ARTI II 1996-7 bk

Excerpted Anthropological Research Articles 1996 compiled with notes by Alvah Hicks; AMH (please see original articles for proofs) Alvah M. Pardner Hicks P. O. Box 2481 Atascadero, CA 93423 Phone: 805) 930-5489 e-mail: alvahhicks@gmail.com Please see original article s for original substantiation Background The following collections of quotes were gathered as part of a research strategy aimed at exploring a New World alternative to human origins. They represent a diverse array of anthropological studies and subjects helping provide background information for perspectives held by the compiler. Primarily, they represent "warranting evidence" in support of the compiler's contention that; Amerindian populations should be examined as a potential source for both recent and ancient Homo sapien radiations into what we have come to accept as the "Old" World. More specifically, separate Amerindian radiations are proposed to have led to, (i) the "total replacement" of Old World Hominids beginning less then 50,000 years ago, (ii) subsequent post Holocene Amerindian migration into Siberia resulting in admixture with northeast Asians, and (iii) the initial arrival of man (American Indians) into Polynesia ~3,600 years ago. These articles are broken down into geographic areas of study. I am deeply indebted to the subjects studied, to the authors who have acknowledged their contribution and, to the researchers themselves who have compiled and analyzed the data used in furthering this present study. However, it has come to my attention that many of the ideas and opinions represented as supporting my (the compiler) contentions are not optimistically pursued by the original authors. By this, any inconsistencies that might be found in this compilation should not be attributed to those researchers and/or the publication they were drawn from. Moreover, further use of these quotations should not be made without referencing the material directly since a full appreciation and interpretation of these "selections" should be drawn from the original sources. TABLE OF CONTENTS: INTRODUCTORY ARTICLES 2 BACKGROUND IDEAS AND OPINIONS 5 NORTH AMERICA 7 SOUTH AMERICA 19 SIBERIA 22 AFRICA 24 EUROPE 29 NORTHEAST ASIA 39 POLYNESIA 43 AUSTRALIA 46 GENETICS 49 SCIENCE GEOGRAPHY 55 SCIENCE 56 PRIMATES 61 INTRODUCTORY ARTICLES The following two excerpted articles provide a superb backdrop to the New World Pleistocene archaeology debate. Understanding the essence of this debate is central in surveying genetic, linguistic, dental, and related anthropological information contained in this compilation of research articles gathered from throughout the world and published 1996. My own "Comments by the compiler" provide a backdrop for my theoretical interpretations. This is the second year I have provided my closest colleagues with "excerpted articles" from the UC Santa Barbara Library's "current periodicals"' listings. You can find 1995's and earlier "excerpted articles" on my "web page" soon. Enjoy them at your own risk! __________________________________________________________________ Archaeology Magazine, pp. 60-63, March/April 1997 Book Review by Brian M. Fagan Monte Verde: A Late Pleistocene Settlement in Chile, by Tom Dillehay Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997. For more than a century archaeologists have battled over when the Americas were first settled. The debate has been remarkable for its passion, rancor, and lack of hard archaeological data. Perhaps this is because conferences are easier to organize than excavations, but the fact remain that only a handful of archaeological sites document early occupation. Few are thoroughly published. Monte Verde is an exception. Monte Verde is an open-air wetland residential site with bone and wooden artifacts, hut foundations, and ecological evidence preserved under a peat layer dating to about 13,000 years ago (p. 60). The carbon dates place the main cultural component between 12,300 and 12,800 years ago. A much earlier layer, opened up on a limited basis and possibly of cultural origin, dates to between 32,840 and 33,900 b.p. (p. 61). Later chapters study cordage and used ground surfaces, present-day and ancient plants, and stone tools. The latter include four simple bifaces, perforators and bola stones, and many expediently used stone fragments such as convenient, sharp-edged flakes picked up and used for such tasks as cutting hide or scraping wood. The closest analogies come from the Taima Taima site in distant Venezuela. Wisely, Dillehay does not pursue the general similarities closely. The Monte Verde team made microwear observations on 242 stone tool, finding evidence for processing of materials such as plants and softwoods. An exhaustive study of the animal remains, down to cut marks on individual fragments, identified six or seven mastodon, and paleo-lama, amphibians, reptiles, and birds, even bird eggshell. Animal tissue samples include shreds of hide associated with dwellings and pieces of mastodon flesh. Two concluding chapters summarize evidence for seasonal occupation, social organization, and economic diversification necessitated by spreading temperate forest (pp. 61-62). (all emphasis added) In the epilogue, Dillehay stresses the diversity of early human settlement in the New World. Monte Verde paints a very different picture of first settlement from northern Paleoindian kill sites. . . The Monte Verdeans used a great variety of resources within three miles of their settlement. They combined foraging with specialized plant collecting. Interestingly, studies of different houses revealed variations in the use of local and nonlocal materials, as if the Monte Verdeans were exploring new and little-known habitats within their circumscribed territory. Dillehay believes the people used a simple technology to gather and experiment with diverse food resources. They exploited a large territory yet used minimal technology to do so. Perhaps they had what Dillehay calls a "learning economy," with contacts with other groups living at some distance. Alternatively, they may have practiced a strategy common in later times-the exploitation of different ecological zones to reduce risk should the resources of any one zone fail (p. 62). (emphasis added) Monte Verde was so unexpected that some archaeologists, this reviewer among them wondered if the site really was an undisturbed cultural layer. We were wrong, Dillehay has proved Monte Verde is a settlement, probably at the threshold of colonization of the Americas. He has also shown that we must think of the initial settlement of the New World not as a set of simple migrations, but as a process of complex and diverse adaptation to a myriad of unfamiliar environments. Monte Verde, a humble yet complex settlement, reveals the first Americans for what they really were: small, highly diverse human groups capable of adapting to almost any environment (p. 62). (emphasis added) Dillehay and his colleagues---some 70 scientists from many academic disciplines and different nations--- have been at pains to put any doubts about the authenticity of the site. This is how it should be, given the very early date of Monte Verde and its enormous importance to our knowledge of the first settlement of the Americas. The Monte Verde monograph does far more than record and authenticate an archaeological site of international significance. Dillehay and his colleagues have set the standards to be expected when documenting a site which purports to chronicle early settlement (p. 63). He has done brilliantly with Monte Verde, and this volume is a remarkable testimony to a fine archaeologist and to what modern archaeological teamwork can achieve. Would that others would follow Dillehay's example (p. 63). (emphasis added) Comment by the compiler "Would that others would follow Dillehay's example." "Wisely, Dillehay does not pursue the general similarities closely." Both of these statements epitomize the same "rancor" Fagan has himself criticized. Perhaps a "TRUCE" should be called. What Monte Verde provides is: a verified site to now compare other less well preserved potential habitations to. Certainly, everyone should have an archaeological site set in peat! The acceptance of Monte Verde as a late Pleistocene site must be attributed to not only the painstaking energy of the discoverer but to the viability of the archaeological signature left behind (preserved in the peat) by the inhabitants 13,000 years ago. Fagan suggests that discriminating archaeologists would believe that other - early New World - sites exist if researchers were as thorough as Dillehay's team. That it has taken over 20 years - from the initial discovery in 1976 - for archaeologists to finally accept Monte Verde as a late Pleistocene human settlement does not surprise other archaeologists with "pre-Clovis" discoveries - not preserved in peat. As for the activities associated with Monte Verde, could they represent a specialized form of subsistence economy born from generations of occupation of the Americas? The evidence shows little, if any, of the signatures suggesting contact with Old World hunter/gathers, in direct conflict with the now disproved theory being; "Clovis First." A new theory must emerge from the "rancor" of the past century by developing a paradigm to test the relationships that now do not link the first Americans as descendants of Old World Paleolithic hunters. The subsistence behavior defining Monte Verde's "learning economy" may represent the ancestral condition the human primate was born into. The untested hypothesis - offering an autochthonous isolation for the human species within the confines of the Americas - is compatible with Monte Verde's Pleistocene definition as a definition supporting an ancient lifeway. The "replacement" of Old World hominids by modern humans from the Americas requires that we interpret the significance of a Pleistocene Amerindian presence. As Fagan asserts, the archaeological signatures from Monte Verde requires we deliberate their "international significance." They also should allow Americanists a comparison for validating what are "simple technologies" being employed by "highly diverse human groups capable of adapting to almost any environment (p. 62)." Monte Verde promises to offer to New World archaeologists what Jackie Robinson did for African American athletes and baseball. It will grow beyond these first steps - allow new sites onto the playing field - and provide a new measure for the verification of what we should and should not expect in accepting New World Pleistocene sites. The significance of Monte Verde may never be repeated in either, the magnitude its acceptance holds in dismantling barriers "consensus opinion" has brought mid-Pleistocene human occupation of the Americas, or, the treasure of scientific information the authors have uncovered in substantiating the early ecological balance man once held with-in this, as this author believes, his primordial niche. ______________________________________________________________________________ Fossils & the Folsom Cowboy Natural History 2/97. by Douglas Preston, pp. 16-22 In September 1908, a cowboy named George McJunkin, foreman of the Crowfoot Ranch in eastern New Mexico, encountered a fencing problem. . . While pondering how to fix the fence, McJunkin noticed some freshly exposed bones at the bottom of the trench. He climbed down into the arroyo and, using his pliers, dug out a couple of bones, which he tied behind his saddle and brought back to the ranch house. Some four months after McJunkin's death [January 1922] Carl Schwachheim and Fred Howarth decided to visit the McJunkin bone pit. ... In January 1926, Howarth had to deliver some cattle to a stockyard in Denver. He hired Schwachhgeim to look after the cattle on the train trip, and in Denver the two men carried the sack of bones over to the Colorado Museum of Natural History (now the Denver Museum of Natural History). They were ushered into the office of Jesse D. Figgins, the museum's director, and unwittingly stepped into the center of one of the most controversial scientific questions of the day: the antiquity of human beings in the New World (p.18). (emphasis added) At the time, Ales Hrdlicka, curator of the Smithsonian's Division of Physical Anthropology, dominated the field of anthropology. In the nineteenth century, many unsupported claims had been advanced "proving" the Indians had been in the New World for tens and even hundreds of thousands of years. But by Hrdlicka's time, a powerful reaction against such claims had developed. Hrdlicka became the leader of the skeptics, undertaking a crusade to debunk what he considered bad science. His view, based on skull morphology, was that Indians had arrived in the New World no earlier than 1,000 B.C. When any unfortunate archeologist made an assertion to the contrary, Hrdlicka reacted so vigorously that he sometimes ruined the career of his target. By 1925, the atmosphere was such that most archeologists were too intimidated to make a report. The subject of early humans in America was effectively taboo (p. 18). (emphasis added) McJunkin's bone pit was one of the most important archeological discoveries made in America, and it caused a permanent shift in the prevailing paradigm. All of a sudden, archeologists had another 7,000 years of human history account for. The find also made the search for early Americans respectable again, and it provided a time span that was sufficient to explain the bewildering diversity of languages and customs of Native American tribes. Once such a shift occurs, a flood of new discoveries and a reevaluation of older ones often follow. In the tow decades after the Folsom find, dozens of Paleo-Indian sites came to light, and papers came pouring out of museums and universities across the country. The fluted Folsom points had been turning up for years-only nobody had recognized them for what they were. The Folsom find led directly to the discovery of an even older culture, the Clovis mammoth hunters, who were the immediate ancestors of the Folsom people. Hrdlicka found himself increasingly isolated, and yet the grumpy old warlord of physical anthropology would not admit his error. When the association of human artifacts with Pleistocene mammoths, horses, camels, and bison could no longer be denied. Hrdlicka suggested that these animals had become extinct far more recently than was supposed. Like the Swiss zoologist and geologist Louis Agassiz, who went to his deathbed denying Darwin's theory of evolution, Hrdlicka never accepted the antiquity of human beings in the New World (20-21). (emphasis added) Half a century after his death, McJunkin was still held in high regard by the citizens of Folsom, who, while knowing little about the scientific revolution he had caused, remembered with great affection the remarkable black cowboy with the telescope, bones, and scientific books. Comment by the compiler The initial "settlement of the Americas" has long been set against the backdrop of the consensus paradigm: that Clovis hunters were the New Worlds first human inhabitants. This view has been in vogue for over 60 years while even this limit was difficult to establish at first, as Preston points out. Mirroring the difficulty Clovis proponents had in establishing an Ice Age presence of Mankind in the Americas are the researchers of Monte Verde, led by Tom Dillehay. The acceptance of even earlier inhabitants then the Clovis mammoth hunters has been gaining steam over the past century and, as the train finally arrives at the station - a little late and a little worn from the journey - these site's discoverers are certainly ready to rejoice in the shadows of the pristine evidence substantiating Monte Verde. The first quarter of the century and the reputations that were both won and lost have no less of a parallel in today's marketing of Amerindian Pleistocene occupations. Dillehay and his team may have won the battle of attrition as the growing acceptance of Monte Verde only promises to redirect the efforts others have championed in establishing a mid-Pleistocene occupation of the Americas. BACKGROUND IDEAS and OPINIONS ______________________________________________________________________________Journal of Social and Evolutionary systems 18(1):87-93 1996. J.C. Lester Popper's Epistemology versus Popper's Politics: A Libertarian Viewpoint Let us briefly recapitulate Popper's scientific epistemology and methodology. As Hume showed, to support a universal theory with evidence is logically impossible. All corroborating evidence, even if accurate, is an infinitely small proportion of what the theory predicts. But one counter-example shows a universal theory to be false. Thus, the only rational way to pursue truth is to conjecture without evidence and then deliberately to seek refutation. The bolder the conjecture (compatible with background knowledge), the greater the chance of capturing more truth. The scientific community is more or less a libertarian anarchy: anyone can form a theory and test it, and the evidence can be accepted or ignored by other individual scientists (though the individual scientist seeks intersubjective agreement) (pg. 87). (emphasis added AMH) If the scientific community were run democratically (say, in a majority-rules mode), it would be as great a disaster for the discovery of truth as democracy is a disaster for the promotion of liberty and welfare. Polanyi (1951) shows the deleterious effects on science of greater state-regulation (pg. 88). Comment by the compiler We must accept the fact that a uniform theory conforming solely with an Old World origin for mankind has yet to resolve the issue of human origins. Certainly, we should never abandon what we have already learned in order to develop a new paradigm. I am not asking that we do this, i. e. the equivalent of shooting oneself in the foot. What I want others to explore is a new hypothesis, to build from the past a paradigm that can meaningfully adopt the lessons detected in previous endeavors. Understanding that there exists for many investigators unresolvable discrepancies - that this may be inherent with the Old World ideology used to define it as the source of our own humanity - should itself propel us to seek new choices. By endorsing the limitations gained in defining these interpretations they become part of the solution. An outline can be drawn, methodologically biased into the structure of a developing theory, by accepting that an unexplored alternative exists. This compilation aims to investigate (what has been a long dismissed alternative) the potential resolution a greater antiquity affording Native Americans offers the science of human evolution. ______________________________________________________________________________ Kenneth M. Weiss Is There a Paradigm Shift in Genetics? Lessons from the Study of Human Diseases MOLECULAR PHYLOGENETICS AND EVOLUTION Vol. 5, No. 1, February, pp. 259-265, 1996 Thomas Kuhn (1962) made the word "paradigm" a part of the working vocabulary of science. In his assessment, major progress occurs when an accepted theory, or paradigm, can no longer accommodate the accumulating facts in the field. Facts are always collected to work away at the edges of understanding. Mostly, these facts lead to incremental advances, but there are always some facts that do not easily fit the theory. For a time, scientists struggle to force these facts into the theory, but eventually a new way to view the data–a new paradigm–is proposed. Suddenly, all the existing facts fall into a new order, and a new phase of normal incremental science begins. The old model becomes a subset of the new. There has been a scientific revolution (pg. 259). Continental drift, the Copernican astronomy, relativity, spherical geometry, and the atomic model of matter are other examples of transforming paradigm shifts (pg. 259). ______________________________________________________________________________In the Mind of the Beholder, Natural History, 2/94, pps. 14-23 Stephen Jay Gould But scientists who make the discovery rarely follow the optimal pathway of subsequent logical reconstruction. Scientists reach conclusions for the damnedest of reasons: intuitions, guesses, redirections after wild goose chases, all combined with a dollop of rigorous observation and logical reasoning to be sure–context of discovery (p. 14). (emphasis added AMH) In the most celebrated use in a social sense, T.S. Kuhn referred to the shared worldview of scientists as a paradigm (see his classic 1962 book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions). Such paradigms, in Kuhn's view, are so constraining, and so unbreakable in their own terms, that fundamentally new theories must be imported from elsewhere (insights of other disciplines, conscious radicalism of young rebels within a field) and must then triumph by rapid replacement (scientific revolution), rather than by incremental advance (p. 16). But in so disproving the original claim, correction only dictated agnosticism, not a contrary conclusion–that is, the new trees are consistent with origin in a single place, but Africa cannot be affirmed as the clearly preferred spot, although Africa remains as plausible as any other place by this criterion (p. 21). (emphasis added AMH) I can only suppose that we want to segregate humans off as something special. We wish to see our evolution, particularly the late expansion of our brain to current size, as an event of more than merely local significance. We do not wish to view our global triumph as so fortuitously dependent upon the contingent history of a small African population; we would rather conceive our exalted intellect as so generally advantageous that all populations, in all places, must move in adaptive unison toward the same desired state (p. 22). For truth is the daughter of time (p. 23). Maybe my horse is coming in. But maybe I am only riding a gelding named "fashion," a nag destined to stumble at the gate next season at Hialeah as the Seabiscuit or Secretariat of deterministic gradualism comes thundering down the homestretch (p. 23). (emphasis added AMH) Comment by the compiler All these quotes come from the same article, being what I believe is Gould at his best. NORTH AMERICA ______________________________________________________________________________ Send to P Steeves Native American Oral Traditions and Archaeology Rodger Anyon, T. J. Ferguson, Loretta Jackson, and Lillie Lane SAA Bulletin, Volume 14, March/April 1996, No. 2 Tessie Naranjo (1995, Thoughts on Migration by Santa Clara Pueblo. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 14:247-250) recently pointed out that Native American oral traditions are often axiomatic rather than hypothetical. Whereas scientists search for exclusive and universal truth (pg. 15). These methodologies need to be incorporated into archaeological method and theory to establish the scholarly basis for using oral traditions in historical research. Good scientific research uses a methodology based on the falsification of hypotheses. In essence, archaeologists disprove what they can, and then create theories to explain the residual hypotheses (pg. 15). Oral traditions and scientific knowledge both have validity in their own cultural context. Scientific knowledge does not constitute a privileged view of the past that in and of itself makes it better than oral traditions. It is simply another way of knowing the past. Even in situations where oral traditions are not used in archaeological research, archaeologists should be sensitive to both the inherent limitations of scientific knowledge with respect to cultural heritage (pg. 15). ______________________________________________________________________________The Foraging Spectrum: Diversity in Hunter-Gatherer Lifeways, Robert L. Kelly. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995, 446 pp. Reviewed in American Anthropologist, Vol. 98, No. 4, December 1996, p. 913 Reviewed by John M. Lindly and Geoffrey A. Clark This is an important book, not because of path-breaking original research (there is little new here), but because Kelly presents a current, insightful, and well-written critique of the disparate approaches to research on what are known to anthropology as hunter-gatherers. He adopts the conceptual framework of behavioral ecology, defined by a focus on relationships between behavior and environment, firmly grounded in evolutionary theory, and distinguished from cultural ecology by an explicit concern with process questions. Since this foregrounds the relationships among human subsistence activities, biological reproduction, and learning in a social context, Kelly argues that behavioral ecology can best account for modern humans as biological and cultural animals and can best explain how we came to be the way we are today (p. 913). Comment by the compiler The robust but simplistic archaeological signature uncovered from Chile's "Monte Verde" just 14,500 bp may be atypical of the type of human subsistence activities delineating other mid-Pleistocene occupations of the Americas. It can be argued that this kind of behavior is unrelated to Paleolithic occupations from contemporary Old World sites. That these early New World activities do not appear to be descendent of Old World hunter /gatherer societies - 30,000 years in the making - does not require that we dismiss them, (because of the limited evidence supporting mid-Pleistocene occupations), as archaeological sites. As Owen points out in Smith/Spencer (1984), until we can define a theory to help guide us, the meaning and/or verification of pre-Clovis will be difficult to process. By arguing that mid-Pleistocene occupations represent a more simplistic behavior a new relationship can be suggested from these occupations. That relationship could represent an ancestral condition, a kinder/simpler human subsistence activity that remained isolated from specialized hunter/gatherer subsistence activities that we know evolved during mankind's expansion into what was once a new Old World. (All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH) ______________________________________________________________________________ Book Reviews, American Anthropologist, 1996, pps. 650-706. John Mohawk Review of Red Earth, White Lies: Native Americans and the Myth of Scientific Fact by Vine Deloria Jr., 1995. His target is established anthropology and three of its theories: human migration across a Bering land bridge as the origin of all Amerindian populations of the Americas; the extinction of many species of North America's megafauna at the hands of paleo-Indians; and the accuracy of radiocarbon dating technology. With the style of a lawyer–he is, foremost, a social historian with a law degree–he launches a barrage of attacks at anthropologists who have promoted or abided these theories. p. 650 He goes on to suggest that anthropologists should pay more attention to American Indian stories about what happened in the remote past for clues (p. 650). By inference, all of his arguments may be denounced as mendacious anthropology-bashing. Although this seems certain to happen in some instances, it would be extremely unfortunate if mainstream anthropology leaves it at that and does not address the points he makes at the core of his argument. When advocates of anthropology reply that Deloria's characterizations of their profession as a narrow-minded intellectual hierarchy are overstated, they should also concede that dissent is narrowly tolerated and often heartily punished within the established order (p. 650). It is more likely that when anyone saw one of those creatures he or she was more interested in getting out of its way than in killing it, and it is much more likely that climate changes or some kind of biological chain reaction set the stage for the extinctions (p. 651) Comment by the compiler What effect, play-tell, does the introduction of hunting technologies from the Old World signify if, as the myth goes, 'Native Americans were disobedient in going north, out beyond the Americas for the first time, nearly 40,000 years ago.' As I see the Native American' sees it, 'some of us left the Americas and some of them stayed behind.' That we met for the first time following this separation - at the end of the last Ice Age - cannot be denied if we test our theories in accordance with Native American beliefs including an Autochthonous origin for mankind from the Island that is - the Western Hemisphere. (emphasis added AMH) ______________________________________________________________________________ Late Pleistocene Human Friction Skin Prints From Pendejo Cave, New Mexico American Antiquity, 61(2), 1996, pp. 357-376 Donald Chrisman, Richard S. MacNeish, Jamshed Mavalwala, and Howard Savage As she screened the sediments of zone I, Vennes noticed a peanut-sized piece of burned clay that had unusual markings. Cunnar (1992), who supervised the entire excavation of Pendejo Cave, suspected that these markings represented a fingerprint. During the daily review of excavation results, MacNeish examined the clay, using tweezers and magnifying glass, and confirmed Cunnar's suspicion (Figures 3 and 4). (361) At the southern edge of this clay slab he found, in situ at E0.99S1.21, a piece of fractured horse phalange and a small crescentic burned clay fragment with a tiny imprint (Figures 5 and 6). Nearby was a worked flake of lithic material foreign to the cave (Clemons 1992). A second slab of burned clay had charred oak remains that were dated to 32,000 ± 1200 B.P. (charcoal, UCR 2645); a duplicate sample went to BETA (44296) and was dated at 35,960 ± 790 B.P. The party now believed it had all the elements Griffin had required–a very probable human fingerprint in situ in a definite stratum with a clear date. This specimen was, furthermore, associated with botanical and faunal remains of species no longer present in the area–Quercus sp., the middle phalange of extinct Equus alaskae–and cultural remains in the form of the worked flake (pg. 361). In this area the ashy sediment of zone K was cemented; within the compacted fill we found two lithic artifacts and an Equus first phalange with a pointed bone fragment imbedded in it. Carbon in S2E2 yielded a radiocarbon date of >35,900 B.P. (charcoal, UCR 2647). Moreover, in the same zone K, carbon from square S2E1–1 m east of the print–yielded a bone with a probable human cutmark and a radiocarbon date of >35,600 B.P. (charcoal, UCR 2648); two samples of charcoal taken 1 m north gave radiocarbon dates of >36,400 B.P. (UCR 2591B) and >36,920 B.P. (BETA 43721) (pg. 363). Twelve other friction skin imprints were found while cleaning the west niche; four of these prints came from zone C2 (Figure 1), which yielded radiocarbon dates of 12,240 ± 70 B.P. (UCR 3276B), 12,370 ± 80 B.P. (UCR 3276A), both from hair, and 12,970 ± 170 B.P. (UCR 2603) from charcoal in a square 4 m east of the prints (pg. 363). A more unusual print was recovered from the gray soil of the middle of the west wall of square W4N1. This article will later show that this specimen not only bears a friction skin imprint, but also may have incisions and punctations that suggest it was an effigy formed of clay that was later fired. Although few faunal remains or artifacts occurred in these squares, we did recover hairs that microscopic examination showed to be human in origin. Also recovered were two pieces of cordage (pg. 3). This chronometric sequence (Table 1) not only directly dates the zones where friction skin imprints were found, it also brackets them with a column of 46 radiocarbon dates, 36 of which are in chronological order–a better sequence than can be found for any other Paleoindian site (Haynes 1967; Waters 1985). These dates adequately meet the chronological requirement of Griffin (pg. 365, emphasis added). The remains of fauna recovered from the various zones at Pendejo provide ample evidence of fauna–some now extinct–associated with friction skin imprints. In addition, this record reflects convincing evidence of climatic changes over the millennia (pg. 367). These floral remains provided evidence that supported that of the fauna. Zones L to O had flora typical of a warm, dry climate–Opuntia (prickly pear), Echinocereus (hedgehog cactus), Prosopis (mesquite), Euphorbia (spurge), and Cucurbita foetidissima (buffalo gourd). In zone K the floral remains, like the faunal, indicate a shift to a more wooded vegetation and a cooler, wetter climate. Among these remains were Pinus edulis (pine), Celtis laevigata (hackberry), Quercus (oak), and acorn shells, three of which were found in the same square as the zone K friction skin imprint (pg. 367). The lithic artifacts we have described from Pendejo Cave have been criticized as being so crude they cannot be accepted as artifacts. Nevertheless, the provenance of these lithic remains analyzed by the mineralogist, the late R. Clemons, is significant to the whole ecology of the cave. He found that about half of the stone objects recovered were exotics, that is, their composition was of minerals foreign to the cave. These lithics, especially the five anvils, one weighting over 4.5 kg, must have been brought to the cave by some agency. Their size points in the direction of transport by humans, not by wind, water, or an animal. Although most of these possible lithics are not skillfully worked, they may have served as expedient tools, and Clemons describes them as such in another publication (Clemons 1992) (pg. 368). Of these tools, 19 were recovered from the southern activity zone associated with the friction skin imprint. In the same square (S2E2) as the print, only a horse phalange with an imbedded wedge and two convex worked unifaces were discovered (pg. 368). When the phalange of the extinct horse was X-rayed and imaged three dimensionally by computerized tomography, the tip of a probable bone wedge or projectile point could be seen deep in its marrow cavity. In addition, a nearby fragment of a small long bone shows a long V-shaped line between its cut ends. Both these bones may exhibit human modification (pg. 368). Zone C2. Cultural remains in association with the four imprints found in zone C2 included some 40 fragments of hair that forensic specialists H. Savage and A. Tessaralo have identified as histologically human. Among the 15 artifacts in the zone were 2 two-ply cords, S- and Z-twisted, both of yucca fibers (pg. 368). Only the first two of the 16 nodules with imprints (eight pre-Clovis, eight post-Clovis) were discovered in the screen; the rest were found in situ. After that first experience, the excavating teams were alerted to the need to look hard for such small items as bits of clay, hair, and fibers (pg. 368). The color, hardness, and consistency of these clay lumps were similar to what was obtained by baking wet clay from the gully in front of the cave to 150°-250°C in an oven. Comparison with modern molded clay obtained from the valley just below Pendejo Cave, baked at increments from 100° to 400°C, showed that the nodules were probably baked at temperatures between 120°C and 300°C (pg. 369). The prints from Pendejo Cave measure 13 to 19 per linear centimeter; those of the great apes, Asiatic langurs, and the howler monkey (Alouatta) of Brazil measure 20 ridges per centimeter or more, but are near the human range (Cummins and Midlo 1943:32). However, no bones of great apes or New World monkeys have been found in Pleistocene excavations in New Mexico, nor were there tropical forests or suitable habitats to support them there. In the absence of other primates, the size of the prints and the patterns of ridges and sweat pores have led us to conclude that these friction skin imprints are probably human in origin (pg. 373). Comment by the compiler AMH The mid-Pleistocene archaeological record has significant implications if we apply theory to help guide our observations. This record may be representative of a pre-Paleolithic habitation accordant with an in-situ evolutionary process conforming, in theory, with a human origin within the Americas. If this type of archaeological record is indicative of our ancestral condition then we cannot dismiss its simplicity by judging it against the backdrop of archaeological signatures of contemporary Upper Paleolithic Old World populations. The revealing archaeological proof -- what we have come to expect in defining and accepting Old World Paleolithic behaviors -- may be missing in the ancestral (> 50 ky) and contemporary (50-12 ky) Amerindian habitations because of isolation due to the resurgence of Glaciation (~45 ky). It is proposed that glacial isolation lasted until the end of the last Ice age when, for the first time following mankind's inaugural exit from the Americas, glacial barriers separating the two worlds waned. Mid-Pleistocene New World archaeological contexts (>12 ky) and the implications derived by accepting them suggest that; the behaviors of early early man in the Americas was not influenced by Old World modern human achievements - until the end of the last Ice Age. Could Mid-Pleistocene behaviors have been ancestral and thus, a forerunner to later evolving Old World hunter/gatherer behaviors? Simply, the modus operandi defining mid-Pleistocene Amerindian habitations should be lacking the level of sophistication found in, as I propose, descendent populations of the Old World. As modern man explored, he left behind more advanced signatures of his adeptness in dealing with changing environments. Was it glacial expanse that delayed the Amerindians from leaving the New World until 50,000 years ago? Could the original People of the Americas (being also the ancestors of the first modern humans of the Old World) have remained isolated from evolving Old World advancements? Is it possible that the main problem facing archaeologists is: defining a paradigm to accept mid-Pleistocene occupations? ______________________________________________________________________________ Science, Vol. 274, October 4, 1996 Ann Gibbons The Peopling of the Americas Chalk up one more disagreement to one of the most contentious issues in human prehistory: the question of who settled the Americas (pg. 31). Most anthropological studies use this mtDNA because it mutates faster than nuclear DNA, allowing researchers to distinguish populations that recently separated. The mtDNA is also inherited only from mothers and so avoids the gene shuffling that can obscure the evolutionary trail of most nuclear genes (pg. 31). "You wont' pick out the [same combination of] rare types three of four times if you reach in randomly (pg. 32)." Once in America, this wave of settlers spread out. Some pushed south, but others stayed in the northwest, where their numbers were drastically reduced–perhaps by bitter cold during the last glacial period that ended about 11,500 years ago. As a result, the northern populations, the ancestors of the Na-Dene and Eskimo-Aleuts, lost their original genetic diversity. Their numbers eventually bounced back, but with fewer copies of haplogroups B, C, and D than carried by their southern relatives (pg. 32). This scenario allows for either one or two migrations into North America, depending on whether the homeland of the surviving northerners was in North America or Siberia. Forster says: "We call it a re-expansion. It's a matter of taste whether you call it a separate migration (pg. 33). Even on the number of migrations, there is no consensus. Satoshi Horai of the National Institute of Genetics in Mishima, Japan, for example, notes that his analyses of the genetic distance among native American people suggests that there are four groups that have been isolated for a relatively long period of time. He concludes that there were four separate migrations (pg. 33). Comment by the compiler The presence in Northeast Asia of common Amerindian mtDNAs could support Franz Boas "Eskimo wedge theory", that is, a post Ice age (i.e. Holocene, <12,000 ky) movement of Amerindians into Siberia. This interpretation can also find support in Traditional Athapaskan and Eskimo mythologies and the genetic data linking Northeast Asians and Native North Americans. (ii) AMH ______________________________________________________________________________The Settlement of the Americas: A Comparison of the Linguistic, Dental, and Genetic Evidence, Current Anthropology, Vol. 27, No. 5, December 1986, pps. 477-495 Joseph H. Greenberg, Christy G. Turner II, and Stephen L. Zegura Both the internal and the external evidence point to the original habitat of the Aleut-Eskimo as being on the southwestern coast of Alaska. Within Eskimo itself, the vast Inuit distribution from Central Alaska to Greenland with shallow internal differences suggests a very recent migration from the far western end of the present distribution. The other branch, Yuit, is found in the central and southwestern coastal areas of Alaska. It is also spoken in Siberia. If Sirenik, which in certain respects is drastically different from the rest of Eskimo, should prove to have separate genetic status, it even becomes plausible that Eskimo or even Aleut-Eskimo originated in northeastern Siberia. However, the position of Aleut suggests rather an origin east of Bering Strait with Siberian Eskimo as a subsequent reflux. p. 479 There are some indications that Eurasiatic and Amerind are closer-genetically than either is to Na-Dene. On the basis of a suggestion of Sapir, Shafer (1952) presented some evidence for a connection of Na-Dene with Sino-Tibetan. Both of these proposals require further investigation. If they should prove to be true, they would point to a more southerly ultimate place of origin in Asia. (p. 479) [Comment by the compiler Why do the Na-Dene have to be descendent of the Tibetans. Language sharing and gene flow can emanate from either direction. This is an old paper now, while theories accepting the existence of New World isolation have not been tested. This may be because we have to first verify a set of sites before we can synthesize the corresponding data that might be found to collaborate them? AMH] Glottochronology, the one available method for dating the separation of linguistic stocks in the absence of written records, was first devised about 1950 (Hymes 1960). By examining the rate of retention of a specific list of 200 words it was determined that slightly more than .80 of this list was retained over 1,000 years. If two languages diverged from a single ancestral language and evolved independently, after 1,000 years they would be expected to have related forms in approximately .802 of the list. The process was hypothesized to follow a decay function so that after n millennia the proportion of cognate forms between two languages would be .82n (p. 479). The third observation, namely, that New World teeth are more like those of eastern Asia than like those of Europe, provides a solid basis for challenging the archaeological view that Paleo-Indians originated in Europe because their methods of stone tool manufacturing were like those used by late Pleistocene Cro-Magnon hunters such as the Kostienki or Sunghir tribes. The four European samples of table 1 and figure 1 are very similar among themselves and least like the New World groups. There is no support in this genetically sensible spatial pattern for theorizing that Native Americans originated in Europe or that they are some form of European-Asian hybridization (p. 480). Comments By Lyle Campbell The dental and genetic correlations are unconvincing–at worst irrelevant, at best consistent with other interpretations. Repetition of the obvious seems required: there is no deterministic connection between language and gene pools or culture. A single language can be spoken by a genetically and/or culturally diverse community; a culturally and/or genetically homogeneous population can speak more than one language. That is, language shift and multilingualism are facts of linguistic (and cultural) life; genes neither cause nor cater to them (p. 488). (emphasis added by the compiler, AMH) The Northwest Coast has few attested Na-Dene groups and many others. It is a notorious linguistic (and cultural) diffusion area, with multilingualism, borrowing of linguistic traits, slaving, and intermarriage. Here, language and genetic traits should not be expected to match (p. 488). Comments by W.S. Laughlin Compounding 11 subgroups into three, with a separate migration for each, Greenberg cogently notes that it is defensible to hypothesize that the Proto-Aleut-Eskimo community arrived as an internally undifferentiated unit before the coming of the Na-Dene. He discards the possibility of one migration with elapsed time so great that all traces of affinity among any of the groups have been effaced. The dental evidence is displayed in a dendrogram that carries no hint of a triple division but rather is eloquent evidence of a single migration, with minor subdivisions in America. Clearly, dental evidence comprehends greater time depth than linguistic evidence (p. 490). The differences between American populations are not large enough to postulate more than one migration; the taxonomic category of American Indian easily embraces all of them. A single small migration some 16,000 years go appears most parsimonious. Researchers who flirt with trinities should be reminded that Eskimos have walked on water for 10,000 years. They wait for it to freeze, and when on thin ice they avoid creating unnecessary waves (p. 490). [Comment by the compiler Similariteis in Native Americans does not denote lateness if this is evidence of a population at "equilibrium" (Chakraborty and Weiss 1991) (All emphasis added by the compiler)] Comments by Emoke J.E. Szathmary Although their perspectives are offered in sections subtitled "The Linguistic Evidence," "The Dental Evidence," and "The Genetic Evidence," very little evidence is presented. Rather, we are given conclusions based on research, their own and that of others, published elsewhere. This is legitimate if one regards Greenberg, Turner, and Zegura's joint effort as a "position paper" that will generate more hypothesis-testing research on their much-debated subject. I think this is necessary, for the material presented here does not convince me that there have indeed been three waves of migration into the Americas (p. 490) Turner's equating the label "Na-Dene" with the Greater Northwest Coast group suggests that he is not prepared to question, let alone to reject, the three-migration hypothesis whatever the results of his calculations. Rather, he interprets his analytic results in the light of a preexisting hypothesis that he simply assumes to be true (p. 490). It is worth noting that cluster analysis of the genetic distances derived from the same Gm data as used by Williams et al. (1985) shows that Athapaskan-speakers (Haida and Tlingit Gm distributions are unknown) are consistently intermixed with Eskimos and Chukchi (Szathmary 1986). Other Indians are consistently separate. This certainly does not support a tripartite-migration model but lends itself to the notion that Athapaskan-speakers are genetically closer to Eskimos than are other Indians (p. 491). In my opinion, postulation of the precise number of "waves" is an exercise in hypothesis generation. May there always be creative individuals who propose models, and may there always be scientists whose testing will finally allow us to select the scenario that is most likely (p. 491). (emphasis added AMH) Comments by Kenneth M. Weiss and Ellen Woolford If one branch of a language group is in contact with an unrelated group, it is likely to change faster than its sister languages and in a different direction. It may thus appear by glottochronology to have diverged from its sisters at an earlier date than is actually correct. Renewed contact between branches of the same group can result in borrowings that will make the branches appear to have diverged more recently than is really the case. Extreme contact situations such as those which result in the formation of a pidgin can throw off the results of glottochronology entirely and may even create a false bridge between two unrelated language stocks. An application of glottochronology to English and the English-based pidgin of Papua New Guinea, Tok Pisin, gives a separation date of something like 2,000 B.P., but Tok Pisin has not existed a tenth of that time. Moreover, the fact that Tok Pisin contains words from Malay and Tolai as well as English might convince a scholar from the future that these stocks were closely connected (p. 491). If there has been gene flow, as is reflected in the genetic marker pattern, why is this not also reflected in the dental traits? One reason might be selection–but if that has occurred, the rationale is lost for most historical-phylogenetic analysis, since selection can obscure migration and drift patterns. Indeed, O'Rourke, Suarez, and Crouse (1986) and Piazza, Menotti, and Cavalli-Sforza (1981) believe that gene-frequency patterns reflect climatic selection, resulting in latitudinal patterns which may be highly relevant in the American case (p. 492). Reply by Joseph H. Greenberg, Christy G. Turner II, and Stephen L. Zegura We also concur with Weiss and Woolford's call for more genetic data (especially from restriction-enzyme studies of DNA) collected from both sides of the Bering Strait. These nuclear and mitochondrial DNA fragments may provide the crucial genetic data test of our three-migration hypothesis, wherein substantial population diversity originated in Asia, against Laughlin's plausible alternative of a single small migration 15,000–16,000 years ago with subsequent diversification taking place in the Americas. It is clear that Szathmary would heartily endorse such a test (p. 493). Even if the Na-Dene are genetically closer to the Aleut-Eskimos than are the rest of the Amerinds, this by itself does not logically falsify our qualitative trichotomy or our three-wave model (perhaps the Na-Dene and Aleut-Eskimo shared a most recent ancestor in Asia before the bifurcation event) (p. 494). As indicated in our paper, at least two East Siberian population systems can be proposed on archaeological grounds–blade-making sea-mammal-hunting and fishing folk of the lower Amur and Hokkaido and the terrestrial- and riverine-resource-based Diuktai people between the Amur and the Lena basin. It seems well established that members of both of these groups reached Alaska. The all-important stratigraphy of the Dry Creek site near Fairbanks, Alaska, demonstrates that both were almost certainly preceded by Paleo-Indians. If all Native American variation arose from a single founding population, then why is the Uto-Aztecan premolar never found in Na-Dene, Northwest Coast, Greater Northwest Coast (or whatever label one chooses to identify the far western prehistoric Canadian and Alaskan people), or Aleut-Eskimo crania? (p. 494). Until a different evolutionary scenario better explains our similar linguistic, genetic, and dental classifications, a multiple-, preferably three-, migration hypothesis most adequately accounts for the data presented by the commentators and ourselves (p. 494). Comment by the compiler Because the "Uto-Aztecan premolar " is older in them then is the time from when sea mammal hunting Eskimos and Boreal adapted - forest dwelling - Athapascans came to inhabit their respected deglaciated Holocene locals. emphasis added AMH ______________________________________________________________________________Distribution of Four Foundling mtDNA Haplogroups Among Native North Americans, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 101, 1996, pps. 307-323. Joseph G. Lorenz and David Glenn Smith Thus, assuming a recent mutation is not responsible, native haplogroups other than A, B, C, and D, while rare, apparently existed. A higher resolution screening of these other haplogroups might indeed show some to be Native American in origin, probably resulting from recent mutation at the diagnostic haplogroup restriction sites. However, haplotypes identified by high resolution analysis (e.g., see Torroni et al., 1993a) tend to be autapomorphies and hence of no use in determining relatedness among groups, and they were excluded from the analysis whose results follow (p. 313). Haplogroup D, the rarest of the four haplogroups in North America at 7%, is the most prevalent in the northern Paiute/Shoshone, in which its frequency exceeds 40%. It is present at very low frequencies (<6.0%) everywhere except in the Northwest Coast and California/Great Basin Regions, where it reaches frequencies of 18% and 22%, respectively (p. 315). The present analysis, while not designed to test Greenberg's hypothesis, points to a fundamental split among the Eskimo/northern Na-Dene, Amerinds from the southwestern states of the U.S., and all other Amerinds. The clustering of the Eskimo and northern Na-Dene, who speak unrelated languages, together (cluster I) in the phenetic and q analyses is consistent with the conclusions of previous genetic studies (Szathmary and Ossenberg, 1978; Shields et al., 1993; Szathmary, 1996) and does not support the three migration hypothesis. Although most Amerind groups, including those in Central and South America (Merriwether et al., 1995), fall in clusters II-IV, the major division in the phenetic tree separated most Hokan-speaking and Uto-Aztecan-speaking Amerinds (cluster IV), whose languages are not regarded as closely related, from all other groups. Moreover, no two Amerind language families exhibited homogeneous haplogroup distributions. Thus, our data do not support "the unity of Amerind" (Greenberg, 1987) (p. 318). (all emphasis added by AMH) ______________________________________________________________________________The Great DNA Hunt, Part II - Colonizing the Americas, Archaeology, November/December 1996, pps. 59-68 Tabitha M. Powledge and Mark Rose They found that the Siberian populations had the A, C, and D lineages found in Native Americans but that they were slightly different, suggesting to Torroni and Schurr that mtDNA variations present today in Native Americans developed after they separated from an ancestral Siberian population (p. 60). Comment by the compiler Perhaps Amerindian A, C, and D, lineages represent evidence of reverse migration at the end of the last ice Age. (emphasis added AMH) Oddly, the Siberian populations lacked the B mtDNA group found in Native Americans. Torroni and Schurr concluded that either it had become extinct in Siberia after the split between the ancestral Siberian and Native American populations, or its presence in Native Americans represented a distinct migration (p. 60). It