Chronology of the earliest Upper Paleolithic in northern Iberia (Wood et al. 2014)

From a press release:

The main conclusion -"the scene of the meeting between a Neanderthal and a Cro-magnon does not seem to have taken place on the Iberian Peninsula"- is the same as the one that has been gradually reached over the last three years by different research groups when studying key settlements in Great Britain, Italy, Germany and France. "For 25 years we had been saying that Neanderthals and early humans lived together for 8,000-10,000 years. Today, we think that in Europe there was a gap between one species and the other and, therefore, there was no hybridation, which did in fact take place in areas of the Middle East," explained Arrizabalaga. The UPV/EHU professor is also the co-author of a piece of research published in 2012 that puts back the datings of the Neanderthals. "We did the dating again in accordance with the ultrafiltration treatment that eliminates rejuvenating contamination, remains of the Mousterian, the material culture belonging to the Neanderthals from sites in the south of the Peninsula. Very recent dates had been obtained in them -up to 29,000 years- but the new datings go back to 44,000 years older than the first dates that can be attributed to the Cro-Magnons," explained the UPV/EHU professor.

Journal of Human Evolution Volume 69, April 2014, Pages 91–109

The chronology of the earliest Upper Palaeolithic in northern Iberia: New insights from L'Arbreda, Labeko Koba and La Viña

R.E. Wood et al.

Since the late 1980s, northern Iberia has yielded some of the earliest radiocarbon dated Aurignacian assemblages in Western Europe, probably produced by anatomically modern humans (AMHs). This is at odds with its location furthest from the likely eastern entry point of AMHs, and has also suggested to some that the Châtelperronian resulted from cultural transfer from AMHs to Neanderthals. However, the accuracy of the early chronology has been extensively disputed, primarily because of the poor association between the dated samples and human activity. Here, we test the chronology of three sites in northern Iberia, L'Arbreda, Labeko Koba and La Viña, by radiocarbon dating ultrafiltered collagen from anthropogenically modified bones. The published dates from Labeko Koba are shown to be significant underestimates due to the insufficient removal of young contaminants. The early (c.44 ka cal BP [thousands of calibrated years before present]) Aurignacian chronology at L'Arbreda cannot be reproduced, but the reason for this is difficult to ascertain. The existing chronology of La Viña is found to be approximately correct. Together, the evidence suggests that major changes in technocomplexes occurred contemporaneously between the Mediterranean and Atlantic regions of northern Iberia, with the Aurignacian appearing around 42 ka cal BP, a date broadly consistent with the appearance of this industry elsewhere in Western Europe.

Link

43,000-year old Aurignacian in Swabian Jura

A new paper continues the re-assessment of the radiocarbon dating record in Europe. It pushes the Aurignacian of Central Europe back in time, but not as far back as the appearance of modern humans in Europe. The implication is that the advanced music and art of the Aurignacian did not accompany modern humans as they made their first steps into Europe, but rather developed there.

The authors distinguish between a "strong" version of their model (which would posit a monocentric origin of music/art around the Geissenkoesterle site), and a "weak" one in which these innovations were contributed in parallel by different regions. A better understanding of the origin of different innovations and their assignment to specific groups of modern humans may help us better understand what was the "common core" of behavioral and technological modernity that facilitated the success of our species.

From the paper:

The majority of scholars conclude that the Aurignacian is the earliest signature of the first modern humans in Europe. Recent research suggests that this is not likely to be the case. Benazzi et al. (2011) have shown that the Uluzzian of Italy and Greece is likely to be a modern human industry based on the reanalysis of infant teeth in the archaeological site of Cavallo, and also demonstrated that it dates to 45,000-43,000 cal BP. Other dated examples from other Uluzzian sites (e.g., Higham et al., 2009) fall into the same period, and the Uluzzian is always stratigraphically below the Proto- Aurignacian in Italian sites where both co-occur. This adds an additional level of complexity to the emerging picture of early human dispersals and suggests that the Aurignacian does not represent the earliest evidence of our species in Europe. 

... 

Taken together, these results suggest that modern humans arrived in Europe as early as ~45,000 cal BP and spread rapidly across Europe to as far as southern England between 43,000 and41,000 cal BP. The dates for the lower Aurignacian at Geissenklosterle fall in the same period and appear to pre-date the ages for the Proto- Aurignacian and Early Aurignacian in other regions (Fig. 6). The new results suggest that the caves of the Swabian Jura document the earliest phase of the Aurignacian, and the region can be viewed as one of the key areas in which a variety of cultural innovations, including figurative art, mythical images, and musical instruments, are first documented. These dates are consistent with the Danube Valley serving as an important corridor for the movement of people and ideas (Conard, 2002; Conard and Bolus, 2003). 

... 

The new radiocarbon dates from Geissenklosterle document the presence of the Aurignacian in the Swabian Jura prior to the Heinrich 4 cold phase, with the Early Aurignacian beginning around 42,500 cal BP. In the coming years, excavations in the Swabian Jura will continue and new radiometric dates should contribute to an improved understanding of the spatial-temporal development of the Aurignacian and its innovative material culture.

From the press release:

Researchers from Oxford and Tübingen have published new radiocarbon dates from the from Geißenklösterle Cave in Swabian Jura of Southwestern Germany in the Journal of Human Evolution. The new dates use improved methods to remove contamination and produced ages between began between 42,000 – 43,000 years ago for start of the Aurignacian, the first culture to produce a wide range of figurative art, music and other key innovations as postulated in the Kulturpumpe Hypothesis. The full spectrum of these innovations were established in the region no later than 40 000 years ago.

Journal of Human Evolution doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2012.03.003

Τesting models for the beginnings of the Aurignacian and the advent of figurative art and music: The radiocarbon chronology of Geißenklösterle

Thomas Higham et al.

The German site of Geißenklösterle is crucial to debates concerning the European Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition and the origins of the Aurignacian in Europe. Previous dates from the site are central to an important hypothesis, the Kulturpumpe model, which posits that the Swabian Jura was an area where crucial behavioural developments took place and then spread to other parts of Europe. The previous chronology (critical to the model), is based mainly on radiocarbon dating, but remains poorly constrained due to the dating resolution and the variability of dates. The cause of these problems is disputed, but two principal explanations have been proposed: a) larger than expected variations in the production of atmospheric radiocarbon, and b) taphonomic influences in the site mixing the bones that were dated into different parts of the site. We reinvestigate the chronology using a new series of radiocarbon determinations obtained from the Mousterian, Aurignacian and Gravettian levels. The results strongly imply that the previous dates were affected by insufficient decontamination of the bone collagen prior to dating. Using an ultrafiltration protocol the chronometric picture becomes much clearer. Comparison of the results against other recently dated sites in other parts of Europe suggests the Early Aurignacian levels are earlier than other sites in the south of France and Italy, but not as early as recently dated sites which suggest a pre-Aurignacian dispersal of modern humans to Italy by ∼45000 cal BP. They are consistent with the importance of the Danube Corridor as a key route for the movement of people and ideas. The new dates fail to refute the Kulturpumpe model and suggest that Swabian Jura is a region that contributed significantly to the evolution of symbolic behaviour as indicated by early evidence for figurative art, music and mythical imagery.

