Excerpted Anthropological Research Articles: 1995

Excerpted Anthropological Research Articles: 1995 compiled with notes by Alvah Hicks ‘Pardner’ Hicks; AMH (1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999-2000 AVAILABLE BY REQUEST) Alvah M. 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 Abstract 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, Alvah Hicks. Primarily, they represent "warranting evidence" in support of the compiler's contention that; Paleo-American populations should be examined as a potential source for both recent and ancient Homo sapiens sapiens 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. These articles are broken down into geographic areas of study. I am deeply indebted to the individuals studied, to the authors who have acknowledged their contribution and, to the researchers themselves who have compiled 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 expectantly 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 published sources. Nurturing A Human Evolutionary Consensus: The Search for an Alternative Paradigm Table of Contents: General Overview Page 2 North and South America Page 7 Siberia/Beringia/North America Page 17 Polynesia Page 26 Asia Page 34 Africa Page 31 Europe Page 41 Primate Research Page 46 Archaeological Research Page 50 New World Archaeology Page 52 Linguistics Page 54 ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________ General Overview______________________________ Willarmet, C. M., and G. A. Clark. Paradigm crisis in modern human origins research Journal of Human Evolution (1995) 29, 487-490. 1995 Despite the considerable efforts of many well-informed investigators, however, no resolution of the controversy is in sight. We think that the slow progress to resolution of the debate can be attributed to differences in metaphysical paradigms of modern origins researchers that in turn result in a biased selection of specimens and/or variables used in analysis. How selectively biased are researchers? An extensive literature review of published multivariate data invoked in support of "continuity" and "replacement" positions produced some dramatic results (Willamette, 1993, 1994). A total of 680 data points were collected, representing 61 variables on 55 fossils. Of these, only 72 variables on 11 fossils, or 11% of the reported database, were common to both paradigms This means that in the sample, 89% of the data collected were used by members of only one paradigm (p. 488). Given the construal of the paradigm just outlined, theories (more accurately the hypotheses deduced from them), can only be confirmed or discomfirmed according to the tenets of the metaphysic (the construal of "reality" defined by the biases and preconceptions of the paradigm). Outside a particular paradigm, its constituent theories ("hypotheses") might appear nonsensical. Despite assertions to the contrary (e.g. Klein, 1989), the venerable history of the debate suggests that simply acquiring more data will not help us choose between opposing paradigms. The reason is that data have no meaning or existence independent of a paradigm that defines and contextualizes them. In light of the plethora of articles and books that have appeared in the last 10 years, it is worth asking ourselves whether we are any closer to solving the question of our origins than we were a century ago. If there is a lesson to be learned from the debate, it is that students of human evolution must begin to confront the inferential basis for their knowledge claims. So far, they have not been much concerned to do so. The result is an interminable debate, now well into its second century, with no resolution in sight (p. 489-489). NOTE and the beat goes on? This collection of quotes is aimed at exploring a long dismissed alternative. AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ Barton Childs - The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Baltimore - AMERICAN JOURNAL OF HUMAN GENETICS pg. 595 - BOOK REVIEW. "Human ecology shares interests with physiologists, geneticists, epidemiologists, demographers, anthropologists, nutritionists, and others, all of whom are trying to explain "how we have adapted, adjusted and coped with our natural and social environment through time" (p. 445). NOTE Pleistocene New World archaeological signatures may not have engendered refined stone tool industries. These bone tools may have given way to stone with the adoption of U. Paleolithic hunting during the accession to "Paleoindian Traditions" when introduced into the Americas at the end of the last Ice Age. AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ Stoneking, Mark. Ancient DNA: How Do You Know When You Have It and What Can You Do with It? 1995. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 57:1259-1261, 1995. Archeologists are traditionally interested in the same sorts of questions about their skeletal populations that human population geneticists are generally interested in when surveying their contemporary populations, questions such as: Who are these people? Where did they come from? How long have they been here? How did they get here? How much variation is there in this population? How are they related to surrounding populations? Is there any tendency for males or females to marry into or out of the community? If there are recognizable social classes in the population, do they tend to be structured along kinship lines (p. 1261). NOTE We should first measure our own data in accordance with the beliefs of those we study. AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ !!! Howell, F.C., 1984, "Preface" to The Origins of Modern Humans: A World Survey of the Fossil Evidence, Eds. Smith FH, F. Spencer, New York: Alan R. Liss, Inc. 1984 "There is now a near consensus among students of human evolutionary biology that the origins of our own species, Homo sapiens, is somehow intimately linked with the first intercontinental ancient hominid, Homo erectus. However, neither the transformation of erectus to sapiens nor the transformation of ancient (archaic) populations of Homo sapiens to their anatomically modern successors (H s sapiens) are matters of agreement in this scientific fraternity. Undoubtedly, there are many factors that make this the case, and any reader of this volume will discern some of those that are most obvious. In fact, there is no consensus among the authors represented in this volume, although the major issues are generally well delineated, and the limitations of the diverse and often disparate lines of evidence are usually apparent (p. xiii.)." NOTE Are alternatives to H. erectus available? Amerindians? AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ !!! Robert S. Corruccini, 1992. Metrical Reconsideration of the Skhul IV and IX and Border Cave 1 Crania in the Context of Modern Human Origins; AJPA April "Skhul IV and IX, meanwhile, ...join the cluster of supposedly early African/Mideastern AMHS (*my "pre-sapiens"), and then the above-described, increasingly heterogeneous Neandertal grouping. The Upper Paleolithic true AMHS exclusively cluster with one another, relatively far removed from these other groupings. Thus, the picture is one of overriding affinity among all the crania earlier than the European Upper Paleolithic, whether they be considered Classic Neandertal, Progressive Neandertal, AMHS, presapiens, or whatever."..."Continued facile reference to Skhul and Qafzeh as craniometrically "fully anatomically modern" is not responsible to the craniometric data (pg. 437)." The Border Cave cranium, so central to the course of "out-of-Africa" thinking despite its uncertain age, can support no special relationship to living African Homo sapiens. (pg. 441) "Qafzeh 6 as well as Skhul IV and V are well separated from later European AMHS. This calls into question blithe assumptions that Skhul and Qafzeh are, cranially, anatomical moderns." (pg. 441) NOTE Transitional forms where in the Levant and/or Africa -- Corruccini casts doubt! AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ !!! Pilbeam, David; In Major topics in Primate and Human Evolution, editors Wood, Martin, and Andrews, published by Cambridge (Cambridgeshire) New York 1986. pg. 335. "Whatever the exact nature of the behavioral differences between modern humans and their ancestors, and of the transition between them there is a plausible case to be made for the argument that the biobehavioral gap was wide, that 'archaic' human behavior was different from the behavior of anatomically modern groups, and that we see in the 'archaic' the final representatives of a very long phase of human evolution, during which only limited changes took place... A case can be made that the nomen H. sapiens should apply only to hominids for which modern behavior patterns can reasonably be inferred: another name would then be needed for 'archaic' H. sapiens [Homo erectus]. _____________________________________________________________________________ !!! Frank Spencer, The Neandertals and Their Evolutionary Significance: A Brief Historical Survey in Smith /Spencer , 1984 pg. 7 Another problem confronting late 19th century human evolutionists was the incipient argument for the relative stability of the human form. From accumulating skeletal evidence it appeared as if the modern human skeleton extended far back in time, an apparent fact which led many workers to either abandon or modify their views on human evolution. One such apostate was Alfred Russell Wallace (1823-1913). In 1887, Wallace examined the evidence for early man in the New World, and like the German anatomist Julian Kollman (1834-1918), who three years earlier had made a similar survey, found not only considerable evidence of antiquity for the available specimens, but also a continuity of type through time. In an effort to explain this, Wallace [1889, pp. 454-461] suggested that once man had become morphologically differentiated from his apish kin (during the mid-Tertiary period), he had remained physically stable. emphasis added NOTE Differing opinions can be found to support "multiregional evolution" and "rapid replacement," the two main camps defining modern human evolutionary studies. The testing of hypotheses concerning the initial presence of mankind in the Western Hemisphere are however, first defined solely against the backdrop of migrations from Asia. These theories are often based on linguistic, genetic, dental, archaeological, or ethno-historical surveys, being cast from the nineteenth century British-school's contention that Homo s.s. could not pre-date the Neandertals. The fact remains that all fossil man finds in the Americas are of anatomically modern humans. Since modern man is known to have replaced Neandertals the consensus has followed that anatomically modern man in the Americas could not predate the European antiquity of Cro-Magnon Man. _____________________________________________________________________________ ! Allman, William F., "Who WE Were" in U.S. News and World Report, 1991, Sept. 16 Research by University of Hawaii geneticist Rebecca Cann suggests that the newcomers' germs may have played a divisive role as modern humans swept into Europe and around the world. Just as European colonists of the 15th century are thought to have killed off more American natives with smallpox and measles than with warfare, Cann believes that an influx of new diseases came with the arrival of the Cro-Magnons, contributing to the demise of the Neanderthals (pg. 57). NOTE These mutational advancements in Old World people may have led to adaptations to pathogens that, when introduced into Amerindian Populations, led to similar catastrophe the a proposed New World origin and Amerindian arrival might have caused Neandertals. Bob Boker's Dinosaur syndrome revisited! AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ !!! Invited Editorial, Emoke Szathmary; Am. J. Hum. Genet. 1993b pg. 796 "If Chakraborty and Weiss's (1991) findings apply in general to the Americas, it means that not only is there no evidence for the presence of major bottlenecks in the evolutionary history of the mtDNA in the New World but also that it is not possible to establish the evolutionary source of mtDNA mutations. They are as likely to be the product of new mutations as of ancient founder effects." NOTE The only cladistic evidence of an Asian/Amerindian affinity is to be found in the discovery of the four rare Asian mtDNAs. These proposed founding Amerindian lineages (see Schurr et al. 1990; Torroni et al. 1993a), are not descendent of the derived (post-nodal) Asian lineages, those described in the trees generated by Cann et al. (1987); Johnson et al. (1983) and Excoffier and Langaney (1989). The two subgroups common to Central and Southeast Asian populations are found in 36.1% of the Siberians studied while "surprisingly" they are not found in Native Americans. Contrarily, the presence of rare Asia mtDNA in the Americas does not specifically identify that their origin must be Asian in that admixture from the Americas could be suggested for some populations inhabiting Siberia (Hicks, in submission). An alternative explanation could be proposed in the movements of Amerindians into northeast Asia following or during the formation of contemporary Circumpolar peoples in post glacial times (Boas 1905; 1910, his "Eskimo wedge theory"). Should this be the case, then any evidence for an Asian (or for that matter, African or European), origin for the Eskimos, Na-Dene, and/or Amerindian would be, cladistically, unsustainable. AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ Signature of Ancient Population Growth in a Low-Resolution Mitochondrial DNA Mismatch Distribution. in Human Biology, August, 1994, v. 66, no. 4, pp. 591-600 HC Harpending ...the absence of recombination in pedigrees of mtDNA sequences does mean that history is preserved in mtDNA sequences in such a way that it may not be in sequences from the nuclear genome. In particular, episodes of population growth and decline leave signatures in the distribution of differences among individuals in a population because population decline causes loss of sequence diversity and population growth causes the retention of sequences that otherwise would have been lost. Thus DNA sequence diversity may provide an instrument for examining prehistoric demography. (pg. 591) If t = 1 corresponds to 60,000 years ago, then t = 0.2 corresponds to 12,000 years ago. The level of migration M = 1 is generally the most satisfactory fit to the human data described by Harpending et al. (1993), and Takahata (1993) suggests that this level of migration accounts best worldwide levels of FST among human populations. (pg. 597) Distribution of raggedness in 1000 simulations of 5 populations, each of size Q = 0.2, that were stationary until t = 0.2 unit of mutational time ago, when they underwent a thousand-fold expansion. The number of migrants M is 1. The distribution looks like those of the stationary populations in Figure 2, suggesting that post-Pleistocene population growth in humans does not account for the smoothness of the mismatch data. (pg. 598) Because a population consisting of only 5000 females could not have occupied all the temperate parts of the old World where remains of Homo erectus have been found, the demographic implications of our genetic diversity contradict the multiregional hypothesis of a widespread transformation of Homo erectus populations into modern Homo sapiens. (pg. 599). !! NOTE Contrasting mtDNA studies, confirming evidence of a population "expansion event" in the Old World (see Johnson et al. 1983; Cann et al. 1987; Excoffier and Langaney 1989; Templeton 1993), have not found similar evidence for the same, in studies of New World peoples. Chakraborty and Weiss (1991), in their own earlier assessment of the Wallace et al. (1985; Schurr et al. 1990) data, have proposed that any evidence supporting a founding event, is not detectable since a steady-state of balance, characterized by the presence of mutational-drift equilibrium, is present in the mtDNA of the three Amerindian populations analyzed by the Wallace group. This situation, the presence of mutational-drift equilibrium in Amerindian tribal populations, does not indicate that the New World Amerindians are recently derived, while, contrarily, this same kind of evidence is central to the hypotheses supporting a "recent expansion event" for Old World peoples. AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ ! Vigilant, Linda, Mark Stoneking, Henry Harpending, Kristen Hawkes, and Allan C. Wilson 1991. African Populations and the Evolution of Human Mitochondrial DNA. Science, Vol. 253, pp. 1503-1507. Cann et al. (7) used the midpoint method of rooting their tree, assuming that the rate of evolution has been the same in all lineages. If, however, mtDNA evolution were faster in Africans, then the deep African lineages would actually be shallow lineages along which more mutations had accumulated. Hence, the tree might not yield any information regarding the geographic origin of the mtDNA ancestor (12)(p. 1504). NOTE Or that Africa was not the place from which H. s.s. began there colonization of the Old World. Many authors and geneticists have argued against the Out of Africa argument(s). Out of Asia would only follow an Amerindian inclusion into the debate concerning H. s. s. origins. Rebecca Cann, at one point, suggested up to 33 Eves in the Americas. AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ ! Pierre Darlu - Pascal Tassy - Nature Volume 329 10 September 1987 SCIENTIFIC CORRESPONDENCE. "No single hypothesis is certain as long as there is a possible alternative that cannot be proved to be false. Many other interpretations of the data of Cann et al. are possible as long as multiple hypotheses exist about relative rates of evolution along the branches of the tree, and as long as selective pressures, admixture, migration and bottleneck effects cannot be included in intraspecific models." _____________________________________________________________________________ !!! Stephen J. Gould, 1992. "Columbus Cracks an Egg" Natural History, Dec. pgs. 4 - 11). Do traditional methods "indicate a hidebound resistance to innovation?" This is an important perspective, one that seems to coincide with my own experiences. As Harvard Universities' Stephen J. Gould iterates, "great intellectual revolutions are never simple infusions of knowledge into a previous void; they are always exercises in destruction and replacement." My own efforts have been built upon the fruitful work of others by acknowledging past traditions with the understanding that, "the most historically potent and positive form of creativity must occupy the middle ground between strong respect for accepted norms and accumulated knowledge" (BOLD Typeface -- AMH) NOTE Mid-Pleistocene Paleoarchaic or pre-Clovis sites are seen as "Archaeo-Logiacally" unfounded (D. F. Dincauze 1986). Should the dating of human habitations in the Americas in mid-Pleistocene times be accurate (or greater then 33,000; or 47,000 yr. B.P.) then new theories should be designed that would challenge many earlier convictions defining today's "conventional wisdom." A contemporary Amerindian Pleistocene presence warrants alternatives that would delineate a resolution to the unresolved terms assigned to the Old World decadence of man. A new "warranted" perspective must follow the prospect of determining what should or shouldn't be found in the earliest New World archaeological record. Simply, broad-minded paradigms need to follow in the wake of accepting mid-Pleistocene Amerindian habitations. AMH _______________________________________________________________________________ !!! Lightman and Gingerich Smithsonian Magazine 1992 [Title and month unknown] Science is a conservative activity, and scientists are reluctant to change their explanatory frameworks. . .Scientists may also be reluctant to change paradigms for the purely psychological reasons that the familiar is often more comfortable than the unfamiliar and that inconsistencies in belief are uncomfortable. . .When dissonance is present, in addition to reducing it, the person will actively avoid situations and information which would likely increase the dissonance. If unexplained facts can be glossed over or reduced in importance or simply accepted as givens, the possible inadequacy of the current theory does not have to be confronted. Then, when a new theory gives a compelling explanation of the previously unexplained facts, it is "safe" to recognize them for what they are (Lightman and Gingerich 1992 pp. 694). ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ North and South America ______________________________________________________________________________ !!! Emoke J.E. Szathmary 1993. Invited Editorial: mtDNA and the Peopling of the Americas Am. J. Hum. Genet. 53:793-799 It is clear that uncritical use of hypotheses under dispute can be unwise. (pg. 795) If initial occupation of the Americas occurred in pre-Clovis times, for example, then the glaciers that eventually separated Beringia from the ice-free parts of the Western Hemisphere would have functioned as population-isolating mechanisms (Szathmary 1984; Rogers et al. 1991). Genetic differences between the descendants of the Beringians and the southerners could then be indigenous. (pg. 795) The mtDNA trees would have to be trees of minimum length, and the branching order of all lineages in a tree would have to be stable. As the authors (Shields et al. 1993; Torroni et al. 1993a, 1993b) state, these criteria have not been met completely in the mtDNA trees that they generated. (pg. 796) It may well be that all Native American mtDNAs did evolve from the four mutations that are said to be nodal in Torroni et al.'s (1993a) Native American tree. However, nothing precludes the Asian ancestral population from having been polymorphic for a variety of genes, some of which have been preserved in descendant populations on both sides of the Bering Strait. This may be the reason that AM43 and AM88 are shared by Amerinds and Siberians (Torroni et al. 1993b). The sharing, however, does not prove that these haplotypes–and no others–could have founded either group C or group D mtDNA varieties in Siberia and the Americas. (pg. 796) Furthermore, migrations of groups carrying only certain ancestral haplotypes (e.g., a group B migration; see Torroni et al. 1993a) are not necessary if the Asian ancestral population or the first occupying American population was polymorphic for mtDNA. (pg. 796) Another way to demonstrate that ancient founder effects remain detectable in modern populations is to document that the pattern of mtDNA variation deviates from the steady-state balance characteristic of mutation-drift equilibrium. The only published information that exists on the Americas was provided by Chakraborty and Weiss (1991), who demonstrated precisely the reverse situation: they found that mtDNAs were in mutation-drift equilibrium in three Amerindian populations. If Chakraborty and Weiss's (1991) findings apply in general to the Americas, it means that not only is there no evidence for the presence of major bottlenecks in the evolutionary history of mtDNA in the New World but also that is not possible to establish the evolutionary source of mtDNA varieties. They are as likely to be the product of new mutations as of ancient founder effects. (Emoke J.E. Szathmary 1993. Invited Editorial: mtDNA and the Peopling of the Americas Am. J. Hum. Genet. 