was unlikely that the lineage could become extinct in all Siberian populations; furthermore, how could it spread throughout the Americas if it arrived in a later migration? The B lineage remained something of an anomaly (p. 62). Geneticist Svante Paabo of the University of Munich also identified a variant, possibly X6 or X7, in the brain tissue of an Archaic-period Indian, more than 7,000 years old, found in 1988 in Little Salt Spring, Florida. Anne Stone, of Pennsylvania State University, has determined that an 8,000-year-old Paleoindian skeleton found in a cave in Colorado's White River National Forest has the B lineage (p. 64). Polynesians and Amerinds Hagelberg's group determined that certain mutations present in the DNA of Polynesians are not known from the New World, indicating that settlement from South America was unlikely (p. 65). Cann concludes by posing a number of questions that seem to point toward Polynesian-Amerind contact. Why, she asks, is the B lineage, shared by Polynesians and Amerinds, not found in the north? Anne Stone of Pennsylvania State University has recently examined the mtDNA from an 8,000-year-old Paleoindian skeleton found in a cave in Colorado's White River National Forest. The Colorado individual has the B lineage–strong evidence that the lineage is ancestral because Polynesia was not occupied until about 6,000 years ago and the far eastern Pacific Islands until about 1,000 years ago, both much later than the Colorado remains. The Paleoindian B lineage cannot have come from the Polynesians (p. 65). Comment by the compiler “Certain mutations present in the DNA of Polynesians” could have developed after separation from the Americas. Just the same, if these mutations were already present in Polynesians then they could not have been the descendants of the “out of Southeast Asia” hypothesis for either the Amerindians with type B mtDNA or Polynesians. ______________________________________________________________________________ William S. Dancey, Editor. Reviewed by Michael J. Shott, University of Northern Iowa. The First Discovery of America: Archaeological Evidence of the Early Inhabitants of the Ohio Area. American Antiquity [Vol. 61, No. 1, 1996] Disturbingly, samples occur in a stratum dated elsewhere at Burning Tree to ca. 12,000 B.P. Somewhat uncertain dating and absence of stone tools render the argument plausible but inconclusive (pg. 171 emphasis added). Five AMS dates from the postmold resolve, using an obsolete averaging method, into distinct populations ca. 12,150 and 10,980 B.P. Brose reasonably favors the latter to date the Paleoindian occupation. But two extensively dated features span several radiocarbon millennia, and the favored date is obtained by rejecting half the results from a feature. Paleo Crossing is a major Gainey Site that deserves the more extensive investigation sought (pg. 171). Comment by the compiler Again note, the "absence of stone tools" confounds for many, what should be expected in hypothesizing a Pleistocene colonization of the New World. The inconsistency of the expected presence of stone tool traditions should be tossed out but not the baby as Amerindians, for one reason or another, did not manufacture stone tools to aid archaeologists in their discovery or understanding of the nature of - mankind's earliest subsistence behaviors - those defining mid-Pleistocene Amerindian habitations. AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ Dental Variation Among Four Prehispanic Mexican Populations. Rebecca Haydenblit American Journal of Physical Anthropology 100:225-246 (1996) When the four samples were compared to other Mongoloid populations, either univariately or multivariately, it was observed that the Mexican groups did not follow a strict Sinodont (characteristic of Northeast Asia)/Sundadont (characteristic of Southeast Asia) classification (Turner [1979] Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 51:619-636). From the traits examined, 27% presented frequencies consistent with Sinodont variation, while 73% of the traits showed similar incidence to Southeast Asian groups. Multivariately, the Mexican populations were found to fit an overall Sundadont classification (pg. 225). For the present study, observations of 28 morphological dental traits were made on more than 200 prehispanic Mexican Indians. In this paper, I have 1) described the morphological features of permanent teeth of prehispanic Mexican Indians, 2) compared the variability in dental morphology among four prehispanic groups, and 3) analyzed the.. (pg. 36, I lost pg. 327 see reference for more). It should be pointed out that the Sinodont/Sundadont classification is largely defined on the basis of a few dental traits. Eight key morphological traits distinguish these two patterns: shoveling and double shoveling of maxillary incisors, enamel extension of maxillary first molars, root number of maxillary second pre-molars, peg/reduced/congenital absence of maxillary third molars, deflecting wrinkle and root number of mandibular first molars, and groove pattern of mandibular second molars. The Sinodont pattern exhibits these traits more intensively, whereas the Sundadont pattern exhibits simplification of these features (pg. 237). The discriminate analysis examines whether it is possible to classify a number of cases into specified groups (in this case Sinodont and Sundadont) on the basis of a group of independent variables (the dental trait frequencies) and calculates how this classification compares with the actual group (Sinodont/Sundadont) each population belongs to. Therefore, this analysis had three aims. First, to assess whether it was possible to derive a discriminant function that separates Sundadont and Sinodont populations from Turner's data; second, to assess which dental traits contribute most to his separation; and third, to use the discriminant function derived from Turner's data to determine to which group (Sinodont/Sundadont) the prehispanic Mexican samples can be statistically allocated (pg. 237). In other words, the following populations were classified in the Sinodont pattern: Amur, Archaic Canada, Athapaskan, California, Eastern US/Canada, Gulf of Alaska, Hong Kong, Japan, Lake Baikal, NE Siberia, NW Canada/US, Southwest US; and in the Sundadont pattern: Burma, Early Malay, Early Mainland (SeA), Indomalaysia, Jomon, Nepal, Philippines, South China 1 and 2, South East Asia, Thai, Taiwan; and Europe was classified as a group alone (pg. 237 and 239). Again, Cholula was the only population that was classified as Sinodont. In summary, these results indicate that among New World populations there are some populations that fit the Sundadont pattern, suggesting extensive dental morphological variation among American Indians (pg. 239). Previous studies have shown that American Indian populations follow the Sinodont pattern (Scott et al., 1983; Turner, 1983, 1985a 1986a). The results of the discriminant analysis performed indicate that certain New World populations show frequencies of dental traits most consistent with the Sundadont pattern, suggesting extensive dental morphological variation among American Indians (pg. 243). Conclusions This study describes and compares the dental morphology of four prehispanic Mesoamerican populations. Two main conclusions are derived from this work: 1. Tlatilco, the oldest of the populations studied, exhibits a different dental morphology from the other Mesoamerican populations. 2. The prehispanic Mesoamerican populations follow the Sundadont dental pattern, suggesting that there is extensive dental variation among American Indian populations (pg. 243) (emphasis added AMH). Comment by the compiler The finding of the "sundadont dental pattern" in Native Central Americans could draw new light concerning shared affinities, this being; an Amerindian contribution to the formation of Polynesian populations and a diffusion of these and other genetic traits into coastal regions of southeast Asia and beyond. This lateness of the expansion of Polynesian motifs should provide an alternative explanation for "Amerindian" characteristics found in coastal Melanesia, Borneo, aboriginal Taiwanese, Madagascar, and Hawaii; (see Background, migration iii). Interior continental migrations (of recent arrivals from the coast) into Nepal (10% of the Tharu) and from Madagascar into the Zimbabwe River populations of Africa (2%) can also be used to explain the presence of the isolated genetic marker, the 9bp Deletion. The detection of the sundadont dental pattern in pre-Hispanic Mesoamericans helps identity another genetic link possibly connecting Amerindians with Polynesians and they in turn with coastal southeast Asians and they in turn with possibly aboriginal Taiwanese, and other coastal peoples. AMH (for more on this see Cann and Lum 1996 pg. of this collection) ______________________________________________________________________________ American Journal of Physical Anthropology 100:355-365, 1996 Edward D. Shields and Gregory Jones Heterochronic Quantitative Microevolution: Dental Divergence in Aboriginal Americans The dental traits were sexually dimorphic, the effect being more pronounced in aboriginal Americans, with male teeth having robust roots and thin enamel compared to the female. Southeast Asians were isometrically related. The prominence of sexual dimorphism and the importance of sex-linked genes in the determination of the dental phenotypes suggest that sexual selection was one evolutionary force acting on early Asian populations (pg. 355). ANOVA, along with plots of canonical discriminate analysis distances of the metric traits for each tooth element, showed that the population samples were easily separable, the sexes assorted by ethnic stock, and all populations were sexually dimorphic. The general impression of the overall dental phenotype given by the canonical plots is that the stocks are equally distanced (pg. 358). A fevered mind could generate numerous hypotheses, some even testable, as to how sexual selection for one seemingly unrelated trait could then influence another. This putative selective force would have subsequently been relaxed in the Southeast Asian population. If megafauna extinction (Vantanyan et al., 1993) and rapid environmental change (Allen and Anderson, 1993; Alley et al., 1993; Levesque et al., 1993; Roberts et al., 1993) were factors prior to Paleoindian immigration, environmental directional selection may have been an additional evolutionary force in the potential small founder population from which both the Paleoindians and the Western Eskimos were eventually drawn. Genetic bottlenecks and rapid population expansion and dispersion were clearly important in the genetic history of aboriginal Americans. Thus, the likelihood is high that much of the observed evolution between the American samples was the result of random genetic drift (pg. 364). Comment by the compiler I couldn't help but follow the last article suggesting "certain New World populations show frequencies of dental traits most consistent with the Sundadont pattern, suggesting extensive dental morphological variation among American Indians (Haydenblit pg. 2431996)." with this one implying virtually just the opposite. SOUTH AMERICA ______________________________________________________________________________ Science, Vol. 273, pp 709-840, August 9, 1996 Fidias E. Leon-S., Amparo Ariza-Deleon, Martha E. Leon-S., and Adriana Ariza-C. Peopling the Americas (_?_) Our contribution, however, would seem to go further than that because we have pointed out that transpacific routes from Asia, and more specifically from Japonesia, toward South America could be important in understanding the differences between North American and South American Natives (SAN) (1). People with the so-called "new" (according to Parham and Ohta) allele, such as the Cayapa or Chachi from Ecuador, also display an aldehyde dehydrogenase deficiency that is molecularly similar to that found in Southeast Asian and Japanese people, but absent in Northeast Asians (2). Curiously, HTLV-I strains from Japan are related in their molecular structure to those found in South America (for example, Chile, Colombia, and Brazil), and HTLV-II present in SAN and in some Japanese groups is also absent in the far eastern part of Siberia (3). On the other hand, the a-globin gene haplotype distributed in SAN—similar to that observed in Southeast Asian and Pacific Island populations—does not have a-globin gene deletions, and this suggests that malaria was not present in the ancient SAN (4). Further similarities in major histocompatibility complex type I (MHC-I), as well as type II, haplotypes and in mitochondrial DNA are observed in Japanese, Pacific (for example, Polynesians), and SAN (for example, Mapuches) populations, but are absent in the far eastern part of Siberia (5). These similarities add strength to the proposal that ancient voyagers could follow the Pacific sea currents that join Japan to South America, as well as other routes (1). Peter Parham Response The theory of transpacific contacts expounded by Leon-S. and his colleagues (1, 2) holds that genetic differences observed between North and South American Natives may in part stem from an ancient admixture of the SAN with sea voyagers from the south of Japan. In the course of examining the HLA class I data, we have periodically confronted this possibility. For example, A*0211, which was first discovered in a Southeast Asian individual (3) and then found in the Guarani Amerindians of Brazil (4), initially provided a candidate for an allele that had arrived in South America by transpacific contact. The potential for recombination between HLA class I alleles and genes makes it likely, perhaps inevitable, that certain recombinant alleles have been formed independently in different populations. In such instances, the sharing of an allele would be the result of convergent evolution and not shared descent. The many linked, highly polymorphic genes of the HLA complex provide the potential for resolving the issues of time and place of population admixture that go well beyond simple observations of allele sharing. Comment by the compiler The motifs linking the populations in southeast Asia with those from the New World could represent Amerindian (Polynesian) migrations into Asia. The FACT that numerous similarities exist does not, nor should not, predetermine that the relationship stems from movements of Asians into the Americas when it might better fit a model of Amerindian movements into, in this case, Polynesia and southeast Asia (iii). As discussed earlier migrations from Polynesia into coastal expanses of the Old World provide an alternative explanation for source populations that may have admixed with earlier founding populations. Where islands are concerned the preservation of pre-existing populations following Polynesian contact can be demonstrated as a dichotomy between genetic markers in earlier and later populations can be confirmed. The examples best identifying this occurrence are found in studies differentiating Highland Populations in Borneo and New Guinea and as well, Australian Aborigines from coastal groups. Here the original Pleistocene populations are seen as remnant populations surviving the coastal pressures of later arriving people, migratory Polynesians. Taiwanese aboriginals may be primarily Polynesians and not a mostly remnant Pleistocene population, while in Madagascar, 70% of the population is Polynesian and 30% African in there mtDNAs, this because the Polynesians were the first to people Madagascar, an island that lies nearly 800 miles from the African coast. AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ Karen Olsen Bruhns Ancient South America Latin American Antiquity [Vol. 6 No. 4,1996] Reviewed by Thomas F. Lynch When she is not so good, it seems almost deliberate, as in chapter 18, "Intercontinental Movements before Columbus." Here Bruhns is one-sided, even polemical, nearly branding all diffusionism as racist. Perhaps this is in reaction to editorial insistence that she say something about all those fascinating ideas on early oceanic traffic. Such reaction would be an understandable, if naughty, response to an editor who confused the Guiana Highlands with the Guinea region of western Africa throughout chapter 3 (pg. 375). Comment by the compiler An ongoing problem that persists within academia, one that retards the exploration of potentially viable alternatives, is that one must conform to the consensus or suffer the pains of unbridled ridicule. AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ Marta M. Lahr Who Were the First Americans? Mammoth Trumpet - October 1996 There's an argument going on regarding whether the eastern and western populations of Tierra del Fuego represent two separate dispersals, or whether their differences were acquired from an original point of colonization. The western group, the canoe Indians, are relatively more gracile, and there were important differences in terms of subsistence strategy, and the two populations were virtually isolated from each other. This argument still goes on, and really until there is material with associated dates that cover the Holocene, I don't believe the issue will be resolved. From the recent bones, I'd say they represent the same population that has acquired certain differences in place (pg. 5-6). For me, the actual source of the ancestors of Amerindians within Asia is still unknown. Along the Asian Pacific Coast there were generalized Mongoloid populations that could have been a source for the Paleoindians. From more mainland areas, there were typical Mongoloid populations that could have been the source for such groups in the Americas. And, from Mongolia, in late-Pleistocene times, there were populations with Eurasian affinities that could have been yet another source, as the metric analyses of W.W. Howells and the genetic analyses of L.L. Cavalli-Sforza would point out. It should be noted, however, that other morphological and genetic sources don't point to a Eurasian contribution in the makeup of Amerindians (pg. 6). I have no strong feelings about the timing of entry to the Americas, and at the time I drew those maps I thought the evidence from Pedra Furada was pretty strong. I have since been told by several people that it is really not enough to make a case, and I have been treating the colonization of the Americas as a process of the last 15,000-12,000 years. The morphology can be accommodated either way (pg. 6). Comment by the compiler (emphasis added) There exists in the American Indians a great deal of variance in cranial morphology. Do references to Eurasian or Asian types indicate primogenitor continental similarities due to small founding populations? If individual New World tribal affinities are as variant as many have come to believe then one could suppose greater time depth for geographic locals with the differences evidence of great time depth. This is concordant with linguistic isolates separating regional population differentiation. We will find in this -- and my earlier compilation -- that dental, genetic, and linguistic data can be seen to support individual differences where geographically isolated population retains a unique set of differences. Ryk Ward et al. (1991) suggested that the discovery of "extensive genetic diversity" represented in his published study of the mtDNAs of the Nu-Chal-Nulth was not unique to them in that the still unpublished data on the Maya mtDNA suggests that they too maintained extensive genetic mtDNA diversity. AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ Alan L. Bryan Praehistoria No. 1 Latin American Antiquity [Vol. 6 No. 4, 1996] Obsidian, basalt, chert, and other exotic stones had been carried into the cave. In a separate analysis of the flaking debris from the lowest component, Estela Cuneo, on the basis of her identification of bifacial thinning flakes, suggests that the occupants had made bifacial preforms and projectile points; but the lack of broken bifaces seems odd. The nearby Cueva Cuyin Manzano yielded a few retouched flakes and scrapers, but no finished bifacial artifacts in the oldest deposits dated between 10,000 and 8,000 B.P. Rita Ceballos (El Sitio Cuyin Manzano, Serie Estudios y Documentos, No. 9, Centro de Investigaciones Cientificas de Rio Negro, Viedma, Argentina, 1982) was most likely correct when she suggested that the earliest occupants of the region fashioned only unifacial artifacts (pg. 374). Comment by the compiler Stone tool hunting industries developed later in the New world then it did in the Old World. This is consistent with my believe that the subsistence strategies found in the American mid-Pleistocene was not descendent of an Old World industry but that the sophistication derived from mans exploration of the Old World was isolated by the geographic barrier that did not wane until the end of the last Ice Age. AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ M.A. Zago, M.H. Tavella, B.P. Simoes, R.F. Franco, J.F. Guerreiro and S.B. Santos Racial Heterogeneity of DNA Polymorphisms Linked to the A and the O Alleles of the ABO Blood Group Gene (pgs. 67-72) Some restriction sites described here re common for the A and O alleles, indicating that they may predate the A-O divergence, while other polymorphisms may be more recent since they are different fro the two alleles (pg. 70). The demonstration of polymorphisms linked to the ABO blood group in Amerindians is of additional interest, since these populations have only O blood group (Roychoudhury & Nei, 1988). We have recently demonstrated that the O mutation observed in Indians is the same that predominates among Caucasoids and Blacks, i.e. a single-nucleotide deletion in the glycosyltransferase gene (France et al. 1994). Our present results reveal that the O allele is polymorphic among the Indians, and the two haplotypes have different frequencies from those observed among Caucasians (pg. 71). Comment by the compiler The scenario that best fits the explanation I endorse is; that the ancestral condition for our species was the O blood group. That Old World people would develop new polymorphisms linked to the ABO blood groups would follow the logical expansion of our species into a new set of environments, i. e., the continents of the Old World. The adaptations secured in the Old World could have led to resistance's not accumulated in the ancestral populations of the new World. In the same vain, the polymorphisms already present in an isolated population' might arrive into another hemisphere, unwelcome, and, as a result, might have led to the extinction of that worlds original Hominid populations. I am referring here to an accidental cause for the inevitable extinction of Homo erectus populations that may have resulted from an exodus of Homo sapiens from the Americas. AMH SIBERIA ______________________________________________________________________________ Maureen L. King and Sergei B. Slobodin A Fluted Point from the Uptar Site, Northeastern Siberia Science Vol. 273, pgs. 234-236 The earliest firmly documented tradition in the New World, the Paleoindian tradition (11,200 to 8500 years B.P.), begins with a distinctive series of fluted lanceolate bifacial points. Data from northeastern Siberia are too few to indicate much about the colonization of Beringia (3); however, the earliest firmly documented tradition in eastern Siberia (the Upper Paleolithic Diuktai culture from the Aldan basin, 35,000 to 10,000 years B.P.) (4) is thought (5-7) to bear little resemblance to Paleoindian traditions. The origin of fluting has been controversial and involves a debate not only about the source of a distinctive technology, but also about the peopling of the Americas (8) (pg. 634). One of the bifaces is a fluted point (Figs. 3 and 4). The point is finished, although there is a lateral fracture across the blade. This break occurred sometime after the flute was removed. The two fragments were found directly beneath the tephra and were ~ 4 m apart. A longitudinal channel flake scar on one face of the point extends from the base to just below the tip where it terminates in a stepfracture. The channel flake appears to have been removed with sufficient force to cause most of the platform to collapse and to detach a small flake on the reverse face. Additional damage is evident at the tip, but this is recent. Although the Uptar collection shares some affinities with early Beringian complexes, it does not fit squarely within any of them. The presence of lanceolate points offers a tempting link with the Paleoindian tradition in the Americas. However, the morphology of the points does not fit the classic Paleoindian form: they are smaller in size and lack grinding on the edges and base. Furthermore, other elements of the Paleoindian tool kit are lacking (for example, gravers). Comment by the compiler The dominant paradigm that continues to be tested is the Asian origin for Paleoindian Traditions. The alternative explanation, that is striving to be fully tested, is a northern movement into deglaciating North America of populations who developed Paleoindian tradition from within the Americas. ______________________________________________________________________________ M. Ilyas Kamboh, Michael H. Crawford, Christopher E. Aston, and William R. Leonard. Population Distributions of APOE, APOH, and APOA4 Polymorphisms and Their Relationships with Quantitative Plasma Lipid Levels among the Evenki Herders of Siberia The complete absence of the APOA4*2 allele, which is a unique marker of white populations, provides further evidence that the Evenki are genetically isolated from other population groups of Russia. The near complete absence of the APOA4*2 allele in aboriginal populations of America has been noted previously (Kamboh et al. 1991; De Knijff et al. 1992). A relatively high frequency of the APOH*3, APOA4 HincII -, and APOA4 insertion alleles in the Evenki may have been attained through genetic drift. ______________________________________________________________________________The Four Founding Lineage Hypothesis for the New World: A Critical Reevaluation, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, Vol. 5, No. 1, February, pp. 241-246, 1996. D. Andrew Merriwether and Robert E. Ferrell The four lineages can be defined as follows (see Table 1): lineage A by a HaeIII site gain at nt 663; lineage B by a 9-bp deletion between the genes for cytochrome oxidase II and the tRNA for lysine; lineage C by a HincII site loss at nt13259 and an AluI site gain at nt13262; and lineage D by an AluI site loss at nt 5176. The mutations defining lineages A and B are largely Asian-specific, while those defining lineages C and D are found in both Asian and non-Asian populations. The mutations for lineages C and D are Asian-specific when accompanied by an AluI site gain at nt 10397 and a DdeI site gain at nt 10394. More recently, Bailliet et al. (1994), Bianchi and Rothhammer (1995), and Merriwether et al. (1994) have suggested that lineages A, C, and D may be broken into A1, A2, C1, C2, D1, and D2 by the presence or absence of a HaeIII cut at nt 16517 and that all these variants entered the New World, and not just one representative of each haplogroup as suggested by Torroni et al. (1992a, 1993a,b; Torroni and Wallace, 