Link

Earliest sapiens remains in Europe

From the BBC:

They may be yellowed and worn but these ancient teeth and jaw fragment have something very revealing to say about how modern humans conquered the globe.

The specimens, unearthed in Italy and the UK, have just been confirmed as the earliest known remains of Homo sapiens in Europe.

Careful dating suggests they are more than 41,000 years old, and perhaps as much as 45,000 years old in the case of the Italian "baby teeth".

...

The re-assessments have further importance because palaeoanthropologists can now put modern humans in the caves at the same time as the stone and bone tool technologies discovered there.

There has been some doubt over who created the so-called Aurignacian artefacts at Kents Cavern and the slightly older Uluzzian technologies at Grotta del Cavallo. It could have been Neanderthals, but there is now an obvious association in time with Homo sapiens.

From the NY Times:

They had in fact discovered the oldest known skeletal remains of anatomically modern humans in the whole of Europe, two international research teams reported Wednesday.

The scientists who made the discovery and others who study human origins say they expect the findings to reignite debate over the relative capabilities of the immigrant modern humans and the indigenous Neanderthals, their closest hominid relatives; the extent of their interactions; and perhaps the reasons behind the Neanderthal extinction. The findings have already prompted speculation that the Homo sapiens migrations into Europe may have come in at least two separate waves, rather than just one.

I'll add the abstracts later. This certainly seems to be incompatible with substantial Neandertal interbreeding. If humans and Neandertals were genetically compatible species, then why would they maintain very separate morphological populations for ~10ka? We would expect the two populations to quickly merge into one. Moreover, a longer period of interbreeding in West Eurasia would have left an excess of "Neandertal" ancestry in modern West Eurasians, something we simply don't observe.

Press release:

"What the new dates mean", Benazzi summarised, "is that these two teeth from Grotta del Cavallo represent the oldest European modern human fossils currently known. This find confirms that the arrival of our species on the continent – and thus the period of coexistence with Neanderthals – was several thousand years longer than previously thought. Based on this fossil evidence, we have confirmed that modern humans and not Neanderthals are the makers of the Uluzzian culture. This has important implications to our understanding of the development of 'fully modern' human behaviour. Whether the colonisation of the continent occurred in one or more waves of expansion and which routes were followed is still to be established."

Nature (2011) doi:10.1038/nature10484

The earliest evidence for anatomically modern humans in northwestern Europe

Tom Higham et al.

The earliest anatomically modern humans in Europe are thought to have appeared around 43,000-42,000 calendar years before present (43-42 kyr cal BP), by association with Aurignacian sites and lithic assemblages assumed to have been made by modern humans rather than by Neanderthals. However, the actual physical evidence for modern humans is extremely rare, and direct dates reach no farther back than about 41-39 kyr cal BP, leaving a gap. Here we show, using stratigraphic, chronological and archaeological data, that a fragment of human maxilla from the Kent’s Cavern site, UK, dates to the earlier period. The maxilla (KC4), which was excavated in 1927, was initially diagnosed as Upper Palaeolithic modern human1. In 1989, it was directly radiocarbon dated by accelerator mass spectrometry to 36.4-34.7 kyr cal BP2. Using a Bayesian analysis of new ultrafiltered bone collagen dates in an ordered stratigraphic sequence at the site, we show that this date is a considerable underestimate. Instead, KC4 dates to 44.2-41.5 kyr cal BP. This makes it older than any other equivalently dated modern human specimen and directly contemporary with the latest European Neanderthals, thus making its taxonomic attribution crucial. We also show that in 13 dental traits KC4 possesses modern human rather than Neanderthal characteristics; three other traits show Neanderthal affinities and a further seven are ambiguous. KC4 therefore represents the oldest known anatomically modern human fossil in northwestern Europe, fills a key gap between the earliest dated Aurignacian remains and the earliest human skeletal remains, and demonstrates the wide and rapid dispersal of early modern humans across Europe more than 40 kyr ago.

Link

Nature (2011) doi:10.1038/nature10617

Early dispersal of modern humans in Europe and implications for Neanderthal behaviour

Stefano Benazzi et al.


The appearance of anatomically modern humans in Europe and the nature of the transition from the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic are matters of intense debate. Most researchers accept that before the arrival of anatomically modern humans, Neanderthals had adopted several transitional technocomplexes. Two of these, the Uluzzian of southern Europe and the Châtelperronian of western Europe, are key to current interpretations regarding the timing of arrival of anatomically modern humans in the region and their potential interaction with Neanderthal populations. They are also central to current debates regarding the cognitive abilities of Neanderthals and the reasons behind their extinction1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. However, the actual fossil evidence associated with these assemblages is scant and fragmentary7, 8, 9, 10, and recent work has questioned the attribution of the Châtelperronian to Neanderthals on the basis of taphonomic mixing and lithic analysis11, 12. Here we reanalyse the deciduous molars from the Grotta del Cavallo (southern Italy), associated with the Uluzzian and originally classified as Neanderthal13, 14. Using two independent morphometric methods based on microtomographic data, we show that the Cavallo specimens can be attributed to anatomically modern humans. The secure context of the teeth provides crucial evidence that the makers of the Uluzzian technocomplex were therefore not Neanderthals. In addition, new chronometric data for the Uluzzian layers of Grotta del Cavallo obtained from associated shell beads and included within a Bayesian age model show that the teeth must date to ~45,000-43,000 calendar years before present. The Cavallo human remains are therefore the oldest known European anatomically modern humans, confirming a rapid dispersal of modern humans across the continent before the Aurignacian and the disappearance of Neanderthals.

Link

Uyghurs as an admixed not source population (Xu et al. 2009)

This paper is interesting not so much because it estimates admixture in Uyghurs (click on the post label for previous studies on the topic), but because it explicitly rejects the hypothesis that they are a source ("donor") population.

If a population has substantial genetic variation which overlaps with that of two other groups, then there are two possible interpretations:

1. It represents the population from which the other two groups sprang, or at least contributed genes to both of them
2. It represents a mixture of the two other groups
   

What this paper does, is to show that Uyghurs are best explained as a mixture of Caucasoids and Mongoloids (#2) rather than #1.