53:793-799 pg. 796) NOTE From Alvah Hicks Szathmary provides a valuable set of options in addressing the presence of novel haplotypes in Amerindians. She points out that they need not be founding lineages. AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ Asian Affinities and Continental Radiation of the Four Founding Native American mtDNAs. Antonio Torroni, Theodore G. Schurr, Margaret F. Cabell, Michael D. Brown, James V. Neel, Merethe Larsen, David G. Smith, Carlos M. Vullo, and Douglas C. Wallace; Am. J. Hum. Genet. 53:563-590, 1993 However, because PCR segments of 200-400 bp could be routinely amplified from these samples, they were screened for the following eight mutations characterizing Native American mtDNAs (Schurr et al. 1990; Torroni et al. 1992): +HaeIII np 663; –AluI np 5176; 9-bp COII-tRNALYS deletion; +DdeI np 10394; +AluI np 10397; –HincII np 13259/–AluI np 13262; –RsaI np 16329; and +HaeIII np 16517. (pg. 567) The African outgroup haplotype was obtained from a Senegalese mtDNA analyzed in our laboratory and is characterized by the presence of an HpaI site at np 3592 (Appendix). This site defines haplotypes which are African specific and observed in 70%-100% of the sub-Saharan Africans but are completely absent in Asians and Europeans (HpaI morph-3; Denaro et al. 1981; Cann et al. 1987; Scozzari et al. 1988). (pg. 572) In the consensus tree, however, most of the relationships between haplotypes were unresolved, indicating that parsimony analysis is unable to resolve the deep branches of trees when the number of taxa and character states is particularly large (Hedges et al. 1991; Templeton 1991). (pg. 577) The resulting data supported the hypothesis that the Na-Dene comprise only group A mtDNAs. The first tribe analyzed, the Haida, showed 96.0% group A mtDNAs, a distribution similar to that of the Canadian Dogrib (Torroni et al. 1992). However, a previous study of the Gm and Km allotype frequencies in the Haida suggested that this tribe could have derived from an amalgam of Na-Dene and Amerinds (Field et al. 1988). (pg. 577) These observations confirm the expectation that the haploid nature and uniparental inheritance of mtDNA (Giles et al. 1980) allow genetic drift and founder events to play a more significant role in the stochastic extinction and fixation of mtDNA haplotypes in contrast to nuclear genes. (pg. 579) The exception is represented by Boruca haploytpe AM52, which has the 9-bp deletion in association with the HaeIII np 663 site gain characterizing group A haplotypes and an MspI np 104 site loss observed in most of the group A haplotypes of the Chibcha speakers. (pg. 580) The remainder of the other D-loop mutations were confined to either Americans or Asians and were individual specific. Therefore, Native American D-loop variation, like the restriction site variation, probably arose after Native Americans became separated from Asia. (pg. 581) However, these polymorphisms are not observed in the Asian or Siberian D-loop sequences belonging to the same D-loop groups (table 5) (Torroni et al. 1993). Whether these mutations imply additional Native American founding mtDNAs or parallel mutations arose in the Americas remains to be resolved. (pg. 581) The current study, together with previous studies (Wallace et al. 1985; Schurr et al. 1990; Torroni et al. 1992) confirms that all Native American mtDNAs fall into four distinct haplogroups (A-D). This results raises questions about which of the mtDNAs in each haplogroup represent the original founders. (pg. 581) To clarify this ambiguity, group C haplotypes from aboriginal Siberian populations were analyzed. In that study, AM43 appeared at significant frequencies in Siberians, whereas AM32 was not found (Torroni et al. 1993). This observation suggested that haplotype AM43 was the founding group C haplotype for Native Americans. In summary, the distribution and frequency of mtDNA haplotypes in the Americas, and their phylogenetic relationships to Asian and Siberian mtDNAs, appear to indicate that haplotypes AM1, AM13, AM43, and AM88 were the founding haplotypes for all modern Amerind mtDNAs. (pp. 583-584) Evidence in favor of the second scenario can be seen in the pattern of mtDNA variation. On further scrutiny, Amerind mtDNA mutations can be divided into three classes. . . . The second class of mtDNA mutations (haplotype specific) are present in only single Native American haplotypes. . . . The third class of mutations are shared by a subset of Amerind haplotypes of the same haplogroup. (pg. 584) NOTE This represents the primary mtDNA data analysis to define Amerindian ancestors in Northeast Asia. The suggested conclusions are used as the basis for contrasting models by virtually every other scholar analyzing Amerindian mtDNAs. For me, admixture from the Americas during the formation of Circumpolar Peoples represents the most viable alternative explanation for the presence of these "proposed founding" lineages in Siberia (see Merriwether et al. 1995). AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ !!! Genetic Variation of the Mitochondrial DNA Genome in American Indians is at Mutation-Drift Equilibrium. in American Journal of Physical Anthropology 86:497-506 (1991) Ranajit Chakraborty and Kenneth M. Weiss The present work suggests that in three Amerindian populations (Pima, Maya, and Ticuna) a steady state has apparently been reached, and hence the initial founding effect has probably dissipated during the evolution of Amerindians in the New World. (pg. 497) We should also note that a consequence of founder-effect (or equivalently, population bottleneck) is reduced gene diversity. . . . These strengthen our conclusion that probably the past bottleneck effect in Amerindians has dissipated and the contemporary populations of Amerindians are now at a mutation-drift equilibrium state. (pg. 504) NOTE Mutation-drift equilibrium is not detected in Old World people and is a primary determination in suggesting a recent founding event for Africans, Asians and Europeans. Clearly, this was not expected in Amerindian Populations that are supposed to have been recently derived or the product of just four founding mtDNA lineages. AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ FOUNDER MITOCHONDRIAL HAPLOTYPES IN AMERINDIAN POPULATIONS Graciela Bailliet, Francisco Rothhammer, Francisco Raul Carnese, Claudiio Marcelo Bravi, and Nestor Oscar Bianchi; Am. J. Hum Genet. 54:27-33 1994 Our study confirms the existence of four major Amerindian haplotypes. However, we also found evidence supporting the existence of several other potential founder haplotypes or haplotype subsets in addition to the four ancestral lineages reported. Confirmation of a relatively high number of founder haplotypes would indicate that early migration into America was not accompanied by a severe genetic bottleneck (Page 27). Table 2 shows the frequency of haplotypes A-D in populations corresponding to 21 different tribes of Amerindians. Ninety-seven percent of individuals showed one of the claimed four founding lineages, while 2.5% of the sample showed haplotype E (this haplotype is identified under the name "others" in Torroni et al. 1992, 1993a), and 0.8% of the sample showed a compound haplotype formed by the combination of two founder haplotypes. Every individual not belonging to haplogroups A-D and not showing a compound haplotype is included in haplogroup E. Torroni et al. (1992, 1993a) consider this haplotype a marker of Caucasian gene admixture, on the basis that Haplotype E is very frequent (93%) in Europeans (Cann et al. 1987) and has been detected mainly in Amerindian populations with history of admixture. Haplotype E is also very frequent (75%) in Asiatics (Cann et al. 1987; Ballinger et al. 1992) and Siberians (27%) (Torroni et al. 1993b). Therefore, it seems evident that the possibility of an Asian ancestry for some of the Amerindian haplotypes E cannot be ruled out. . . .Recently, haplotype E was detected in a pre-Columbian Amerindian mummy from a series of 50 pre-Columbian mummies studied by Stone and Stoneking (1993) (haplotype E is identified as N in table 2 of Stone and Stoneking 1993). This finding would confirm the Asiatic origin of some of the Amerindian haplotypes E. (Page 28 and 29) Torroni et al. (1992, 1993a) have reported that all Amerindians in haplogroup B also exhibit a HaeIII gain at bp 16517. . . Conversely, haplotypes A, Ç, and D may or may not exhibit the HaeIII gain at bp 16517. We shall identify as "A ,' "C ," "D " the subset of haplotypes having the HaeIII gain, while "A 1," "C1 ," and "D1 " will define the subsets lacking the HaeIII site. . . Torroni et al. (1993b) propose a phylogenetic relationship between Siberian and Amerindian populations. Thus, these authors propose that A , C , and D are founder Amerindian haplotypes, because of the fact that these subsets show high frequency in Siberians. On the other had, A1 , C2 , and D1 are assumed to result by mutations occurring in Amerindians and generating either the gain of a HaeIII bp 16517 site (A1 and D1 ) or the loss of the HaeIII site with subsequent reversion to the original state (C 2) (Torroni et al. 1993a, 1993B). (page 29) Thus far, neither in Asiatics (Ballinger et al. 1992) nor in Amerindians has a single case of haplotype B with lack of the HaeIII site at bp 16517 been reported. Therefore, if we assume that C cases arise by reverse mutations, we have to explain why these mutations do not occur in haplotypes B. From the above considerations it seems that the alternative that best accounts for the subsets found in groups A-C is the assumption that A1, A2, C1, C2, D1, and D2 are all founder maternal lineages. (page 30) However, what it is not yet clear is how many more founder haplotypes may be present in addition to the ones proposed. . . Haplotype II (table 5) is a case in point. Both transitions defining this haplotype are found in Asiatics; however, the combination of the two transitions in single individuals (haplotype II) is found in 28% of Amerindians but has not yet been detected in Asiatics. The number of founder Amerindian haplotypes is a problem at the center of an unresolved dispute. According to Torroni et al. (1993b), the colonization from Asia into the American continent was accompanied by a severe bottleneck that markedly restricted the number of maternal lineages entering the New World. Ward et al. (1991) and Horai et al. (1993) propose an opposite view. The genetic diversity detected in Amerindians is, according to these investigators, too extensive and, consequently, does not support the hypothesis of the genetic bottleneck. Confirmation of the presence of more than four founder haplotypes in Amerindians would lend additional support to the positions of Horai et al. and Ward et al. Haplotypes A and D are found not only in Asiatics, but also in a low number of Caucasians (Cann et al. 1987). Haplotype B has been found in Asiatics and also in some Nigerians (Merriwether et al. 1993). On the other hand, haplotype C has not been reported in Caucasians or Africans thus far. This finding seems to confirm the Asiatic origin of Amerindians; yet, the ancestral Asiatic population(s) from which the Amerindians derived is matter of speculation and debate. (page 31 and 32) The possibility of identifying the ancestral founder haplotypes of Amerindians has been questioned by some investigators. Chakraborty and Weiss (1991) re analyzed Schurr et al.'s (1990) data on three Amerindian populations and proposed that mtDNA is in mutation-drift equilibrium and that it is not possible to identify ancestral lineages. Additional arguments casting doubts on the models derived from the existence of founder Amerindian haplotypes have been put forward recently by Szathmary (1993). At this time it seems too optimistic to think that the mtDNA of extant Amerindian populations will serve either to resolve all doubts about the origin of Amerindians or to reconstruct the evolution of primitive populations, some of which may have become extinct because of epidemics, wars, and the forced resettlements that occurred during the conquest of America. (page 32) NOTE This paper adds several more mtDNAs to the equation. Cann once suggested that the Americas harbored 33 Eves. "Few , if any" of the more common Asian mtDNAs are present in the Amerinds (Horai et al. 1992). AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ Torroni, Antonio and Douglas C. Wallace 1995. mtDNA Haplogroups in Native Americans. Am J. Hum. Genet. letter 56:1234. This 3.4% of mtDNAs could have three different origins. First, they could be the result of a second mutational event that has abolished the preexisting Native American mtDNA marker. Second, they could be the result of recent genetic admixture with non-Native Americans. Third, they could represent additional Asian haplogroups carried to the Americas from the ancestral populations that gave raise to Native Americans (p. 1234). NOTE "They" refers to the discovery of new mtDNA markers reported in Bailliet et al. 1994 as well as the Type E haplotype (a European mtDNA lineage) found in a pre-Columbian American. Cann (1995) suggests that a least ten Amerindian mtDNA lineages makes it even more difficult to surmise that bottlenecks occurred during the settlement of the New World. AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ Monsalve, M.V., H. Groot de Restrepo, A. Espinel, G. Correal, and D.V. Devine 1994. Evidence of mitochondrial DNA diversity in South American aboriginals. Ann. Hum. Genet., 58, 271. Unlike previous studies (Torroni et al. 1992), we found no association between the frequency of individuals with the 9-bp deletion and the absence of the association between the frequency of individuals with the 9-bp deletion and the absence of the HincII site. This observation suggests that South American aboriginals descended from a larger number of founders than previously thought. Haplotype analysis using mtDNA polymorphisms in different regions and the 9-bp tandem repeat indicated the presence of two novel haplotypes (designated here I and IV) (Table 2). Neither of these haplotypes has been identified in Native Americans (Schurr et al. 1990; Torroni et al. 1992) or other Asian mongoloid populations (Horai & Hayasaka, 1990; Stoneking et al. 1990; Ballinger et al. 1992), suggesting that they originated in South America. ... In studies of the Kaingang and Guarani from Brazil (Belich et al. 1992) and the Waorani Indians of Ecuador (Watkins et al. 1992), nine previously undescribed variants were found for the HLA-B gene, suggesting that these variations originated in the Americas after the initial dispersal of the founding populations (p. 271). NOTE Again, the age and distribution pattern of the S. American aboriginal regarding the 9 bp deletion suggests that, "it is a "regionally specific" variant created in isolation in the Americas. Also, either this marker was 1) lost in the proposed ancestors of the Amerinds living in Beringia or 2) it was introduced into the Old World after it became a "regionally specific" Amerindian Variant. Could this marker have been carried into and throughout the Old World by Polynesian explorers? It is not found in more central Continental and Interior Ocenia Island Populations. It is a prominent founding lineage in Madagascar, coastal Southeast Asia, Micronesia, and even the Tharu of Nepal (~10%), who can be traced along with other "Oriental markers " to a recent coastal origin south of Nepal. Also, local variants of the 9 bp deletion are found in the Tharu confirming the high mutation rate associated with this uniquely widespread Two World mtDNA marker (also see Stoneking 1996). AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ Analysis of HLA Class II Haplotypes in the Cayapa Indians of Ecuador: A Novel DRBI Allele Reveals Evidence for Convergent Evolution and Balancing Selection at Position 86 E.A. Titus-Trachtenberg, O. Rickards, G.F. De Stefano, and H.A. Erlich Am. J. Hum. Genet. 55:160-167, 1994 In the Cayapa, the unusually high frequency (50%) of DPB1*1401, an allele rare or absent in all other Amerindian groups studied to date as well as in other human populations, may reflect genetic drift or, more likely, positive directional selection, such as resistance to infectious disease pathogens. (pg. 166) _____________________________________________________________________________ !!! Genetic Characterization of the Cayapa Indians of Ecuador and Their Genetic Relationships to Other Native American Populations, in Human Biology, April 1994, v. 66, no. 2 pp. 299-322 O. Rickards, M. Tartaglia, C. Martinez-Labarga, and G.F. DeStefano The great heterogeneity found at the protein level among the Amerinds is concordant with the observations of Ward et al. (1991) and Horai et al. (1993), who found extensive mitochondrial diversity within and between Amerind populations based on sequences of the hypervariable control region. Criticism of Ward et al.'s (1991) initial study with the Nuu-Cha Nulth, on the grounds that the tribe represented an abnormal or an unusual case of native American population dynamics, now appears unfounded. (pg. 309) The discrepancy between the two analyses indicates that the blood group data alone cannot be used to explain satisfactorily the genetic relationships among the Amerind populations. Reliance on blood group markers alone will lead investigators to underestimate the true complexity of modern tribal populations. (pg. 313) Although the most recent mitochondrial DNA data on Amerind populations seem to indicate that at least four major lineage clusters populated the New World (Torroni et al. 1992; Horai et al. 1993), the large number of lineages included (193), the crudeness of the algorithm used, and the relatively few number of informative sites used for the construction of the distance matrix (43) severely limits the reliability of a globally constructed phylogenetic tree for Amerinds (Jorde 1985). (pg. 313) The last common maternal ancestor of all Amerinds examined may have lived as long ago as 154,000 years B.P., and divergences within the four "clusters" may be as old as 53,000 years. This potentially lengthy period of time coupled with the retention of ancient genetic polymorphisms in geographically distant human groups (Takahata 1993) suggests that further investigations are warranted to achieve a deeper understanding of the peopling of the Americas. (pg. 315) NOTE These observations speak for themselves! AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ ! mtDNA and Y-Chromosome Polymorphisms in Four Native American Populations from Southern Mexico. Antonio Torroni, Yu-Sheng Chen, Ornella Semino, Augusta Silvana Santachiara-Beneceretti, C. Ronald Scott, Marie T. Lott, Marcus Winter, and Douglas C. Wallace Am. J. Hum. Genet. 