1995). p. 241 One can see in Fig. 2 that many of the populations have all four founding lineage types (a number even have all of the subtypes) and that all types can be found in North, Central, and South America. Multiple lineage variants are found in all three putative waves of migration (Amerind, NaDene, and Eskaleut). We believe that this distribution is most consistent with a single wave of migration. It is neither realistic nor parsimonious to believe that the same lineages ended up in all these populations, across two continents, by two, three, or more separate migrations. Further, Merriwether (1993) demonstrated that there was little or no gene flow between many of the Chilean and Peruvian samples in this study, indicating that there is considerable population structure in many New World populations, inconsistent with a panmictic model of Amerindian variation and dispersal. Therefore, the data can best be interpreted to support a model where a single migration peopled the New World (p. 245). Because lineage B is absent from Siberian populations, and virtually absent from Alaskan populations, we do not find Siberia to be a likely home for the founding population for the New World. We hypothesize that the founding population for the New World should have had all these major variants, and that the present day descendent population in Asia which has the highest percentage of New World haplotypes is the best choice for the founding population (p. 245). Comment by the compiler The choice of reflecting on witch direction gene flow emanates can be challenged here by adopting Boas' "Eskimo wedge theory" (1905, 1910). By this, it is implied that Native Americans migrated north throughout the Holocene. The evidence for the presence of people south of the Ice Sheets 12,000 years ago must be entertained. The genetic evidence could be seen to dovetail with this direction in gene flow considering that (1) evidence for isolation is likely and (2) that the intersecting of post Ice Age populations was set primarily west of the Bering Strait. Simply put, in adopting the mtDNA findings into Franz Boas' theory, we find that Amerindian migrations into Siberia should not be just entertained, but endorsed. (All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH) AFRICA ______________________________________________________________________________ mtDNA Control-Region Sequence Variation Suggests Multiple Independent Origins of an "Asian-Specific" 9-bp Deletion in Sub-Saharan Africans, Am. J. Hum. Genet., 1996, pgs. 595-608. Himla Soodyall, Linda Vigilant, Adrian V. Hill, Mark Stoneking, and Trefor Jenkins One wave of migration, associated with western Bantu culture, is thought to have arisen in the region of the Cameroon grassland ~1600-700 B.C., before spreading to parts of west-central Africa and southwestern Africa (Vansina 1984). If the 9-bp deletion was present in the founding population of western Bantu-speakers, then we would expect to find the deletion in southwestern Africa populations tested (fig. 1). However, the 9-bp deletion is rarely found in southwestern African and western African populations (fig. 1), suggesting that the deletion was not present in the Bantu homeland prior to the Bantu expansion. The presence of the deletion in some western Africans (Merriwether et al. 1994) could be due to recent gene flow or an independent origin of the deletion (p. 605). In conclusion, the 9-bp deletion in sub-Saharan Africans and that in Asians have different origins, and, in fact, several lines of evidence suggest that the deletion arose in Africa more than once. The distribution and the frequencies of the 9-bp deletion in sub-Saharan African populations suggest that its spread in Africa may be due to the recent "Bantu expansion." The 9-bp deletion, in conjunction with control-region sequence data, should thus be a useful mtDNA marker for examining the routes of migration of Bantu-speakers that have been hypothesized on the basis of linguistic and archaeological evidence (p. 606). Comment by the compiler The Bantu have been linked with Phoenician Mediterranean populations while this sumation should not surprise readers of my work; that Phoenicians could be related to Polynesians since Phoenicians are known as the "People of the Sea" and the Polynesians Motif is found in the first people to settle Madagascar. That the background for African populations with the Polynesian motif is not indicative of other more direct Melanesian subset of mtDNAs is intriguing. The consequences of admixture in Africa and Asia, for expanding Polynesian populations, should be entertained. (All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH) ______________________________________________________________________________ Diagenesis of bone from Border Cave: implications for the age of the Border Cave hominids, Journal of Human Evolution, 31, 1996, pps. 499-506 Andrew Sillen and Alan Morris The Middle Stone Age (MSA) sequence at Border Cave (KwaZulu/Natal, South Africa) has been purported to contain very early examples of anatomically modern Homo sapiens (amHs), supporting the idea that anatomically and behaviorally modern people appeared first in Africa (Beaumont et al, 1978; Rightmire, 1979). A number of specimens are central to this argument including BC3, the well-preserved skeleton of an infant recovered in 1941 from a burial associated with MSA layers (Cooke et al., 1945), and BC5, an anatomically modern mandible also associated with the MSA excavated in 1974 (Beaumont et al., 1978; Beaumont, 1980; de Villiers, 1976). The bearing of these and other Border Cave hominids on the timing and location of the emergence of amHs depends upon the demonstration that they are of the same age as the sediments from which they were derived. Some investigators have argued that BC3 and BC 5 are somewhat better preserved than faunal remains from the MSA layers of Border Cave, suggesting that the human specimens might be derived from more recent intrusive burials (Klein, 1989; Parkington, 1990). Unfortunately efforts to directly date the BC5 mandible using AMS 14C dating have been unsuccessful because of insufficient collagen (Stringer, pers. comm.). (p. 499) Comment by the compiler The evidence of "more recent intrusive burials" for the Border Cave amHs samples parallel's similar findings of amHs from Klaisies River Mouth in southern Africa. This is worth noting. Contrarily, the indications of intrusion for evidence of human hearths and fingerprints in New Mexico's Pendejo Cave is readily implied but far from proven. In contrasting these examples; the implications for a 90 to 200 ky presence for modern human occupations in the Old World are widely publicized (though scholars have "critiqued the evidence of the consensus view") while comparable definitive proof of mid-Pleistocene Amerindian occupations are incontrovertibly brushed aside. Perhaps the presence of people in the Americas before they can be proven to be in the Old World (i. e. > 45 ky) is relevant and worthy of further scientific scrutiny into the significance such an occupation might warrant evolutionary theory. (All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH) ______________________________________________________________________________Race and Three Models of Human Origin, American Anthropologist, Vol. 97, No. 2, June 1995, pgs. 231-240. Leonard Lieberman and Fatimah Linda C. Jackson Studies of several Y-specific sequences (using polymorphic DNA probes) suggest that the smallest allele represents the original form of any sequence in question. The diminutive Bi-aka people of Central Africa were found to have retained the least derived (and hence most ancestral) form of the many Y-chromosome polymorphisms currently expressed in world populations (p. 235). End -1-12-2020 ______________________________________________________________________________ Current Anthropology, Vol. 27, No. 1, February 1986 pgs. 56-62 Ronald Singer and John Wymer On Binford on Klasies River Mouth: Response of the Excavators In his Faunal Remains from Klasies River Mouth, Binford (1984) aims at "evaluating the relative roles of scavenging versus hunting in the subsistence tactics of ancient hominids," in this case the populations of the Tzitzikama Coast of South Africa in the Late Pleistocene. With an attitude of "healthy skepticism" he has questioned and contradicted the conclusions of Klein (1976) and considers these people of the South African Middle Stone Age not efficient hunters of large game but in a transitional stage between a virtual reliance on scavenging and the development of elementary hunting techniques that at least allowed them to take small antelopes. This is a surprising conclusion, but, as he stresses, our surprise may be conditioned by more than a century of equating in our thoughts "ancient man" and "man the hunter." Perhaps it is true, and our ancestors were not truly equipped to bring down the larger mammals, including elephant, until the relatively sophisticated times of the Upper Palaeolithic. Alternatively, as the sharp-tongued Oliver Wendell Holmes expressed it in considering a person's self-adjudged genius, "the contrary is, of course, possible (pg. 56)." In the process of looking at the contexts of the faunal remains, Binford has (1) turned the stratigraphical sequence virtually upside down, (2) rejected the early date for the mandibular fragment of Homo sapiens sapiens, and (3) cast doubt on the ability of the Middle Stone Age knappers to make and use formidable projectile points. We think that he is wrong in doing so, and, clearly, on the first item his study stands or falls. We will take the three points in turn, recognizing that unless one consults our excavation report (Singer and Wymer 1982) much of the reference to particular parts of the site or archaeological levels and assemblages will be difficult to follow. We hope that serious students will not take our word or Binford's but check for themselves (pg. 56). 2. The early date for H. sapiens sapiens. The above discussion vindicates the assignment of a very early date to a gracile mandible of H. sapiens sapiens in Layer 10 of Shelter 1B, in fact the earliest date for modern man so far from any site in the world and one corroborated to some extent by the material from Border Cave (Butzer, Beaumont, and Vogel 1978, De Villiers 1976). Thus we reject Binford's statement (p. 242) that "there is simply no factual basis for any claims for great antiquity of the gracile human remains nor of the industrial facies called Howieson's Poort (pg. 56)." Reply by Lewis R. Binford They present this property of the lithic assemblage as diagnostic of MSA I in spite of the fact that it occurs in Level 24 of Shelter 1A, which is classified as MSA II. I think it should be clear that they do so simply because they consider the bottom levels of Cave 1 and Shelter 1B roughly contemporary. In short, they select this property to warrant their position; it is not an independent fact demonstrating a temporal trend. We see here the operation of an assumption accepted as being "true" by the excavators, namely, that contemporary archaeological remains should be similar (pg. 57). It should also be noted that shifts in proportional frequencies of denticulates and scrapers have repeatedly been shown not to be indicative of general temporal trends in early archaeological contexts (Volman 1981). Against this knowledge, should we uncritically accept this fact in support of the argument that the original chronological proposals of Singer and Wymer are the most probable? The rational answer to this question must be a resounding no; to do so would be to commit the logical fallacy of the affirmation of the consequent (pg. 58). They assert that my chronological suggestions are based on "theoretical faunal seriation" and a higher 18O/16O ratio "on one shell" from Shelter 1B. The faunal seriation to which they refer is, however, not "theoretical"; it is controlled by the stratigraphy of Cave 1. Because Shelter 1B is not stratigraphically related to Cave 1, the only way to estimate its age is to compare its formal properties with properties of other assemblages whose chronology is controlled in a stratigraphically documented sequence, and I did just that for the relative proportions of bush-loving species versus grassland-loving species (Binford 1984:43). Moreover, as I have pointed out, the 18O/16O value for the only specimen tested from Shelter 1B does not correspond to the values obtained from other specimens submitted in order to date the MSA I assemblage and would as easily fit a sea-temperature condition after the Howieson's Poort occupation of Shelter 1A. That the Shelter 1B specimen was lumped with the MSA 1 suggests that the only criterion for dating the Shelter 1B materials was the fact that they rested on the same shingle beach notch as the Cave 1 sequence. It is almost an archaeological truism that when geologically dated surfaces are used as chronological indicators, nothing predating the formation of the surface should occur on the surface but anything postdating the formation could occur on that surface. This fact is not inconsistent with a Howieson's Poort-MSA III dating for the Shelter 1B deposits, and there is no compelling reason to accept the deposits as having accumulated contemporaneously with other deposits resting on similar surfaces. The excavators have assumed a continuous period of accumulation for the entire Klasies River Mouth site despite the fact that in their site description they recognize a phase of weathering of undetermined duration at Level 13a (Singer and Wymer 1982:24-25). The chronological lumping of stratigraphically distinct levels without analytical justification is a questionable strategy at best (pg. 61). There is no demonstrable trend in the frequency of trimmed butts unless one first assumes a date for the Shelter 1B materials; relative frequencies of scrapers versus denticulates are notoriously unreliable as chronological indicators in other known sequences; and the simple analogous placement of deposits on a common surface does not indicate contemporaneity. I therefore conclude that all the evidence based on demonstrable trends (judged as reliable temporal indicators) through the Klasies stratigraphic units yields a consistent and reinforcing pattern in which Shelter 1B fits between Howieson's Poort and MSA III (pg. 61). The fascinating Howieson's Poort assemblage yielded (in some of its expressions) tool forms that are generally unknown worldwide from assemblages dating prior to 35,000. Even more surprising is the occurrence of some tool forms that are generally unknown from most other parts of the world prior to 20,000 years ago. If future research sustains (a) that Howieson's Poort is a temporal "phase" and not an alternating facies within a variable Middle Stone Age suite of assemblages and (b) that this "phase" is dated prior to 35,000 years ago, these findings will be surprising in and of themselves. In my book I suggested that the climatic interpretations of faunal frequencies that have been both used to date sites (given a vague and conflicting understanding of climatic changes through the last glacial era) and cited in support of Butzer's environmental interpretations were quite likely to be erroneous, since the shifts in faunal frequency at Klasies River Mouth were related to directional changes in the way hominids exploited animals in their subsistence and not a direct reflection of climatic events as had been supposed. The interpretive problems that have been created by the uncritical acceptance of propositions regarding the absolute age and the relative chronology at Klasies River Mouth will not quickly be resolved. I cannot help but be surprised by the excavators' suggestion as to how this resolution might be achieved: by my digging the remnant deposits. First, this is already being done by Jannett and Hillary Deacon. More important, further excavation is not the answer. The problems we face have arisen from the meanings assigned to archaeogological facts by the excavators and their research collaborators. Collecting more archaeological facts does not impact the important act of inference, upon which depends the conversion of archaeological observations into statements of absolute age, the relative chronological placement of stratigraphically unrelated deposits, and the meanings given to frequency variations in artifacts, fauna, and molluscs. Those meanings are given by us, and their accuracy is dependent on how we use knowledge, on our general understanding, and on the state of the middle-range research to which we appeal for justification of our interpretations (pg. 61-62). Comment by the compiler The primary reason I bring to this discussion Africa's Klaisies River mouth site is that it is often identified as the quintessential early occupation for Homo sapiens sapiens in Africa. Accepting the evidence of a modern human occupation as defined by the Howieson's Poort Industry is not a matter of dispute. However, what is disputed is the evidence behind suggesting that this occupation dates to 90 thousand y.b.p. Binford addressed this and other issues in his 1984 book, Faunal Remains from Klaisies River Mouth and in his "Response here to the excavators response to his book.. Binford and Singer and Wymer both identify that the HP Industry is a true example of modern human behaviors while contesting that this occupation is no more than a contemporary to modern human occupations of Europe or evidence for modern humans in Africa 50 thousand years earlier. Binford and others, including Parkington 1989, have challenged the "consensus view" that, following Singer and Wymers 1982 publication, would ask readers to accept an earlier time frame for modern man in southern Africa then can be truly established by archaeological evidence (90,000 y.b.p.). Binford and others have successfully established that Homo erectus was still occupying the site 36,000 y.b.p., while identifying that the modern human jaw bone found in the, supposed, earlier contexts was most likely the result of intrusion or mixing of Homo erectus' Middle Paleolithic with the more recent modern human' Later Stone Age archaeological contexts. I would find that the original excavators C-14 dating of the HPI levels, are a reliable indicators of the modern human occupation's actual age, this being between 36,200 and 26,400 years ago. While conservative archaeologists are inclined to dismiss mid-Pleistocene occupations in the Americas we are, alternatively, less critical of earlier dates for modern human occupations from the Old World. Is there evidence of bias? This example is offered as case in point. AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ Francisco J. Ayala and Ananias A. Escalante MOLECULAR PHYLOGENETICS AND EVOLUTION Vol. 5, No. 1, February, pp. 188-201, 1996 The Evolution of Human Populations: A Molecular Perspective We evaluate studies of mtDNA, Y-chromosome, and microsatellite autosomal polymorphisms and conclude that they are consistent with the MHC result that no narrow population bottlenecks have occurred in human evolution. The available molecular information favors a recent African origin of modern humans, who spread out of Africa approximately 100,000 to 200,000 years ago (pg. 188). The HLA Complex The human leucocyte antigene (HLA) complex consists of about 100 genes located in chromosome 6, within a DNA segment of four million bp in length. The HLA genes specify molecules with a critical role in tissue compatibility and the defense against foreign substances. These genes are arranged in two distinct groups, class I and class II, separated by several score genes that have functions mostly unrelated to the immune response (Fig. 1) (pg. 188). The HLA complex is homologous to the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) of mammals and other vertebrates (Kaufman et al., 1995; McDevitt, 1995; Schwaiger and Epplen, 1995). MHC molecules present on the surfaces of certain cells bind fragments of proteins (antigens) and present them to thymus-derived lymphocytes (T cells) expressing T-cell receptors on their surfaces. The clone of T lymphocytes that bear receptors matching a particular combination of protein fragment and MHC molecule is stimulated, by the contact with the antigen-presenting cells, to proliferate and to initiate the specific arm of the immune response, including the secretion of specific antibodies. The MHC molecules thus protect against pathogens and parasites in general (pg. 188). Some proponents of this African replacement model argue further that the transition of archaic to modern H. sapiens was associated with a very narrow bottleneck, consisting of only two or very few individuals who are the ancestors of all modern mankind. This proposal is buttressed by an interpretation of mitochondrial DNA analysis showing that the diverse mitochondrial DNA sequences found in modern humans coalesce to one ancestral sequence, the "mitochondrial Eve" or "mother of us all," that existed in Africa about 200,000 years ago (Cann et al., 1987; Stoneking et al., 1990; Vigilant et al., 1991). This conclusions has been challenged on grounds concerning (i) whether the coalescence is to Africa, (ii) the time of the coalescence, and (iii) the inference of a population bottleneck (e.g., Templeton, 1992) (pg. 195). (All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH) EUROPE ______________________________________________________________________________ A View of the Neolithic Demic Diffusion in Europe through Two Y Chromosome-Specific Markers, Am. J. Hum. Genet. 59:, 1996, pps. 964-968. Ornella Semino, Guiseppe Passarino, Agnese Brga, Marc Fellous, and A. Silvana Santachiara-Benerecetti By performing principal components analysis on numerous classical markers, synthetic maps were constructed for Europe and the Near East (Menozzi et al., 1978), which show the Near East as the center of concentric clines of decreasing gene frequencies and give value to the theory of demic spread of agriculture. Further support to this theory is given by a large population survey we carried out on some Y-specific polymorphisms. Two markers have been found, the distribution of which illustrate well the process of "wave of advance." p. 964 This makes the 8-kb allele an indictor of the neolithic demic diffusion of the farming culture in Europe. It is worth noticing that, outside Europe, this allele was only found in areas where migrations from the Near East took place, (Tunsia and Algeria for the Phoenician migration, India for the Indo-European, and Ethiopia for that of Geeze speakers) (Renfrew 1989; Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994). On the other hand, the 49a,f/TaqI-Ht15, which is only sporadically found outside Europe, shows a gradient of frequencies opposite in direction to that of the 8-kb allele, having its maximum value in northwestern Europeans. The geographic distribution of this haplotype is quite similar to the first sinthetic map for Europe, which, according to Cavalli-Sforza et al. (1994), is that of the preneolithic European gene pool. It is intriguing that its highest frequency (60%) was observed among Basques (Santachiara-Benercecetti et al. 1994), a very ancient European population that has been in the present place for a long time, evading contact with neolithic and subsequent migrations (Aranzadi 1889; Boshc-Gimpera 1943; Cavalli-Sforza 1988; Piazza 1988; Bertranpetit and Cavalli Sforza 1991). The 49a,f-Ht 15 can therefore be considered a proto-European haplotype, which was diluted by the gradual mixing with the neolithic newcomers. It is worth noticing that in ~300 observations of Ht15 we have never found this haplotype on Y chromosomes carrying the p12f2-8-kb allele. In conclusion, this study has revealed two distinct Y-chromosome markers, the p12f2-8-kb allele, specific to Caucasoids and the 49a,f-Ht 15, specific to Europeans, which are valuable to detect genetic admixtures. They show an opposite gradient of frequencies from the Near East to western Europe, illustrating well the "wave of advance" of the Neolithic demic expansion in Europe. Moreover, the haploid condition of the Y chromosome, and therefore the absence of recombination, makes the proto-European Ht 15 an important tool in evaluating the contribution of European paleolithic males in the present day populations in Europe (p. 966-967). Comment by the compiler The expansion into Europe may have originated from Asia and not Africa. This conclusion can find archaeological support in the development of more refined Paleolithic tools across the Russian steep westward as the upper Paleolithic become it's distinctive self. Subsequent admixture during the Neolithic might have gone either direction when considering pre-Neolithic expansion of Upper paleolithic Europeans into northeast Asia. AMH ______________________________________________________________________________The First Europeans, Archaeology, January/February 1996, pps. 36-44. Jean-Jacques Hublin Neandertal skulls and mandibles display a singular morphology. Although some of their features can occasionally be found in other hominids, the combination of characteristic traits is unique. European Neandertals are rather short and sturdy, with a long trunk and short legs. The skeleton is robust, and the muscle attachments imply a powerful body. The head is remarkable. It is big, enclosing a brain comparable in volume to that of modern humans, but the braincase and face are very long, the forehead is low, and the browridges protrude. The mandible is strong and lacks a projecting chin. Seen from the rear, the braincase has a rounded, almost circular shape in contrast to the pentagonal shape observed in both the earlier Homo erectus and modern humans. The face is structured around a large nasal cavity, and its middle part projects forward. The bone below the eye socket is flat or even convex, receding laterally. The cheekbones are weak and oriented obliquely. This projecting face contrasts strongly with the short, flat face of the first modern humans. Other anatomical details of the ear area and rear and base of the skull are unique to Neandertals. The occipital bone, at the back of the skull, is marked by a conspicuous depression called the supra-iniac fossa (p. 38). The long biological continuity is echoed in the archaeological record. For nearly a century, archaeologists separated the Middle Palaeolithic (then thought to be limited to between 80,000 and 40,000 B.P.) from an earlier, more primitive Lower Palaeolithic. With the excavation and study of new sites, this boundary has become more and more difficult to draw. In contrast, the arrival of modern humans in Europe is reflected in the sharp division between the Middle Palaeolithic and the beginning of the Upper Palaelothic (ca. 40,000 B.P.). The former, mainly represented by the Mousterian assemblages, are basically composed of side-scrapers, points, notches, and denticulates shaped from flint flakes. Bone objects are rare and very simple. The dwelling sites do not seem very structured. In the Upper Paleolithic there is a large variety of flint tools, many shaped from elongated blades and bladelets. There are numerous bone and antler objects, especially spear points. It is the time of prehistoric art, of symbolism, of