Molecular Biology and Evolution, doi:10.1093/molbev/msp130

Haplotype Sharing Analysis Showing Uyghurs Are Unlikely Genetic Donors

Shuhua Xu et al.

Abstract

The Uyghur are a group of people primarily residing in Xinjiang of China which is geographically located in Central Asia, from where modern humans were presumably spread in all directions reaching Europe, east and northeast Asia about 40 kya. A recent study suggested that the Uyghur are ancestry donors of the East Asian gene pool. However, an alternative hypothesis, i.e. the Uyghur is an admixture population with both East Asian (EAS) and European (EUR) ancestries is also supported by our previous studies. To test the two competing hypotheses, here we conducted a haplotype sharing analysis based on empirical and simulated data of high density single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Our results showed that more than 95% of Uyghur (UIG) haplotypes could be found in either East Asian (EAS) or European (EUR) populations, which contradicts the expectation of the null models assuming that UIG are donors. Simulation studies further indicated that the proportion of UIG private haplotypes observed in empirical data is only expected in alternative models assuming that UIG is an admixture population. Interestingly, the estimated ancestry contribution of 44%:56% (EAS:EUR) based on haplotype sharing analysis is consistent with our previous estimation with STRUCTURE analysis. Although the history of Uyghurs could be complex, our method is explicit and conservative in rejecting the null hypothesis. We concluded that the gene pool of modern Uyghurs is more likely a sole recipient with contribution from both EAS and EUR.

Link

Admixture in Mexican Mestizos

Gene Expression points me towards a new open access paper in PNAS about genetic diversity in Mexican Mestizos:

We analyzed data from 300 nonrelated self-identified Mestizo individuals from 6 states located in geographically distant regions in Mexico: Sonora (SON) and Zacatecas (ZAC) in the north, Guanajuato (GUA) in the center, Guerrero (GUE) in the center– Pacific, Veracruz (VER) in the center–Gulf, and Yucatan (YUC) in the southeast. Considering that Zapotecos have been shown as a good ancestral population for predicting Amerindian (AMI) ancestry in Mexican Mestizos (16), we included 30 Zapotecos (ZAP) from the southwestern state of Oaxaca (Fig. 1). For comparative purposes, we included similar data sets from HapMap populations: northern Europeans (CEU), Africans (YRI), and East Asians (EA), including Chinese (CHB) and Japanese (JPT).

As expected, Mestizo admixture is mainly between Caucasoids and Amerindians, with a very little Sub-Saharan African thrown in at the individual level. Moreover, as with many populations, such as the Uyghur, where admixture took place several generations ago, individual admixture levels are fairly uniform, with very few individuals deviating strongly towards either the Caucasoid or Amerindian end of the spectrum.

The variation in individual admixture appears only somewhat stronger than in the Uyghur, which may be explained either by the smaller number of markers used here, making the assessment of admixture "noisier", or alternatively might be the result of the fact that admixture in Mexican Mestizos happened more recently, and immigration into the Americas from Europe continued hence, hence the homogenization of the population is still ongoing.

Table S1 from the Supplementary material (pdf) shows the exact admixture proportions in the studied Mestizo populations and the HapMap populations.

Related:

• Genomic ancestry of Mexicans
• Mexican American admixture mapping

PNAS doi:10.1073/pnas.0903045106

Analysis of genomic diversity in Mexican Mestizo populations to develop genomic medicine in Mexico

Irma Silva-Zolezzi et al.

Abstract

Mexico is developing the basis for genomic medicine to improve healthcare of its population. The extensive study of genetic diversity and linkage disequilibrium structure of different populations has made it possible to develop tagging and imputation strategies to comprehensively analyze common genetic variation in association studies of complex diseases. We assessed the benefit of a Mexican haplotype map to improve identification of genes related to common diseases in the Mexican population. We evaluated genetic diversity, linkage disequilibrium patterns, and extent of haplotype sharing using genomewide data from Mexican Mestizos from regions with different histories of admixture and particular population dynamics. Ancestry was evaluated by including 1 Mexican Amerindian group and data from the HapMap. Our results provide evidence of genetic differences between Mexican subpopulations that should be considered in the design and analysis of association studies of complex diseases. In addition, these results support the notion that a haplotype map of the Mexican Mestizo population can reduce the number of tag SNPs required to characterize common genetic variation in this population. This is one of the first genomewide genotyping efforts of a recently admixed population in Latin America.

Link

AAPA 2009 abstracts

The book of abstracts (pdfs) from the 2009 conference of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists has many interesting and important topics. I list the titles of those that caught my eye, with the full abstracts and some comments on some of them.

The first one is very important since it shows continuity between ancient Etruscans and medieval/Renaissance Tuscans, and discontinuity between the latter and modern Tuscans.

Recent demographic changes account for the genealogical discontinuity between Etruscan, Medieval and modern Tuscans. GUIDO BARBUJANI, SILVIA GUIMARAES, ANDREA BENAZZO, LUCIO MILANI , DAVID CARAMELLI.

The available mitochondrial DNA
data appear incompatible with the
view that modern Tuscans are
descended from the Etruscans who
inhabited the same region 2,500
years ago. To understand how and
when such a genetic discontinuity
may have arisen, we extracted and
typed the mtDNAs of 27 medieval
Tuscans from an initial sample of
61, spanning a time period between
the 10th and 15th centuries A.D..
Etruscans and medieval Tuscans
share four mitochondrial
haplotypes, and serial coalescent
simulations show a clear
genealogical continuity between
them. By contrast, it was
impossible to fit into the same
mtDNA genealogy modern
inhabitants of the same area,
including those (Murlo, Volterra,
Casentino) who were recently
claimed to be of Etruscan descent.
These data strongly suggest that the
Etruscans did not get extinct when
their culture disappeared with the
Roman assimilation. However, they
contributed little to the modern
mitochondrial gene pool, probably
because of extensive immigration
after 1500 A.D.. No evidence of
excess mutation was found in the
ancient DNA by a Bayesian test,
and so there is no reason to suspect
that these results be biased by
laboratory artefacts in the ancient
sequences. Genealogical continuity
between ancient and modern
populations of the same area does
not seem a safe general assumption,
but rather a hypothesis that should
and can be tested using ancient
DNA analysis.

Stable isotope and mtDNA evidence for geographic origins at the site of Vagnari
(2nd- 4th centuries AD), Italy. T.L. PROWSE, T.E. VON HUNNIUS, AND J.L. BARTA.

Arsinoe IV of Egypt, sister of Cleopatra identified? Osseous and molecular challenges. F. KANZ, K. GROSSSCHMIDT, J. KIESSLICH.