54:303-318, 1994 Although in some cases it is still debated, the conclusion of most of these analyses is that Amerind mtDNAs cluster in only four mtDNA groups– A, B, C and D – each of which is defined by a specific set of mutations observed in both the coding and the control (i.e., D-loop) regions. This has been interpreted as indicating that a limited number of mtDNAs arrived in the Americas in one or, at most, two migrations from Siberia. (pg. 303) Among them, haplotypes AM1 and AM9 have been described in many other Native American groups, and have been described in many other Native American groups, and haplotype AM1 is considered the founding Native American haplotype (Torroni et al. 1993a) because it is the most common group A haplotype in Native Americans and is also found in Asia. (pg. 306) Haplotype AM9 only differs from AM1 at the hypervariable HaeIII site at np 16517 and was found in one subject of each of the four populations. This is consistent with previous data, indicating that it originated early during the tribal radiation of Native Americans (Torroni et al. 1993a). (pg. 306) However, this method also has a limitation. These specific restriction sites that characterize each haplogroup (group A, +663 HaeIII, group B, 9-bp deletion and +16517 HaeIII; group C, +13262 AluI, +10394 DdeI, and +10397 AluI; group D, - 5176 AluI, +10394 DdeI, and +10397 AluI) originated in Asia long before the ancestral Paleo-Indian population migrated to the Americas and started to differentiate in the various Amerind tribes. Since these sites often represent a large proportion of the total number of site differences in the pairwise comparisons between haplotypes from different haplogroups, they also generate a large portion of the overall genetic distance values. Consequently, they tend to minimize the contribution to the genetic distances of the site changes that really occurred after the tribal radiation. (pg. 308) Fragment A1, common only in African populations (Torroni et al. 1990; Spurdle and Jenkins 1992; Santachiara-Benerectti et al. 1993), was the only A fragment not observed in these Native America samples. (pg. 308) This is the most common haplotype in Caucasians, representing 9%-28% of the Italians, 11.4% of the Czechoslovaks, 23% of the English, and 49% of the Europeans from South Africa, but it is rare or absent in Africans (Torroni et al. 1990; Perisichetti et al. 1992; Spurdle and Jenkins 1992; Santachiara-Benerecetti et al. 1993). (pg. 311) NOTE A novel Y-Chromosome haplotype has been found in Eskimos and Na-Dene speakers further linking the populations of the North with their parent population, Amerindians. Again, Torroni et al's. "founding Lineages" may represent Amerind admixture resulting from Holocene migrations out of the Americas (see Boas 1905, 1910 in Ousley this collection). AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ Dramatic Founder Effects in Amerindian Mitochondrial DNAs Douglas C. Wallace, Katherine Garrison, and William C. Knowler American Journal of Physical Anthropology 68:149-155 (1985) Though Amerindian mtDNAs are clearly Asian in character, the frequencies of Amerindian mtDNA HincII morphs 1, 2, and 6 are markedly different from those found in Asians. (pg. 53) Several new mtDNAs have also been discovered in our Amerindian sample. It is possible that these represent new mtDNA mutations which have been fixed since the Amerindian mtDNA lineages became separated from those of Asia. (pg. 153). NOTE "Regional subdivision" distinguishes people from their "proposed" parent populations, (see Templeton 1993). AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ !!! Peopling of the Americas Founded by Four Major Lineages of Mitochondrial DNA inMol. Giol. Evol. 10(1):23-47, 1993 Satoshi Horai, Rumi Kondo, Yuko Nakagawa-Hattori, Seiji Hayashi, Shunro Sonoda, and Kazuo Tajima Phylogenetic analysis revealed that most Native American lineages are classified into four major distinct clusters. Individuals belonging to each cluster share at least two specific polymorphic sites that are nearly absent in other human populations, indicating a unique phylogenetic position of Native Americans. A phylogenetic tree of 193 individuals including Africans, Europeans, Asians, and Native Americans indicated that the four Native American clusters are distinct and dispersed in the tree. These clusters almost exclusively consist of Native Americans–with only a few Asians, if any. (pg. 23) Although only three to five individuals were analyzed from each local population (except for one individual from Apache), the range of nucleotide diversity (nucleotide differences per site) within populations is 0.7%-1.75%, indicating considerable genetic variation in the Native American populations (table 1). Average value of nucleotide diversity between the local populations is estimated as 1.30%. This is the same magnitude as the mean value (1.21%) for diversity within a population, indicating that considerable migration has occurred between populations after the settlement of each locality. Furthermore, the overall nucleotide diversity among the Native Americans is estimated to be 1.29%, which is slightly smaller than the value 1.44% from the total human population including Africans, Europeans, and Asians. (pg. 27) However, it is useful for understanding the relationships of mtDNAs of Native Americans with those of other groups of humans. At any rate, figure 6 shows that the lineages of Native Americans fall into four different groups, i.e., G2, G4, G9, and G11–with the exception of two lineages, one appearing in G1 and the other in G10. This suggests that the four clusters within Native Americans, as shown in figure 3, are also distinct in the entire human population including Asians, Europeans, and Africans. (pg. 32). Because of both the haploid nature of mtDNA and its complete linkage over the genome, we further examined correlation between the 9-bp deletion and unique polymorphisms in the major noncoding region (table 8). Of the 193 individuals, 13 Asians and 13 Native Americans exhibited the 9-bp deletion. All of the individuals with the deletion shared two polymorphic sites (C at 16189 and C at 16519). In addition, 20 individuals possessed another polymorphism at bp 16217 (C). However, 11 other polymorphisms were restricted to respective lineages consisting of one to five individuals. Six lineages of Native Americans exhibited additional polymorphisms at particular sites that are specific to each lineage, whereas seven Asian lineages showed other specific polymorphisms, indicating a clear separation between Asian and Native American lineages that possessed the 9-bp deletion. These observations suggest that, if the deletion event was once in the Asian ancestry, then it must have occurred a rather long time ago. (pg. 36) ______________________________________________________________________________ Trachtenberg, E.A., H.A. Erlich, O. Rickards, G.F. DeStefano, and W. Klitz 1995. HLA Class II Linkage Disequilibrium and Haplotype Evolution in the Cayapa Indians of Ecuador. Am J. Hum. Genet. 57:421, 422, 423. The DPB1*1401 allele is absent or rare in most human populations (Imanishi et al. 1992), is found at very low frequencies (<5%) in North American Amerindians (Cerna et al. 1993; R. Castro, personal communication), and is found at moderate frequencies (~10%) in South American Amerindians from Brazil and Argentina (Cerna et al. 1993). The DPB1*1401 allele, however, has been discovered at unusually high frequencies in the Waorani Indians of Ecuador and nine isolated Colombian Indian tribes. Analysis of DPB1 in the Waorani samples revealed just two alleles, DPB1*1401 at .38 frequency (7/18) and DPB1*0402 at .62 frequency (11/18) (E.A. Trachtenberg, H.A. Erlich, and D. Watkins, unpublished data); analysis of DPB1 in the nine Colombian Indian tribes revealed DPB1*1401 frequencies ranging from .25 to .45 and found DPB1*0402 frequencies ranging from .28 to .80 (E.A. Trachtenberg, G.Q. Keyeux, J. Bernal, and H.A. Erlich, unpublished data). The low frequency of DPB1*1401 in virtually all other populations analyzed to date, including North American Amerindians, taken in conjunction with the presence of DPB1*1401 at moderate to high frequencies in Argentinean, Brazilian, Ecuadorian, and Colombian Indian tribes, suggest that this allele has increased in frequency for those South American populations since their separation from North American Amerindian groups (p. 421). The Cayapa, like other Amerindians, have a reduction in available HLA polymorphism, which may be consistent with a population bottleneck in the putative ancestral Asian population that migrated across the Bering land bridge >10,000 years ago. The relative uniformity of the HLA class II allele frequency distributions in the Cayapa, however, points to a long history of balancing selection. In addition, while the overall allelic diversity is reduced in this population, the haplotypic diversity is increased with several novel haplotypic associations. This increase in haplotype diversity implicates recombination and balancing selection in the generation and maintenance of these novel combinations (pgs. 422-423). The disequilibrium observed spanning the class II region for all of the major haplotypes points to the operation of more recent selection for specific combinations of class II alleles. Because of the constant rate of decay of nonrandom association between DRB1 and DPB1 (1%/generation), we conclude that selection maintaining these class II haplotypes must have been operating within the past few hundred years (p. 423). ______________________________________________________________________________ !! Zago, Marco A., Eduardo J. Melo Santos, J.B. Clegg, Joao F. Guerreiro, Jeremy J. Martinson, Jemma Norwich, and Mauro S. Figueiredo 1995. a-Globin Gene Haplotypes in South American Indians. Human Biology, v. 67, no. 4, pp. 535, 536, 542. The a-globin gene haplotype distribution has some similarities to distributions observed in Southeast Asian and Pacific Island populations, indicating that these populations have considerable genetic affinities. However, the absence of several features of the a-globin gene cluster that are consistently present among the Pacific Islanders suggests that the similarity of haplotypes between Brazilian Indians and people from Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia is more likely the result of ancient common ancestry rather than the consequence of recent direct genetic contribution through immigration (p.437). Guerreiro's findings reveal a close similarity of Amerindians to populations from Asia and the Pacific Islands, supporting the theory of a predominantly Asian origin of native Americans. The observed similarities to Oceanic populations most probably result from ancient common ancestry, although a direct contribution of Pacific Island immigration to peopling of the Americas cannot be excluded (Salzano and Callegari-Jacques 1988)(p. 436). The similarities of a- and b-globin haplotypes between South American Indians and Southeast Asian and Oceanic populations suggest substantial genetic affinity between these populations and support the notion of a predominantly Asian origin of native Americans (p. 542). NOTE Common affinities without the Central Asian Haplotypes might suggest rapid and early Old World colonization by H. s.s. with isolation from continental Asian populations evident in the lack of common Asian haplotypes in the earliest Melanesians. Similarities "between Brazilian Indians and people from Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia" could be interpreted as evidence of a recent common origin rather than "ancient common affinities." AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ !!! Who Peopled the Planet? Discover Magazine November 1992, pp. 108-113 JoAnn C. Gutin On the other hand, if all the native American languages come from one language brought to the continent in a single migration, the language clock says it must have happened 50,000 years ago. [Johanna] Nichols cheerfully admits that the number is "off the wall." More realistic, she thinks, is the idea of a number of linguistically distinct colonizations - perhaps ten - over the past 30,000 years or so. (pg. 113) As Sherlock Holmes once said, when you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains - however improbable - is the truth. Nichols knows full well that her results are unsettling, but she sticks by her grammatical guns. Exact dates are problematic, but linguistics is "absolutely unambiguous in regard to ballparks," she says firmly. "The New World has been inhabited for tens of millennia." (pg. 113) _____________________________________________________________________________ Mother Tongue Issue 22, May 1994, Harold Fleming . . . is his [Merriwether] conclusion that Eskimos, Athapaskans and Amerind all go back to a single founding lineage before they join the rest of the world. (pg. 58) At the moment, he seems to be saying that the three native American stocks are more like each other than they are like Asians but that the whole lot relates to eastern Asians more than to the rest of humanity. (pg. 58) Stan Ambrose and Richard Klein tell me that there is so far little or nothing in the way of archaeological remains from Africa between 75,000 and 25,000 years ago. (pg. 59) ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ Siberia/Beringia/North America _____________________________________________________________________________ !!! Ousley, Stephen 1995. Relationships between Eskimos, Amerindians, and Aleuts: Old Data, New Perspectives. Human Biology, v. 67, no. 3, pp. 428, 431, 433, 434, 447, 451. Based on data from the JNPE, Boas concluded that "comparisons of type, language and culture make it at once evident that the Northeast Siberian people are much more closely akin to the Americans than to other Asiatics" (Boas 1905, p. 99). Based on the greater biological diversity in the New World, Boas reasoned that Amerindians were in the New World earlier. Because the northeast Siberians represented a small part of the variation present in the New World, they could not have been there as long (Boas 1910). This pattern was confirmed recently by Torroni, Schurr et al. (1993), who found greater diversity in the mtDNA of Amerindian tribes than in native Siberian groups. To explain these observations, Boas proposed that Asians first migrated across a land bridge to America and were cut off from Siberia by glaciers, allowing differentiation of the distinctive American types. When the glaciers retreated, the land bridge was open once more and Americans flowed back into Asia until they encountered Mongoloids migrating from the south and west (Boas 1905, 1912). The peoples on either side of the Pacific were then separated at the Bering Strait by an Eskimo wedge, that is, by a people culturally and morphologically distinct. For Boas, and others the Eskimo originated east of Alaska: "The much-discussed theory of the Asiatic origin of the Eskimos must be entirely abandoned" (Boas 1910, p. 534). The central Canadian Eskimo, who were land and rivertine hunters, were thought by many to represent the ancestral condition of the maritime-oriented Eskimo (Hrdlicka 1930)(p. 428). Boas' theory took all his observations and assumptions into account, explaining why northeast Siberians were bordered by different peoples yet similar to Northwest Coast Amerindians (Ousley 1993). Boas based most of his conclusions on the ethnographic data, with which he was familiar. He never analyzed the Siberian anthropometric data that he made sure were collected, deferring to secondhand typologies and observations instead. This was no doubt partly due to the immense time required for statistical analyses in the precomputer era (p. 428). With larger samples the picture becomes more complicated, as demonstrated by a tremendous time depth (78,000 years) for some Nuu-Chah-Nulth mtDNA lineages and relationships that contradict linguistically based waves (Ward et al. 1991, 1993). In addition, studies have shown that Amerindians have a relatively high amount of mtDNA variation compared with the rest of the world (Horai et al. 1993), especially Siberia (Torroni, Schurr et al. 1993)(p. 431). Drucker (1955) saw a combination of Eskimo and Aleut cultural traits in Wakashan speakers, who also lacked significant cultural influences from the interior of North America. In contrast, the Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian showed greater interior influences and were the result of later population movements to the coast. Ritual autopsies were conducted by Aleuts, some south Alaskan Eskimo, Nootka, and many Koryak and Chukchi groups (Drucker 1955; Jochelson 1908)(p. 433). Ethnographic studies also emphasize the minor role of language (and thus tribe) in population relationships on the Northwest Coast. Instead, socioeconomic organization was more important for what were essentially interactions on the village level. Clans included speakers of different languages and dialects (p. 433). The diversity of American languages is remarkable. Austerlitz (1980) calculated that there are 71 genetic units (families and isolates) represented in North America and only 37 in continental Eurasia, South America could have as many as 70 more. Clearly, linguistic diversity alone cannot be used to date settlement times (p. 434). As Boas noted, there is greater morphological diversity on the Northwest Coast than in northeast Siberia (p. 447). The anthropometric analysis does support most of Hrdlicka's conclusions. First, the Aleut affinity to some Amerindians is apparent. These results parallel the findings of Ossenberg (1992) and Szathmary and Ossenberg (1978), indicating a closer relationship of Aleuts to Amerindians than to Eskimos, despite their closer linguistic relationship. Second, northeast Siberians are the closest relatives of some Eskimos. The fact that the Labrador Eskimos are closer to nearly all Siberian groups than to any Americans points to Siberia as their homeland (p.447). This morphological analysis groups together widely divergent linguistic phyla and reflects typical behavior among neighboring groups in Siberia, one of frequent assimilation and admixture independent of language (Arutiunov 1988a; Bogoras 1909; Dikov 1965; Dolgikh 1965; Jochelson 1908). The morphological data could also reflect village-level socioeconomic interactions, where language is less important (Moss 1992; Townsend 1979, 1980)(p. 447). If it is thought that anthropometric data reflect environmental histories more than genetic histories, it should not be forgotten that gene flow affects phenotypic profiles much faster than selection does, especially in the presence of extensive cultural buffers for dealing with the environment. The real question is whether or not these anthropometric data, like other data collected from modern inhabitants, reflect relationships between large numbers of tribes with complex histories spread across a large area (p. 451). NOTE Ousley's paper contains valuable comparisons of anthropological data from Boas (1905) to Torroni et al. 1994) -- anthropometric to mtDNA data -- and most everything in between. It redresses the links that have long been reported to exist between the end of two Worlds. Contrasts many newly discovered old ideas with consensus views concerning Amerindians in northeast Asia. Again; are A, C, and D ancestral mtDNA lineages or evidence of Amerindian admixture? AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ D. Andrew Merriwether, Francisco Rothhammer, and Robert Ferrell, 1995. Distribution of the Four Founding Lineage Haplotypes in Native Americans Suggests a Single Wave of Migration for the New World Vol. 89 Num.. 4 pp 411-430 "The fact that Native Americans all share variants of the same founding lineages indicates that they are likely to have come from the same source population, and that it is unlikely that multiple migrations from the same area would continuously choose the same four lineages from a subset of the lineages available in the parent population. Clearly, examination of contemporary Asian and Siberian populations indicate that these four lineages are not the only lineages present." "The current Native residents of Alaska and Siberia may be descendants of more recent migrations from the Siberian side of the Bering Strait (as suggested by Torroni et al., 1993b; and Shields et al., 1992, 1993), or from migrations back into the area from within the New World (Merriwether et al. 1995 pg. 424 )." emphasis added AMH NOTE Merriwether et al. 1995 suggests that it is implausible for the more common Asian specific haplotypes to all have been lost in the founding Amerindian population(s) and as-well, the later populations comprising the Inuit and Athapascans (see Table 5; Merriwether et al. 1995). Merriwether et al. (1995) suggest that separate migrations into the Americas for Eskimo and Athapaskans carrying the same "rare" Asian mutations as the Amerinds, themselves, is not tenable (1995). Merriwether et al. (1995) are perhaps the first to use mtDNA analysis to directly address the likelihood of Amerindian migrations into Siberia, creating an alternative to the formation of the Circumarctic Peoples that would support the Boas data. AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ mtDNA Variation of Aboriginal Siberians Reveals Distinct Genetic Affinities with Native Americans Antonio Torroni, Rem I. Sukernik, Theodore G. Schurr, Yelena B. Starikovskaya, Margaret F. Cabell, Michael H. Crawford, Anthony G. Comuzzie, and Douglas C. Wallace Am. J. Hum. Genet. 53:591-608, 1993 Each haplogroup was shown to be defined by a specific set of linked polymorphisms, as follows: haplogroup A by an HaeIII np 663 site gain, haplogroup B by the 9-bp COII-tRNALys intergenic deletion (Cann and Wilson 1983; Wrischnik et al. 1987) and an HaeIII np 16517 site gain; haplogroup C by a linked HincII np 13259 site loss and an AluI np 13262 site gain; and haplogroup D by an AluI np 5176 site loss. Haplogroups C and D are almost always associated with DdeI np 10394 and AluI np 10397 site gains. (pp. 591-592) About 63% of these mtDNAs were characterized by the DdeI np 10394 site gain, with a significant proportion of these, about 56%, also having the AluI np 10397 site gain. Previous studies have shown that mtDNAs with and without the DdeI np 10394 and AluI np 10397 sites define two subgroups of mtDNAs common in East and Southeast Asian populations (Ballinger et al. 1992). (pg. 598) The Siberian mtDNAs were also screened for the absence of the RsaI np 16329 site, a mutation found in 29.0% of the Na-Dene haplogroup A mtDNAs but not in those of Amerinds (Torroni et al. 1992, 1993). This marker was not observed in any of the Siberian mtDNAs analyzed in the present study (tables 1 and 3), nor in the Alaskan and Siberian Eskimo, Aleut, and Chukchi mtDNAs analyzed by Shields et al. (1992). Consequently, this mutation appears to have arisen in the Americas after the ancestral Na-Dene separated from the modern aboriginal Siberians and Amerinds (Torroni et al. 1992, 1993). (pg. 598) Finally, within the common haplogroups A, C, and D, only the nodal haplotypes are shared between Siberians and Native Americans. This result indicates that most of the Siberian and Native American mtDNA variation accumulated after ancestral Americans entered the New World. (pg. 601) The common group C haplotype from the three population groups is designated S26/AM43/AS65, the common group D haplotype is S13/AM88/AS25, and the common group A haplotype is AM1/AS56 (Torroni et al. 1993). (pg. 603) The D-loop sequences support these associations and reveal that population movements carried these mtDNAs from central east Asia to Siberia and then to the Americas. For example, the D-loop group A sequence associated with the Taiwanese Han haplotype AS56 has a C residue at np 16114, while Native American haplotype AM1 (identical to AS56) and virtually all of its Native American derivatives have a T residue at the same position. (pg. 603) The Evenk group A mtDNAs have a C residue, as observed in the Taiwanese Han. Similarly, for haplogroup C, the Han haplotype AS65 and the Siberian haplotype S26 have a T residue at np 16325, while the Native American haplotype AM43 (identical to AS65 and S26) and all its Native American derivatives have a C residue at this same position. (pg. 603) While the marked increase in group A, C, and D haplotypes in many Siberian populations implies a substantial population constriction, the constriction was probably not as complete as that which gave rise to Native Americans. This is apparent from the 36.1% of Siberian mtDNAs not belonging to haplogroups A, C, and D. These "other" mtDNAs show clear Asian affinities but are absent in Asiatic Eskimos, Na-Dene, and Amerinds. (pg. 603) While they could have derived from recent admixture of Siberian and Asian populations, they are more likely to have been carried to Siberia by the Asian migration and subsequently to have been lost by the Native American migrations. (pg. 603) The sequential reduction in complexity from Asia through Siberia to the Americas implies that each migration was accompanied by genetic bottlenecks. (pg. 603) _____________________________________________________________________________ mtDNA Sequences Suggest a Recent Evolutionary Divergence for Beringian and Northern North American Populations Am. J. Hum. Genet. 