well-structured dwellings. It is quite likely the time of a new social organization (p. 43). Comment by the compiler Recent verification of an old theme. Contriving amHs from these earlier European inhabitants is definitively more procrustean then is my theory that attempts to unify human origins to the Americas by supposing relative continuity of form over time in accordance with theories proposed by A. R. Wallace and Sir Arthur Keith. AMH (All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH) ______________________________________________________________________________Sequence Diversity of the Control Region of Mitochondrial DNA in Tuscany and Its Implications for the Peopling of Europe, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 1996, pps. 443-460. Paolo Francalacci, Jaume Bertranpetit, Francesc Calafell, and Peter A. Underhill The results from various independent approaches point to a remarkable homogeneity among several European populations, namely Basques, Sardinians and Britons, but also reveal some differences caused by the geographic location and cultural past which have influenced their population history. As shown by different parameters (average number of individuals per haplotype and diversity coefficient, H'), the variability among individuals in Tuscany is intermediate between the more variable Middle Easterners and the European populations mentioned, the Basques having the lowest degree of heterogeneity. p. 457 The pattern found is compatible with the effects of a migration wave originating in the Middle East and reaching distant places in Europe including the western part and the islands. This pattern of expansion has been proposed with a very clear archaeological basis for the Neolithic expansion (Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza, 1984) and for the expansion of anatomically modern humans, inferred from paleoanthropoligical data (Stringer, 1989) (p. 458). (All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH) ______________________________________________________________________________Treasure of the Sierra Atapuerca, Archaeology, January/February 1996, pps. 45-48. Paul g. Bahn These bones represent about 90 percent of all pre-Neandertal bones ever found in Europe, and they provide an extraordinary chance for specialists to study such early humans. They seem to have been robust, with males between five feet, seven inches and more than six feet tall and weighing an average of about 140 pounds. The teeth are very worn from chewing plants, but there are not cavities and overall the bones show very few signs of illness or trauma. The remains include three remarkably well preserved skulls, found in July 1992, with large Neandertal-like browridges and projecting faces, though very different from Neandertals in overall shape. One skull has a capacity of 1,390 cubic centimeters, which is bigger than Homo erectus and early Homo sapiens and lies within the range (1,200-1,700 cubic centimeters) of modern populations (p. 48). Comment by the compiler Highlighted are examples of terms that have lumped inappropriately, anatomically modern humans with earlier European hominids that are certainly, in the view of most anthropologists, not the same species. Wolpoff would like us to lump all the hominids together into one taxonomy when the differences definitively confirm that we are anatomically and behaviorally, a separate species. (All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH) ______________________________________________________________________________Neandertals of the Levant, Archaeology, January/February 1996, pps. 49-50. Erella Hovers, Yoel Rak, and William H. Kimbel Base of infant Neandertal skull from Amud Cave, Israel, has oval foramen magnum, though which the spinal cord passed, a genetic characteristic indicating Neandertals did not evolve into modern humans, whose foramen magnum is round (p. 49). In the past decade innovative dating techniques have shattered the belief that Neandertals were precursors of modern humans. We now know that modern humans existed in Skhul and Qafzeh caves as long as 120,000 to 90,000 years ago, while the Neandertal skeleton from Kebara Cave dates to only 60,000 years ago. What was the relationship between the two groups? How different were they biologically? What were their behavioral differences and similarities? We began excavating at Amud in 1991, hoping to answer these questions (p. 50). We discovered the Amud infant during our second field season. The child's remains bear classic Neandertal traits. First, it has no chin. Second, the foramen magnum, the large hole at the base of the skull through which the spinal cord and blood vessels pass, is oval. This trait appears to be accentuated in Neandertal babies, less so in mature individuals, but in both cases it differs from the round foramen magnum of modern humans. Third, masticatory muscles left massive insertion marks on the inside of the jaws in a pattern characteristic of adult Neandertals in the Levant and Europe, but not found in modern humans (p. 50). Comment by the compiler I and others beg to differ that we "now know that modern human existed in Skhul and Qafzeh caves as long ago as 120,000 to 90,000 years ago" when "Continued facial reference to Skhul and Qafzeh as craniometrically 'fully anatomically modern' is not responsible to the craniometric data (Corruccini 1992 pg. 437)" as it is confusing to everyone, both layman and specialist - to infer that they are the same species as our own by referring to them as early amHs, proto Cro-Magnons, archaic Homo sapiens or whatever (see Corruccini (1992) on page 2 of my compilations from 1995). (All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH) ______________________________________________________________________________The Great DNA Hunt, Archaeology, September/October, 1996, pps. 37-44 The Eve study was criticized almost immediately on methodological grounds. Alan Templeton, a geneticist at Washington University in St. Louis, pointed out flaws in the statistical tests and sampling methods used. Its results, he argued, were in part dictated by the order in which the information was fed into the computer. The same data could produce simpler trees, one of which also included Asians in the deepest root. Others questioned the reliability of "molecular clocks" and the rate of mutation in the human mtDNA used in calculating Eve's date (p. 40). Renfrew's book sparked intense debate, receiving some acceptance among fellow archaeologists but rejection by many linguists. Even so, the peopling of Europe seemed to have taken place in two stages: the replacing of Neandertals by modern humans by about 30,000 years ago, followed by the spread of farming peoples, speaking Indo-European or not, beginning about 9,000 years ago (p.42). Surprisingly, four of the five groups (1, 3, 4, and 5) date to well before the last glacial peak, with ages ranging from 35,000 to 25,000 years ago. The fifth group (2), however, is much younger in Europe (6,000 to 10,000 years Ago) but has clear affinities to Near Eastern mtDNA sequences (p. 44). Sykes and his colleagues propose that these are genetic echoes of the spread of agriculture, and they are fairly weak. They conclude that, far from being overwhelmed by incoming farmers, the indigenous hunter-gatherer population remained intact and learned how to farm. (p.44). Often thought to be a remnant of the Palaeolithic population, they speak a non-Indo-European language and have a relatively rare blood type, Rh negative, in a much higher percentage than other Europeans. According to Sykes, the evidence suggests that it was largely farming, not farmers, that spread across the continent (p.44). (All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH) ______________________________________________________________________________ N. Cappello, S. Rendine, R. Griffo, G.E. Mameli, V. Succa, G. Vona and A. Piazza Ann. Hum. Genet. (1996), 60. 125-141 Genetic Analysis of Sardinia: I. Data on 12 Polymorphisms in 21 Linguistic Domains The first inhabitants of Sardinia were pre-Neolithic: a date for human settlement of 9120±380 years ago in the north-central part of the island (Spoor & Sondaar, 1986) is also the earliest date for any island in the Mediterranean (pg. 126). ______________________________________________________________________________Am. J. Hum. Genet. 59:185-203, 1996 Martin Richards, Helena Corte-Real, Peter Forster, Vincent Macaulay, Hilde Wilkinson-Herbots, Andrew Demaine, Surinda Papiha, Robert Hedges, Hans-Jurgen Bandelt, and Bryan Sykes Paleolithic and Neolithic Lineages in the European Mitochondrial Gene Pool Consideration of the diversities and geographic distribution of these groups within Europe and the Middle East leads to the conclusion that ancestors of the great majority of modern, extant lineages entered Europe during the Upper Paleolithic. A further set of lineages arrived from the Middle East much later, and their age and geographic distribution within Europe correlates well with archaeological evidence for two culturally and geographically distinct Neolithic colonization events that are associated with the spread of agriculture. It follows from this interpretation that the major extant lineages throughout Europe predate the Neolithic expansion and that the spread of agriculture was a substantially indigenous development accompanied by only a relatively minor component of contemporary Middle Eastern agriculturalists. There is no evidence of any surviving Neanderthal lineages among modern Europeans (pg. 185). The overall topological similarity between the genetic map produced by the first principal component and an archaeological map of radiocarbon dates tracing the spread of farming from the Near East led to the formulation of the demic diffusion model (Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza 1984). In this model, there is a slow expansion of people from the Neolithic source population into Europe that is driven by population growth resulting from agricultural surpluses and either displacing or absorbing the less numerous Mesolithic hunter-gatherer populations as it proceeds (pg. 185). Its opposing model, cultural diffusion, proposes that, on the contrary, there was minimal intrusion of people from the Near East but that some of the local hunter-gatherer groups in Europe entered the Neolithic either independently or as a result of the diffusion of ideas and the trade of crops (Dennell 1983). An intermediate model, pioneer colonization, assumes some role for migrations from Western Asia to Europe but sees this in terms of selective colonization by fairly small groups (Zvelebil 1986; Willis and Bennett 1994; van Andel and Runnels 1995). Here we examine which, if any, of these models best explains the observed distribution of mtDNA lineages in Europe (pg. 185). Group 5 lineages are also uncommon but widespread in Europe, at around 7%, but are unusually common in Finland, where they reach 21%, possibly suggesting Saami influence (Sajantila et al. 1995). Like group 4, they are absent in other parts of the world sampled to date. Group 3 lineages are even less frequent in Europe, and 3A lineages are confined within our sample mainly to Britain. They are also found in the Middle East, and most 3A members share transitions at 129-223-311 with Papuan lineages (Sykes et al. 1995) (pg. 194). It is striking that, in the Middle East, but not elsewhere in the world, we find the two missing ancestral haplotypes that link the western and central European clusters (pg. 194). With this treatment, group 3 emerges as the oldest of the European lineage clusters, with a divergence time of 50,500 years, although whether this divergence occurred entirely in Europe is open to question, since this group includes several singly occurring outliers resembling modern African and Asian haplotypes (in the data of, e.g., Horai et al. 1991; Vigilant et al. 1991; Graven et al. 1995; Sykes et al. 1995) (pg. 194). Among group 1 lineages there was a conspicuous absence of the root (CRS) haplotype in the Middle East sample, although a reduced median network for the Middle East (not shown) reveals that, even though not in the sample, it is present as an intermediate node separating groups 2 and 3. This suggests that, although the source of group 1 had its origins in the Middle East, the bulk of the current diversity arose in Europe and the correlation between age and arrival/expansion time is not unduly distorted (pg. 194). Furthermore, no individual lineages in our extensive data set are sufficiently diverged to be realistically attributed to Neanderthal ancestors. We conclude (in agreement with Torroni et al. 1994) that there are no surviving Neanderthal lineages among the sample, supporting the view that Neanderthals became extinct (Mellars 1992) and, though coexisting in Europe with anatomically modern humans, did not interbreed to any significant extent (pg. 196). However, these three lineage groups account for <20% of the modern European sample. The major groups, 1 and 4, which together comprise nearly 70% of European haplotypes, are considerably younger. Both show starlike patterns of expansion from their respective root haplotypes at some time since 25,000 years ago (pg. 196). Of the three models for the spread of agriculture outlined earlier, our interpretation favors the pioneer colonization model, whereby there was selective penetration by fairly small groups of Middle Eastern agriculturalists of a Europe numerically dominated by the descendants of the original Paleolithic settlements. The ensuring conversion of this population from a hunter-gatherer-fishing economy to one based on agriculture would than have been achieved by technology transfer rather than large-scale population replacement (pg. 197). It may be that the Basque population appears as a distinctive outlier in most classical genetic analyses not because it is the sole relict of a pre-Neolithic population but rather because of a long period of isolation and genetic drift that has accentuated allele frequency differences at some loci compared with other European populations. It is interesting that the small sample of Finns, who also speak a non-Indo-European language, do not resemble the Basque pattern but are distinguished by an unusually high frequency of group 5, which may be attributable to Saami influence, since group 5 includes a haplotype motif present at high frequency in the Saami (Sajantila et al. 1995), who also speak a Finno-Ugric language (pg. 197). Comment by the compiler This represents a good example of the "Replacement Model" with evidence for the spread of agriculture overlying the original population makeup that originated outside of Europe. That is, Neandertals are not believed to have contributed to the formation of modern humans in Europe. I have italicized some major themes associated with the "Replacement Model." ______________________________________________________________________________ Archaeology, Vol. 49 No. 1, January/February 1996 pg. 2 IN THIS ISSUE Peter A. Young, Editor-in-Chief Hustling Hominids Late nineteenth-century Europeans believed humans evolved on their continent and sought to identify a forerunner of the handsome Cro-Magnon hunters, they being a more honorable and acceptable ancestor than the brutish Neandertal. How far we have evolved in a mere hundred years (pg. 2). Comment by the compiler Many turn-of-the-century Americanists championed the idea that Cro-Magnon predecessors originated in the Americas. Among these authorities were Alfred Wallace, Charles Lummis, Florentino Ameghino, J. D. Whitney, and Alexander Chamberlain the first student to graduate from an American university with a degree in Anthropology. Native Americans have long believed in an autochthonous origin though science has yet to adequately test this alternative. It has adequately dismissed any notion to test this alternative to this day despite nearly 170 years of human origin research that has focused solely on the Old World, continuing to find only, that no resolution is in sight. AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ Scientific American, April 1996 Science and the Citizen - Out of Food? Although Neanderthals carved up corpses some 200,000 years ago–whether for food or ritualistic purposes is not known–the signs of butchery in the Spanish bones seem to indicate a gruesome early record of cannibalism (pg. 20). Comment by the compiler The behavior of these non-humans would be that that many anthropologists would have us accept as our human ancestors. The alternative explanation of pre-Upper Paleolithic behaviors might be those defining the limited definitions supporting a more simplistic behavior akin to what is suggested from the peat bog of Chile's mid-Pleistocene sight at Monte Verde. Here it is no longer presumed that humans lived along side Pleistocene fauna with no visible evidence for developed hunting technologies defining contemporary Upper Paleolithic occupations of Europe. A new modus-operandi for our earliest ancestors behavior, an alternative to that defined above. AMH ______________________________________________________________________________Robert R. Sokal, Richard L. Jantz and Barbara A. Thomson Am. J. P. Anthro. 100:35-47 (1996) Dermatoglyphic Variation in Europe There is some support for demic diffusion from the southeast in finger patterns and ridge counts. We compare these results to those of previous studies and note that Lapps and Icelanders are outliers with respect to both genetics and finger tip variables, whereas Tatars are outliers with respect to craniometrics and dermatoglyphics (pg. 35). Closer examination of the factor scores reveals that for most factors there is considerable concentration of values near the middle of the sample distribution and that there are only a few outliers. As we have seen, these outliers include Tatars, Faeroese, Lapps, Icelanders, Orkney Islanders, Aland Islanders, and various West Finnic populations (pg. 43). The data from all three classes of variables in our studies are consistent in presenting most European populations as a central undifferentiated cluster (pg. 45). Comment by the compiler Are the northern Europeans representative of the earliest Europeans, survivors of the Neolithic revolution, or Uralic Boreal adapted Na-Dene Athabascans with Holocene connections to the Americas? AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ Elisabeth J. Manderscheid and Alan R. Rogers Am. J. P. Anthro. 100:1-5 (1996) Genetic Admixture in the Late Pleistocene Contemporary human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is strikingly uniform. Published literature now includes data from several thousand mitochondria, all of them so similar that they might have come from a population of a few thousand individuals (pg. 1). Consequently, if archaic mitochondria exist in the modern gene pool, they probably differ from other modern mitochondria at several times the number of sites that we are used to seeing in pairwise comparisons. We will refer to such mitochondria as "divergent," and we emphasize that no one has ever found one (pg. 2). ______________________________________________________________________________ Eudald Carbonell, Marina Mosquera, Xose Pedro Rodriguez, and Robert Sala Journal of Anthropological Research, vol. 51, 1995 The First Human Settlement of Europe Human paleontologists have been researching and debating the place and age of the origin of our genus for decades. In the last years of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, Asia was accepted as the birthplace of humankind (Dubois 1894). Later the focus shifted to South Africa (Dart 1925; Broom and Schepers 1946). In the 1960s, Central and Eastern Africa picked up the leadership position in terms of antiquity (Leakey 1971). Currently, few scholars doubt the African origin of humankind, with all its implications (pg. . Once the place of origin was clarified, questions have arisen concerning the age of the first human occupations of the Eurasian continent. Comment by the compiler No mention of the perspective endorsed by this compiler. If we looked into this alternative would the evidence from the Old World fall into place, i. e. two separate evolution of hominids isolated by oceans with replacement of one by another a viable alternative to punctuated equilibrium? AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ Guido Barbujani, Michele Stenico, Laurent Excoffier, and Loredana Nigro Human Biology, April 1996, v. 68, no. 2 pp. 201-215 Mitochondrial DNA Sequence Variation across Linguistic and Geographic Boundaries in Italy Analysis of Molecular Variance. Sequence heterogeneity among localities and between groups of localities was assessed by means of analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) (Excoffier et al. 1992). In this method sums of squared sequence differences between individuals are compared within populations, between populations of the same (geographic or linguistic) group, and between such groups. The significance of the observed variances is calculated by a nonparametric randomization approach. Haplotypes are assigned to random locations, and the appropriate molecular variance is recalculated; the procedure is repeated until an empirical null distribution of variances is obtained. The observed variances are finally compared with the null distribution (pgs. lost). Along the course of the Po River in a region where distributions of nuclear allele frequencies indicate barriers to gene flow, mtDNA sequences show a different spatial pattern. Localities separated by physical or linguistic barriers do not seem to have exchanged fewer migrants than random pairs of localities. Estimated allele genealogies do suggest a slight excess of migratory movements within the three areas defined by physical or linguistic boundaries; however, this excess is far from being statistically significant and can be accounted for by the effects of isolation by distance (pg. lost). On the other hand, so far, most studies on DNA have compared samples collected at distant locations, such as the Near East and Sardinia (Di Rienzo and Wilson 1991); it comes as no surprise that substantial genetic differences between samples were detected. On a smaller geographic scale the picture is far from clear, but it is known that there is little mtDNA diversity between European populations (Excoffier 1990; Bertranpetit et al. 1995). Therefore it seems important to ask whether mtDNA sequence differences show significant structure in small areas, provided that these areas can reasonably be suspected to harbor substantial genetic diversity (pg. lost). Comment by the compiler The situation from New World genetic studies suggests that Amerindian populations maintain "extensive genetic diversity" with little evidence for "bottlenecks" unless you accept the evidence of a dramatic founding effect that the Wallace lab does not itself continue to endorse. The common genetic heredity for the founding population in the Old World better serves the perspective of a bottleneck there then in the New World where Rebecca Cann herself once stated there appears to be 33 Eves! AMH ______________________________________________________________________________Ancestry and interrelationships of the Indians and their relationship with other world populations: A study based on mitochondrial DNA polymorphisms, Ann. Hum. Genet., 60, 1996, 409-422. S. Barnabas, R.V. Apte and C.G. Suresh A comprehensive analysis of the mitochondrial DNA polymorphisms supports the identification of three major world ethnic groups, the Africans, the Asians and the Caucasians (Merriwether et al. 1991). p. 409 In his dendrogram, the Indians cluster closer to Sihalese, Iranians and Afghans than to Malays, Chinese and Bhutanese. p. 410 A study of the Indian mtDNA types observed by us points to a population which shares a common lineage with the Caucasians and Asians, rather than of a population which has been separated for a longer period. Thus it is possible that migrations of modern man into the subcontinent, from a lineage shared with the Caucasians would have given rise to the present day Indian populations (p. 420). ______________________________________________________________________________ F. Calafell, P. Underhill, A. Tolun, D. Angelicheva, and L. Kalaydjieva Ann. Hum. Genet. (1996). 60. 