Arsinoe IV of Egypt, the younger
sister of Cleopatra, was murdered
between the ages of 16 and 18 on
the order of Marc Antony in 41 BC
while living in political asylum at
the Artemision in Ephesus
(Turkey). Archaeological findings
and architectural features point to
the skeletal remains found in the socalled
Oktogon - Heroon in the
center of ancient Ephesus - to being
those of Arsinoe IV. Respective
remains were dated and
investigated by forensic osteology,
radiology and ancient DNA
analysis to assess identification:
Radiocarbon dating (VERA-4104)
isolated the period between 210 and
20 BC (94 % prob.).
Morphological features suggest a
female with an estimated body
height of 154 cm (+/- 3 cm) and
with limbs in good proportion to
one another. Epiphyseal closure and
histological age estimation (femoral
cross sections) revealed a consistent
age at death between 15 and 17
years. The whole skeleton appeared
to belong to a slim and fragile
individual (soft tissue
reconstruction was applied and
compared to ancient sources).
Stress markers, like Harris’ lines
were absent and no sings for heavy
workload or pre- or perimortal
traumas were found. Ancient DNA
analysis was carried out for several
bone samples. No nuclear DNA
was detected, most likely due to
diagenetic factors and storage
conditions. Endeavors to find
mitochondrial DNA are currently in
progress. Investigations could
neither verify nor disprove the
theory on the origin of the remains.
However, after successful mtDNA
typing a maternal relative reference
sample would be required for final
identification.

The importance of slavery in agriculture: paleopathological evidence from Classical Thebes, Greece. E. VIKA

A hypothesis endorsed by many
writers is that, in the social system
of Classical times, citizens did not
work for a living. This is supported
by iconography and literary
evidence, which presents a wellestablished
life of leisure for the
free. Therefore, slaves were solely
responsible for the cultivation of
land, forming a powerful
workforce.
However, social organization in
Classical Thebes may have been
very different from what is known
for Classical Athens, and indeed
many writers caution against
applying the Athenian model to all
Greek cities of the period. It may be
more likely that in Thebes, were
population density was such, that
people lived under maximum land
capacity, the need for labor force
was extreme. In this case, slaves
would have joined families and
worked with them.
Physical anthropology can provide
compelling evidence in the matter
of the division of labor in antiquity,
clearly portraying individuals not
involved in manual labor. The
present study examined 50
skeletons from Thebes’ most
extensive historical cemetery. The
results show that activity-related
skeletal alterations, traumas and
pathologies had affected the entire
population, verifying that slaves
and freemen were equally involved
in agricultural activities. This
evidence is important in
reconstructing social structure in
Thebes, moves away from the
domination of the paradigm of
Classical Athens and provides apt
information for the extreme need of
agricultural labor in the area during
this time.

Identification of infanticide in the Greco-Roman world: a contrary view from the Agora of Athens. M.A. LISTON.

The identification of infanticide in
perinatal skeletons is a topic that
has engendered considerable
controversy; distinguishing normal
infant mortality from catastrophic
death or large-scale infanticide is
difficult at best. Roman-era infant
skeletons deposited in a sewer at
Ashkelon, Israel (Smith and Kahila
1992) have been identified as
victims of infanticide, based
primarily on the age-at-death
distributions and the lack of formal
burial. Similar age distributions
from Roman cemetery burials have
been interpreted both as infanticide
in Britain (Mays 1993) and natural
infant mortality in Egypt (Tocheri
et al. 2005). Analysis of a late
Hellenistic/early Roman group of
perinatal infant skeletons (n=457)
deposited in a well in the Athenian
Agora, suggests that infanticide
may not be the appropriate
interpretation of perinatal mortality,
even in the absence of formal
burial. The frequency distributions
of long bone lengths indicate that
all of these sites have similar
patterns, but the Agora infants also
have been demonstrated to have
died from a variety of natural
causes including premature birth
and infectious disease (Liston
AAPA 2007). The age distribution
is similar to that found in other
collections of infants, all identified
as natural perinatal mortality. As
further evidence against widespread
infanticide, morphological
evaluation of the 321 preserved ilia
from the Agora tentatively suggests
a nearly balanced sex ratio as
expected with natural deaths, in
contrast to a subsample from
Ashkelon (Mays and Faerman
2001). However, the identification
of developmental defects in at least
nine Agora infants suggests that
infanticide may be implicated in
some infant deaths.

This seems quite interesting, the frequency of J2 (12%) and G (6%) seem to be quite high in this sample compared to white Americans and Britons.

Finding the Scot in the Scottish-American: Examination of ethnic identity through the Y-chromosome. K.G. BEATY AND M.L. MEALEY.

It is estimated that over 12 million
Americans claim Scottish ancestry.
To determine whether individuals
self-identifed as Scottish carry
Scottish genetics markers in their
genes, samples were collected from
50 males at the 2006 Kansas City
Highland Games. All individuals in
the sample identified themselves as
“Scottish.”. To determine possible
contribution from a paternal line,
surnames where analyzed. All but
6% of the individuals have
surnames that are currently found in
Scotland, with most surnames
having been present in the historical
records the since the mid 1500’s.
Analysis of 9 short-tandem repeats
on the Y-chromosome (YSTRs)
identified probable Y haplogroup
assignment. Individuals in this
sample represented the following
haplogroups: R1b, R1a (3%), I
(11%), J2 (12%), G (6%) and E3b
(4%). Haplogroup R1b dominates
the sample at 64%, as would be
suspected of a population with
origins in Western Europe.
Haplogroup frequencies are found
at those similar to the current
Scottish population, as well as in
similar frequencies to the rest of the
British Isles. All but six Y-STR
haplotypes matched individuals in
the current Scottish population.

Paleoamericans in a Late Pleistocene context: assessing morphological affinities. M. HUBBE, K. HARVATI, W. A. NEVES.

Biological variation resulting from Inka imperialism. J.D. BETHARD.

Craniometric divergence of Japanese inhabitants due to gene flows from Prehistoric Northeast Asians. H. ISHIDA, T. HANIHARA, O. KONDO.

The Swatis of northern Pakistan—Emigrants from Central Asia or colonists from peninsular India?: a dental morphometric investigation. B.E. HEMPHILL.

Considerations for the Population History of the Wakhan Corridor: An Odontometric Investigation of Wakhi Biological Affinity and Diachronic Analysis of Biological Interaction Between Northern Pakistan and South Asia. P.W. O’NEILL AND B.E. HEMPHILL.