53:549-562, 1993 Gerald F. Shields, Andrea M. Schmiechen, Barbara L. Frazier, Alan Redd, Mikhail I. Voevoda, Judy K. Reed, and R.H. Ward The similarity of sequences found among the geographically dispersed Circumarctic groups, plus the small values of mean pairwise sequence differences, within Circumarctic populations, suggest a recent and rapid evolutionary radiation of these populations. In addition, Circumarctic populations lack the 9-bp deletion which has been used to trace various migrations out of Asia, while populations of southeastern Siberia possess this deletion. On the basis of these observations, while the evolutionary affinities of Native Americans extend west to the Circumarctic populations of eastern Siberia, they do not include the Altai of central Siberia. (pg. 549) A "mitochondrial lineage" is defined by the unique combination of nucleotides in a particular sequence, whereas a "clade" refers to a cluster of lineages for which there is statistical support of a monophyletic origin (Ward et al. 1991). (pg. 552) Table 1 presents within-population mean pairwise sequence differences for the Circumarctic populations. No transversions were observed, and, with the exception of the Inupiaqs, mean values for all groups are low, suggesting a recent origin for these populations. (pg. 553-554) Five of the lineages found in the Yakima (lineage 27 and lineages 94-97) corresponding to 26 individuals (62% of the sample) possess the deletion. The Altai (Shields et al. 1992) possess the deletion at frequencies similar to those of southeastern Asians, as do the Buriats (present study) and Mongols (Sambuughin et al. 1991) of south-central Asia. (pg. 557) Low values for pairwise sequence differences within and between the far-flung Circumarctic populations contrast with higher difference values for the three Amerind-speaking tribes localized to the Pacific Northwest. . . . Hence, the most plausible explanation for these observations is that the evolutionary radiation of these Circumarctic groups, in concert with the evolution of their mitochondrial lineages, occurred within a shallow time depth. Low sequence diversity, coupled with the broad geographic distances over which some Circumarctic populations (e.g., Alaskan Inupiaqs and West Greenland Eskimos) have become established, suggests that the establishment of these far-flung populations occurred during a relatively short period of time. By contrast, the mtDNAs of Bella Coola, Nuu-Chah-Nulth, and Yakima are broadly divergent, even though the present geographic distribution of these people is confined to a relatively small region. This suggests that these Amerind tribes are much older than the Circumarctic tribes and have undergone considerable localized genetic differentiation. . . . By contrast, most mtDNAs of Circumarctic individuals either are identical or differ from one another by only a few (0-3) substitutions. . . . Moreover, lineages observed in distinct populations are intermingled among the branches of the tree, with no obvious clustering of lineages by the geographic location, or linguistic affiliation, of the tribe from which they were ascertained. For example, individual lineages of Chukchi, West Greenland Eskimos, Athapaskans, and Haida are scattered throughout the tree. This pattern is exactly what would be expected for populations which have recently undergone a demographic expansion and which are in the early stages of evolutionary divergence. (pg. 558) All three instances of lineage sharing (lineage 11 found in Haida and Alaskan Athapaskans; lineages 60 and 61 found in Alaskan Athapaskans and West Greenland Eskimos) involve lineages which are situated on nodes of the molecular phylogeny and thus appear to be ancestral. Hence, we interpret the occurrence of these lineages in multiple populations as indicative of common ancestry rather than of recent admixture. . . . Buch (1979) suggested an early association between Alaskan Inupiaqs and Athapaskans on the basis of archaeological finds, and Dumond (1987) suggests that the archaeological distribution of blades and microblades is a reflection of extensive cultural ties between Eskimos and groups to the south. . . . Alternatively, as suggested by the mitochondrial data, all Circumarctic populations had their genetic origins about the same time, and the cultural differences that subsequently occurred were accompanied by relatively little biological differentiation. . . . Hence, the overall affiliation of the unique Circumarctic lineages with the cluster II Amerind lineages suggests that these Circumarctic populations originated from an Asiatic population whose own ancestors had previously contributed to a substantial fraction of the lineage ancestry of contemporary Pacific Northwest Amerind populations. (pg. 559-560) ______________________________________________________________________________ Renfrew, Colin 1991. Archaeology, Genetics and Linguistic Diversity. Man (N.S.) 27, 470. The final study that I wish to mention (Ward et al. 1991) involves mtDNA from sixty-three individuals of the Nuu-Chach-Nulth tribe of the Pacific Northwest, a group classified within the broader Nootka category, and thus within Greenberg's Amerind linguistic superfamily (and not within the Na-Dene language family, as are certain other groups of the Northwest). Most interestingly, they found no fewer than twenty-eight lineages. Dating with a 'genetic clock', on the assumption of a constant mutation rate, suggests a latest date for the divergence of these lineages of between 41,000 and 78,000 years ago. On most recent chronologies, this predates the initial peopling of America. Ward et al. therefore conclude that the four main clusters they identified originated before humans entered the Americas, although much of the subsequent lineage diversification could have postdated the colonization (p. 470). NOTE A large overview of what is accepted and not accepted concerning language distributions and, especially, Indo-European origins and migrations. Sited is a good example of conflicting Old and New World genetic comparisons that also have, similarly inclined linguistic scholars supporting interpretations suggesting great diversity in the Americas. (Campbell 1986; Nichols 1989). The consideration of Amerindian as a single linguistic unit are not explained, only referred to in, of course, Greenberg' (1987) AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ ! INVITED EDITORIAL mtDNA and Native Americans: a Southern Perspective by Rebecca L. Cann Am. J. Hum. Genet. 55:7-11,1994 Not only did authors publishing about aboriginal Americans disagree on the number of migrations, they also parted company on when people began moving, and from where (Page 7). Researchers are asking, just how robust can the Siberian-model ancestor for all Amerinds be - and just how robust can the time scale associated with timing Paleoindian entry into North America be - if we cannot yet agree on the number of major lineage groups present in the initial colonization wave (Page 8)? By focusing on a single segment of the mitochondrial hypervariable control region in one tribe, those authors discovered maternal genetic diversity that was equivalent to ~ 62% of that found in modern Africans and to ~81% of that present in urban Japan. The Amerind maternal lineages, moreover, traced back to a coalescent female who was projected to have lived ~60,000 ybp. Far from supporting the hypothesis of a genetic population bottleneck in the founding of Amerindians, this study argued that comparatively large groups were involved in the colonization of the New World, on the basis of both the large number of Nuu-Chah-Nulth lineages surviving today and the implied effective population size (Page 8). First, Bailliet et al. eliminate, once and for all, the idea that a severe population genetic bottleneck took place in the process of continental colonization in the New world. . . . In focusing on three Argentine tribal populations (Mapuche, Huillilches, and Atacamenos) having minuscule to no evidence of genetic admixture with Europeans or African ethnic groups, they roughly doubled the number of new maternal genetic lineage clusters (Page 9). ______________________________________________________________________________ Rogers, Richard A. 1986. Language, Human Subspeciation, and Ice Age Barriers in Northern Siberia. Canadian Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 11 - 22. Isolation produced by geographic barriers prevents linguistic changes that accumulate with the passage of time from being shared, and thus produces linguistic divergence. A somewhat analogous phenomenon occurs in biology, when isolation produced by barriers prevents sharing of new mutations and changes in gene frequency resulting from natural selection and genetic drift (p. 11). The location of the maximum NaDene linguistic diversity and the evidence for a lack of linguistic contact between NaDene and Eskimo-Aleut proto-languages is consistent with Nadene having a Wisconsinan homeland in an ice-free refugium on the Pacific Coast. The modern boundary between Athapaskan and Eskimo-Aleut speakers may simply represent the Holocene expansion of ancestral Athapaskans along with the forest to which they had become adapted in their ancestral homelands. The tundra-adapted ancestors of the Eskimo may have retreated from the encroaching Holocene forests and forest-adapted Athapaskans (p. 20). NOTE "Paleoarctic" Eskimo-Aleut may be contemporary with interiorly migrating Athapascans into rivertine and coastal biomes of Alaska while "Paleoindian" Athapascans ancestors may have moved north from the High Plains Both may have originated from earlier Amerindian populations isolated by glacial barriers (Boas 1905; 1910). Also, could the Na-Dene speakers of the North have had descended from Navajo and Apaches currently occupying the American southwest? AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ Rogers, R.A., L.A. Rogers, and L.D. Martin 1992. How the door opened: The Peopling of the New World, Human Biology, Vol. 64, No. 3, pp. 281-302 "The key question is whether a rapid, widespread distribution of a cultural trait necessarily indicates migration or involves some other explanation, such as cultural diffusion" (pg. 297). The Beringian land bridge was exposed during the last glaciation from approximately 75,000 to 45,000 years ago and from approximately 25,000 to 14,000 years ago. Human populations were present in Siberia and reasonably could be expected to have walked across the land bridge 25,000 years ago. However, they may not have needed a land bridge to cross. Two other ways of crossing into Alaska existed from 25,000 to 45,000 years ago: movement by boat and walking across the frozen Bering Strait (p. 285). NOTE The Bering Sea was never as formidable a barrier as the expanse of glacial Ice that accompanies the return of the Land Bridge. The oscillating levels of the ocean during and following Glacial events has a similar impact in shifting the distances between Islands and Continents. This has a similar impact in isolating populations from mainland populations as was the case for the original inhabitants of New Guinea and Australia. AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ Lorenz, Joseph G. and David G. Smith 1994. Distribution of the 9-bp Mitochondrial DNA Region V Deletion among North American Indians. Human Biology, v. 66, no. 5, pp. 777-788. The presence of the region V deletion in most North and South American Amerind groups surveyed thus far suggests that the deletion is an ancient trait that accompanied the ancestors of modern Amerinds on their migration(s) into the New World and that it is not the result of an intermediate migration that occurred between the Amerind and the Na-Dene migrations. Whether the region V deletion found among present-day Amerinds arose once or multiple times in different lineages requires further molecular data on the deletion genotypes (p. 786). NOTE Could the marker have arisen entirely in the Amerindian populations. Might it not have been carried into Northeast Asia with the other A, C, and D lineages that are now found in Siberian populations. That is, could Amerindian living in Siberia have migrated from the Americas? This would require that Siberians with A, C, and D, mtDNA lineages be not the founding populations but rather recent descendants of earlier Amerindians populations. AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ Rogers, Alan R. and Lynn B. Jorde 1995. Genetic Evidence on Modern Human Origins. Human Biology, v. 67, no. 1, pp. 1-36. So far, we have assumed that mtDNA evolution is selectively neutral, yet this may not be so. Suppose that a favorable mtDNA mutation occurred 50,000 years ago and swept through the population. This would produce a wave like that in Figure 2. Our estimates would then refer not to the size of the human population but to the size of an expanding clade of superior mutants. Our time estimate would refer to the time of this selective sweep of the new allele through the population (p. 13). However, we have already seen that this equilibrium is approached only slowly, with a half-life of NeF1n 2 generations. For a female population of 10,000 the half life would be 6900 generations, or 170,000 years. A larger population is more reasonable and implies even slower convergence. Yet we have already seen that the mtDNA mismatch data imply that the human population expanded from a small beginning within the past 150,000 years. Consequently, not enough time has elapsed for m to reach equilibrium. Thus m's low value must reflect some historical event, such as a bottleneck in population size, rather than a long history of moderate population size (Haigh and Maynard Smith 1972); Brown 1980; Jones and Rouhani 1986; Wills 1990). This hypothesis is perfectly consistent with the mtDNA mismatch data (p. 22). NOTE If the bottleneck occurred as Amerindian left the New World then we might reason that extensive genetic diversity on the Tribal level, mutational-drift equalibrium, and little evidence of bottlenecks in the population history of the Americas would be found in Amerindian populations. The Wallace group's "dramatic founding effect," could rather, reflect a movement of Amerindians into Siberia, a second wave of people out of the Americas with resulting admixture in Siberian Populations. Bottlenecks are not evident in Amerindian Tribal and ethnic groups(see Chakraborty and Weiss 1991). Ward et al. (191) reported that the Nuu-Chal-Nulth Tribal mtDNA genetic diversity was exponentially diverse when compared with the Island Japanese or African' KUNG, much larger Old World Populations. AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ ! Owen Roger, in the chapter "The Americas: The Case Against an Ice Age Human Population" in Smith/Spencer, eds. op. cit., pgs, 535-538. Interdisciplinary work of the highest caliber in the Old Crow region has recovered, as of 1980, over 251 specimens of fractured or apparently cut, grooved, faceted, scraped, polished, or butchered elephant bone and ivory believed to have been worked by ancient humans [Morlan, 1978, 1980; Morlan and Cinq-Mars, 1982, p. 360; Irving, 1978; Bonnichsen, 1978; Bonnichsen and Young, 1980]. The researchers believe these apparently modified bones to comprise an ancient tool kit, perhaps of mid-Pleistocene age, but one totally lacking stone tools. As one investigator expressed: ". . . data for man's presence found in these beds of Illinoian age are meager in number, but to our minds compelling" [Irving, 1982, p. 78]. Large numbers of microflakes of cherts and quartzites have been found in samples of soil and sand; Morlan proposes that they might be "microdebitage" from an as yet undiscovered lithic technology [Morlan, 1981, pp. 13-16]. NOTE In light of the fact that only ancestral haplotypes are to be found in the Americas (Johnson et al. 1983; Cann et al. 1987; Excoffier and Langaney 1989), it could be proposed that Amerindians are the ancestors of all Old World Homo sapiens. The common ancestry identified for Old World peoples dates back archaeologically to the beginning of the last Ice Age. But when did New and Old World peoples become isolated?. Since pre-Clovis and Upper Paleolithic sites are, or should be seen as, contemporary, could this indicate that the sophistication derived from the great journey was out of the Americas. Is there an explanation for the isolated nature and inconspicuous behavior patterns depicting the mid-Pleistocene Amerindian archaeological record found south of the ice sheets? AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ Ted Goebel, Anatoli P. Derevianko, and Valerii T. Petrin - DATING THE MIDDLE-TO-UPPER-PALEOLITHIC TRANSITION AT KARA-BOM pg. 452 - CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY. "In Africa transitional Middle-Late Stone Age industries are now thought to lie beyond the range of conventional 14C dating and likely date to between 50,000 and 40,000 years before the present (B.P) (Brooks et al. 1990 Grun and Stringer 1991). Likewise, transitional early Upper Paleolithic materials in Israel have been recently AMS 14C-dated to as early as 42,000 years B.P. (Bar-Yosef et al. 1992:517; Hedges et al. 1990:103), and in Europe AMS Willendorf II, Austria, and L'Arbreda and El Castillo Caves, Spain, now suggest that the Upper Paleolithic was well under way by 40,000 years B.P. (Allsworth-Jones 1990:231,;Bischoff et al. 1989,; Kozlowski 1988: 219,; Valdes and Bischoff 1989). In Siberia, new AMS 14C dates from Kara-Bom demonstrate that initial Upper Paleolithic industries appeared as early as 43,000 years B.P. or earlier". (emphasis added) AMH Note The conservative age (< 43,000-50,000 years) suggested for modern human archaeological contexts compliments the genetic evidence suggesting a Rapid Replacement of Old World Middle Paleolithic Industries and their makers. Goebel is a "Clovis First" proponent. AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ Polynesia _____________________________________________________________________________ Smith, Anita 1995. The need for Lapita: explaining change in the Late Holocene Pacific archaeological record. World Archaeology Volume 26 No. 3 pp. 369, 372, 374. An apparent gap of around 800-1000 years exists between the appearance of Lapita in West Polynesia and the colonization of the islands to the east (Kirch 1984:52). This pause in island colonization is inferred from radiocarbon determinations from early sites in East Polynesia and the time deemed necessary for the development of a Polynesian group of languages and associated culture from a proto-Polynesian precursor (Kirch and Green 1987:435; but see Irwin 1992:73) or ancestral Polynesian society (Kirch 1984:68). Kirch (1986) has revised the length of the colonization 'pause', shortening it to possibly a few hundred years, which implies 'a steady and continuing colonization process into East Polynesia' (Kirch and Ellison 1994:319, original emphasis). This is supported by Irwin's (1992:83) claim that there is no navigational threshold between west and east Polynesia significant enough to warrant a pause in colonization east of Somoa (p. 369). The difficulty in making an argument for the distinctiveness of Lapita assemblages, or indeed in refuting it, is the paucity of aceramic sites dated immediately prior to or contemporary with the Lapita evidence, which might indicate continuity or discontinuity in Lapita material (see Spriggs 1993 for a review of sites). Of those dating to this period, the majority are cave sites (Spriggs 1993:191) and therefore differences between these and the mostly open Lapita sites may be argued to reflect site type rather than use by different cultural groups (p. 372). Although the route for Polynesian migration had earlier been considered to be through Micronesia (Buck 1938; Howells 1979) the overall colonization narrative remained unchanged with the shift to Island Melanesia because of the presumed homogeneity and Southeast Asian origin of the Lapita cultural complex. However, continuities evidenced in aspects of Pleistocene, early Holocene and Lapita assemblages in Island Melanesia and the absence of a predecessor for Lapita elsewhere have ruptured the narrative, warranting a Lapita 'homeland' in Island Melanesia (Bellwood 1993; 158; Spriggs 1993: 187). This has significantly altered the beginning of the narrative of Polynesian colonization in an archaeological sense, but as the basic Polynesian culture is now considered to have developed in Polynesia (Green 1993:221)) the narrative of colonization in Remote Oceania remains largely unaffected (p. 374). NOTE Lapita Pottery could have been a distinctive orientation, an in-situ development born in Polynesia and not traceable to an earlier southeast Asian origin. A rapid colonization of eastern Polynesia from Samoa is suggested. Other examples of in-situ culturally adaptive archaeological signatures include Paleoindian and Paleoarctic. AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ COII/tRNALys Integenic 9-bp Deletion and Other mtDNA Markers Clearly Reveal That the Tharus (Southern Nepal) Have Oriental Affinities Am. J. Hum. Genet. 