35-49 From Asia to Europe: mitochondrial DNA sequence variability in Bulgarians and Turks Current mutation rate estimates date this expansion in times ranging between 50 000 and 100 000 years ago and, thus, would correspond to the arrival of anatomically modern humans in Europe (pg. 35). Most clusters contain strings of sequences linked by one or two base differences. This pattern would be expected if the central sequence were ancestral to the rest. In that case, the mean number of differences between the sequences in a population and their putative ancestor would follow a Poisson distribution with a mean l = mlt, where m is the mutation rate per nucleotide per generation, l is the sequence length and t is the coalescence time, e.g. the time (in number of generations) elapsed since the first mutation event created a sequence different from the ancestral (Hudson, 1990) (pgs. 44-45). This may indicate that most of the Indian sequences sprang from an ancestral sequence that was different from the reference. The coalescence time mentioned above agrees with the replacement model for the diffusion of anatomically modern humans into Europe (Stringer, 1989), rather than with the multi-regional model advocated by Wolpoff (1989), which implies coalescence times of at least 500 000 ya (pg. 45). Cluster 4 was again mainly Indian, and included nearly all the sequences with a T at position 16223. This substitution is found in frequencies of 4•4% in Basques, under 20% in other Europeans, up to 60% in Asians and Oceanians, and between 60% to 100% in Africans (pg. 45-46). Two major East-West expansions could account for the observed pattern: the occupation of Europe by anatomically modern humans about 40 000 ya (Klein, 1989) and the diffusion of agriculture into Europe in the Neolithic, 10 000 to 4000 ya (Ammerman & Cavalli-Sforza, 1984) (pg. 47). Our population trees allow only the distinction between Indian and non-Indian populations and reveal the close relationship between populations across the European continent. After the expansion of modern humans in Europe, high levels of migration, and especially the Neolithic demic diffusion might have contributed to the homogenization of the genetic landscape of Europe (Menozzi et al. 1978; Rendine et al. 1986; Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1993). Identical or closely related mtDNA sequences tend to occur in different European populations, revealing that sequence lineages have frequently moved from one population to another (pg. 48). Comment by the compiler Europe seems more homogeneous when compared to populations of from the Americas. By themselves the "proposed founding lineages" that continue to grow in number, are much more divergent from each other then those that make-up continental populations of the Old World. AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ Human Biology, April, v. 68, no. pp. 217-229 Orosomucoid (ORM1) Polymorphism in Arabs and Jews of Israel: More Evidence for a Middle Eastern Origin of the Jews S. Nevo, A. Picornell, A. Miguel, J.A. Castro, A. Joel, N. Heno, M. Liron, and M.M. Ramon Another allele attaining polymorphic frequencies was observed mainly in East Asian populations (Japan, China, Taiwan, and others). This is a duplication of the *F1 and *S alleles, *dF1,S, also designated ORM1*2,1 (Yuasa et al. 1987). This allele reaches frequencies of up to 16% in Japan (Umetsu et al. 1988a,b; Yuasa et al. 1990a,b) but was observed as a rare allele in non-Asian populations (Sebetan and Sagisaka 1988; Umetsu et al. 1989a). The finding of the *dF1,S Asian allele in three Amerindian populations (Salzano et al. 1990; Umetsu et al. 1989b) fits the Asian origin of those populations (pg. lost). Comment by the compiler Alternatively, these links could be related to Amerindians by arguing recent migration from the Americas. Again, the Polynesians must be interpreted as having explored the Mediterranean and of having left an genetic impact there as they were the first people to discover Madagascar. There are simply to many genetic similarities shared between coastal southeast Asians, Polynesians, and Amerindians to continue to disregard alternatives to the consensus opinions linking of similarities shared by remotely related populations. AMH NORTHEAST ASIA ______________________________________________________________________________ HLA Class II Alleles in Ainu Living in Hidaka District, Hokkaido, Northern Japan, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 1996, pps. 1-8. Makoto Bannai, Katsushi Tokunaga, Tadashi Imanishi, Shinji Harihara, Kiyoshi Fujisawa, Takeo Juji, and Keiichi Omoto Principal component analysis of various populations based on HLA class II allele frequencies places the Ainu population midway between other east Asian populations, including Wajin, and Native Americans. These observations may support the hypothesis that the Ainu people are the descendants of some Upper Paleolithic populations of northeast Asia from which Native Americans are also descended (p. 1). [Remember, Amerindians might have migrated into Northeast Asia in Holocene times and have admixed with late Asian Upper Paleolithic descendants of the Ainu. AMH] Although HLA antigens play a key role in the recognition of foreign antigens, there is evidence that each haplotype has been well conserved during human evolution (Tokunaga et al., 1988). Because of these features, HLA alleles and haplotypes serve as powerful markers in the field of human population genetics (Tokunaga et al., 1996). Accordingly, we also compare the similarity of Ainu to a number of Asian and American populations (p. 2). The first four components were extracted, and contributed 44.7%, 13.0%, 10.9%, and 7.4%, respectively (76.0% cumulative), to the total variance. For the first PC (Fig. 2A), the Ainu had the sixth-highest score (0.19), following those of five Native American populations, Xavantes (2.07), Tlingit (1.71), Mataco-Wichi (1.55), eastern Toba (1.20), and North American Indians (0.77) (p. 4). The Ainu were close to some Native American populations for the third PC and close to east Asian and some Native American populations for the fourth PC. On the whole, the Ainu did not constitute a cluster with any other ethnic group in this analysis. On the contrary, in terms of PC analysis, the Ainu were situated midway between Native Americans and a cluster of east Asian populations including Japanese (Wajin) (p. 4). (emphasis added AMH) [Comment Are the Ainu - another - Asian population admixed with Amerindian ? AMH] It should be noted that a small tribe sometimes appears to be distantly related to closely related ethnic groups for certain reasons. . . . A similar situation was observed in Native American tribes, and possible reasons which have been proposed include a small number of founder individuals, selective advantage of some alleles in terms of resistance to illness, or random genetic drift in the gene pool in isolated tribes (Cerna et al., 1993). These genetic factors could affect the principal component analysis results (p. 6). Comment by the compiler; the evidence from the New World continues to indicate that Tribal populations are at least as diverse as the southern Basque and the Scandinavian Sammi are from each other in Europe. If separate waves can not be demonstrated for these earliest Europeans then we need not conclude that their age is any younger then is the duration of the Pleistocene - the time separating the initial European arrival of amHs - marking the dawn of the Upper Paleolithic - and the later Neolithic settlement 9,000 years ago. AMH ______________________________________________________________________________The Peopling of Japan in Archaeology September/ October 1996 pg. 43 Mark Rose - managing editor; Archaeology Mag. Hybridization theories claim that modern Japanese are descended from both groups, in which case they should have genes deriving from both the Jomon and Yayoi people. Transformation theories posit that modern Japanese people gradually evolved from the Jomon. Proponents claim that much of the variation present today in Japanese existed in the original Jomon population. They believe the chief contribution of the Yayoi was cultural rather than genetic. The ancestors of all men with Y2 were traced to Henan Province in northern China. According to Hammer and Horai, this indicates that people from northern China, the ancestors of the Yayoi, migrated through Korea to Japan, where they contributed to the genetic makeup of modern Japanese. This contradicts transformation theories that hold Japanese populations are derived solely from Jomon people with no Yayoi admixture. The Ainu, who pursued a hunter-fisher life-style through the last century, may retain much of the genetic background of the Jomon. If so, Hammer and Horai predict that Ainu will genetically resemble the Okinawans. ______________________________________________________________________________A Discordance between mtDNA Diversity and Blood-Protein Heterozygosti yin Northern Siberian Populations, Am. J. Hum. Genet. 59, 1996, pps. 1167-1168. Boris A. Malyarchuk Jorde et al. (1995) reported a discordance between mtDNA and nuclear DNA (nDNA) sequence diversities among Africans, Asians, and Europeans. These authors noted that the degree of relatedness estimated for these groups, as displayed in neighbor-joining trees, differs depending on whether mtDNA or nDNA data are used. A similar discordance is observed between northern Siberian aboriginal populations. Among northern Asian peoples, the greatest degree of heterozygosity in blood-protein genes is found in the northernmost groups, with decreasing nDNA diversity at these loci in the more southerly groups (Solovenchuk 1989) (p. 1167). Sequence diversity in mtDNA control regions is low in circum-Arctic peoples (Shields et al. 1993). Significantly, however, this diversity increases in more southerly populations, in marked contrast to the pattern seen in nDNA (p. 1167). Their data describe 11 RFLPs that define four mtDNA haplotypes. Diversity (simle h; Nei and Tajima 1981) calculated from table 1 of Torroni et al. (1993) ranges as follows: Eskimo (n = 50), .338 ± .077; reindeer Chukchi (n = 24), .796 ± .046; and Koryak (n = 46), . 819 ± .026. Differences between these diversity values were not determined, because of the small sample sizes involved, but the geographical trend toward higher nDNA diversity and lower mtDNA diversity in more northerly Siberian groups appears to be real and consistent (p. 1168). As Jorde et al. (1995) note, mtDNA polymorphisms might not be selectively neutral, and it is possible that the loss of mtDNA diversity in northern populations reflects a greater degree of selection for optimal mtDNA haplotypes under more extreme conditions. Other models may be proposed. In any case, the problem of discordance between mtDNA and nDNA diversities will require further study. ______________________________________________________________________________ Am. J. Hum. Genet. 59:579-590, 1996 Satoshi Horai, Kumiko Murayama, Kenji Hayasaka, Satoe Matsubayashi, Yuko Hattori, Goonnapa Fucharoen, Shinji Harihara, Kyung Sook Park, Keiichi Omoto, and I-Hung Pan mtDNA Polymorphism in East Asian Populations, with Special Reference to the Peopling of Japan The intergenic COII/tRNALys 9-bp deletion was observed in every East Asian population with varying frequencies. The D-loop sequence variation suggests that the deletion event occurred only once in the ancestry of East Asians (pg. 579). Of note is the finding that 50% of the mainland Japanese had continental specificity in which Chinese or Koreans were dominant, while <20% of either Ryukyuans or Ainu possessed continental specificity (pg. 579). Many of the Chinese who inhabit Taiwan are known to be direct descendants of migrants from mainland China after the seventeenth century. Moreover, the present Chinese samples do not include those from Taiwanese aboriginal populations who show linguistic and physical affinity to the Austronesian-speaking populations of Southeast Asia (Bellwood et al. 1995) (pg. 280). (emphasis added AMH) It is worth noting that the Ainu and Ryukyuans did not possess any sequence types in common, though these two populations are considered to be direct descendants of the Jomon people (discussed in Relationships between the Ainu and Ryukyuans) (pg. 582). By contrast, 9.8% of the Ainu sowed both Chinese and Korean specificity. Ryukyuans showed almost the same breakdown in specificity (10% Chinese and 8% Korean). It is relevant to note that one third (17 individuals) of the Ainu exhibited the two dominant clusters (C1 and C16), and 50% of the Ryukyuans showed Ryukyuan specificity, indicating unique phylogenetic affiliation for the two ethnic groups of Japan (pg. 582). A total of 34 East Asians exhibited the 9-bp deletion, and all of them were included in the C2 cluster in the phylogenetic tree based on D-loop sequences (fig. 2). This indicates that the deletion event occurred once in the ancestry of East Asian lineages (pg. 584). These results lend support to the hybridization theory on the origin of mainland Japanese. The transformation theory contends that genetic variation in mainland Japanese derives solely from their Jomon ancestors and does not reflect a Yayoi admixture (Suzuki 1981; Mizoguchi 1986). Since the mtDNA sequence polymorphism found indicates that the mainland Japanese have been considerably influenced by a continental gene flow, the transformation theory obviously is incompatible with the present results (pg. 584). A phylogenetic tree indicated that the Ainu and Ryukyuans are closest to each other and are also closely allied with the mainland Japanese and Koreans. However, the three Japanese populations were quite distinct from contemporary Southeast Asians in the phylogentic tree (pg. 584-585). Nei (1995) favors a modification of the transformation theory (called the "out-of-northeast-Asia hypothesis") that posits: (1) modern human first entered into Japan ~30,000 years ago from northeast Asia; (2) an occasional gene flow from northeast Asia continued until 12,000 years ago, when the Japanese archipelago disconnected from the Asian continent; and (3) the Yayoi migration, while making a large cultural contribution, had little influence on the gene pool of modern Japanese (pg. 585). Substitution of the frequencies of continental specificity into this equation yields the following results: the proportion of mtDNAs derived from the Yayoi is 65%, and the proportion derived from the Jomon is 35%. Therefore, the mtDNA data support the hybridization hypothesis that migrations during the Yayoi Age (2,300—1,700 years ago) and the subsequent Kofun period (1,700—1,400 years ago) made a significant maternal contribution to the gene pool of modern Japanese (Yamaguchi 1982; Hammer and Horai 1995) (pg. 585). The results strongly suggest that ancestral populations for the present Ainu and Ryukyuans must have existed as different populations when the Yayoi migration took place ~2,300 years ago. Analysis of shared sequence types showed that the Ryukyuans shared one type each with the mainland Japanese and Koreans, and two types each with both the mainland Japanese and Koreans (table 1). In contrast, the Ainu shared three types with the mainland Japanese and one type each with Koreans and Chinese. Furthermore, the common types shared among three populations observed in the Ainu and Ryukyuans are different. These results imply that, in the Yayoi Age, some ancestral Ryukyuans might have stayed in the western part of Japan, whereas the ancestral Ainu population already was inhabiting Hokkaido, even if some of the Ainu and Ryukyuans descended from a common ancestral Jomon stock (pg. 586). Comment by the compiler The dominance of the Island's Population (65%) by Yayoi people in less then 3,000 years suggests that similar displacement of the original Late Paleolithic populations may have occurred - elsewhere. The survival of - interior groups - in New Guinea, Australia, Borneo, and other previously occupied Islands may represent a lasting occupation of earlier Paleolithic peoples. The similarity shared between Taiwanese and the linguistic similarity to Austronesian speakers may represent replacement following the arrival of coastal oriented Polynesians into Taiwan. Replacement in Japan remains a different story altogether. AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ Am. J. of Physical Anthropology, 100:523-530, 1996 P.L. Tsai, J.W. Hsu, L.M. Lin, and K.M. Liu Logisitic Analysis of the Effects of Shovel Trait on Carabelli's Trait in a Mongoloid Population The Mongoloid group selected for study was the Bunun tribe of aborigines who inhabit an alpine area in Taiwan. The effects of sex and age on Carabelli's trait were controlled in this investigation, as was the association between tooth size and Carabelli's trait. Results show that males were more likely to have Carabelli's trait expressed on teeth than females. The buccolingual diameter of Carabelli's trait teeth was larger than that of teeth without the trait. After adjusting for sex, age, and tooth size, the existence of the shovel trait increased the likelihood of having Carabelli's trait by a factor of three, an effect that is significant (pg. 523). Shovel trait occurs almost universally, and occurs particularly frequently in all Mongoloid groups, including Bunun aborigines, Chinese, Eskimos, and American Indians (Hrdlicka, 1920; Dahlberg, 1951; Hanihara, 1968). Carabelli's trait is less commonly found in these populations (Lee and Goose, 1972). On the other hand, populations derived from Europe, such as American whites, have a low frequency of shovel trait and a high frequency of Carabelli's trait (Hrdlicka, 1920; Lee and Goose, 1972; Mayhall et al., 1982). The literature shows that Caucasoid and Mongoloid population frequencies differ remarkably in the expression of Carabelli's trait on the upper right first molar and shovel trait on the upper right central incisor teeth (Koski and Hantala, 1952; Moorrees, 1957; Lee and Goose, 1972). As a consequence of this, shovel and Carabelli's traits have been regarded as dental markers of Mongoloid and Caucasoid ancestry. Understanding the real interaction between these two prominent dental markers is therefore of biological and anthropological interest (pg. 528). (emphasis added AMH) Comment by the compiler Question, what is the relationship to be surmised when identifying derived traits and/or lost similarities due to adaptation, selection and/or the maintenance of "primitive characteristics? What does this tell us about other similarities when defining relationships based on common or divergent trait analyses.? POLYNESIA ______________________________________________________________________________ The Hawaiian Journal of History, vol 26 (1992) Hawaiian Customs on Kaho'Olawe Dr. Noa Emmett Aluli Oral traditions identify Lae O Kealaikahiki as the major departure point from where Hawaiians left when they traveled between Hawaii and Tahiti in the 13th century. The name translates into Point of the Pathway to Tahiti. The Hawaiians probably waited here for the ideal winds, currents, and other conditions to launch their voyages to Tahiti in the strong southerly Kealaikahiki Channel and current (pg. 243). Peter Buck concluded through his research that Ke-ala-i-kahiki was the primary departure point for voyages to Tahiti: The point of departure for the south was the passage between Kahoolawe and Maui which was named Ke Ala i Kahiki (the Course to Tahiti). In a translation from Kamakau, Alexander (181b) refers to the southern sailing directions. Holupaa, the North Star, was left directly astern; and when Hokupaa sank below the northern horizon on reaching the Piko o Wakea (the Equator), Newe became the guiding star to the south. No sailing directions were given for the return voyage to the north. (pg. 245) Two known accounts also place Kealaihahiki as a point landing in Hawaii after the long journey from Kahiki. Placing Kealaikahiki as a point of arrival would coincide with the oral tradition related in the chant shared above from Harry Kunihi Mitchell (pg. 245). The first caught fish were given as offerings on the ko'a, upon returning from a day of fishing as gratitude for the guidance of deity of the shrine. The ko'a serve as land markers for ocean fishing grounds. In some cases, the fish were fed at certain grounds to assure that they would be plentiful in those designated areas, and the ko'a serves as a land marker (pg. 247). Comment by the compiler The use of "indigenous knowledge" and the maintenance of this through oral tradition can only continue to help scientific interpretations and the identification of novel ideas to test. Like the use of the sweet potato in providing a platform in moving the stone monuments of Easter Island, the verification of ancient history can be sustained when applying scientific testing to stories based on translations passed down by myth. Perhaps we should continue to test the beliefs of the people studied with more vigor. (emphasis added AMH) ______________________________________________________________________________ Am. J. Hum. Genet. 59:253-256, 1996 Sandro L. Bonatto, Alan J. Redd, Francisco M. Salzano, and Mark Stoneking. Lack of Ancient Polynesian-Amerindian Contact In the second, two mtDNA Polynesian sequences not related to the B lineage matched sequences from Amerindians and were postulated to be evidence of contact (Sykes et al. 1995) (pg. 253-254). Among B lineage sequences, the CR variable sites in Polynesians are distinct from Amerindians. The suite of sites common in Polynesians (Hagelberg and Clegg 1993; Hagelberg et al. 1994; Lum et al. 1994; Redd et al. 1995; Sykes et al. 1995)–the Polynesian motif–includes three HVS-I substitutions: a C at position 16,217, a G at position 16,247, and a T at position 16,261 (relative to the reference [Anderson et al. 1981]). The Polynesian motif has been postulated to be of recent origin and to have increased in frequency together with the expansion of proto-Polynesian populations (Redd et al. 1995). In contrast, Amerindian CR sequences of the B lineage commonly have only one of these variable sites (C at 16,217), which is common in Southeast Asia (Melton et al. 1995). In our Amerindian sample no CR sequences have the Polynesian motif, although one individual from Amazonia has two of the variable sites but lacks the G in position 16,247. This Amerindian individual also lacks a C at position 146 in HVS-II, a polymorphism that is common in Polynesian motif sequences (Redd et al. 1995). (emphasis added AMH) Two possible explanations for the sharing of identical sequences between Polynesians and Amerindians are (a) retention of an ancestral Asian sequence and (b) admixture (ancient or recent) (pg. 254). The Tahitian lineage 47 (Sykes et al. 1995) is identical to an Argentine Mapuche (Ginther et al. 1993), a Central American Kuna (Batista et al. 1995), a Mongolian (Kolman et al. 1996), and a Siberian Chukchi (Shields et al. 1993). The B lineage Tongan 33 HVS-I sequence (Redd et al. 1995) is identical to one of the two most frequent Amerindian sequences and occurs in the three American subcontinents. However, the HVS-II sequence of this Tongan is different from all HVS-II Amerindian sequences described thus far. The last case of sharing is the Cook Island lineage 45 (Sykes et al. 1995). This sequence is different from all of the completely sequenced HVS-I Amerindians (~600 individuals) but is identical to a Chilean Mapuche (Horai et al. 1993), whose first 100 bp of the HVS-I were not sequenced. If we disregard these first 100 bases for all other known human sequences, this sequence is also identical to a North American Athapascan (Shields et al. 1993), two Siberians (Torroni et al. 1993b), a Mongolian (Kolman et al. 1996), and one Asian from Tibet (Torroni et al. 1993a). Therefore, all the shared sequences between Polynesians and Amerindians are much more likely explained as a retention of ancestral Asian sequences by both descendant populations than by an ancestral or recent post-divergence admixture (pg. 254-255). The results (table 1) indicate that Polynesian populations have a much more recent origin than Amerindian populations and that the two diverged ~30,000 years ago. This divergence estimate is considerably older than the date of 3,500 years ago associated with early Polynesian archaeological sites (Bellwood 1989). In conclusion, the presence of the B lineage and the mating of three other sequences between Polynesians and Amerindians probably reflect a shared Asian origin rather than direct contact (pg. 255). (emphasis added AMH) Comment by the compiler The predilection of the authors; that the "the mating of three other sequences between Polynesians and Amerindians probably reflect a shared Asian origin rather than direct contact (pg. 255)" does not disprove the alternative (see my Background iii disposition) as the high mutation rate of mtDNA could explain the recent derivation of "the Polynesian motif." That lineage B2 mtDNAs are associated with more ancient Amerindian distributions would identify the likelihood that this marker is evidence of a Amerindian founding population for the Polynesians. Post Polynesian expansion/exploration into coastal Asia (and other remote areas of the Old World) is a viable explanation for the widespread distribution of type B Amerindian mtDNAs. Here Bonatto et al. suggest that a single southeast Asian mtDNA - associated with the recent expansion of Austronesian speakers - would be the only founding marker associating an Amerindian derivation from the discernible pool of southeast Asians mtDNAs. Separate migrations from the Americas into Siberia and Polynesia continue to be ignored in light of conflicting evidence to the contrary. Rebecca Cann and others are now entertaining these long dismissed alternatives as the following "Reply" articulates. AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ Am. J. Hum. Genet. 59:256-258, 1996 R.L. Cann and J.K. Lum Mitochondrial Myopia: Reply to Bonatto et al. Further, they admit that their analysis cannot exclude sex-biased dispersal, which could be tested with additional nuclear genetic markers (specifically, short-tandem-repeat or Y-chromosome haplotypes) and sequences from viral isolates, such as HTLV-1 (Miura et al. 1994) (pg. lost ). At best, Bonatto et al. can say only that their restricted subset of Polynesian lineages may not have been in direct contact with the Americas. Even the "at-best" scenario is flawed, on the basis of sequences that we have detected in the Pacific. The common B-lineage sequence found in Amerindian populations (16217) is found in 3% of Samoans and in 74% of the Kapingamarangis whom we have studied. It is also found in 80% of the eastern Micronesian population (3%-33%) and in two of the three western Micronesian (7%-14%) populations that we have sampled. In addition, two substitutions found in an Amazonians (16217 and 16261) are also found in Pacific populations throughout Polynesia (Samoa at 20%, Kampingamarangi at 26%, Hawaii at 11%, and Rapa Nui at 7%). This lineage is also found in 9 of 10 eastern Micronesian populations (7%-50%) and in western Micronesians (2%-17%). Therefore, the analysis may be consistent with either the retention of ancestral lineages in both groups or direct contact that spread the same lineages into both groups. Bonatto et al. clearly favor the first explanation, on the basis of the nodal position of shared lineages in the neighbor-joining tree. They ignore the frequency of those lineages within populations, yet we and Sykes et al. (1995) have found that the nodal lineages are the most frequent sequences detected in populations of the Pacific. The neighbor-joining method (Saitou and Nei 1987) used here has the advantage of being computationally fast–but has the distinct disadvantage of occasionally performing the biologically impossible, in that it can assign a negative length to a branch (Swofford and Olsen 1990). Thus, the accuracy and precision of Bonatto et al.'s phylogenetic test remains open to question. We think that it is wiser to admit that the hypothesis of direct contact has not been adequately tested. Why is the B-lineage clade, a clade most common on the western coast of the Americas, not found in Beringia? Why does the B-lineage clade have lower sequence diversity and a different mismatch distribution than do the major A, C, and D clades (as well as others recently documented by T. Schurr and colleagues) in Amerindians? Why are other lineages, not just in the B group, found in Pacific and Amerindian populations? Finally, how do we account for the prehistoric distribution of the sweet potato in Oceania (Yen 1974)? Just as current mtDNA data alone may be insufficient to answer the question of "Neanderthal" gene continuity with modern European populations, the question of whether there was limited gene flow between Native Americans and Oceanic populations is unresolved. Comment by the compiler Shared markers should not bias the scientific testing of where they originated. Simply put - who were first - the Amerindians or the Polynesians? And from what direction does the current flow across the Pacific - towards southeast Asia. Why do we test the similarities found between the two hemispheres' Peoples against data that is compatible with western movements ONLY? Is there a case for separate Amerindian migrations into Siberia and Polynesia? "All is not well in Denmark!" AMH AUSTRALIA ______________________________________________________________________________ Science, Vol 274, October 4, 1996 Constance Holden Art Stirs Uproar Down Under But that's a big if. The significance of the site hinges on its age, and many scientists are skeptical about the dating, which was done with a relatively new technique called thermoluminescence (TL). "Unbelievable," says archaeologist John Beaton of the University of California, Davis. These dates are wildly out of line with everything else we know." Even archaeologist Rhys Jones of the Australian National University in Canberra, who last year made waves by dating two other Australian sites to 60,000 years with the same method (Science, 31 March 1995, p. 1908), warns that until more tests have been done, "we do not know how valid the present TL claims are (pg. 33)." Comment by the compiler The evidence suggesting an earlier presence of modern human behavior in Australia requires a theory to go along with the TL dates as this type of human achievement is believed to be less then 50 ky old in Asia, Europe, or Africa, (let's not mention the Americas). (OK, if you insist) My hypothesis for accepting an in-situ origin for mankind within the Americas - collaborating the very early dates from Brazil, Chile, and North America - follows that, sophisticated behaviors archaeologically associated with the first modern peopling of the Old World was produced as a result of adaptation brought on by the exploration of the Eastern Hemisphere. The theory suggests that mankind’s earlier ancestral behaviors can be traced to the limited definitions associated with mid-Pleistocene Paleoamerican occupations, (not that Chile's Monte Verde is a limited definition - though it would be if we didn't have the abundance of evidence preserved in the peat layer dating to 13,000 bp). The development of new subsistent strategies - associated with modern human occupations of the Old World - were isolated from the Americas until the end of the last Ice Age when the refinements defining the PaleoLITHIC found there way into the Americas, distinguishing the dawn of Paleoindian Industries. AMH ______________________________________________________________________________J.M. Roberts-Thomson, J.J. MArtinson, J.T. Norwich, R.M. Harding, J.B. Clegg, and B. Boettcher Am. J. Hum. Genet. 