The people of the Xiongnu culture (3rd century B.C. to 2nd century A.D.): Insights into the biological diversity of the earliest Eurasian nomadic steppe empire. R.W. SCHMIDT, B. CHRISTY, A. BURCH, A.R. NELSON, N. SEGUCHI.

Rome if you want to: immigrants in the Empire. K. KILLGROVE.

Recognizing population displacements and replacements in prehistory: A view from North Africa. C.M. STOJANOWSKI.

The working class at Hierakonpolis. Nubian or Egyptian?. K. GODDE.

Craniofacial evolution in Polynesia: A geometric morphometric study of population diversity. T.J. BUCK, U. STRAND VIÐARSDÓTTIR

The state of health of Roman Republic to Imperial Roman period burials from the necropolis of Aquinum, Italy. R.R. PAINE, R. VARGIU, G.R. BELLINI, D. MANCINELLI, P. SANTORO, A. COPPA.

Health and lifestyle of ancient pastoralists from Mongolia. J.J. BEACH, M.L. MACHICEK, A.R. NELSON.

Regional patterns among Holocene hunter-gatherers of southern Africa. SUSAN PFEIFFER AND JUDITH SEALY

Ecogeographic variation in the ontogeny of hunter-gatherer physique and skeletal robusticity. JAY STOCK

Hunter-fisher-gatherer dietary adaptations in Neolithic and Bronze Age Siberians. M.A. KATZENBERG, H.G. MCKENZIE, A.W. WEBER AND O.I. GORIUNOVA.

Basques in an Indo-European sea: a perspective from tooth crown morphology. SCOTT GR

Session 5. Reconstructing Health and Disease in Europe: The Early Middle Ages through the
Industrial Period. Invited poster symposium. River Exhibition Hall B.

Stable isotope analysis of diet among Bronze Age and Iron Age inhabitants of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China. J.T. ENG, Q. ZHANG, H. ZHU.

The nasal cavity of Pleistocene hominins: implications of climate-related variation among modern humans. M.L. NOBACK, F. SPOOR.

Inferred body proportions of a southern European Neandertal, Palomas 92. E. TRINKAUS, M.J. WALKER, J. MAKI, M.V. LÓPEZ, J. ORTEGA.

Buccal dental microwear and tooth crown morphology in Neandertals and modern humans show significant correlations with prevailing climatic conditions throughout the Middle and Upper Paleolithic in Europe. B. PINILÑLA, A. PÉREZ-PÉREZ.

Geographic structure of global craniometric variation. J.H. RELETHFORD

Australian craniofacial evolution: drift, selection, or all of the above? E.A. CARSON.

Identifying selection and genetic drift in the landmark-based 3D cranial morphology of modern humans. H.F. SMITH

The paradox of human cranial variation. T.D. WEAVER

Geographic structure of craniofacial variation in modern human populations: an R-matrix approach. T. HANIHARA, H. ISHIDA.

Population history and cranial morphology in a large human skeletal dataset. K. HARVATI, M. HUBBE, D.V. BERNARDO, T. HANIHARA

Natural selection, random genetic drift, and the study of morphological variation. C.C. ROSEMAN.

Quantitative genetic insights on the evolutionary processes operating on human skull shape. N.
MARTÍNEZ ABADÍAS.

Ancient demography, not climate, explains within-population phenotypic diversity in humans. A.
MANICA, L. BETTI, F. BALLOUX, W. AMOS, T. HANIHARA.

Evidence for the influence of diet on cranial form and robusticity. R.A. MENEGAZ, S.V. SUBLETT, S.D. FIGUEROA, T.J. HOFFMAN, M.J. RAVOSA, AND K. ALDRIDGE.

New Frameworks of Understanding for the Origins of Agriculture. BRUCE SMITH

Natural selection, longevity, and the Neandertal-modern interface. J. HAWKS.

The Neanderthal face is not cold adapted. T. C. RAE, T. KOPPE, C. B. STRINGER.

Functional implications of the unique Neandertal face. A. MAROM, Y. RAK.

Using 3-D geometric morphometric techniques to further understand the relationship between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. J.A. MINETZ.

Qualitative and quantitative analyses of the Holocene Khoesan dentition. W. BLACK.

The brain morphology of Homo Liujiang cranium fossil by 3-D CT. X.J. WU, W. LIU. W. DONG, J.Q. QUE, Y.F. WANG

Scurvy in a Late Roman Greek child: multiple lines of evidence. S. GARVIE-LOK, C. PENNYCOOK, R. STARK.

Genetics, Selection, Perception and the Human Face. M.D. SHRIVER, D. LIBERTON, AND K. MATTHES, J. BOSTER AND D.A. PUTS.

Evolution and natural selection of skin color. E.J. PARRA

Late Pleistocene/Holocene human populations transition in Old World: the analysis of morphological dental traits. A. COPPA, F. CANDILIO, A. CUCINA, F. DEMETER, A.KUTTERER, M. LUCCI, F. MANNI, A. OUJAA, S. ROUDESLI-CHEBBI, R. VARGIU.

Morphometric analysis of the Herto cranium (BOU-VP-16-1): Where does it fit? K.D. LUBSEN, J.L. MAYHER, R.S. CORRUCCINI.

Assessing the relationship between craniofacial morphology and genetic variation in a population with admixed ancestry. F.I. MARTINEZ, D. BUSEL, M. MORAGA, G. MANRÍQUEZ, M. BELLATTI, F. LAHR, M.M. LAHR

A genetic association study of normal variation in facial features. D.K. LIBERTON, K.A. MATTHES, B. MCEVOY, R. PEREIRA, T. FRUDAKIS, M.D. SHRIVER.

Dissimilarity fraction for metrical traits of human skull: comparison with genetic studies. A.M. STRAUSS, M. HUBBE.

Cranial nonmetric study of archaeological populations from different historical periods of Mongolia ERDENE MYAGMAR.

Genetic and Linguistic Coevolution in Native Latin America. N.J. SCHNEIDER, K.L. HUNLEY,

Analysis of aDNA From Maya Skeletal Remains Using the Mitochondrial Control Region. ELIZABETH LAVOIE.

Search for founder mitochondrial lineages in Holocene human remains in Patagonia. M. MORAGA, E. ASPILLAGA, F. MENA.

Genetic diversity in South Amerindian populations. M.L. PAROLIN, A.S. GOICOECHEA, C.B. DEJEAN, S.A. AVENA, F.R. CARNESE.

Global human population structuring seen from craniometric data. D. V. BERNARDO, T. F. ALMEIDA, W. A. NEVES, T. HANIHARA

MHC and mate choice in humans. RAPHAËLLE CHAIX, CHEN CAO, PETER DONNELLY.

