possible that events such as the <i>black death</i> (The European population was diminished between <b>30% to 60 %</b>) have a responsability (at least partially) ? <br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_deathAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-53998526849790358792010-08-02T20:27:41.518+03:002010-08-02T20:27:41.518+03:00Might that also explain the Germanization (here by...<i>Might that also explain the Germanization (here by "German-" I only mean the language of Germany) of some features of the Scandinavian Germanic languages within the last 1000 years?</i><br /><br />BTW, the same linguistic Germanization didn't occur in the Icelandic and Faroese languages, they were instead influenced by Gaelic languages.Onur Dincerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05041378853428912894noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-25549294328542157712010-08-02T20:21:46.331+03:002010-08-02T20:21:46.331+03:00This is positive selection of mtDNA H, not the fic...<i>This is positive selection of mtDNA H, not the fictitious mass migration of Indo-Europeans or intentional population replacement.</i><br /><br />Positive selection on haplogroup H would have reduced the frequency of non-H haplogroups across the board, not specifically of haplogroup I.Dienekeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02082684850093948970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-88860338711502152192010-08-02T20:17:15.712+03:002010-08-02T20:17:15.712+03:00What might be the reason of a possible population ...What might be the reason of a possible population replacement in the last 1000 years in Scandinavia? Languages haven't changed much, ethnic identities have remained largely intact. Only religion changed at the beginning of the last 1000 years, might that be the reason? Maybe the early Christian Scandinavian kings imported people from already Christian lands like Germany to increase the number of their Christian subjects. Might that also explain the Germanization (here by "German-" I only mean the language of Germany) of some features of the Scandinavian Germanic languages within the last 1000 years? The frequency of the maternal hg I in today's Germans is also 2.5% (probably even less in the northern parts as it is 3.5% in today's Austrians, who are basically a subset of southern Germans), so my speculations might have some validity.<br /><br />But such importations wouldn't affect already colonized Iceland and the Faroe Islands, how then their frequency of the maternal hg I has also decreased (4.5% in today's Icelanders)? Their case is much easier to explain: Nordic settlers migrating to Iceland and the Faroe Islands married with Scottish/Irish women on their way and also after the colonization (there were already Gaelic populations living for some time). This has been proven by the recent genetic studies showing Scandinavian paternal haplogroups and Gaelic maternal haplogroups in the majority of Icelanders and the Faroe Islanders. Also the frequency of the maternal hg I in today's Icelanders is 4.5%, it is between the frequency of today's Scotland (5%) and Ireland (3%). I don't know its frequency in today's Faroese (as the details of the Faroese studies aren't openly published), but given the results of the maternal hg studies, it should be close to today's Scottish and Irish frequencies.Onur Dincerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05041378853428912894noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-74009267560791381282010-08-02T19:33:13.106+03:002010-08-02T19:33:13.106+03:00This is positive selection of mtDNA H, not the fic...This is positive selection of mtDNA H, not the fictitious mass migration of Indo-Europeans or intentional population replacement.<br />I don't think this is specifically targeting Nordic populations, as I expect the same happened earlier for the less remote regions of Europe. There may have been more variety of mtDNA in the south which would have acted as negative selection on mtDNA I. Why would the north be the last to be affected by the selection? The main reason is obvious. As an aside the same core sequence was found in the Eulau sample. It seems the full range of I1 ->I4 are found in North/NW Europe even today.AWoodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14966600445259901063noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-58796109262623493332010-08-02T14:11:48.980+03:002010-08-02T14:11:48.980+03:00I am more doubtful of the selection hypothesis, bo...I am more doubtful of the selection hypothesis, both because of the lack of a temporal trend, and also because haplogroup I exists at a high frequency today outside of Europe. It's difficult to see a selection hypothesis that would have targeted Nordic I in the last 1,000 years. I could see selection operating e.g., because of the different climate that early I-bearers into Scandinavia faced, or due to the subsistence shift after the early Neolithic, but not at all easy to imagine a selective force that started operating 1,000 years ago.Dienekeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02082684850093948970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-91520962355373262592010-08-02T09:54:25.667+03:002010-08-02T09:54:25.667+03:00The decline in Danish mtDNA haplotype I would sugg...The decline in Danish mtDNA haplotype I would suggest a roughly 80% influx of new Germanic (probably the first Indo-European wave), and 20% old populations (probably pre-Indo-European).Andrew Oh-Willekehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02537151821869153861noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-74446751907108730662010-08-02T05:00:44.898+03:002010-08-02T05:00:44.898+03:00"If the Neolithic and Bronze Age populations ..."If the Neolithic and Bronze Age populations had the same Hg frequencies as extant Danes, the probability of picking by chance three Hg U individuals among them would be x3 = 0.0020, where x is the frequency of Hg U among extant Danes (12.5%)."<br /><br />As the study says: the likelihood that 3 out of 3 samples would all come out U4/U5, assuming modern U4/U5 frequencies of 12%, is 1 in 500. These are the 3 very ancient samples, from 3,000 to 4,000 years ago. The rest are from 1,000 to 2,000 years ago.<br /><br />With respect to these more recent samples, they found 53 of them, and 7 belonged to mtdna I, or 13%, while today's frequency of mtdna I in Denmark, or anywhere in Europe, is 2% to 3%. The probability that 7 or more samples would belong to mtdna I in a sample of 53, assuming modern mtdna I frequencies of 2,5%, is 1 in 3,000.<br /><br />Ergo, barring the 1 in 3,000 longshot possibility that they found 7 mtdna I samples by sheer luck, their results force us to conclude something drastic must have happened to the Danish mtdna genepool in the last 1,000 years. And I mean really drastic, because to accomplish a reduction from 13% to 2,5% requires an almost complete population replacement. Or alternatively, that mtdna I was subject to natural selection starting around 1,000 years ago, for some bizarre reason. And in both cases, the massive reduction remarkably placed the modern Danish frequency of mtdna I at the exact same rate it is found in every other corner of Europe.aargiedudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02885756901119408472noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-52939428096445614312010-08-01T14:34:01.850+03:002010-08-01T14:34:01.850+03:00About mtDNA I, in Keyser et al. 2009, about bronze...About mtDNA I, in Keyser et al. 2009, about bronze-iron age south Siberian samples, there was one haplogroup mtDNA I and it so happens that it also matched nordic haplotypes: <br /><br /><i>"Specimen S24 was found to belong to haplogroup I,<br />subclade I4. Exact matches to this I4 type were mainly<br />found in northern and eastern Europe individuals. The fact<br />that one ancient Scandinavian specimen (0–400 AD) bore<br />this sequence gives direct evidence of the antique presence<br />of such sequence in the north of Europe (Melchior et al.2008)"</i>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com