58:1017-1024, 1996 An Ancient Common Origin of Aboriginal Australians and New Guinea Highlanders Is Supported by a-Globin Haplotype Analysis Australians have a haplotype repertoire that is shared with New Guinea highlanders, a fact that strongly supports a common origin of these two populations. Further, Australians and New Guinea highlanders have a different set of a haplotypes from Southeast Asians and a lower genetic diversity. This, coupled with the presence of many locally specific central Australian haplotypes, suggests that much of the original diversity was lost in a population bottleneck prior to or during the early colonization of Sahul and that subsequent recovery of diversity has been accompanied by the generation of new haplotypes. These conclusions contrast with some previous genetic studies suggesting links between Australians, coastal New Guineans, and present-day Southeast Asians. Much of this discrepancy appears to be due to more recent Southeast Asian [Melanesian/Polynesian] admixture on the north coast of Australia (pg. 1017). (emphasis added AMH) At times of lowered sea levels due to glaciation, the islands of Java, Borneo, and Bali were joined with Vietnam and the Malayan peninsula to form the large continent of Sunda. For any expanding or displaced Asian population of modern humans with seafaring abilities, Sahul was accessible throughout the late Pleistocene, requiring, on occasion, a sea voyage of perhaps only 70 km. The archaeological record suggests that migration also continued eastward of New Guinea, resulting in the occupation of the Bismarck archipelago and the northern Solomon Islands by 30,000 years ago (Bellwood 1978; Gosden 1993) (pg. 1017). (emphasis added AMH) A lack of association between aboriginal Australians and New Guinea highlanders was also observed for mtDNA (Stoneking and Wilson 1989; Stoneking et al. (1990) and in early studies on allelic variation at the HLA system (Serjeantson 1985) (pg. 1018). In the present study, we have characterized the a-globin gene complex of Australians from one tribe in central Australia. In contrast to Tsintsof et al. (1990), we find convincing evidence of strong links with New Guinea highlanders, implying that migrations into ancient Sahul originated from a single source population. We suggest that more recent gene flow from island Southeast Asia, resulting in the aboriginal populations on of the north and northwest coasts of Australia becoming admixed, explains some of the ambiguous results of previous studies (pg. 1018. (emphasis added AMH) This study demonstrates that the a-globin haplotype composition of central Australians is similar to those of the coastal and highlands populations of New Guinea. All these populations feature high frequencies of the IIIa Haplotype and the presence of IVa and IVb haplotypes. The distribution of group III and IV haplotypes is relatively restricted outside of Australia and Melanesia, although they are found in some African populations. The central Australian population is closest to the New Guinea highlanders, consistent with other genetic and archaeological data suggesting that the early occupation of Sahul included both Australia and New Guinea and that these people migrated from a common Southeast Asian source (pg. 1021). The central Australians, by contrast, have negligible levels (1/200) of the most common haplotypes that characterize Southeast Asians, and, conversely, the rare haplotype groups found in central Australians have never been observed in Southeast Asia (authors' unpublished observations). All these findings imply that central Australia has remained isolated from island Southeast Asia for many millennia (pg. 1022). Both aboriginal Australians and New Guinea highlanders have notably low genetic diversity at a-globin and other loci, and this has been interpreted in previous studies as a result of isolation and long-term small population sizes. However, it is possible that the original diversity was lost in a population bottleneck prior to or during the occupation of Sahul. Also, it is likely that the genetic differences found between central Australians and the New Guinea highlanders are due to the accumulation of new haplotypes, generated by mutation and recombination, rather than to drift in generational sampling, as would be expected if population sizes remained small. There is no evidence that these rare haplotypes derive from populations now settled in island Southeast Asia. The presence of locally specific haplotypes suggests moderate population sizes and low rates of gene flow among these regions. The nonequilibrium distribution for the central Australian aboriginal sample is consistent with population expansion, generated by natural recruitment rather than immigration. Following the bottleneck that occurred in an ancestral population of both Australia and New Guinea, diversity has been recovering by the incorporation of new haplotypes (pg. 1023). (allemphasis added AMH) Comment by the compiler There are several inferences I would like to draw from the data presented here. One is that coastal populations in Melanesia resemble Polynesians more than the interior groups discussed here. The second is that, the original Southeast Asians, New Guineas, and Central Australians are believed to have shared an earlier common ancestry that has diverged following the formation of the present interior populations, including interior Southeast Asians. Finally, the sharing of lineages with African populations does not require that we assume that the African populations were the ancestors of the Asian population that gave rise to New Guineas and Central Australians if the supposed "mitochondrial Eve" was not from Africa (see Johnson et al 1983; Templeton 1993). AMH (All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH) ______________________________________________________________________________ David J. Betty, Amy N. Chin-Atkins, Lynn Croft, Michaela Sraml, and Simon Easteal Am. J. Hum. Genet. 58:428-433 Letter to the Editor Multiple Independent Origins of the COII/tRNALys Intergenic 9-bp mtDNA Deletion in Aboriginal Australians The deletion occurred in 4 of 156 Aboriginal Australians from Western Australia: two (AK27 and AK1110) from the Kimberley region and two (AW218 and AW220) from the western desert population. None of the 134 individuals screened from the Northern Territory had the deletion, but it did occur in 4 of the 20 Cantonese (HK3829, HK3850, HK3919, and HK3992) (pg. 429). None of the eight individuals we found with the deletion shares the "Polynesian motif" comprising the C at position 16217, plus G at position 16247 and T at position 16261 (pg. 429). This result has several possible interpretations. If the AW222 mitochondrial genotype does form part of the major Asian-derived clade, then it may represent either an ancient divergence or a later introgression, or both. Alternatively, the few shared variable sites described above could represent homoplasy in a region with known high rates of mutation; in this case, AW222 could represent a third independent origin for the deletion (pg. 431). In summary, analysis of control region sequences from four Aboriginal Australians with the 9-bp deletion indicates that three of them represent two independent origins for the deletion. These findings are consistent with the time depth of occupancy of the continent: humans have been in Australia and New Guinea for at least 50,000 years (Roberts et al. 1990; Flood 1995), with little apparent intermarriage with later Southeast Asian or Pacific populations. The fourth Australian mtDNA genotype with the deletion could be part of a widespread Asia-Pacific clade, representing either later introgression or an early divergence from the main Asian-derived clade with the deletion [or the source being Amerindians, see Cann and Lum 1996] (pg. 431). Comment by the compiler The "Polynesian Motif" is not found in association with Continental Amerindian Populations indicating that it arose in Polynesians following the bottleneck that must have occurred during their initial expansion into Polynesia. This motif's fixation proceeded subsequent Polynesian dispersals into Melanesia, coastal Southeast Asia, Taiwan, and Madagascar. The Region V mt DNA deletion does not appear to be a founding lineage for any Old World interior populations suggesting to me that it may be evidence of an Amerindian contribution to the founding population of Polynesia. There are many other genetic links (HLAs HVS-1 and other nuclear DNA markers) that distinguish the more recent coastal Melanesians with more native Central American populations AMH (All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH) GENETICS ______________________________________________________________________________ Ancient DNA, Book review in International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, Vol. 6, pp. 421-423, 1996. Edited by Bernd Herrmann and Susanne Hummel. Springer-Verlag, 1994. The author clearly notes the general advantages of using mtDNA in aDNA studies (high copy number, exclusive maternal inheritance, high rate of substitution) as well as the disadvantages (as a single molecule, phylogenetic analyses of mtDNA yields a gene tree, not necessarily a species tree (p. 421). ______________________________________________________________________________Mutational Analysis of the Human Mitochondrial Genome Branches into the Realm of Bacterial Genetics, Am. J. Hum. Genet. 59, 1996, pp. 749-755 Neil Howell For example, it now may be feasible to analyze the effects of selection on transmission and segregation of this deletion and, perhaps, other mtDNA mutations as well. Second, and at a broader level, the approach of Shenkar et al. should find widespread applicability to the study of other mtDNA mutations. It has been recognized for several years that mammalian mtDNA mutates much more rapidly than nuclear DNA (e.g., see Brown et al. 1979), a phenomenon with potentially profound evolutionary implications (p. 749). (emphasis added AMH) The conservative segregation model remains the most attractive explanation for the lack of variance in these experimental systems, because of its compatibility with the physical characteristics of organellar DNA molecules, but additional processes (e.g., intracellular selection or a high threshold for phenotypic expression) also may have been contributory factors (p. 751). There is an intriguing parallel between mitochondrial genomes and endosymbiotic bacteria, which indirectly supports the possibility that the rapid rate of human mtDNA mutation may engage Muller's ratchet. In her important, recent study, Moran (1996, p. 2873) has made the following statement: "cytoplasmically inherited endosymbionts have tiny populations; in most a bottleneck occurs each host generation when progeny are inoculated. They are effectively clonal since no recombination can occur between lineages sequestered in different hosts and since horizontal transfer between hosts appears to be either absent or extremely rare" (p. 752). Rand and Kann (1996) have reached a similar conclusion, but they also have suggested that there are opposing evolutionary "pressures" that act on different regions of the mitochondrial genome and that there are differences in evolutionary processes among different taxa. Aris-Brosou and Excoffier (1996) have provided some interesting insights into both the complexity of evolution in the human noncoding D-loop and the difficulties of detecting significant departures from neutrality. (emphasis added AMH) Finally, the hypothesis of Muller's ratchet assumes that there is a negligible rate of mutations that have beneficial effects and that a substantial proportion of new mitochondrial mutations may increase fitness. Further experimental and theoretical analysis of these important topics–and of related questions of mtDNA evolution and genetics–may hinge on the implementation of the approaches that are reported by Shenkar et al. in this issue of the Journal. (p. 753). (emphasis not added AMH) Comment by the compiler That "new mitochondrial mutations may increase fitness" is intriguing when studying the divergence of mtDNA types and Regional population differences. (all other emphasis was added AMH) ______________________________________________________________________________ The Promise of Plant and Animal DNA Archaeology September/ October 1996. pg. 41 Tabitha M. Powledge - contributing editor, Mark Rose - managing editor; Archaeology Mag. These are startling results because cattle in the Near East were not domesticated until about 9,000 years ago, and cattle in India and Africa were genetically distinct before then. The latter two could not possibly be descended from domesticated Near Eastern cattle, as was thought, but must have been domesticated independently. This discovery may reignite an old debate in archaeology about whether plants and animals were domesticated in single locations and then taken from one culture to another (a "diffusionist" approach), or, as appears to be the case with cattle, were domesticated in more than one place (a "multiple centers" approach). (emphasis added AMH) ______________________________________________________________________________ Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, Vol. 5, No. 1, February 1996 pp. 202-219 Maryellen Ruvolo A New Approach to Studying Modern Human Origins: Hypothesis Testing with Coalescence Time Distributions What does a molecular divergence time tell us? As we follow the history of genetic lineages back through time, all of the lineages in a population join up or coalesce into a common ancestral type, known as the coalescent (Kingman, 1982; Hudson, 1990), and the age of this common genetic ancestor is known as the coalescence time (pg. 203). We can look forward to further improvements in how to extract information about the past from molecular data. Those who study humans will lead the way in the pursuit, because having a wealth of data forces one to think more about how to interpret the data and to develop new analytical methods (pg. lost). (emphasis added AMH) ______________________________________________________________________________ Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, Vol. 5, No. 1, February 1996 David Pilbeam Genetic and Morphological Records of Hominoidea and Hominid Origins: A Synthesis This means that a hominid–chimp split at 5 or 6 Ma implies a monkey–hominoid divergence no greater than about 20 to 25 Ma, not the 40 Ma required by Andrews' African hominoid radiation at 10 Ma. Andrews' 24-Ma hylobatid and 13-Ma plus orang divergences imply a 35-Ma cercopithecoid-hominoid divergence. These estimates cannot be considered in isolation, for 35- to 4-Ma catarrhine ancestors imply a latest anthropoid common ancestry at 60 to 80 Ma. Preceding this would have to be a well-documented and lengthy common anthropoid stem following the divergence of tarsioids (well over 30% and perhaps closer to 60% of the time depth of the anthropoid radiation), implying primate origins implausibly far back in the Cretaceous (pg. 159). ______________________________________________________________________________ Science, Vol. 273, August 30, 1996 Adam D. Richman, Marcy K. Uyenoyama, Joshua R. Kohn Allelic Diversity and Gene Genealogy at the Self-Incompatibility Locus in the Solanaceae Balancing selection can maintain large numbers of alleles within populations (1, 2), and this polymorphism persists much longer than does selectively neutral genetic variation (3, 4). At the S locus, the transmission rate of an allele is inversely proportional to its frequency, and populations commonly harbor as many as 30 to 50 alleles (5, 6). Alleles at this locus can be extremely old, as reflected by their extreme sequence variability (7) and by phylogenetic analyses that have found that an allele from one species may be more closely related to an allele from another species or genus than to other alleles from the same species, a pattern called trans-specific evolution (3, 8). Thus, historical events such as changes in population size leave an impression that persists much longer for variation subject to balancing selection than for neutral variation (4, 9, 10). At the major histocompatibility complex loci of vertebrates, extensive trans-specific variation is found in both the cichlid fishes in Lake Malawi (11) and in humans and other primates (12), which indicates that severe population constrictions, such as those invoked by models of founder-event speciation, cannot have been important during speciation of these taxa. Two estimates of Ne can be derived from S-allele variability (1, 9, 10, 13). The number of alleles present in a population reflects a short-term estimate because of strong selection for novel alleles in populations below equilibrium and rapid relaxation to an equilibrium of diversity after population restriction (9). In contrast, the number of trans-specific lineages inferred from allele genealogy evolves over millions of generations (1), because the loss of trans-specific lineages requires the extinction of all representatives of a lineage within a species. Nevertheless, in restricted populations the loss of alleles and of trans-specific lineages will be accelerated (9). After a bottleneck, newly generated alleles will lack the trans-specific evolutionary pattern, and the average sequence divergence among alleles within the species will be low relative to taxa that have not experienced a bottleneck event (pg. 1212-2114). However, this origination rate is unable to support the extensive S-allel diversity observed in small, isolated populations (1, 10, 13, 26). In view of the data on allel number, which indicate a large recent Ne for P. crassifolia, we conclude that patterns of lineage persistence within species are most likely explained by a historic population restriction that resulted in the loss of most S-allele diversity in P. crassifolia, followed by rediversification after the bottleneck event (pg. 1215). ______________________________________________________________________________ Am. J. Hum. Genet. 59:501-509, 1996 Neil Howell, Iwona Kubacka, and David A. Mackey How Rapidly Does the Human Mitochondrial Genome Evolve? Segregation toward the homplasmic state can occur within a single generation in some of these descendants, a result that suggests rapid fixation of mitochondrial mutations as a result of developmental bottlenecking (pg. 501). (emphasis added AMH) We describe here the use of one such empirical approach for the estimation of the rate of human mtDNA evolution in both the D-loop and coding regions and for the analysis of the origin and fixation of mutations within the mitochondrial genome (pg. 502). Nachman et al. (1996) also concluded that pathogenic mitochondrial mutations may increase the ratio of replacement polymorphisms to silent polymorphisms, although not all of their "disease"-group individuals (Nachman et al. 1996, table 8) carried mitochondrial mutations whose pathogenicity has been unambiguously established (pg. 506). If a rapid divergence rate of mtDNA is confirmed, previous studies that have used D-loop sequences for geographical and chronological studies of human evolution will have to be reevaluated. As noted earlier, phylogenetic or relative-branch-length approaches indicate that the time since the most recent common ancestor is in the range of 0.2–0.6 Myr. The present results, as well as those of Lundstrom et al. (1992), suggest either a much more recent origin of modern humans or that evolution of the mitochondrial genome is not a reliable "evolutionary clock" (on this latter point, see Donnelly and Tavare 1995) (pg. 507). (emphasis added AMH) The present studies provide additional evidence that mitochondrial mutations are fixed rapidly in individuals because of "bottlenecking" during oogenesis (Hauswirth and Laipis 1982; Howell et al. 1992). According to this model, only a small subset of the mitochondrial genomes in the female germ-line pool are transmitted to an offspring. As a consequence of bottlenecking, therefore, only a fraction of new mitochondrial mutations will be transmitted to subsequent generations, but the rate of fixation for that transmitted fraction will be much more rapid than it would be if bottlenecking were absent. Thus, the rate of mitochondrial mutation is likely to be substantially higher than the rate of divergence, particularly if a significant proportion of mutations that are fixed in individuals are not fixed within the populations (see above). In our opinion, the evolutionary implications of bottlenecking have not received sufficient attention (pg. 507). Comment by the compiler The worldwide distribution of the Amerindian/Polynesian Lineage B may be evidence of admixture into indigenous groups with retention of original mtDNA diversity retained in the primary population. "Knowledge is inherent in all things. The World is a library..." Chief Luther Standing Bear Ogala Sioux ______________________________________________________________________________ Am. J. Hum. Genet. 59:493-496, 1996 Svante Paabo INVITED EDITORIAL Mutational Hot Spots in the Mitochondrial Microcosm The observation of two germ-line mutations among some 50 individuals studied suggests a mutation rate of 1 event/25 generations in a DNA segment where phylogenetic comparisons to the chimpanzee have suggested a frequency of ≤1 event/200 generations. In the same vein, Howell et al. elsewhere have described two mutations in coding regions of the genome in families, and they now describe a third one. This indicates a 200-fold-higher rate of mutations in the mitochondrial structural genes than has been derived from phylogenetic comparisons. These observations receive support from another group, which similarly has found a high rate of mitochondrial mutation (Lederberg et al. 1995), and from reports suggesting that heteroplasmy—that is, the occurrence of two or more types of mitochondrial sequences within an individual—may be more common in humans than previously had been thought (Gill et al. 1994; Comas et al. 1995; Ivanov et al. 1996). When these studies are pooled, the number of mutations observed is still very small, whereas the uncertainty of the rate estimates is correspondingly huge. Nevertheless, the high mutation rate represents an impressive discrepancy with the received wisdom among evolutionists (pg. 494). The new rates that will emerge when more mutations have been detected in families are therefore not likely to revise our understanding of the origin of the human mitochondrial gene pool dramatically, but they may cause a reinterpretation of more recent events—for example, the population-size expansion that is indicated by a peak in histograms of pairwise sequence differences. This expansion has been dated to ~40,000 years ago (Rogers and Harpending 1992; Rogers 1995). Here, a faster rate may allow a more adequate approximation of the actual mutations having taken place and may indicate that this expansion is associated with the agricultural revolution that occurred some 10,000-5,000 years ago. Support for this idea comes from observation that the signature of the expansion is absent in groups in India, Scandinavia, and Africa that live from food gathering rather than from food production (Mountain et al 1995; Sajantila et al 1995; Watson et al. 1996) (pg. 494-495). Thus, the biochemical basis for population variation can be studied, and the relative contributions that mutational processes and selection make to genomic change can be better understood. In this, developments in the mitochondrial microcosm will again be ahead of developments in the more complex macrocosm of the nuclear genome (pg. 495). ______________________________________________________________________________ Am. J. Hum. Genet. 