The operational sex ratio (OSR) among hunter-gatherers: cause or effect of male-male competition? MARLOW, FW AND BERBESQUE, JC

Mitochondrial DNA diversity of Yemenite and Ethiopian Jewish populations. NON, AMY L.

Genetic structure of the Spanish populations: the end of the Basque singularity? F. CALAFELL, H. LAAYOUNI, P. GARAGNANI, A. GONZÁLEZ-NEIRA, J. BERTRANPETIT.

Inferring human gene flow over Mediterranean space towards Iberian Peninsula based on Y-chromosomal haplogroups E and J in a coastal Andalusian population (Southern Spain). R. CALDERÓN, B. AMBROSIO, J.M. DUGOUJON, C. HERNÁNDEZ, D. DE LA FUENTE, A. GONZÁLEZ-MARTÍN, J.N. RODRÍGUEZ, A. NOVELLETTO.

Evidence supporting two centers of population differentiation in East Asia: Siberia and SE Asia. M.S. SCHANFIELD, S. MILLER, R. SHYU,M. MOUNT, H.F. POLESKY, R. CASTRO, H. EHRLICH, U. EKE, S. MACK, R.J. MITCHELL, M. COBLE, K. MELVIN, M. H. CRAWFORD.

Climate and Craniofacial shape variation among major human populations: a geometric morphometric approach. M. FRIESS.

Sign, sign, everywhere a sign: high density haplotype maps of the dog, human, and cow genomes reveal extensive human reorganization of domesticated genomes. CARLOS D. BUSTAMANTE, ELAINE A. OSTRANDER, MAGNUS NORDBORG, MATTHEW R. NELSON, MICHELE CARGILL, RICHARD A. GIBBS, AND ROBERT K. WAYNE

Insights from sequencing the Neandertal genome. J. KRAUSE, R. E. GREEN, A.W. BRIGGS, U. STENZEL, K. PRUEFER, T. MARICIC, M. KICHNER, J. KELSO, D. REICH, J. C. MULLIKIN, M. EGHOLM & S. PÄÄBO

Layers of history within humanity's genomes. J.L. MOUNTAIN.

The genetic basis of phenotypic variation in Africa: Evidence for local adaptation. S. A. TISHKOFF, M. CAMPBELL, A. FROMENT, J. HIRBO, M. IBRAHIM, S. OMAR, A. RANCIARO.

Seasonality and Brain Size: What’s the Link? J.T. VAN WOERDEN, K. ISLER, C.P. VAN SCHAIK.

Another paper on Ashkenazi Jewish distinctiveness

Gene Expression points me to a new paper which demonstrates that Ashkenazi Jews can be distinguished perfectly from non-Jewish European Americans. This was previously seen, but it is nice to see it confirmed once more. Some previous studies:

1. New paper on genomic differences between Ashkenazi Jews and Europeans
2. 300K SNP paper on European genetic substructure
3. European population substructure revealed by genetics

The authors also observed that heterozygosity among Ashkenazi Jews is higher than in European Americans. This is fairly conclusive evidence that Ashkenazi Jews are not so distinctive because they passed through a genetic bottleneck that shifted their allele frequencies in a direction specific to their group.

On the other hand, the conclusion that the genetic distinctness of Ashkenazi Jews is due to Middle Eastern ancestry is not demonstrated by this study. For example, the Uyghur of Central Asia are distinct from both East Asians and Caucasoids, but this is not due to any mysterious "Central Asian" component in them, but rather due to the fact that they are an admixed population of Caucasoids and Mongoloids.

To demonstrate the specific Middle Eastern background of Ashkenazi Jews, it would be a good idea to also study other Jewish groups. If it is shown that the various Jewish groups possess a common autosomal genetic component, then the simplest explanation would be that this component stems from the ancestral Jewish population of the 1st millennium AD, prior to the separation of the various Jewish groups from each other.

Moreover, the genetic distinctiveness of Ashkenazi Jews does not in itself say anything about the extent of Middle Eastern ancestry in this group. For example, in this paper, the Middle Eastern groups (mostly non-Jewish Semitic groups recruited in Israel) were different from other Caucasoids by the possession of a specific ancestral component (color-coded brown), but the extent of this component differed among them.

With that said, I do suspect that the distinctiveness of the Ashkenazi Jews is in part due to the possession of a Middle Eastern component of unspecified strength. I base this hypothesis on the results reported to me about the EURO-DNA-CALC test. This test distinguishes between NW, SE Europeans and Ashkenazi Jews; a few Arab individuals who have communicated their results to me have reported fairly high AJ components, indicating that part of what distinguishes an AJ from Europeans is related to the Middle Eastern Semitic background of that group.

The way forward is of course to perform a comprehensive admixture analysis where Europeans, various Jewish groups, and various non-Jewish Middle Eastern groups will be represented. That is the only way to ascertain the ancestral components of the various Jewish groups. Moreover, such an analysis would establish the extent of the common genomic element between the various Jewish groups, which -so far- has been established for a limited number of Y-chromosome and mtDNA lineages.

UPDATE: While a formal admixture analysis is not performed, the EIGENSOFT plot is suggestive of what common sense would dictate, namely that Ashkenazi Jews (reds) are intermediate between a native Near Eastern group (the Druze) and Europeans. Unfortunately the inclusion of the Mozabites (off the chart to the left) who have substantial Sub-Saharan ancestry, makes the resolution of the visible part of the chart less than desirable.



Genome Biology doi:10.1186/gb-2009-10-1-r7

A genome-wide genetic signature of Jewish ancestry perfectly separates individuals with and without full Jewish ancestry in a large random sample of European Americans

Anna C Need et al.

Abstract

Background

It was recently shown that the genetic distinction between self-identified Ashkenazi Jewish and non-Jewish individuals is a prominent component of genome-wide patterns of genetic variation in European Americans. No study however has yet assessed how accurately self-identified (Ashkenazi) Jewish ancestry can be inferred from genomic information, nor whether the degree of Jewish ancestry can be inferred among individuals with fewer than four Jewish grandparents.

Results

Using a principal components analysis, we found that the individuals with full Jewish ancestry formed a clearly distinct cluster from those individuals with no Jewish ancestry. Using the position on the first principal component axis, every single individual with self-reported full Jewish ancestry had a higher score than any individual with no Jewish ancestry.

Conclusions

Here we show that within Americans of European ancestry there is a perfect genetic corollary of Jewish ancestry which, in principle, would permit near perfect genetic inference of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. In fact, even subjects with a single Jewish grandparent can be statistically distinguished from those without Jewish ancestry. We also found that subjects with Jewish ancestry were slightly more heterozygous than the subjects with no Jewish ancestry, suggesting that the genetic distinction between Jews and non-Jews may be more attributable to a Near-Eastern origin for Jewish populations than to population bottlenecks.

Link (pdf)

A visual display of biological and social race

This is as clear display of the difference between biological and social race.

Populations from the three major human biological races (European Americans from Caucasoids, Yoruba from Negroids, Japanese/Chinese from Mongoloids) are clearly separable, with no overlap.

The "black race" to which African Americans are said to belong is seen as an almost perfect linear combination of Caucasoids and Negroids. It is not a biological race, but rather the result of admixture between the two races.

The same can be seen in other admixed groups such as the Uyghur, who are a combination of Caucasoids and Mongoloids. In that case, however, the admixture is more ancient, and the opportunity to further mix with representatives of the unadmixed groups is more limited. Therefore, the blend has been completed, and most individuals have similar admixture proportions from the ancestral groups. African Americans, on the other hand are much more variable in their individual ancestry components, from ~100% Negroid, to more Caucasoid than Negroid.

PLoS Genetics doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1000294

Effects of cis and trans Genetic Ancestry on Gene Expression in African Americans

Alkes L. Price et al.

Abstract

Variation in gene expression is a fundamental aspect of human phenotypic variation. Several recent studies have analyzed gene expression levels in populations of different continental ancestry and reported population differences at a large number of genes. However, these differences could largely be due to non-genetic (e.g., environmental) effects. Here, we analyze gene expression levels in African American cell lines, which differ from previously analyzed cell lines in that individuals from this population inherit variable proportions of two continental ancestries. We first relate gene expression levels in individual African Americans to their genome-wide proportion of European ancestry. The results provide strong evidence of a genetic contribution to expression differences between European and African populations, validating previous findings. Second, we infer local ancestry (0, 1, or 2 European chromosomes) at each location in the genome and investigate the effects of ancestry proximal to the expressed gene (cis) versus ancestry elsewhere in the genome (trans). Both effects are highly significant, and we estimate that 12±3% of all heritable variation in human gene expression is due to cis variants.

Link

23andme's advanced global similarity tool

UPDATE: I am told that this tool is currently in alpha version, so it's not clear when it will be fully ready for 23andme customers. As per my comments below, I think this is a great initiative to tie individual customers' genetic data to the many new genetic studies showing genomic-geographic correlations. I am sure that 23andme's blog, the Spittoon, will cover this when it is ready for public release, including any features that I may have overlooked. I will be following this story closely. [end update]

23andme has added a new advanced global similarity tool to their website (you need to register in order to play with it). This tool places a customer, as well as other customers he is "connected" with on the map of the first two principal components like the ones recently published in several papers.

The tools allows one to look at the PC map at the global, continental, or subcontinental level.


This is quite useful, and a right step in the direction I pointed out earlier. However, there are some points of criticism.

• The axes are labeled North/South Migration and East/West Migration. While the pattern in the first two principal components does correspond roughly with longitude and latitude, it is erroneous to label these principal components as "North/South" and "East/West". It is even more erroneous to label them as "Migration", since a geographical cline is not necessarily produced by a migration event.
• The "Take a Tour" feature presents a simplistic and misleading account of human prehistory in terms of "migrations". This account is a simple branching pattern, e.g., Africa -> Near East Europe, or Africa -> Near East -> Central Asia -> East Asia. The observed pattern did not emerge in this manner. For example, Central Asian people such as the Uyghur are intermediate between Western Eurasians (Caucasoids) and Eastern Eurasians (Mongoloids) because of a later admixture event; they can't be thought of as "ancestors" of the East Eurasians.
• Partitioning human variation into this hierarchical set of groups is not the best way to satisfy customers' needs. For example, a Hispanic person may wish to see himself on a PC map which includes "Southern European" and "Native American" groups, an African American person may wish to see himself on a PC map which includes "Northern European" and "West African" groups, an Ethiopian, on a Sub-Saharan/Near Eastern map, while a European Jew on a European/Near Eastern map. Of course, there is a combinatorial number of possible combinations, but there is no reason why some of the more common ones (customer feedback may play a role here) many not be supported.
  
• Why should this tool be limited to the first two principal components? Of course, additional components do not have such a strong geographical correspondence, but they -nonetheless- will separate populations in different ways, and allow individuals to place themselves more fully in context.
• The tool could offer much more information. On mouse hover over an individual, a small label identifying it (e.g. origin and HGDP code), and listing its PC coordinates could appear. This is especially useful for power users. A pretty uncluttered picture is no substitute for as much information as possible.
  

The Middle to Upper Paleolithic record of western Eurasia

Journal of Human Evolution doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2008.04.002

At the end of the 14C time scale—the Middle to Upper Paleolithic record of western Eurasia

Olaf Jöris, and Martin Street

Abstract

The dynamics of change underlying the demographic processes that led to the replacement of Neandertals by Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) and the emergence of what are recognized as Upper Paleolithic technologies and behavior can only be understood with reference to the underlying chronological framework. This paper examines the European chronometric (mainly radiocarbon-based) record for the period between ca. 40 and 30 ka ¹⁴C BP and proposes a relatively rapid transition within some 2,500 years. This can be summarized in the following falsifiable hypotheses: (1) final Middle Paleolithic (FMP) “transitional” industries (Uluzzian, Chatelperronian, leaf-point industries) were made by Neandertals and date predominantly to between ca. 41 and 38 ka ¹⁴C BP, but not younger than 35/34 ka ¹⁴C BP; (2) initial (IUP) and early (EUP) Upper Paleolithic “transitional” industries (Bachokirian, Bohunician, Protoaurignacian, Kostenki 14) will date to between ca. 39/38 and 35 ka ¹⁴C BP and document the appearance of AMH in Europe; (3) the earliest Aurignacian (I) appears throughout Europe quasi simultaneously at ca. 35 ka ¹⁴C BP. The earliest appearance of figurative art is documented only for a later phase ca. 33.0/32.5–29.2 ka ¹⁴C BP. Taken together, the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition appears to be a cumulative process involving the acquisition of different elements of “behavioral modernity” through several “stages of innovation.”

Link

Neanderthals and the Uluzzian

Current Anthropology doi: 10.1086/588540

A New Cultural Frontier for the Last Neanderthals: The Uluzzian in Northern Italy

Marco Peresani

Abstract

The Middle–Upper Paleolithic shift was a crucial event intimately involved in Neanderthal biogeography and the patchy scenario that emerges from the last marked cultural and behavioral evolution our extinct relatives underwent during the interval 50-30 k.yr. BP. In Mediterranean Europe, this behavior, considered modern, gave rise to the Uluzzian, a cultural complex confined to central-southern Italy and Greece as a consequence of the supposed retreat of archaic humans in the face of the rapid diffusion of Homo sapiens. The recent discovery of dwelling structures and lithic implements at Fumane Cave in northeastern Italy redraws this scenario and depicts at 33.4 k.yr. BP the northernmost frontier to which the Uluzzian spread around the Great Adriatic Plain, a pivotal region near the western edge of the Middle Danube basin, where the last Neanderthals were using very different cultural items.