59:437-444, 1996 Elizabeth Watson, Karin Bauer, Rashid Aman, Gunter Weiss, Arndt von Haeseler, and Svante Paabo mtDNA Sequence Diversity in Africa We suggest that this reflects subsistence patterns in that the populations that have expanded in size are food producers whereas those that have not are hunters and gatherers (pg. 437). Much interest has focused on mtDNA variation as a tool to unravel the past of modern humans. The main reason for this is that the absence of recombination and the high evolutionary rate of the mitochondrial genome offer a resolving power unparalleled by any other single genetic locus in the human genome (pg. 437). Among the groups analyzed, the Mbuti, Biaka, and !Kung rely on hunting and food gathering for their subsistence, whereas the other groups practice agriculture and animal husbandry. The data suggest that the genetic diversity and demographic history of these two groups are dramatically different in at least four respects. First, the 3 food-gathering groups have bumpy distributions and a high proportion of identical lineages, whereas the 10 groups that rely on agriculture and/or cattle herding have bell-shaped distributions and few identical lineages (fig. 2). These patterns of distribution of pairwise sequence differences are reminiscent of the situation in other parts of the world (pg. 443). Thus, it seems to be a general pattern that food-producing populations have bell-shaped distributions of pairwise sequence differences, whereas food gatherers have rugged distributions and many identical sequences443). Second, the pattern of mitochondrial sequence variation in food-producing groups suggests that these populations have experienced an enlargement in size, whereas the food gatherers have been of constant population size for a long time (pg. 443). (emphasis added AMH) Third, the mitochondrial diversity in Africa indicates a substantial differentiation between food gatherers and food producers (Table 2) (pg. 443). Consequently, the groups that are hunter-gatherers today can be expected to have persisted as such for a long time. This is reflected in their extensive genetic differentiation from food-producing groups and from each other (pg. 443). Fourth, the data indicate that the food-gathering groups have been isolated from each other over a long period, whereas food-producing groups differ much less from each other. This may be due to the common origin(s) of food-producing groups, which is associated with both the domestication of major crops (Ammerman and Cavalli-Sforza 1984) and a lower amount of genetic drift in the larger populations. It may also be due to more extensive female gene flow between food-producing groups, whose larger numbers and, in some cases, pastoralist lifestyle may facilitate contacts over large geographic distances (pg. 443). ______________________________________________________________________________ Tabitha M. Powledge and Mark Rose The Great DNA Hunt (pgs _______ lost) The Eve study was criticized almost immediately on methodological grounds. Alan Templeton, a geneticist at Washington University in St. Louis, pointed out flaws in the statistical tests and sampling methods used. Its results, he argued, were in part dictated by the order in which the information was fed into the computer. The same data could produce simpler trees, one of which also included Asians in the deepest root. Others questioned the reliability of "molecular clocks" and the rate of mutation in the human mtDNA used in calculating Eve's date. (emphasis added by the compiler, AMH) The Promise of Plant and Animal DNA These are startling results because cattle in the Near East were not domesticated until about 9,000 years ago, and cattle in India and Africa were genetically distinct before then. The latter two could not possibly be descended from domesticated Near Eastern cattle, as was thought, but must have been domesticated independently. This discovery may reignite an old debate in archaeology about whether plants and animals were domesticated in single locations and then taken from one culture to another (a "diffusionist" approach), or, as appears to be the case with cattle, were domesticated in more than one place (a "multiple centers" approach). – T.M.P. and M.R. Renfrew's book sparked intense debate, receiving some acceptance among fellow archaeologists but rejection by many linguists. Even so, the peopling of Europe seemed to have taken place in two stages: the replacing of Neandertals by modern humans by about 30,000 years ago, followed by the spread of farming peoples, speaking Indo-European or not, beginning about 9,000 years ago. The Peopling of Japan Hybridization theories claim that modern Japanese are descended from both groups, in which case they should have genes deriving from both the Jomon and Yayoi people. Transformation theories posit that modern Japanese people gradually evolved from the Jomon. Proponents claim that much of the variation present today in Japanese existed in the original Jomon population. They believe the chief contribution of the Yayoi was cultural rather than genetic. The ancestors of all men with Y2 were traced to Henan Province in northern China. According to Hammer and Horai, this indicates that people from northern China, the ancestors of the Yayoi, migrated through Korea to Japan, where they contributed to the genetic makeup of modern Japanese. This contradicts transformation theories that hold Japanese populations are derived solely from Jomon people with no Yayoi admixture. The Ainu, who pursued a hunter-fisher life-style through the last century, may retain much of the genetic background of the Jomon. If so, Hammer and Horai predict that Ainu will genetically resemble the Okinawans. – M.R. Surprisingly, four of the five groups (1, 3, 4, and 5) date to well before the last glacial peak, with ages ranging from 35,000 to 25,000 years ago. The fifth group (2), however, is much younger in Europe (6,000 to 10,000 years Ago) but has clear affinities to Near Eastern mtDNA sequences. Sykes and his colleagues propose that these are genetic echoes of the spread of agriculture, and they are fairly weak. They conclude that , far from being overwhelmed by incoming farmers, the indigenous hunter-gatherer population remained intact and learned how to farm.. (emphasis added AMH) Often thought to be a remnant of the Paleolithic population, they [Basque] speak a non-Indo-European language and have a relatively rare blood type, Rh negative, in a much higher percentage than other Europeans. According to Sykes, the evidence suggests that it was largely farming, not farmers, that spread across the continent. SCIENCE GEOGRAPHY ______________________________________________________________________________Large Arctic Temperature Change at the Wisconsin-Holocene Glacial Transition, Science, Vol. 270, October 20, 1995, pps. 455-458 Kurt M. Cuffey, Gary D. Clow, Richard B. Alley, Minze Stuiver, Edwin D. Waddington, Richard W. Saltus The low value of a that we find for the deglacial transition is well-constrained (Fig. 3) and insensitive to changes in ice dynamical parameters (Table 1). The average temperature difference between the Wisconsin Glaciation and the Holocene is therefore large (Fig. 1), 14° to 16°C, and the coldest periods of the last glacial were probably 21°C colder than at present (Fig. 1). The climatic deglacial temperature change (at constant elevation) may be 1° to 2°C larger than this because the Greenland ice sheet was probably thinner during the glacial as a result of a substantial reduction in accumulation rate. Geologic evidence suggests that the margins of the ice sheet retracted by about 100 km during the Wisconsin-Holocene transition (35). p. 456 By contrast, we have shown that the temperature change in central Greenland was three to four times larger than that in the tropics, a result that is consistent with borehole temperature analyses at Dye 3 in southern Greenland (42). Many models have suggested that initially minor changes in global temperature will be magnified in the Arctic, with possibly major consequences for sea level and planetary albedo (43). Our data not only confirm that such amplification happened in the past but also show this amplification to be larger than generally thought. ______________________________________________________________________________Ice Rhythms: Core Reveals a Plethora of Climate Cycles, Science, Vol. 275, October 25, 1996, p. 499. A record of climate extracted from Greenland's ice is changing all that by laying out the whole spectrum of midrange climate variations, from the well-known Milankovitch cycles of about 40,000 and 23,000 years, driven by the tilting and wobbling of Earth's axis, down the scale to cycles of 11,100, 6100, and 1450 years (p. 499). And for the 1450-year rhythm–which seems to cause abrupt shifts in climate–they make the intriguing suggestion that the waxing and waning of the sun may be the trigger (p. 499) In addition to the 40,000- and 23,000-year Milankovitch cycles, the team found 11,100- and 6100-year cycles previously reported from marine sediments (p. 499). For example, the 23,000-year cycle, driven by the wobbling or precession of Earth's axis, redistributes sunlight so as to alternately intensify summer heat in the Northern and Southern hemispheres. Land masses straddling the equator might then pick up temperature maxima from both hemispheres, producing a maximum in the tropics every 11,000 years or so (Science, 14 January 1994, p. 174) (p. 499). The New Hampshire group, however, has 12 peaks of this cycle in the past 70,000 years, and notes that seven of these peaks coincide with the seven great gushings of icebergs into the North Atlantic during the last ice age, called Heinrich events (Science, 6 January 1995, p. 27) (p. 499). 2021 Comment by the compiler I don't think we have investigated adequately the availability of Ice-free corridors - in the 32,000 to 45,000 year rage - against the parameters Paleoamerican migrations into another new Old World might require we do so test. It's not as if this window might not have anything to do regarding human dispersals at this time - in - as most theories suggest or - out - of the Americas, as I'm am proposing. Certainly, this time-frame is paramount in recognizing the rapid settlement by a new "culturally modern Paleolithic endowed " man of the Eastern Hemisphere. (emphasis added AMH) SCIENCE ______________________________________________________________________________Smithsonian Perspectives, Smithsonian Magazine Secretary Heyman's comments, p. 8 Anthropology is an embracive social science most broadly defined as the study of the origin of humans and of their physical, social and cultural development. Smithsonian anthropology started as the study of Native American cultures, languages and history. In 1846, the Regents asked that collections be procured for the Institution "illustrating the natural history of the country, and more especially the physical history, manners and customs of the North American continent." Enormous collections followed (p. 8). (emphasis added AMH) Meanwhile, the NMNH's Department of Anthropology focused on adding to and caring for the enormous collections of cultural, physical and biological objects, and organizing exhibitions. Most of these had to do with the Americas. Starting in the 1950s, however, anthropological research and curatorship was extended to the Pacific, Asia and Africa (p. 8). (emphasis added AMH) This is illustrated by the groupings within the American Anthropological Association, which include, for instance, ones concerned with psychological, urban, visual, environmental, feminist and nutritional anthropology (p. 8). ______________________________________________________________________________17th-Century Issues, Science, Vol. 274, 15 November 1996, pp. 1148-1149 Book review of Steven Shapins book, The Scientific Revolution, by David C. Lindberg Shapin concentrates on the overthrow of ancient cosmology and natural philosophy by Copernicus, Galileo, and their fellow heliocentrists; the creation of the mechanical philosophy by Descartes, Boyle, and others, and the mathematization of nature by Kepler and Newton. Of course, Shapin joins everybody else who has ever written on the topic in considering the central question of how inference from particular observations can lead to knowledge of universal causes and the attendant question of the level of certitude thus achievable. Shapin believes that science is "the contingent, diverse, and at times deeply problematic product of interested, morally concerned, historically situated people" (p. 165). It follows that the traditional view of science as an objective account of external reality, totally uncontaminated by human interests or passions, is untenable. ______________________________________________________________________________Anthropology and the Crisis of the Intellectuals, Critique of Anthropology, 1994, Vol. 14(3), pps. 227-261. Anna Grimshaw and Keith Hart It might be said that anthropology has been in crisis for as long as anyone can remember, certainly since the wave of independence movements shattered its empirical base and posed serious intellectual and political challenges to many of its fundamental assumptions. p. 227 Our impetus then comes from the desire to address a younger (and broader) audience, one drawn to the universalism of anthropology and yet so often frustrated by its narrow specialization and arcane professional language. This essay is animated by a commitment to rediscovering what was new and radical in anthropology at the turn of the century (p. 228). Moreover, objectification of other people is linked to political hierarchy, an uncomfortable reminder of anthropology's affinity for the world's dominant classes, beginning with its association with European colonial rule (pps. 228-229). Popular resistance to dominance by experts is manifested in negative beliefs which bid fair to replace their legitimating predecessors as common currency: that scientists endanger the environment, doctors are bad for your health, economists' predictions are wrong, the law is an expensive farce and so on. Professors, who have long been known to be inarticulate and incompetent, are now suspected of having nothing to say at all. Certainly, the number of people who depend on humanist intellectuals as the arbiters of civilization and taste is dwindling. Anthropologists suffer more than most from their own variant of this problem; for they have always derived their intellectual authority from direct experience of social life. From the beginning, anthropologists' claim to special expertise rested on reporting the activities of unknown peoples to both lay and academic audiences at home (p. 229). It is, therefore, not surprising that anthropologists today, even more than most other branches of the academic division of labour, find themselves in a quandary when asked to explain how they contribute to understanding the world we all live in (p. 230). The method of scientific ethnography required the invention of a new literary form. The distinctive innovation of scientific ethnography was to make ideas seem to emerge from descriptions of real life. We may call this contradictory illusion the synthetic a posterior, being a hybrid construct of Kant's famous distinction between the mental forms we bring to an enquiry, the synthetic a priori, and the empirical inferences we make subsequently, the analytical a posterior (p. 234). (emphasis is not added but original) Over the years this commitment to go out and live has worn rather thin; and the balance now once more decisively favours the world of books (p. 259). We hold that social life, for all its confining dividisons, is integrated and that the process of integration is ultimately global. It is anthropology's great merit that it has the scope to increase our self-consciousness of human unity in diversity. This universality, however, must be conceived of anew, not as a form of Western dominance nor as a thoughtless merger of the general and the specific, but as a process of extension from the particulars of individual and collective experience. It is entirely conceivable that the next century will have no place for a class of specialist intellectuals, called anthropologists, with a mission to tell people what is going on in their world. For academic anthropology has never succeeded completely in eliminating the early ethos of the amateur from its professional practices. Moreover, it might be said that, compared with the other sciences and humanities, anthropology has remained in important ways an anti-discipline, taking its ideas from anywhere, striving for the whole, constantly reinventing procedures on the move. Thus, as the boundaries defining specialist disciplines give way, anthropology contains within itself many elements of a more flexible, constructive approach to learning about the world. These are its strength and creative source. Above all, we believe that the problem of devising new forms of anthropological enquiry has to be solved at the level of social practice, not ideas. In particular, it is time for anthropologists to rethink the wisdom of having committed the future of their collective project so completely to the institutions of academic bureaucracy (p. 259). Comment by the compiler Lets get on with empowering the way we live (and choose to live) with the lessons we have learned. ______________________________________________________________________________ Human Evolution, 1995, by Milford H. Wolpoff, Book review by Henry M. McHenry The ideas expressed in the text are often those developed by the author and not necessarily those of the majority of paleo-anthropologists. For an explanation of the consensus view among scholars on this field, the reader would do well to turn elsewhere. Like the 1980 edition, the book is divided into four parts: the basis for human evolution, the appearance of the hominid line, the development of the human pattern, and the evolution of modern people (p. 301). ______________________________________________________________________________ Science, Vol. 272, May 24, 1996 Kim Peterson Mammal Diversity Takes a 20-Million-Year Leap Backwards The 70 fossils were sandwiched between two layers of ancient marine rocks preserving extinct species of oysters and bony fish. From dating at other sites, researchers knew that some of these marine species died by 85 million years ago, implying that Nessov's fossils were at least that old. Says Archibald: "Everything about the site argues for late, but not the latest, Cretaceous (pg. 1102)." ______________________________________________________________________________ Science, Vol. 273, September 20, 1996 Frank von Hippel and Ted von Hippel Past Life on Mars? Given that life on Earth thrives kilometers deep of times atmospheric pressure living off hydrogen sulfides and that life thrives in boiling hot springs and far below the surface in Earth's crust, the ubiquity of life in the universe should not be surprising. Comment by the compiler We should be more open in choosing our primate forbears, Yes! ______________________________________________________________________________Virginia Morell Genes vs. Teams: Weighing Group Tactics in Evolution And although the idea of group selection was discredited more than 30 years ago, a growing number of researches say that it deserves a fresh hearing. Group selection, they say, may explain patterns ranging from how cells are kept in check in a developing organism, to the evolution of honeybee dancing, to the way plants grow in a crowded field. But those who favor individual selection are dubious. "I don't see how you can test his model against empirical data," complains Brian Charlesworth, a population geneticist at the University of Chicago. In fact, says Charlesworth, that is a problem with all of the new theoretical models. "This group selection could be going on all the time, but since we have no way of documenting it, how do you know it's ever happened?" (pg. 740) "It's very abstract and confused right now because there are a lot of different definitions about what group selection is," says Harvard University's Stephen Jay Gould. "But it is also vitally important to evolutionary theory; it will sort itself out." Perhaps a few rounds of selection among competing bands of evolutionary biologists will do the trick. May the best group win. (emphasis added AMH) ______________________________________________________________________________ Mehran Kardar Which Came First, Protein Sequence or Structure? Each protein is composed of a specific sequence of amino acids (its primary structure). However, its functionality is determined by its full three-dimensional structure (secondary and tertiary structure). The relation between the one-dimensional sequence and the final structure is part of the puzzle of protein folding. The possible number of sequences is enormous: 20400 potential proteins of length 400 can be constructed from 20 amino acids. On page 666 of this issue, Li et al. (1) provide an alternative perspective: The observed protein structures are special because they can be easily coded (designed) and are stable against mutations in the sequence. For example, considerable modeling has focused on polymers of length 27, occupying all sites of a 3 x 3 x 3 cube. [This model was first suggested by Shaknovich and Gutin (2) and is now considered standard.] Thus, the direct association of designability to the structural elements such as "superfolds" (5) is a bold new direction for protein-folding studies. Like most fertile concepts, it immediately suggests various tests and experiments to check its viability. ______________________________________________________________________________ Scientific American, August 1996 In Brief Case Closed After 84 years, the Piltdown hoax may be solved. In 1912 Arthur Smith Woodward–keeper of paleontology at London's Natural History Museum–hailed bones from Piltdown, England, as the Missing Link. But some 50 years later it became clear that a criminal–and not evolution–had joined the human skull and orangutan jaw. Recently two scientists analyzed similarly stained specimens in an old trunk bearing the initials M.A.C.H. and, at last, fingered the perpetrator: Martin A. C. Hinton, a curator of zoology, who had warred with Woodward over wages (pg. 22). Comment by the compiler I have always hoped it wasn't Keith as he once championed the idea of "continuity over time for the modern human anatomy." (All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH) ______________________________________________________________________________ San Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune (AP) Anthropologists have a new snapshot for the human family album, and she's got a face only a mother could love: gaping, squarish eyes, a protruding mouth and not much of a forehead. But who looks attractive after being buried for 10 million years? Ankarapithecus meteai, a 60-pound, fruit-eating ape that roamed the woodlands of central Turkey long before the evolutionary split that separated humans from chimps, actually looks pretty good to people who study human evolution (pg. lost). The species is named for the city of Ankara, 30 miles south of the site where the fossil was found, and a geological sciences institute there. The "pithecus" part comes from the Greek word for ape. The actual common ancestors of humans are thought to have lived in Africa at the time that Ankarapithecus meteai occupied Turkey. But fossils of those creatures may never be found, Pilbeam said. Fossil-preserving rocks of the proper age simply aren't exposed on the ground surface anywhere in Africa (pg. lost). Comment by the compiler Or the New World, for that matter! (All emphasis added by the compiler, AMH) ______________________________________________________________________________Eric Delson Nature VOL. 332 17 MARCH 1988 One Source Not Many Modern humans are unknown from western Europe or Australia before about 35,000 years ago, when the fossils already have at least some regional characteristics (the interpretation that the archaic appearance of some Australian crania may be due to cultural practices of deformation rather than persistence of H. erectus features is gaining ground) (pg. 206). ______________________________________________________________________________ Tatu Vanhanen. Reviewed by Iver Mysterud. Book Reviews, (source lost) Another look at . . . On the Evolutionary Roots of Politics How can one, for example, ensure that the next generation will live within a democratic society and not an autocratic one? Vanhanen states that "it would be possible to create better environmental conditions for democratic political structures by distributing the same resources among competing groups and wide sections of the population. . . . People must have some basic security and independence from power holders before they can take part in politics independently. In other words, a certain level of resource distribution among individuals and social groups seems to be a necessary and sufficient condition for the emergence of democratic power structures" (p. 158) (pg. 203). PRIMATES ______________________________________________________________________________ Alan Mann and Mark Weiss Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution Vol. 5, No. 1, February, pp. 169-181, 1996 Hominoid Phylogeny and Taxonomy: A Consideration of the Molecular and Fossil Evidence in an Historical Perspective "It is therefore probable that Africa was formerly inhabited by extinct apes closely allied to the gorilla and chimpanzee; and as these two species are now man's nearest allies, it is somewhat more probable that our early progenitors lived on the African continent than elsewhere. (1871:520) pg. 169 (pg. 169). Buffon, one of the great naturalists of the 18th century, recognized the anatomical resemblances that were being documented between humans and apes, but believed that humans should be considered as on an entirely different level compared with even these creatures. In his Histoire Naturelle (1749-1804), he remarked that: This orangutan-outang or pongo [most likely a chimpanzee] is only a brute, but a brute of a kind so singular, that man cannot behold it without contemplating himself. . . The tongue, and all the organs of speech, for example are here the same as in man; and yet the orangutan-outang enjoys not the faculty of speaking; the brain has the same figure and proportions; and yet he possesses not the power of thinking. Can there be a more evident proof than is exhibited in the orangutan-outang, that matter alone, though perfectly organized, can produce neither language nor thought, unless it be animated by a superior principle. . . We have often remarked Nature proceeds in her operation by imperceptible degrees. This truth, which otherwise admits of no exception, is here totally reversed. Between the faculties of man and those of the most minute animal, the distance is infinite. (Quoted in Slotkin, 1965:182-183) (pg. 171) The number of recognized primate species, including hominoids, increased markedly during the first half of the 19th century. For example, Tyson had referred to the chimpanzee as Homo sylvestris, and Linnaeus was most probably referring to chimpanzees in employing the term Simia satyrus; others had called it Pongo, Jocko, or satyr. It was given its present genus designation, Pan, by Oken, in 1816, and by this time, it was clearly differentiated from the orangutan (Stiles and Orelman, 1927:28). The existence of the gorilla as a distinct genus, Gorilla, was recognized in 1847. (The final large-bodied hominoid to be classified, the pigmy chimpanzee, was officially recognized in 1929 (Reynolds, 1967) (pg. 171). Genet-Varcin, in her 1963 edition of les Singes Actuels et Fossiles, described all of the large-bodied apes together, and after examining the fossil evidence, suggested that the divergence between the ape and human lineages occurred before the Oligocene (1963:223). She also presented an evolutionary chart of the primates (220-221) in which all the apes, including the gibbons, have a separate evolutionary origin from the line leading to humans. Neither chimpanzees, gorillas, nor orangs are more closely related to humans than any of the others (pg. 174). However, as Rogers (1993) cautions, not all the data point to this conclusion, and there is still need for some caution. At a general level, one must realize that most of the sequence comparisons are based on single individuals and do not allow for polymorphic variation within living species. It may be possible to find other alleles within each that would imply alternative phylogenies. Ancestral species were undoubtedly polymorphic too. If one considers a situation where two of three extant species share a more recent common ancestor, it is possible that drift at any particular locus could obscure the true phylogenetic relationships. The true out-lier and one other population might actually have reached fixation for an identical allele, while the third population became fixed for an alternate allele. There is then room for contradictory and ambiguous results. The ultimate resolution is a statistical one (pg. 175). (emphasis added AMH)