Link

Admixture mapping in Uyghurs

This is a followup to this earlier study. Note that the "European" label for the Caucasoid component in Uyghurs is inappropriate, since this is composed of href="http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2008/02/huge-paper-on-human-genetic.html">two distinct "European" and "Caucasoid Central Asian" elements.

From the paper:

Figure 3A shows summary plot of individual admixture proportions based on the highest-probability run of ten STRUCTURE runs. The results show that individuals from the same population often share membership coefficients in the inferred cluster, with the exception that one Japanese outlier shows obvious admixture. Mongola, Adygei, and Russian individuals show some degree of admixture as well.

Most of the EAS admixture in the Adygei from the Caucasus seems mostly spurious, as the Adygei have a substantial "Central Asian" Caucasoid component (38%) rather than Mongoloid admixture (2%).

Note that, as in the previous study, the Uyghur individuals seem to have similar proportions of "Western" and "Eastern" genes, due to the fact that the blend which produced them is fairly old and there are really no individuals in which either of the two components predominate.

The American Journal of Human Genetics, doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2008.08.001

A Genome-wide Analysis of Admixture in Uyghurs and a High-Density Admixture Map for Disease-Gene Discovery

Shuhua Xu and Li Jin

Abstract

Following up on our previous study, we conducted a genome-wide analysis of admixture for two Uyghur population samples (HGDP-UG and PanAsia-UG), collected from the northern and southern regions of Xinjiang in China, respectively. Both HGDP-UG and PanAsia-UG showed a substantial admixture of East-Asian (EAS) and European (EUR) ancestries, with an empirical estimation of ancestry contribution of 53:47 (EAS:EUR) and 48:52 for HGDP-UG and PanAsia-UG, respectively. The effective admixture time under a model with a single pulse of admixture was estimated as 110 generations and 129 generations, or admixture events occurred about 2200 and 2580 years ago for HGDP-UG and PanAsia-UG, respectively, assuming an average of 20 yr per generation. Despite Uyghurs' earlier history compared to other admixture populations, admixture mapping, holds promise for this population, because of its large size and its mixture of ancestry from different continents. We screened multiple databases and identified a genome-wide single-nucleotide polymorphism panel that can distinguish EAS and EUR ancestry of chromosomal segments in Uyghurs. The panel contains 8150 ancestry-informative markers (AIMs) showing large frequency differences between EAS and EUR populations (F_ST > 0.25, mean F_ST = 0.43) but small frequency differences (7999 AIMs validated) within both populations (F_ST < 0.05, mean F_ST < 0.01). We evaluated the effectiveness of this admixture map for localizing disease genes in two Uyghur populations. To our knowledge, our map constitutes the first practical resource for admixture mapping in Uyghurs, and it will enable studies of diseases showing differences in genetic risk between EUR and EAS populations.

Link

Origins of the Uighur

Interesting bit from the paper:

Notably, the distribution of admixture proportions among UIG individuals is relatively even, with 48.7% the lowest admixture from European ancestry and the highest 62.2%. The standard deviation is only 3.8%, which is much smaller than the estimation for the African-American (AfA) population,58 suggesting a much longer history of admixture events for the Uyghur population compared with the AfA population.

The American Journal of Human Genetics, doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2008.01.017

Analysis of Genomic Admixture in Uyghur and Its Implication in Mapping Strategy

Shuhua Xu et al.

Abstract

The Uyghur (UIG) population, settled in Xinjiang, China, is a population presenting a typical admixture of Eastern and Western anthropometric traits. We dissected its genomic structure at population level, individual level, and chromosome level by using 20,177 SNPs spanning nearly the entire chromosome 21. Our results showed that UIG was formed by two-way admixture, with 60% European ancestry and 40% East Asian ancestry. Overall linkage disequilibrium (LD) in UIG was similar to that in its parental populations represented in East Asia and Europe with regard to common alleles, and UIG manifested elevation of LD only within 500 kb and at a level of 0.1 < style="font-weight: bold;">we estimated that the admixture event of UIG occurred about 126 [107∼146] generations ago, or 2520 [2140∼2920] years ago assuming 20 years per generation. In spite of the long history and short LD of Uyghur compared with recent admixture populations such as the African-American population, we suggest that mapping by admixture LD (MALD) is still applicable in the Uyghur population but ∼10-fold AIMs are necessary for a whole-genome scan.

Link

How Turkish are the Anatolians?

The Anatolians are the ethnic descendants of both the indigenous populations of Asia Minor who converted to Islam (and were thus spared from the genocidal campaign of the Ottomans and Kemalists during the early 20th century), and also of non-indigenous populations from the Balkans, the Middle East, and Central Asia. From Central Asia came the Turks, who were the main agent for the Islamization and during the last century Turkification of Asia Minor.

To what extent are the Anatolians descended from Central Asian Turks? The study of Cinnioglu et al. (2004) discovered an occurrence of 3.4% of Mongoloid Y-chromosomal haplogroups in Anatolia (haplogroups Q, O, and C).

According to Tambets et al. (2004) the occurrence of Mongoloid haplogroups in present-day Central Asian Turkic Altaic speakers (Altaians) is at least 40%, with an additional 10% which might belong to haplogroup O which was not tested in this study. According to Zerjal et al. (2002) this percentage is for various Turkic speakers: Kyrgyz (22%), Dungans (32%), Uyghurs (33%), Kazaks (86%), Uzbeks (18%).

It is clear that the percentage of Mongoloid ancestry among the Turkic speakers is very variable, yet it is clear that the Proto-Turks must have been partially Mongoloid in lieu of the fact that all current Turkic speakers possess some Mongoloid admixture. The average of the six Central Asian population samples listed above is 38.5% and may serve as a first-order estimate of the paternal contribution of early Turks, who (judging by their modern descendants in Central Asia) were more Caucasoid paternally and more Mongoloid maternally.

Using the figure of 38.5%, the paternal contribution of Turks to the Anatolian population is estimated to about 11%. In lieu of the approximation, allowing for 33% relative error in either direction for both the true frequency of Mongoloid lineages in Anatolia and in early Turks, we obtain a range of 6-22%. It would thus appear that the Turkish element is a minority one in the composition of the Anatolians, but it is by no means negligible.