53:609-618, 1993 Giuseppe Passarino, Ornella Semino, Guido Modiano, and A. Silvana Santachiara-Benerecetti Ballinger's classification of East Asian mtDNA haploytpes is mainly based on the phenotypes for the DdeI site at nt 10394 and the AluI site at nt 10397. Analysis of the entire Tharu sample revealed that more than 70% of the Tharus have both sites, the association of which has been suggested as an ancient East Asian peculiarity. (pg. 609) An important marker to detect Oriental affinities is the 9-bp deletion of one of the two tandem repeats (CCCCCTCTA) between nt 8272 and nt 8289 in the COII/tRNALys intergenic region of human mtDNA (Cann and Wilson 1983; Wrischnik et al. 1987). This marker was found in Polynesians (Hertzberg et al. 1989), Native Americans (Torroni et al. 1992), and Pacific coastal peoples (Ballinger et al. 1992), and it is considered to be an indicator of Asian affinities in these populations. (pp. 610-611) To summarize, Ballinger et al. (1992) postulated at least three deletion events and two cases of partial triplication, one of which had been described elsewhere (Cann and Wilson 1983). This survey has found what is probably a new deletion event (haplotype 2Tharu ), together with a complete triplication. The origin of the latter is most likely independent of that found in Siberia by Shields et al. (1992). Taken together, these findings suggest that this region of two 9-bp repeats is a hot spot of rearrangements. The D* groups is also frequent in Asia and, in addition, encompasses all the deletion haploytpes found in Native Americans (Torroni et al. 1992) and in Papua New Guinea (Stoneking et al. 1990; Ballinger et al. 1992). On the other hand, no deletion haplotype of the Tharus falls within the D* group (fig. 5). This suggests that the Tharu mtDNA originated from an Oriental mtDNA that differed from that of the populations who migrated toward the Pacific Islands, and northward, through Siberia, to the Americas. (pg. 616) In summary, (1) 74% of the Tharus (including all those individuals with the classical HaeII morph 5 Oriental mtDNA marker and three individuals with the 9-bp deletion) have the DdeI10394, AluI10397 (+ + ) phenotype; (2) all of the few encounters DdeI10394, AluI10397 (+ –) mtDNAs carry the East Asian deletion; and (3) one-third of the 22% DdeI10394, AluI10397 (– –) mtDNAs (7% of the total sample) are HpaI/HincII morph 1, one of the first recognized Oriental mitochondrial markers (Denaro et al. 1981; Blac et al. 1983). (pg. 617) _____________________________________________________________________________ Polynesian Mitochondrial DNAs Reveal Three Deep Maternal Lineage Clusters Human Biology, August 1994, v. 66, no. 4, pp. 567-590 J. Koji Lum, Olga Rickards, Clara Ching, and Rebecca L. Cann Major group I lineages are common in Remote Oceania and include about 95% of the Native Hawaiian, 90% of the Samoan, and 100% of the Tongan donors in our sample. They contain the region V deletion and generally share three control region transition substitutions. This group also contains non-Polynesian individuals, such as Indonesians, Native Americans, Micronesians, Malaysians, Japanese, and Chinese. (pg. 568) Fully modern humans colonized all of Sahul, inhabiting Australia by 50,000 yr B.P. (Roberts et al. 1990), New Guinea by 40,000 yr B.P. (Groube et al. 1986), New Ireland by 33,000 yr B.P. (Allen et al. 1988), and the Solomon Islands by 29,000 yr B.P. (Allen et al. 1989). The strings of atolls and islands of Remote Oceania [see Pawley and Green (1973)] were apparently beyond the simple navigational skills of the first modern people. Increasing distance between islands corresponds to a long pause of almost 30,000 years, documented in the archeological record, for the intentional spread of humans further across the Oceania. (pg. 582) The ancestors of Polynesians and the Lapita complex attributed to them appear to be the first human culture to develop a system of navigation and two-way sailing sufficient to ensure successful deep-water passage over thousands of miles. Some of these passages may have been the result of drift voyages, but computer simulation (Irwin 1992) and direct experimentation have refuted the likelihood that settlement was primarily accidental (Finney et al. 1989). (pg. 582) Their presumed route, based on archeological and linguistic evidence, appears to be from Mongoloid centers in East Asia south into Australo-Melanesia and then east across the Pacific. (pg. 583) Lapita-associated skeletons from Mussau and Fiji are similar to Polynesians in nonmetric traits and are similar to Melanesians in skeletal dimensions (Kirch et al. 1989; Pietrusewsky 1989). Although direct gene flow is a possibility, the Lapita cultural complex could have been shared without mate exchange. The expansion of the Lapita people from the Bismarck Archipelago to western Polynesia is archeologically instantaneous (Kirch and Hunt 1988). (pg. 583) Finally, the South American sweet potato is found throughout Polynesia, raising the question of two-way voyaging from Polynesia or drift voyaging from the west coast of South America (Hyerdahl 1950; Yen 1974; Irwin 1989). The presence of flotsam from North America in Polynesia and demonstration rafting from South America indicate that some limited contact may have been possible between eastern Polynesia and the Americas. (pg. 583) Linkage of the DRB1*1,5,0,2 and DRB5*0,1,0,1 alleles (Gao and Serjeantson 1991), which are fixed in Papua New Guinea Highlanders and Polynesians but are absent in Chinese, suggests a New Guinea origin of Polynesian group II. (pg. 585) _____________________________________________________________________________ The Settlement of Marginal Polynesia: New Evidence from Henderson Island Journal of Field Archaeology/Vol. 21, 1994 Marshall I. Weisler The settlement of Oceania is "one of the long-standing puzzles of Pacific prehistory" (Finney 1985: 9), and the colonization of Remote Polynesia represents the culmination of this unprecedented process. In no other ocean were islands so far from continental land masses settled as early (Keegan and Diamond 1987). The Western Pacific was initially colonized in late Pleistocene times (Allen, Gosden, and White 1989; Wickler and Spriggs 1988). Within a few hundred years during the 2nd millennium B.C., nearly 4500 km of the SW region was settled by people carrying a distinctive dentate-stamped pottery known as Lapita (Bellwood 1979, 1987, 1989; Green 1979, 1982; Irwin 1980; Jennins 1979; Kirch and Hunt 1988; Spriggs 1984; Terrell 1986). Continuing the rapid W-E settlement trend, the remote islands of Polynesia and virtually every island within Oceania were colonized by A.C. 1000 (Kirch and Green 1987). The persistence of the Lapita colonists and their rapid spread throughout Near and portions of Remote Oceania imply that these groups had successful colonization strategies and remarkable voyaging skills (Finney 1979, 1985; Green 1982; Irwin 1989; Irwin, Bickler, and Quirke 1990). (pg. 83) _____________________________________________________________________________ Trembly, Diane L. 1995. On the Antiquity of Leprosy in Western Micronesia. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, Vol. 5: 383. The four radiocarbon dates obtained confirm the pre-Spanish context of these burials. Two hypotheses are possible: one, the Chamorros brought leprosy with them when they migrated to the Mariana Islands; or two, they acquired it through contact with China or Japan. If the Chamorro people came from Southeast Asia, as is believed by most researchers, then we may infer that cases of leprosy existed in that part of the world in the first millennium AD, but have not been found. If, as Brace believes, they are related to the Jomon, this places their emigration from Japan many centuries earlier than the oldest known cases of leprosy in Japan. In support of the second hypothesis is the report of Chamorro pottery sherds, dated by typology to ca. AD 1000, being found in archaeological contexts in Japan (H. Kurashina, pers. comm.) (p. 383). NOTE Could Leprosy have been introduced into Southeast Asia by Polynesians? Its age in India is thought to be 600 BC while testing of "Chamorros' who peopled western Micronesia might date to the early centuries AD, and possibly earlier". Staff infections are easily acquired in the humid climate of the Polynesian Islands. AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ Melton, Terry, Raymond Peterson, Alan J. Redd, N. Saha, A.S.M. Sofro, Jeremy Martinson, and Mark Stoneking 1995. Polynesian Genetic Affinities with Southeast Asian Populations as Identified by mtDNA Analysis. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 57:404, 409, 410. This 9-bp deletion is largely absent in Melanesian populations–for example, aboriginal groups of Australia and highland Papua New Guinea (PNG)–while it is present in coastal populations of PNG that are thought to be more recent arrivals to the island (Hertzberg et al. 1989; Stoneking et al. 1990). While the frequency of this deletion has been reported for many populations throughout Asia, the frequency alone does not reveal either the source of the deletion or the origin of Polynesians. However, patterns of variation in hypervariable segments of the noncoding mtDNA control region can provide insights into the evolutionary history of Polynesian mtDNAs (Hagelberg and Clegg 1993; Lum et al. 1994; Redd et al. 1995). In particular, Hagelberg and Clegg (1993) identified an apparently unique pattern of nucleotide substitutions in the control region of Polynesians. Three transitions, at nucleotide positions 16217, 16247, and 16261 (Anderson et a. 1981) have been seen together in modern Polynesians at high frequency (80%-100%) as well as in ancient DNA from sites in the Chatham Islands, Society Islands, Hawaii, and Easter Island dating from ≥400 years B.P. (Hagelberg et al. 1994; Lum et al. 1994). ....We have termed this trio of substitutions the "Polynesian motif." These three changes are temporally embedded within each other and the 9-bp deletion–that is, the nucleotide change at 16217 occurred on the background of the 9-bp deletion; the nucleotide change at 16261 occurred on the background of the nucleotide change at 16217; and the nucleotide change at 16247 occurred on the background of the change at 16261 (Redd et al. 1995)(p. 404). We observed that the Polynesian motif, this trio of nucleotide changes in the control region at positions 16217, 16247, and 16261 (CGT), occurred exclusively on the background of the 9-bp deletion. This motif, seen in 79.2% of Samoans and 73.9% of coastal Papua New Guineans, was observed in 20% of east Indonesians with the 9-bp deletion. These east Indonesians were from the islands of Alor, Flores, Hiri, Ternate, and Timor. Remarkably, it was not observed elsewhere in Southeast Asia (including Borneo and Java in Indonesia), except in 1 of 81 Malays, and probably 1 of 176 Filipinos (p. 409). The above results can be interpreted to indicate that the Polynesian motif arose in east Indonesia, although an origin in Malaysia or the Philippines cannot be ruled out. Alternatively, the presence of this combination of substitutions in east Indonesia might reflect back migration that occurred from Polynesia and/or coastal New Guinea to this region. The amount of diversity associated with the Polynesian motif might distinguish between these competing explanations (pgs. 409-410). NOTE American Indian mtDNA markers confirmed in Polynesia. The common motif found in most Polynesians is only one step away from the "Amerind" motif. The 9bp deletion -- without the motif -- is believed to be older in the Americas, that is, they predate the colinization of the Polynesia. The marker is found in coastal southeast Asians and not the interior populations. It is not popular to assume Amerindian origins for Polynesians and or Amerindian migration into Siberia. AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ Torroni, Antonio, Maurizio Petrozzi, Piero Santolamazza, Daniele Sellitto, Fulvio Cruciani, and Rosaria Scozzari 1995. About the "Asian"-Specific 9-bp Deletion of mtDNA. Letter to the editor Am. J. Hum. Genet. 57:507. In conclusion, high-resolution mtDNA analyses reveal that the COII-tRNALYS 9-bp deletion has occurred multiple times during human evolution and that it has occurred in mtDNAs from all major human ethnic subdivisions. However, the proportion of mtDNAs that harbor this deletion varies widely among modern human populations. In Asia, one of the deletional events occurred on the ancestral haplogroup B mtDNA. Haplogroup B mtDNAs have subsequently expanded in Asia, the Americas, and Polynesia, carried by the populations that colonized these regions, and they represent a very large proportion of modern Asian-derived mtDNAs. In Europe and Africa, the mtDNAs that acquired the 9-bp deletion are usually observed as isolated cases and probably have a more recent origin (p. 507). NOTE Polynesians discovered Madagascar, yes! Could not they have interpopulated other coastal areas? Admixture has been shown in the "Oriental" affinities of the Nepalese 'Tharu' while this expansion/exploration could be carried further in suggesting Polynesian admixture in the Mediterranean. Simply, if they discovered Madagascar, Nepal and Easter Island than why not the Mediterranean? The 9bp deletion's been in the Americas longer then there have been Polynesians! AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ Melton, Terry, Raymond Peterson, Alan J. Redd, N. Saha, A.S.M. Sofro, Jeremy Martinson, and Mark Stoneking 1995. Polynesian Genetic Affinities with Southeast Asian Populations as Identified by mtDNA Analysis. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 57:404 and 409. This 9-bp deletion is largely absent in Melanesian populations–for example, aboriginal groups of Australia and highland Papua New Guinea (PNG)–while it is present in coastal populations of PNG that are thought to be more recent arrivals to the island (Hertzberg et al. 1989; Stoneking et al. 199). While the frequency of this deletion has been reported for many populations throughout Asia, the frequency alone does not reveal either the source of the deletion or the origin of Polynesians. It is interesting that the six southern Indians with the 9-bp deletion found in this study share their mtDNA types most closely with those from China and Borneo, suggesting that migration from these regions west to India and Sri Lanka may be a possibility. We observed that the Polynesian motif, this trio of nucleotide changes in the control region at positions 16217, 16247, and 16261 (CGT), occurred exclusively on the background of the 9-bp deletion. This motif, seen in 79.2% of Samoans and 73.9% of coastal Papua New Guineans, was observed in 20% of east Indonesians with the 9-bp deletion. These east Indonesians were from the islands of Alor, Flores, Hiri, Ternate, and Timor. Remarkably, it was not observed elsewhere in Southeast Asia (including Borneo and Java in Indonesia), except in 1 of 81 Malays, and probably 1 of 176 Filipinos. NOTE The age and disribution of this marker in coastal populations of the Old World does not rule out a source for them as being, the Americas. The Polynesian motif with the 9 bp deletion is only one mutation away from the same Amerindian lineage that is present in it's unadulterated state, suggesting that this could have been the primitive type from which all other "Polynesian" motifs are derived. Amerindians in Polynesia (type B)? Amerindians in Siberia (Types A, C, and D)? Perhaps its time to take another look! As some scholars have hypothesized, seagoing Amerindians that are proposed to have been the first Polynesians (Hyerdahl 1952), would be candidates for the ancestors of type B haplotypes. Dare we hypothesis that the presence of haplotype B in coastal southeast Asian populations - in near fixation with frequencies as high as 100% of the Cook islanders and the New Zealand Maori - is further evidence of migrations from the Americas. Consider also, that Group B lineages indicate a recent Old World arrival since they were not part of the continental radiations depicting the mtDNAs of indigenous Africans, Asians, Europeans, or Australians (Hertzberg et al. 1989; Stoneking et al. 1986). AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ Irwin, Geoffrey 1992. The Prehistoric Exploration and Colonization of the Pacific. Cambridge University Press, p. 97 Irwin argues that exploratory voyages were systematic two-way (and, occasionally, three-way) journeys, which produced new knowledge but did not necessarily result in immediate colonization. Nonetheless, he contends, early Austronesian-speakers spread rapidly through the Pacific; and he disputes the "long pause" hypothesis commonly accepted by Pacific pre historians, which posits a thousand-year interval between the settlement of West Polynesia and exploration of the islands further east. NOTE Was there early knowledge of the existence of land in the east i. e., the Americas? Were there ulterior motives for searching against the current for habitable lands? AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ Asia _____________________________________________________________________________ Denaro, M., H. Blanc, M.J. Johnson, K.H. Chen, E. Wilmsen, L.L. Cavalli-Sforza, and D.C. Wallace 1981. Ethnic variation in Hpa I endonuclease cleavage patterns of human mitochondrial DNA. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA Vol. 78, No. 9, pp. 5768, 5771. Comparison with primate data shows that the morph with two fragments, found in 12.5% of Oriental and 4% of Bantu samples, might be the ancestral type common to all hominoids. These two conserved sites were localized in tRNA genes in the anticodon loop. Assuming that the two-fragment morph is ancestral, this finding is consistent with previous data suggesting that Asia is genetically central to the radiations that are thought to have given rise to the human ethnic groups (p. 5768). The suggestion for these mtDNA data that the human ethnic groups diverged from an Asian origin is consistent with comparable data on nuclear gene frequencies. These results suggest that formation of human ethnic groups took place in the last part of the Pleistocene, starting in Asia and radiating towards the other continents, probably within the last 50,000-100,000 years (27). An estimate of the divergence of human ethnic groups based on mtDNA variation has been made in the range of 10,000-50,000 years (M. Nei, personal communication), correcting a previous estimate (12) and in agreement with an earlier estimate of 25,000-100,000, based on classical genetic markers (28). The hypothesis of an Asian origin of man has been independently advanced on the basis of the presence of type C virus in Asian apes and man (29)( p. 5771). NOTE This was a preliminary paper to Johnson et al. 1983. They represent a valid challenge to the "mtDNA out of Africa" while the shared Asian primate morph could represent non descendent relationship or recent "regional subdivision" and an Asian specific selection mechanism. see Templeton 1993. AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ Radiation of Human Mitochondria DNA Types Analyzed by Restriction Endonuclease Cleavage Patterns M.J. Johnson, D.C. Wallace, S.D. Ferris, M.C. Rattazzi, and L.L. Cavalli-Sforza J. Mol. Evol. (1983) 19:255-271 Chimpanzees and Orangutans appear to have the same Bam HI site at 14258 (morph 1) but each has an additional site which is not seen in humans (Ferris et al. 1981). An ancestral pattern cannot therefore be unambiguously inferred. (pg. 256) A phylogency of the seven Hae II morphs can be constructed (Fig. 2) wherein all morphs can be derived from morph 1 by the loss or gain of a single HaeII site. The presence of morph 1 in all four populations at high frequencies and the fact that all morphs can be derived directly from it suggests that it may have been central to mtDNA radiations. (pg. 259) Explanations for this deviation other than non-random samples could be: 1) non-homogeneity within the species with respect to mutation rates; 2) natural selection for some of the morphs; 3) or lack of equilibrium between mutation and drift, which may not have been reached because of the major increase in population size that has taken place in the last 10,000 years (Coale 1974) with the adoption of agriculture. (pg. 265) Brown et al. (1982) have suggested possible reasons why the mutation rate of mtDNA could be higher than that of nDNA, including oxidative damage, an error prone system of replication, a less efficient editing or repair system, and a higher rate of turnover. One or more of these reasons might also explain why mtDNA in Bushmen and some other populations appear to have a higher mutation rate. . . . Our previous estimate of 104,000 years for divergence of the human ethnic groups assumes that all groups separated from each other simultaneously. An alternative possibility is to consider that the split leading to Bushmen occurred prior to others. Using the order of separation suggested by the data (Table 4a) and a time scale of 5 x 106 years for the human–ape separation, we arrive at the following divergence times: Bushmen diverge at 220,000 y.a.; Bantus 65,000 y.a.; and Asians/American Indians diverging from Caucasians 5,500 y.a. . . . Both the first and last of these values are incompatible with present archeological evidence and more compatible with the idea that there can be substantial variation in evolutionary rates in the various human ethnic groups. . . . In conclusion, using five restriction enzymes and a sample of 200 individuals, we find that there is a high correlation between mtDNA types and the ethnic origin of an individual. This is particularly striking in our two African populations, where a distinct lineage separates these populations from both Caucasian and Oriental mtDNA types. (pg. 268) Amerindians in this seminal study had the basal Morph 1. They do not have subsequent markers derived during the colonization of the Old World. AMH 2021 _____________________________________________________________________________ Kitagawa, Yoshikazu, Yoshitaka Manabe, Joichi Oyamada, and Atsushi Rokutanda 1995. Deciduous Dental Morphology of the Prehistoric Jomon People of Japan: Comparison of Nonmetric Characters. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 97: pp. 101-111 The protostylids of the deciduous lower second molars in the Jomon sample exhibited zero expression (grade 0 and 1) most frequently and divergence of the buccal groove (grade 2 and 3) next most frequently. This trait was expressed at an extremely high frequency in the Native American samples and at moderately high frequencies in the Jomon, Japanese, Ainu, and Australian Aboriginal samples. The frequency in the Jomon sample was 45.0%, significantly lower than those in the Pima Indian and Eskimo samples (p. 107). A weak groove on the lingual surface of the metaconid (grade 1) occurs frequently in the deciduous lower second molars. The pooled incidence of cusp 7 (from grades 1 to 3) in the Jomon was 68.2%. This trait was expressed at extremely high frequencies among the Jomon, Japanese, Ainu, Native American, Polynesian, and Australian Aboriginal samples (p. 107). NOTE Early spread and long-term retention of the Sinodont pattern. This implies that Sundadont patterns were derived and Sinodont are the ancestral type or that both are ancestral types. AMH ____________________________________________________________________________ S.W. Ballinger, T.G. Schurr, A. Torroni, Y.Y. Gan, J.A. Hodge, K. Hassan, K.H. Chen and D.C. Wallace Southeast Asian Mitochondrial DNA Analysis Reveals Genetic Continuity of Ancient Mongoloid Migrations in Genetics 130:139-152 Moreover, the coastal and highland PNG populations have become genetically differentiated (Stoneking et al. 1990), with coastal populations having the 9-bp COII/tRNALys intergenic deletion (Cann and Wilson 1983; Wrischnik et al. 1987) in about 40% of their mtDNAs while the highland populations lack this marker (Hertzberg et al. 1989; Stoneking et al. 1990). This marker is also associated with Pacific coastal and island populations, appearing at high frequencies in Melanesia and Polynesia, reaching fixation (100%) on some islands (Hertzberg et al. 1989). (pg. 5) The data provide evidence that: 1) the Vietnamese are the most diverse and, hence, the oldest population; 2) Malaysians retain remnants of haplotypes found in PNG; 3) coastal Asians have a striking frequency cline for the 9-bp deletion; and 4) both insertion and deletion mutations in the COII-tRNALys intergenic region have occurred more than once. (pg. 5) Haplotype group A (Table 1), which was present in six of the populations, further substantiates our previous proposal that the HincII/HpaI morph 1 polymorphism has been associated with some of the earliest Asian mtDNAs (Blanc et al 1983). This haplotype group is most frequent in the Vietnamese, (32.1%) and the Malay Aborigines (28.1%). In light of their language affiliation, [Austro-Asiatic family, (Bellwood, 1979)] these populations seem to be derived from a common stock. mtDNAs from haplotype group A were also found in the Taiwanese Han (10.0%), Malays (14.3%), Koreans (15.4%), and Sabah Aborigines (3.1%) substantiating the early appearance of this haplotype group. (pg. 11) The overlapping AluI and DdeI sites at nps 10397 and 10394 appear to be ancient mutations. This pair of sites was prevalent in every Southeast Asian population and divided each of them into two major groups (Figures 2 and 3). The DdeI site has been found in mtDNAs from every racial group (Cann, Stoneking, and Wilson, 1987; Brown et al., unpublished data), and is present in the most divergent African haplotypes reported (Cann, Stoneking, and Wilson, 1987), indicating its antiquity. (pg. 13) NOTE This combination of AluI site gains and losses at np 10397 and the 10394 DdeI is very old and may represent founding lineages in populations of the Old World. AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ Africa _____________________________________________________________________________ Alan R. Templeton Washington University The "Eve" Hypotheses: A Genetic Critique and Reanalysis in American Anthropologists 95 (1):51-72, 1993 Using an even larger data set than Excoffier (1990), Merriwether et al. (1991:552) concluded that "the evidence that human mtDNA variation is not in mutation-drift equilibrium is incontrovertible" and offered several possible explanations, including expanding population size and selection. (pg. 59) This rejection of neutral equilibrium also invalidates the argument given in Cann, Stoneking, and Wilson (1987) and Vigilant et al. (1991) that African populations are the oldest because they have the most genetic diversity (a proposition that has not yet been proven, as discussed in the previous section). The diversity in a region does not necessarily reflect the age of the regional population but rather could reflect the age since the last favorable mutation arose in the population, the demographic history of population size expansion, the extent of gene flow with other populations, and so on. As argued by Merriwether et al. (1991:553), "Because it is clear that mtDNA diversity is not in equilibrium among human populations, estimates of population age based on coalescence time need to be interpreted. (pp. 59-60) Hence, reasonable sample sizes exist for all geographical locations. Merriwether et al. (1991) recently presented an expanded version of this data set, but, unfortunately, much of the new data consists of New World populations, which are not relevant, or Old World populations that were not scored for all the same restriction enzymes as the earlier samples used to construct the cladogram given in Excoffier (1990). Hence, the data set of Excoffier (1990) still represents the best data set available at this time for a cladistic analysis of population structure or history. (pg. 61) The failure of the cladistic geographical analysis to detect an out-of-Africa population expansion cannot be attributed to inadequate sample sizes or to low genetic resolution, since the analysis could detect the much more geographically restricted expansion events that involved only a small portion of the cladogram and the samples. Hence, the geographical associations of mtDNA are statistically significantly incompatible with the out-of-Africa replacement hypothesis and instead strongly and clearly indicate that all Old World human populations were in genetic contact with one another throughout the entire time period marked by the coalescence of mtDNA. (pg. 65) In summary, the out-of-Africa replacement hypothesis is rejected by the properties of the mtDNA cladogram itself. Instead, the mtDNA data are consistent with a model of restricted but recurrent gene flow throughout the entire time period marked by the time to coalescence with a recent overlay of geographically restricted population-expansion events. The out-of-Africa replacement hypothesis is also incompatible with the overall pattern that emerges from the nuclear DNA data series. The nuclear DNA pattern only clearly offers support for restricted gene flow among Old World human populations. (p. 69) Because of low but recurrent gene flow, both globally adaptive and neutral traits could eventually spread throughout the entire Old World. Accordingly, there is no need to postulate multiple independent origins of anatomically modern humans. All humans represent a single long-term evolutionary lineage with regional subdivision and always have throughout the entire time period marked by mtDNA. This is the lesson that we can learn by studying our common mitochondrial ancestor. (pp. 69-70) _____________________________________________________________________________ Laurent Excoffier and Andre Langaney Origin and Differentiation of Human Mitochondrial DNA Am. J. Hum. Genet. 44:73-85, 1989 A phylogeny of the mtDNA types found in 10 populations reveals that all types could have issued from a single common ancestral type. The distribution of shared types between continental groups indicates that caucasoid could be the closest to an ancestral population from which all other continental groups would have diverged. A partial phylogeny of the types found in five other populations also demonstrates that the myth of an African Eden was based on an incorrect "genealogical tree" of mtDNA types. (pg. 73) Two measures of molecular diversity have been computed on all samples on the basis of mtDNA type frequencies, on one hand, and on the basis of the number of polymorphic sites in the samples, on the other. A large discrepancy is found between the two measures expect in African populations; this suggests the existence of some differential selective mechanisms. (pg. 73) No other types could be linked to this subset by fewer than two missing intermediates, and there was no unique type to which they could be connected. Furthermore, the 106 other types could not be interconnected by a single substitution, except for types 130 and 131 and types 133 and 134, all found in New Guinea; therefore, further connections would have been highly speculative. Type 69 is the central type of the 133 types, according to our definition, and thus presents all restriction sites in their more frequent state. (pg. 77) It is interesting to note that our partial phylogeny was clearly arrayed around type 69, to which types found in various continents connected directly. Even if this phylogeny would suggest to some people that the mitochondrial Eve was Australian, we would rather consider that these potentially old types were present in continental groups before the different population splits. The very precise type definition (12 endonucleases involved) and the limited sample sizes may have, as a consequence, confined each type to a particular "population." (pg. 77) Values found by estimates of t1 would have supported an African origin for human populations, but this was in contradiction to the values computed for t2. It is important to recall here that all these values greatly overestimate divergence times and depend on the degree of polymorphism of populations when they split as well as on the heterogeneity of present samples. (pg. 80) The genetic constitution of early modern human populations may, then, have already been quite polymorphic prior to the first main continental splits. Among 10 intercontinental shared types, nine are found in caucasoid populations, the exception being type 8, which is present in Oriental, Amerindian, and African samples. The caucasoid samples share four types with the African samples and six types with the Oriental samples and thus seem to occupy an intermediate position between African and Oriental populations. (pg. 81) This also indicates that these types may have been present in early populations of modern humans. Very differentiated types might have appeared later in isolated populations. This partial phylogeny does not indicate which population could have been ancestral to others, but it becomes clear that the hypothesis of the African Eve is based on a "genealogical tree" biased by topological errors–and that it thus cannot be supported by these data. (pg. 81) It appears, then, that the high frequencies of type 1 found in most populations are incompatible with both the apparent high mutation rate of mtDNA and a neutral model. This suggests that a selective mechanism favoring certain types or eliminating others is at work. Johnson et al. (1993) as well as Whittam et al. (1986) have carried out homozgosity tests (Watterson 1978) on mtDNA which tend to show that the hypothesis of equilibrium under neutrality is not always supported. The exact nature of this selection, and why it does not occur in some populations, remains to be understood. (pg. 81) Evolutionary schemes of human continental groups based on estimation of E(v) agree with those based on type phylogenies in challenging the idea of an evolution of the whole mitochondrial genetic stock from a single African-like ancestral population. (pg. 81) Therefore, the most important goal may not be to identify one population or group of populations as being ancestral to others but to recognize which characteristic could be ancestral and what would have been the probable genetic pool of early populations. (pg. 82) In light of the distribution of the shared types between continental groups, some caucasoid populations seem nevertheless to have a genetic background close to that of a primitive (sensu stricto) human population and also to occupy an intermediate place between African and Oriental populations. African populations, on the other hand, have very differentiated mtDNA types (see fig. 1), most of which have appeared only recently. (pg. 82) ______________________________________________________________________________ Chen, Yu-Sheng, Antonio Torroni, Laurent Excoffier, A. Silvana Santachiara-Benerecetti, and Douglas C. Wallace 1995. Analysis of mtDNA Variation in African Populations Reveals the Most Ancient of All Human Continent-Specific Haplogroups. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 57:133, 142, 143. These haplogroups were more similar to those observed in Europeans and Asians than to haplogroup L mtDNAs, suggesting that the African mtDNAs without the HpaI np 3592 site could be the ancestral types from which European and Asian mtDNAs were derived (pg. 133). The high frequency of these continent-specific mutations within one major continental group and their specificity to either Europeans, Asians, or Native Americans make them powerful genetic markers for inferring the ethnic and geographic origin of modern and ancient humans (Torroni et al., in press). Their geographic and ethnic specificity also indicates that these mutations arose after the genetic separation of the ancestral human populations that gave rise to the modern human ethnic groups (pgs. 133-134). About one third of Senegalese mtDNAs lack the np 3592 HpaI site and tend to form four small haplogroups in parsimony analyses. These haplotypes are relatively similar to some haplotypes observed in Europeans and Asians, and two of them, AF2 and AF7, have been observed in Europeans. Because Senegalese populations had extensive cultural and economic interactions with Saharan and North African populations, the presence of these haplotypes could be partially or completely attributed to genetic exchange with European populations. However, although we did not observe haplotypes lacking the 3952 HpaI site in the Pygmies, haplotypes lacking the 3592 HpaI site are not limited to Senegalese populations. These haplotypes have been described in 36% of the Bamileke from Cameroon (Scozzari et al. 1994), 12% of the Khosian populations from Namibia (Soodyall and Jenkins 1992), and 23%-89% of several Bantu-speaking populations from southern Africa (Johnson et al. 1983; Soodyall and Jenkins 1993). The finding of mtDNAs without the 3592 HpaI site in sub-Saharan populations ,which are unlikely to be genetically admixed with European populations, suggests that at least some of the mtDNAs lacking the 3592 HpaI site in the Senegalese arose in Africa and are not the product of genetic admixture with populations from northern Africa, Europe, or Asia. Because of their widespread distribution in sub-Saharan populations, it is most likely that these mtDNAs have an ancient African origin. An African origin of the mtDNAs without the 3592 HpaI site, their similarity to European and Asian mtDNAs, and the absence of mtDNAs defined by the HpaI site at np 3952 in non-African populations, appear to suggest that African mtDNAs without the 3592 HpaI were the only mtDNAs that were carried from Africa by the Homo sapiens sapiens migrations, which ultimately gave rise to modern non-African populations (pgs. 142-143. NOTE The Wallace group here go-so-far as to site Johnson et al. 1983 (since Wallace was also a co-author) as supporting the Out of Africa data. It did not! Also, why are so many markers in Africans, if they are supposed to be of great antiquity, not found outside of Africa. Perhaps theses mtDNAs are the result of "regional subdivision" with selective pressure following a proposed recent modern peopling of Africa, as evidence for the increased sequence diversity. Excoffier and Langalay 1989 warn us! Also lineages A, B, C, and D could represent "continent-specific mutations" in the Americas with these "regionally specific markers" carried into the north by Amerindians in post-Pleistocene times (Hicks in submission) AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ Jorde, L.B., M.J. Bamshad, W.S. Watkins, R. Zenger, A.E. Fraley, P.A. Krakowiak, K.D. Carpenter, H. Soodyall, T. Jenkins, and A.R. Rogers 1995. Origins and Affinities of Modern Humans: A Comparison of Mitochondrial and Nuclear Genetic Data. Am J. Hum. Genet. 57:523, 525, 528. An evolutionary tree based on mtDNA displays deep African branches, indicating greater genetic diversity for African populations. This finding, which is consistent with previous mtDNA analyses, has been interpreted as evidence for an African origin of modern humans. Both sets of nuclear polymorphisms, as well as a third set of trinucleotide polymorphisms, are highly consistent with one another but fail to show deep branches for African populations. These results, which represent the first direct comparison of mtDNA and nuclear genetic data in major continental populations, undermine the genetic evidence for an African origin of modern humans (p. 523). Long branch lengths are seen for most of the African populations. This pattern has been observed in most other mtDNA analyses and has been a major component of the argument for an African origin of modern humans (Cann et al. 1987; Vigilant et al. 1991; Stoneking 1993). The non-African populations have comparatively short branch lengths, and the nodes separating these populations are very close to one another (p. 525). [mtDNA and nuclear DNA and variation discordance] 1. Ascertainment bias in nuclear polymorphisms.-- 2. Differences in substitution rates.-- 3. Inadequate sample sizes.-- 4. Differences in male-female migration rates or effective population sizes.-- (pgs. 527-528) The HVS-2 data analyzed here show a similar departure from neutrality in Asians and Europeans, although it is not statistically significant. These departures may reflect the action of natural selection, or they could be the result of past population expansions (Rogers and Harpending 1992; Rogers, in press). Since there is no recombination in the mitochondrial genome, natural selection on a coding gene will exert a substantial genetic "hitchhiking" effect, even on polymorphisms in the non-coding D loop. It is thus possible that the differences seen here in mtDNA and nuclear DNA may be produced by natural selection rather than population history. Increased mtDNA diversity in Africans has been a linch-pin of the argument that modern humans originated in Africa and then replaced existing archaic populations on other continents. Proponents of this view argue that since Africa is more diverse genetically, its population must be older (Stoneking 1993). However, diversity can be strongly affected by events in a population's history, such as the timing of major bottlenecks, and therefore does not necessarily reflect a population's age (Rogers and Jorde 1995). Our findings further compromise the diversity argument by showing that nuclear DNA trees lack the deep branches (and thus the excess genetic diversity) observed in mtDNA trees. These results do not disprove the African replacement hypothesis. However, they weaken the genetic evidence in its favor (p. 528). NOTE Regional subdivision and natural selection and drift could ultimately point to an Outside of Africa origin for H. s. s. who later replaced Homo erectus. That is, an Asian origin with bottlenecks supporting a recent common origin from there should be re-addressed. The American Indian data offers contrasting evidence where bottlenecks are not detected (see Chakraborty and Weiss 1991; Ward et al. 1991; Horai et al. 1992). AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ Rosaria Scozzari, Antonio Torroni, Ornella Semino, Fulvio Cruciani, Gabriella Spedini, and Silvana Augusta Santachiara Benerectti. Genetic Studies in Cameroon: Mitochondrial DNA Polymorphisms in Bamileke in Human Biology, February, 1994, v. 66, no. 1, pp. 1-12 Two morphs are frequent for both of these enzymes: morph 2 and the "African" morph 3 for HpaI and morphs 1 and 3 for AvaII. An absolute association AvaII morph 3/HpaI morph 3 ( and derivatives) was observed at a high frequency (about 0.30). This finding is consistent with what has already been found in other Negroids (Johnson et al. 1983; Scozzari et al. 1988) and stresses the importance of this combination of morphs as a valuable marker of maternal African ancestry (Semino et al. 1989). (pg. 6) A tree relating all the African mtDNA types described so far (Johnson et al. 1983; Scozzri et al. 1988); Soodyall and Jenkins 1992; this paper was built using a parsimony method (Swofford 1992) (Figure 4). This tree is one of the 3000 maximum parsimony trees generated by the TBR branch-swapping algorithm. All the observed trees are defined by two major lineages. One of these lineages has types that were only found at high frequencies in the Khoisan and to a lesser extent in the Bantu from South Africa. This is consistent with the tree drawn by Merriwether et al. (1991), in which the three Khoisan lineages are group together in a separate branch. (pg. 9) All mtDNA types from Cameroon and Senegal fall in the second main lineage (Figure 4). Seven types among the Cameroon types (1-2, 1-10, 8-1, 21-2, 39-2, 52-2, and 152-1) are characterized by the absence of the HpaI site at np 3592; together with similar haplotypes observed predominately in the Senegalese, these seven types define a specific sublineage radiating from mtDNA type 1. Most of the Cameroon and Senegal mtDNA types and the types that fall in the "Khoisan-Bantu" lineage are characterized by the presence of the HpaI site at np 3592 (HpaI morph 3). This finding suggests that the presence of this site is ancestral to the differentiation of the putative common ancestor into the Khoisan and Negroids. (pg. 9) In a view of this contradictory evidence, genetic studies can clearly play a key role in defining the relationships between the Bamileke and other African groups. In fact, our study shows that a fine distinction can be made between the Bamileke and the Bantu, at least those from South Africa, on the basis of mtDNA data. However, studies of other markers and appropriate populations are needed before more definite conclusions can be drawn. (pg. 11) ______________________________________________________________________________ Klein, Richard G. 1995. Anatomy, Behavior, and Modern Human Origins. Journal of World Prehistory, Vol 9, No. 2 pp. 167-198. Were Neanderthals fundamentally incapable of fully modern behavior? As I have outlined it, Out-of-Africa 2 postulates that the Neanderthals were replaced because they could not compete culturally with their modern human successors. The argument is bolstered over most of Europe by the relatively abrupt nature of the replacement. At many sites, Cro-Magnon/Upper Paleolithic occupations overlie Neanderthal/Middle Paleolithic layers with no evidence for a major break in time or for any transition between the two, suggesting the replacement took only decades, or at most, centuries (p. 183). Chatelperronian stone artifact assemblages generally combine typical Middle Paleolithic "sidescrapers," "denticulates," and "backed knives" with numerous characteristic Upper Paleolithic "end-scrapers" and "burins" (Harrold, 1989) (p. 185). The results are somewhat inconsistent, but a reasonable inference now is that the Chatelperronian existed for a millennium or two sometime between 42,000 and 36,000 years ago. It was during this same interval that the earliest undeniable Upper Paleolithic culture or culture complex, known as the Aurignacian, appeared widely in southeastern, central, and western Europe (Mellars, 1992; Straus, 1993/1994). The Aurignacian is marked by a multiplicity of highly formalized, distinctive Upper Paleolithic stone and bone artifact types and by a variety of art objects, including human and animal representations (Bahn, 1994; Mellars, 1993; R. White, 1989). At most sites where the Aurignacian and Middle Paleolithic occur together, the Aurignacian abruptly overlies the Middle Paleolithic, and in the version of Out-of-Africa 2 that I favor, the Aurignacian is a plausible artifactual manifestation of the Cro-Magnon invasion (p. 187). Why were the earliest modern humans not as heavily built as the Neanderthals? Neanderthal limb bones are remarkably robust, with strong muscle markings, implying that Neanderthals of both sexes were exceptionally powerful people. In spite of this, they often broke their bones, they commonly developed arthritis or other senile pathologies in their 20s or 30s, and they seldom survived beyond age 40 (Berger and Trinkaus, 1995; Brennan, 1991; Trinkaus, 1995; Trinkaus and Shipman, 1993). The sum suggests that they led extraordinarily stressful lives. In contrast, their fully modern, Cro-Magnon successors were much less heavily built, they broke their bones much less often, and their maximum life expectancy was significantly greater. Since Neanderthals were culturally (artifactually) much less sophisticated, a reasonable explanation for the difference is that Neanderthals often accomplished physically what later people accomplished culturally (technologically) (p. 189). For proponents of Out-of-Africa 2 the problem, then, is not that 60,000-year-old Australian dates imply an especially early, non-African emergence of art, but that they raise two other fundamental questions: (a) Is it possible that modern humans left Africa as much as 60,000 years ago? and (b) Assuming that they did, how is it that they reached the Far East (Australasia) 20,000 years before they reached the Far West (France and Spain)? In this context, it is important to note that the Middle Paleolithic/Upper Paleolithic interface in France and Spain cannot be much older than 40,000 years. This estimate is based not on radiocarbon dates, which provide only minimal ages in the 40,000 year range, but on thermoluminescence dates from Le Moustier (France) (Valladas et al., 1986) and uranium-series dates from Abric Romani (Spain) (Bischoff et al., 1988, 1994) which show that the Middle Paleolithic survived in western Europe until roughly 40,000 years ago. NOTE The perspectives outlined here offer a conservative assessment of the age for the replacement of H. erectus populations. The idea that the replacement could have started in Asia could be suggested by the early Australian dates. At any rate the sudden appearance throughout the Old World has an unlikely New World comparison in the rapid colonization scenarios that have been put forth by Clovis First proponents. The alternative represents a diffusion of hunting technologies throughout pre-existing Amerindian populations. But why were the mid-Pleistocene Americas archaeological signature(s) so difficult to asses? Is it due to what we have assumed we should be finding (i. e. concerning an Old World lithic Industries), not in what we happen to find is missing? AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ Chen, Yu-Sheng, Antonio Torroni, Laurent Excoffier, A. Silvana Santachiara-Benerecetti, and Douglas C. Wallace 1995. Analysis of mtDNA Variation in African Populations Reveals the Most Ancient of All Human Continent-Specific Haplogroups. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 57:, pp. 133-149. About one third of Senegalese mtDNAs lack the np 3592 HpaI site and tend to form four small haplogroups in parsimony analyses. These haplotypes are relatively similar to some haplotypes observed in Europeans and Asians, and two of them, AF2 and AF7, have been observed in Europeans. Because Senegalese populations had extensive cultural and economic interactions with Saharan and North African populations, the presence of these haplotypes could be partially or completely attributed to genetic exchange with European populations. However, although we did not observe haplotypes lacking the 3592 HpaI site in the Pygmies, haplotypes lacking the 3592 HpaI site are not limited to Senegalese populations. These haplotypes have been described in 36% of the Bamileke from Cameroon (Scozzari et al. 1994), 12% of the Khoisan populations from Namibia (Soodyall and Jenkins 1992), and 23%-89% of several Bantu-speaking populations from southern Africa (Johnson et al. 1983; Soodyall and Jenkins 1993). The finding of mtDNAs without the 3592 HpaI site in sub-Saharan populations, which are unlikely to be genetically admixed with European populations, suggest that at least some of the mtDNAs lacking the 3592 HpaI site in the Senegalese arose in Africa and are not the product of genetic admixture with populations from northern Africa, Europe, or Asia, because of their widespread distribution in sub-Saharan populations, it is most likely that these mtDNAs have an ancient African origin. An African origin of the mtDNAs without the 3952 HpaI site, their similarity to European and Asian mtDNAs, and the absence of mtDNAs defined by the HpaI site at np 3592 in non-African populations, appear to suggest that African mtDNAs without the 3592 HpaI were the only mtDNAs that were carried from Africa by the Homo sapiens sapiens migrations, which ultimately gave rise to modern non-African populations (p. 142-143). Furthermore, most African mtDNAs are members of the African-specific haplogroup L. This haplogroup appears to be the most ancient of all continent-specific haplogroups, having arisen 100,000-130,000 YBP. Such an age would indicate that haplogroup L mtDNAs originated before modern Homo sapiens expanded from Africa. Yet, this haplogroups is virtually absent in non-Africans. Therefore, mtDNAs of haplogroup L must not have been carried from Africa by the migrations that ultimately gave rise to Asians and Europeans. On the contrary, the close similarities between the African haplotypes lacking the 3592 HpaI site and haplotypes observed in Asians and Europeans suggest that African haplotypes without the np 3592 site were the ones from which modern Asian and European mtDNAs were derived. Hence, further geographic localization of haplogroup L and non-L mtDNAs among various African populations could provide further insights into the origins of the first great migrations of our species (p. 145). NOTE That the oldest lineages were not carried out of Africa creates doubt about Africa being the homeland for modern human. There are many other obvious links that have shown an Asian source for the spread of modern humans into the rest of the Old World. AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ Europe ______________________________________________________________________________ Knecht, Heidi: Anne Pike-Tay; and Randall White; editors.Before Lascaux: The complex Record of the Early Upper Paleolithic, CRC Press, Boca Raton, 1993 pg. 1. "One of the most hotly debated topics of research in the past decade has been that surrounding the first appearance in Western Eurasia of hominids that can be considered anatomically and culturally modern. Between 50,000 and 30,000 years ago, the Neanderthals and Mousterian [Middle Paleolithic] industries were replaced, from the Near East to the Atlantic seaboard, by physically modern humans whose culture showed significant innovations, many of them never seen before on earth. These included graphic representations, true blade technology, personal ornaments, complex weapon and propulsion systems, long distance procurement of a variety of durable raw materials, subsistence systems based on strategically organized use of the landscape over the course of the year, rapid and continual technological change through time, and cultural systems that very greatly from region to region. Although the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition is viewed for purposes of this book as a Western Eurasian phenomenon, it is hard to deny its evolutionary import, especially when we see evidence for the above cultural changes as far afield as Australia." emphasis added (Noteor the Americas AMH) _____________________________________________________________________________ Review Feature Christopher Stringer & Clive Gamble. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 4:1 (1994), 95-119 The Neanderthal World: Flat Earth or New Horizons? in Cambridge Archaeological Journal 4:1 (1994), 95-119 The question of continuity or replacement involves three principal lines of evidence – anatomical, genetic and behavioral, and each of these is the subject of continuing debate (see e.g. Frayer et al. 1993; Stringer & Brauer, in press). (pg. 96) When this spaghetti is cut with Occams' Razor, the answer looks clearer – population replacement provides the most appropriate explanatory mechanism. Claims for multiregional continuity made from occurrences such as the French Chatelperronian are best explained as responses of Neanderthals to coexistence with modern humans. (pg. 96) Our conclusion is that, while morphological and behavioural change had certainly started earlier, for behavioural change, the period from 60,000 to 40,000 BP is of the greatest interest. It can be regarded as a pioneer phase with, in one hemisphere, the first appearance of people in Australia while in the other, structures and constructed fireplaces are found for the first time. Clearly humans are on the move, both physically and mentally (a view which can be supported from recent interpretation of mtDNA data: Harpending et al. 1993). The technology of survival begins to reflect an extension in planning and organization. (pg. 96) What is significant for those wishing to infer modern behavior from such finds is that nowhere have Neanderthal bodies been found in open sites. (pg. 96) The Calm Before the Storm Milford H. Wolpoff Behavioural complexity is explained away by fiat. This in discussing the behavioral evidence found at Chatelperronian sites, associated in two caves with Neanderthal remains: the transition in this area to a blade-based technology (the Chatelperronian) and the appearance of structures at campsites (Arcy-Sur-Cure) only occurs long after the Moderns arrived in central Europe and the Iberian Peninsula. Imitation rather than invention therefore seems the most plausible explanation for the change in Neanderthal behavior. (p. 201, italics mine) (pg. 99) McDermott et al. (1993, 254) write that 'the conclusion that early modern Homo sapiens were probably coeval with . . . Neanderthals in the Levant now seems inescapable'. Also seemingly inescapable are the behavioural implications of this observation, as the Mousterian occurrences at the so-called early modern human and Neanderthal sites are very similar to each other. Bar-Yosef describes the various Levantine Middle Palaeolithic variations: The Mousterian struggle for survival lasted over 100,000 years. The amount of typological and technological variability among the lithic industries and the nature of the sites is rather limited. (Bar Yosef 1992a, 208) (pg. 99) The story that mtDNA tells us is that 'all humans represent a single-long term evolutionary lineage with regional subdivision and always have throughout the entire time period marked by mtDNA' (Templeton, 1993, 70). (pg. 102) The European Evidence Paul Mellars What none of us has yet managed to do, of course, is to provide a clear and coherent explanation of how this dramatic transformation in behavioural patterns came about – evidently long after the initial emergence of distinctively anatomically modern humans in either Africa or Asia. Clive Gamble talks happily about 'big surprises' or 'flicking a switch' in human cultural development. These may be catchy and convenient labels, but they hardly help us to unravel the actual mechanisms by which these dramatic behavioural changes originated. This remains, in my view, by far the greatest challenge facing students of the 'human revolution' over the next decade. (pg. 104) A Levantine Perspective Anthony E. Marks If behavioural differences are significant, then behavioural similarities must be equally significant. Within the limits of archaeological knowledge, therefore, the early 'Moderns' of Qafzeh and Skhul were 'close kin' to the Kebara Neanderthal but only 'distant relatives' of the European Upper Palaeolithic folk – hardly a position either author would willingly espouse. (pg. 104) Having postulated that there was a movement out of Africa at about 100,000 BP, the obvious first step to confirm this archaeologically would be to document a spread of African materials into the Levant at that time. yet the authors are amazingly silent about what material culture the early 'Moderns' had when they moved into the Levant. They do note that Qafzeh and Kebara both 'have Middle Palaeolithic tools' (p. 153). They fail to mention, however, that the Levantine Mousterian cannot be traced back into Africa; that the strong African tendency for bifacilally retouched points and foliates is not seen in the Levant until the Neolithic! (pg. 105) The 'Aurignacian' aspect of this level is limited to some carinated tools. There are no personal ornaments, no figurines, no engravings, and no evidence of any 'well-organized' campsite. Pierced bone and shell, as well as numbers of bone and antler tools, do appear in the Levant at c. 30,000 BP, some 10,000 years later than their appearance in Europe! (pg. 105) The reality of Near Eastern prehistory raises some serious questions about the authors' scenario. How can the 'modern' Aurignacian, as they define it, be associated with the spread of anatomically modern people into Europe from the Levant before 40,000 BP, when the 'early' Levantine Aurignacian does not include those elements which they consider evidence for 'modern' behavior? (pg. 105) Where, how, and why did this 'modern' behaviour develop? It is merely stated to be part of the Aurignacian in Europe by 40,000 BP. Why, if anatomically modern people were around from 100,000 BP, did their potential 'modernity' not manifest itself for 60,000 years? (pg. 105) The vast majority of those traits considered indicative of 'modern' behaviour are shown to begin only at 40,000 BP. The examples given for such 'modern' behavior as regional art, structures, well-planned campsites, storage pits, etc., however, date closer to 30,000 BP (even to 20,000 bp) than they do to 40,000 BP. Even these examples are mainly exceptions and in no way universally typical, even of Europe. (pg. 106) Beyond Stone Tools Ofer Bar-Yosef According to one version (Davidson & Noble 1992), the earliest settlers crossed the 100km waterway by boat some 55,000 years ago (Roberts et al. 1990). Building boats would require the use of modern language. Thus, the crossing of a major waterway testifies to the existence of modern language among southeast Asian hominids around 60,000 BP. (pg. 108) Reply: Confronting the Neanderthals Christopher Stringer & Clive Gamble Instead we agree with Bar-Yosef who reiterates a point he has made before (1987,34) that 'it is not in the lithics, but in features such as hearths, the spatial distribution of debris, etc., that the emergence of modern humans is reflected'. (pg. 114) END Review Feature Cambridge Archaeological Journal 4:1 (1994), 95-119 The Neanderthal World: Flat Earth or New Horizons? _____________________________________________________________________________ Torroni, Antonio, Marie T. Lott, Margaret F. Cabell, Yu-Sheng Chen, Leo Lavergne, and Douglas C. Wallace 1994. mtDNA and the Origin of Caucasians: Identification of Ancient Caucasian-specific Haplogroups, One of Which Is Prone to a Recurrent Somatic Duplication in the D-Loop Region. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 55: pp. 760-776. Consequently, though human evolution is brief, a large number of mtDNA variants distinguish the major racial groups, yielding powerful genetic markers for inferring the ethnic background of human subjects. For instance, 70%-100% of the mtDNAs from sub-Saharan African populations belong to an mtDNA group defined by a HpaI site at nucleotide pair (np) 3592 (Denaro et a. 1981; Scozzari et al. 1988, 1994; Soodyall and Jenkins 1992), which is found at very low frequencies outside Africa and only in Caucasian populations that historically have admixed with Africans (Bonne-Tamir et al. 1986; De Benedictis 1989b; Semino et al. 1989; Ritte et al. 1993. Approximately 60% of Asian Mongoloid mtDNAs have an AluI site at np 10397 (Ballinger et al. 1992; Passarino et al. 1993; Torroni et al. 1994b), which is absent in Africans and Europeans (p. 760). Parsimony analysis suggest that all Caucasian mtDNAs are grouped into two major lineages (fig. 1) distinguished by the presence or absence of a DdeI site at np 10394. The NJ tree provides a less clear-cut subdivision of the haplotypes into these two lineages (fig. 2). However, it maintains the clustering of the large majority of the haplotypes lacking the 10394 DdeI site. The 10394 DdeI site is found in 26.3% of the Caucasian mtDNAs, a lower frequency than either the 66% observed in Asians (Ballinger et al. 1992; Torroni et al. 1993a, 1994b) or the 91% observed in sub-Saharan Africans (Y.-S. Chen, A. Torroni, and D.C. Wallace, unpublished data). This polymorphism is probably very ancient, since it also subdivides Mongoloid (Ballinger et al. 1992; Torroni et al. 1993a, 1994b) and African (Y.-S. Chen, A. Torroni, and D.C. Wallace, unpublished data) phylogenies into two major lineages (p. 762). All Native American mtDNAs belong to one of only four haplogroups defined by a HaeIII site at np 663, a 9-bp deletion in the COIItRNALys intergenic region, an AluI site at np 13262, or the absence of an AluI site at np 5176 (Torroni et al. 1992, 1993a, 1994a: Torroni and Wallace 1994). These Native American mutations and the associated haplotypes have never been observed in Africans and Caucasians but are found in northeastern Asia and Siberia, from which the ancestral Native Americans derived from (Ballinger et al. 1992; Torroni et al. 1993b) (p. 760). Our survey revealed that 64% of European mtDNAs fell into four Haplogroups: H-K. Since these haplogroups are characterized by Caucasian-specific mutations, they probably originated after ancestral Caucasians separated from the ancestors of modern Asians and Africans. Hence the ages of these haplogroups could provide lower and upper limits to the age of modern Europeans (p. 766). NOTE My work suggests that the Amerindian lineages shared between northeast Asians and Amerindians is the result of admixture with gene clines pointing the way out of the Americas. Just read the first paragraph a couple time and repeat the DRIFT "there's no place like home, there's no place like home." you'll soon see; Eve is from Kansas! AMH _____________________________________________________________________________ A. Astrinidis and A. Kouvatsi 1994. Mitochondrial DNA Polymorphism in Northern Greece in Human Biology, August v. 66, no. 4, pp. 601-611, 1994 Human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is a circular molecule that has been completely sequenced (Anderson et al. 1981). Particular features, such as a high mutation rate (Brown et al. 1979), maternal inheritance (Giles et al. 1980), and absence of recombination (Zuckerman et al. 1984), have favored the use of mtDNA in studying the genetic structure of populations. (pg. 601) The greatest variability was found for AvaII. Morph 1 represented 74.6% of the individuals; morph 9, 8.5%; morph 13, 6%; and morph 2, 5.1%. Morphs 3, 5, and 15 were also found at low frequencies. The remarkable frequency of morph 13 and the fact that it was found also in high frequencies in Italians and Jews suggest that it may be a Mediterranean morph. (pg. 604) In comparison with other genetic markers an insufficient number of European populations have been studied for their mtDNA type. Thus more samples and different European populations are needed to have a better understanding of the geographic heterogeneity of mtDNA type frequency distribution throughout Europe. This could probably clarify the mechanism of mtDNA evolution, because there are still some different opinions. (pg. 608) ______________________________________________________________________________ Batsheva Bonne-Tamir, M.J. Johnson, A. Natali, D.C. Wallace 1986. Human Mitochondrial DNA Types in Two Israeli Populations–A Comparative Study at the DNA Level Am. J. Hum. Genet. 38:341-351 In contrast, the Israeli Jewish group is polymorphic, having four different morphs as follows: 57 exhibit morph 1; 37 exhibit morph 2, and the rare morphs 3 and 4 are represented by one individual each. Those exhibiting morph 2 in this group are all of Ashkenazi origin in whom, if regarded separately, morph 2 is exhibited at a frequency of 44%. Additionally, the rare morph 4, found originally in a person from Taiwan [8], was encountered in a Yemenite Jewish woman. Seven different patterns have previously been described for this enzyme, with morph 1 being the most common in all populations investigated and frequencies varying between 76% and 100%. (pg. 343) ____________________________________________________________________________ Eric Delson - ONE SOURCE NOT MANY pg. 206 NEWS AND VIEWS. "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 (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"). ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ Primate Research ______________________________________________________________________________ Jalles-Filho, Euphly 1995. Manipulative Propensity and Toll Use in Capuchin Monkeys. Current Anthropology p. 664. Their work suggests that capuchins use bone tools in a way functionally and formally similar to the way the early hominids are hypothesized to have used them, a finding with important implications for the genesis of tool use-and the development of the earliest technologies-in human evolution (p. 664). NOTE This is consistent with mid-Pleistocene New World habitations that have continually been associated with bone tools rather than stone. The earliest modern humans in the Old World are also aliened with bone tool industries. Bonnichsen suggests in the New World that post Pleistocene occupations went from stone to bone. Clovis was a bone modification tool used to flute stone projectile point technologies, being "Paleoindian Traditions." AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ Fleagle, John G. and Elwyn L. Simons 1995. Limb Skeleton and Locomotor Adaptations of Apidium phiomense, an Oligocene Anthropoid from Egypt. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 97: pp. 235-289 In general, Apidium lacks characteristic features of either cercopithecoid monkeys or hominoid apes. Overall, the skeleton shows greatest similarities to the same elements of small platyrrhines such as Saimiri and is also very similar to the hypothetical morphotype for the ancestral platyrrhine. The skeleton of Apidium phiomense is the most primitive anthropoid postcranial skeleton known (p. 235). It also lacks the characteristic features of either suspensory (or slow climbing) species or terrestrial quadrupeds. The greatest number of similarities in functional features is to the New World monkeys Cebus apella and Saimiri sciureus among extant higher primates; however, both of these species are characterized by more slender limbs than Apidium. (p. 257). Overall, the greatest phenetic similarities are with extant platyrrhines, especially the smaller genera such as Aotus, Saimiri, and some callitrichines. In many anatomical details, Apidium is more like platyrrhine monkeys than any other group of extant primates (p. 286). The actual phylogenetic position of Apidium and the other parapithecoids in early anthropoid phylogeny will only come through broader comparisons of the entire anatomy of this family. Nevertheless, the fossil remains available thus far provide a remarkable glimpse into the skeletal anatomy of a most interesting and successful early anthropoid that is almost certainly very near the base of the radiation of Old and New World higher primates (p. 387). NOTE New World primate-like features found in the earliest Old World primates. Makes you wonder! New World monkeys and modern humans are more gracial than Old World primates and their descendent hominoid groups. AMH ______________________________________________________________________________ Mark Stoneking, Stephen T. Sherry, and Linda Vigilant - GEOGRAPHIC ORIGIN OF HUMAN MITOCHONDRIAL DNA REVISITED - SYST. BIOL. 41(3):384-391, 1992. "Maddison et al. raised the question that the chimpanzee control region sequence may be too distantly related to the human sequences to provide meaningful phylogenetic information". _____________________________________________________________________________ Pepe G., O. Rickards, C. Jodice, and G. Modiano 1995. Allele and Haplotype Frequency Distribution of the EcoRI, RsaI, COLIA2 RFLPs among Various Human Populations. Human Biology, December 1995, v. 67, no. 6, pp. 905-920. Furthermore, the only data presented in a suitable way for comparisons at this level are those referring to Italians and to a native American population (Pepe et. al. 1990, 1994) (Figure 3) (p. 916). Figure 3 shows that the first of the two more common haplotypes (EcoRI-RsaI-MspI: + + + and - + +) seems to discriminate well the Africans from the Europeans, whereas the Asians and related populations show intermediate frequencies compatible with both of them. The - + - haplotype was found only in some African and European groups. The remaining five haplotypes were observed only among Europeans and Asians (p. 918). _____________________________________________________________________________ Kramer, Andrew, Steven M. Donnelly, James H. Kidder, Stephen D. Ousley & Stephen M. Olah 1995. Craniometric variation in large-bodied hominoids: testing the single-species hypothesis for Homo habilis. Journal of Human Evolution (1995) 29, 443-462. Many researchers have suggested that the fossils attributed to H. habilis display magnitudes and patterns of variation that defy inclusion within a single species. For example, recent papers by Rightmire (1993), employing morphological comparison and ratio diagrams, and by Wood (1993), who utilized univariate and multivariate analyses, both concluded that early East African Homo was represented by another species in addition to H. habilis (p. 461). As can be appreciated by the foregoing discussion, the position that there were at least two contemporary species of early Homo in eastern Africa, ca. 2 Ma, has been steadily gaining support since the mid-1980's. However, there is still no consensus concerning this issue because some researchers, led by Tobias (1991), continue to present persuasive arguments for maintaining the integrity of H. habilis as a single species (p. 445). _____________________________________________________________________________ Yves Coppens 1994East Side Story: The Origin of HumankindScientific American May It was not until the 1960s that the world eagerly turned its attention to eastern Africa. In 1959 Mary Leakey found at Olduvai an australopithecine skull equipped with all its upper teeth. . . . After that significant finding, expeditions started to arrive in abundance: a new team came each year for the first 12 years, and each one excavated for 10 or 20 seasons. Never before had such an effort been deployed by paleontologists or paleoanthropologists. (pg. 90) ______________________________________________________________________________ The current disposition countering New World hominid evolution is illustrated by Bruce MacFadden's appraisal that "paleontologists studying the fossil history of primates have good reason to lament the fragmentary record that must be used to decipher the evolution of this important group. With the great strides that have been made in recent years in the Old World, it can truly be said that the paleontological record of the New World platyrrhines is indeed the weakest of the lot. There are many reasons for this, but these mostly stem from the fact that, with the push to find human ancestors, emphasis has been outside of South America" (Bruce MacFadden, source misplaced 1990 pg. 7). _____________________________________________________________________________ Virginia Morell WILL PRIMATE GENETICS SPLIT ONE GORILLA INTO TWO Science 1995 VOL. ? This study didn't just examine gorilla DNA, however. Ruvolo also compared new DNA sequence data from several humans, chimpanzees, orangutans, and siamangs. Her findings support previous research showing that modern humans are remarkably less diverse genetically than are the great apes. 'The most different humans on the face of the Earth are less different than two lowland gorillas from the same forest in West Africa." Ruvolo says. This lack of human diversity indicates a small ancestral population. Page 1661 The implication is that our ancestors went through a population crunch, which restricted the gene pool. Harpending, using a different method of mtDNA analysis, came to similar conclusions last year (Science, 1 October 1993, p. 27). "Our low amount of genetic diversity suggests that most of the populations that were alive 200,000 years ago didn't leave any descendants, "says Harvard paleoanthropologist David Pilbeam, who is married to Ruvolo. "And the question then becomes. why? What caused the bottleneck? It's an issue that needs to be addressed." Ruvolo and others suspect that some great catastrophe occurred, but its nature remains unknown. Page 1661 _____________________________________________________________________________ Escalante, Ananias A., Eladio Barrio, and Francisco J. Ayala 1995. Evolutionary Origin of Human and Primate Malarias: Evidence from the Circumsporozoite Protein Gene. Mol. Biol. Evol. 12(4):616, 623, 624. The human P. malariae is indistinguishable from P. brasilianum, and P. vivax is indistinguishable from P. Simium; P. brasilianum and P. simium are parasitic to New World monkeys. The human P. vivax-like is indistinguishable from P. simiovale, a parasite of Old World macaques. We conjecture that P. malariae, P. vivax, and P. vivax-like are evolutionarily recent human parasites, the first two at least acquired only within the last several thousand years, and perhaps within the last few hundred years, after the expansion of human populations in South America following the European colonizations (p. 616). We tentatively conjecture that the switch has been in all three cases from nonhuman primates to humans and that these species have become human parasites only very recently, although the arguments we will now advance in support of this conjecture are tentative and may be proved wrong when gene sequences become available for other nonhuman parasites (p. 623). It must also be noted against our argument that some malariologists, based on the worldwide distribution of P. malariae, have assumed that the New World quartan malaria of monkeys (P. brasilianum) came from humans rather than vice versa (Coatney et al., 1971, p. 210). ... However, it is also plausible that vivax is an old human parasite (or perhaps recently acquired from catarrhine monkeys), which was transmitted to platyrrhine monkeys after human colonization of South America (pg. 624). NOTE This paper suggests recent-host-switch conjecture for explaining the virulence of P. falciparum in humans. AMH _______________________________________________________________________________ Hershkovitz, Philip 1977 Living New World Monkeys (Platyrrhini) .... (4) "Aotus and Alouatta are definitely platyrrhines according to the presence of an internarium. There is no similarity whatsoever with the catarrhine condition. (5) The division of the higher primates into platyrrhina and catarrhina is justified. This may indicate a very early evolutionary separation of the Old World and New World primates. (6) The internarium of the New World monkeys shows sinus hairs and is accordingly a sensorial area, at least on the sense of touch" (Hershkovitz 1977 p.1002). The time of platyrrhine/catarrhine divergence and degree of relationship between them at this time, assuming a common ancestor is still speculative. Not speculative, however, is that the resemblance's between living South American and African simians are to numerous and close to be products of parallel evolution alone (Hershkovitz 1977 p. 70). NOTE This is the definitive work on New World Primates. It has some great comparisons that would make it seem the relationship between characteristics shared by Platyrrhini and humans is more then just simple evidence of "convergent evolution" Although there are continuing debates as to the initial source for the Eocene (55-32 million years ago) presence of New World Primates the general consensus has been established that they must share an earlier common ancestor with other Old World higher primate species. AMH _______________________________________________________________________________ Ford Susan M. 1990 Locomotor adaptations in fossil platyrrhines. in Journal of Human Evolution 19, pp. 141-173 Reconsideration of the polarity of traits in light of recent analyses of parapithecid fossils indicates most if not all hard tissue traits previously believed to be platyrrhine synapomorphies are in fact ancestral anthropoid traits. Thus, it is not possible at present to determine with certainty if any particular fossil, either from South America or elsewhere, was a member of the Platyrrhini....Thus, we cannot at present answer the question as to: (1) whether a non-platyrrhine stock reached South America, in conjunction with the entry of platyrrhine, or a pre-platyrrhine stock reached South America prior to diverging morphologically from other anthropoids; or (2) whether platyrrhines diverged morphologically from other anthropoids on some other continent, before migrating to South America, perhaps leaving some fossil record elsewhere of their presence or of a collateral platyrrhine line (now extinct) (Susan Ford 1990 p. 141 and 170). _______________________________________________________________________________ Brace, C. L., P.E. Ashley Montagu 1965. Man's Evolution, An Introduction to Physical Anthropology The MacMillan Company, New York However ,...the most interesting of the New World Monkeys is the spider monkey. Not only does it possess the most thoroughly prehensile tail of any primate, but, it is the only monkey in either hemisphere which makes more than occasional use of the mode of progression characteristic of the Apes--brachiation. As a consequence of this adaptation there has been some selection for modifications of the pelvis, chest, shoulders, arms, and hands, which show a striking degree of convergence toward the form visible in the same parts of the anatomy of the apes, particularly the gibbon, which, as the smallest of the apes, is not much bigger than the spider monkey. The spider monkey is the only New World monkey in which the thumbs have been reduced often to a mere tubercle. While the spider monkey, as an interesting example of evolutionary convergence, comes closest to the structure of the anthropoid apes of any of the New World monkeys, the possession of a tail, so useful that it is practically a fifth hand, would prevent one from ever confusing a spider monkey with a genuine ape (Brace 1965 pp. 73-75). _____________________________________________________________________________ Paabo, Svante 1995. The Y Chromosome and the Origin of all Us (Men). Science Vol. 268, May 26, 1995 Reference (4) Hedges S.B., S. Kumar, K. Tamura, M. Stoneking ibid 255, 737 (1992) When the root of such trees was sought by connecting them to chimpanzee sequences, the root seemed to fall among African sequences. However, reanalyses of the data (4) indicated that there is very little information in the sequences to justify this conclusion, mainly because the chimpanzee sequence is so distantly related to that of humans that most of the information on its relation to human sequences has been erased by substitutions occurring multiple times at the same positions (Paabo 1995 pg. 1141). ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Archaeological References _______________________________________________________________________________ Binford, Lewis 1983b.Working at Archaeology Academic Press, Inc. "Although it is true that we frequently acknowledge that we would like to know what life was like in the past, it should have been clear that we sought to understand processes, particularly the processes that brought into being the facts of the archaeological record. In our view these processes were much more complicated than previously thought (or imagined)" (Binford 1983b, p. 6). By casting doubt we established the need for a way of testing the accuracy of alternative ideas. By showing that the traditional conventions could produce inaccurate results, we made it clear that we needed means for evaluating any interpretative conventions used for converting archaeological observations into statements about the past. Only by the use of such means would it be possible to evaluate either the alternative views advanced or the traditional views being questioned. In our view the testing of ideas was central to progress. This position led directly to the second, the investigation of the methods of inference and how to use them – in my opinion the most constructive component of the new archeology (Binford, 1983b, p. 7). Explanation begins for the archaeologist when observations made on the archaeological record are linked through laws of cultural or behavior functioning to past conditions on events [Binford 1968c:270]. If we.... appeal to unstated perceptual propositions in explaining observations we can have little confidence in the historical reconstructions offered....If the propositions appealed to in explaining our observations of the archaeological record are correct, then we will have gained knowledge of the past [L.R. Binford 1968b:1](Binford, 1983, p. 9). _______________________________________________________________________________ Fryer, D.W. 1984. Chapter (?) in,The Origins of Modern Humans: A World Survey of the Fossil Evidence in Smith/Spencer Eds. Probably the single most characteristic that is associated with the appearance of post-Mousterian groups is the wide usage of blade production techniques [Bordes, 1968]. Although blade tools are not absent in earlier periods, in the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic the prismatic core forms the nearly universal first step in stone tool production. Tools derived from these cores are a significant improvement over the earlier flake tools. Blade tools have extremely thin cross-sections and sharp edges, providing more effective cutting and scraping surfaces [Bordes, 1970; Semenov, 1964]. In some cases, the nonworking edge was even dulled before usage, presumably so that the implement could be used without damaging the hand. The significant feature of blade tools is that they can be modified into a variety of forms, designed for specific purposes. This specificity of tool function is a cumulative trend within the Upper Paleolithic. For example: "Before the Solutrean, the evolution of lithic assemblages seems to lead to the more efficient adaptation of different kinds of tools to different kinds of primary operations (slicers become better slicers, crushers better for crushing, and so on) regardless of the nature of the specific resource on which the operation was performed. From the Solutrean onward, we have increasing evidence for the special tailoring of specific tools to particular resources" [Freeman, 1981, p. 153]. Although this conclusion is based only on archaeological sequences in Cantabrian Spain, the generalization is probably applicable to overall lithic trends in the sequence of Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic industries. Through time, the variety of tool types increases [Issac, 1972] and more and more control over the intended form occurs. These innovations include thermal pre-treatment that facilitates better-controlled knapping [Bordes, 1969], progressive "microlithization" of tools [Semenov, 1964], and by the Mesolithic, regional tool types that are specifically designed for local ecosystems and subsistence/exploitive patterns [Rozoy, 1978] (Frayer 1984, pp. 213-214).) _______________________________________________________________________________ Irving William N. 1987. New Dates from Old Bones Natural History Magazine Feb. 1987 In Southeast Asia, an environment totally different from that of the Yukon, Geoffrey Pope has arrived at a similar formulation: he suggests, as have others, that bamboo served as a basic raw material for making edged tools of many kinds, replacing the need for certain stone tools. Because these tools were made of perishable material, the archaeological record is incomplete. Pope's observations and the work at Old Crow seems to show that the paleolithic of southeast Asia and northern North America cannot be understood by paying attention only to implements made of stone (Irving 1987). _______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ New World Archaeological Sites NOTE AMH 1. Pedra Ferrad, Brazil (N. Guidon 1990) 33,000 (or more likely 47,000) y.b.p.; 2. Texas Street, San Diego, CA (George F. Carter 1979), 100,000 y.b.p.; 3. Buchanan Canyon, so. CA (Herb Minshall 1989) 100,000 y.b.p.; 4. China Lake (E.L. Davis), so. CA, 40,000 y.b.p.; 5. Pendejo Cave, NM (Richard S. MacNeish, 1989) 38,000-53,000 y.b.p.; 6. Tiama Tiama, Venezuela, (Alan L. Bryan, 1990) 13,000 y.b.p.; 7. Old Crow, Yukon 40,000+ y.b.p. (W.N. Irving, R.E. Morlan); 8. Monte Verde, Chile (Tom Dillehay, 1989) 13,000 and 33,000 y.b.p.; 9. Meadowcroft, PA (James Adovasio) 14,000-18,000 y.b.p.; 10. Calico Hills, CA (Leakey, Simpson 1971) 200,000 y.b.p.; and 11. Santa Rosa Island (Phillip Orr and Reiner Berger) 40,000+ y.b.p. ______________________________________________________________________________ Bryan Alan 1991 The Fluted-Point Tradition in the Americas-- One of several Adaptations to Late Pleistocene American Invironments Current Research in the Pleistocene Oregon St. U., eds. Robson Bonnichsen and Karen Turnmare Cinq-Mars and Morlan operate with the reasonable hypothesis that the microblades were mounted as lateral barbs into grooved antler or bone projectile points, like those in the Trail Creek Caves on the Seward Peninsula (Larsen 1968) and at various Late Paleolithic sites in Siberia. They also hypothesize that the microblade technology at the Bluefish and Trail Creek Caves is closely related to and possibly stems from the Dyuktai complex, well dated between 18,000 and 12,000 yr B.P. in Dyuktai Cave and possibly earlier at other sites on the Aldan River (Mochanov 1978) (Bryan 1991). Several other sites in the Andean region have yielded artifacts in association with extinct fauna. These include Pikimachay Cave, where subtriangular ground-bone points and simple unifacial stone artifacts were found with sloth and horse bones in a context dated 14,150± 180 yr B.P. Earlier cultural contexts are possible, but more difficult to demonstrate (MacNeish et al. 1981). Simple flake artifacts were recovered with horse and mastodon at Tagua Tagua in central Chile from a layer dated 11,380 ± 320 yr B.P. (Montané 1968). Farther south in the sub-Antarctic rain forest, mastodon bones first attracted attention to the Monte Verde locality, but subsequent excavation of this unique wet site has indicated that the bones had simply been collected for use. . . .Despite the presence of extinct animal remains, none of these Andean sites has produced actual evidence that the occupants were specialized big-game hunters. Rather, these early Andean people appear to have been general foragers who occasionally took advantage of locally available large mammals in addition to smaller mammals. (Bryan 1991 pp. 26, emphasis added) In order to cast doubt on any "pre-Clovis" report, skeptics operating with the conviction that Clovis constitutes the only demonstrated evidence for Pleistocene humans in the Americas and therefore must be the earliest apply what they claim is the scientific method of multiple working hypotheses by raising any imaginable question about the validity of the reported radiocarbon dates, the reported stratigraphy, or the report that artifacts and/or human-made features were recovered in proper contexts. In order to put a cloud over any reported "pre-Clovis" site, skeptics, most of whom have never visited the sites in question, suggest remote possibilities that might conceivably be true, such as that an object that looks like an artifact might have been flaked during a flood or an earthquake, or is the product of a waterfall; that the radiocarbon samples might have been contaminated by coal or ground water containing ancient carbonates; that people might have collected old wood to use in their fires; or that the artifacts might have been intruded from later deposits. Although all these "alternative hypotheses" might conceivably be true, in fact, the skeptics present no actual evidence to support their claim that they are true. Nevertheless, the skeptics insist that as long as at least one alternative hypothesis has been presented, then the original report must be considered as "equivocal." A reader usually interprets this statement to mean that the original report is probably in error and therefore should be dismissed. (Bryan 1991 pp. ) NOTE In a personal letter to me (Hicks) George Carter re-described the types of stone tools found in Pleistocene occupations and the systems deployed in their production. Anyone familiar with the debate regarding the antiquity of man in the Americas is well aware that Carter suggests that humans have been present in the Americas at least 100,000 years. His description of the stone tool industries follows: AMH In the Great Basin - A. [There is an] Abundance of pre-biface projectile [used by] people on the shore of Lake Lahoutan. These are 11,000+ and NOT Clovis (also see Jennings - Danger Cave - Lake Bonneville) --- 10,000 + and not fluted -. B. No bifacial points associated with the (extinction time). Lake Mannix: The cultural explosion in America (at least in the West) dates to <15,000, > 11,000. [there is] secondary pressure/percussion flaking with bifacial flaking with flakes driven across the face of the implement. Stone was certainly being broken for 10's of millennia in America before the + 11,000 yr. explosion. But it was steep flakes, short, often one edge - clearly heavy percussion. True specialized stone hunting points were absent - pre 15,000 - and appeared close to 11,000. But there were strongly developed stone tool industries. The tools were simple cores (a cobble with 2 or 3 flakes removed) --- and simple flakes. The flakes undoubtedly were used as general purpose tools; skinning, scraping, wood and bone shaping, etc. On the American scene, you are right on the equatorial "men". They used scant lithic technology, but they did have stone work traditions. uniface and flakes ---- La Jollan Blade and core and flakes ---- Texas street and Calico Pebble tools and flakes ---- Wide over the Americas La Jollan duplicates Soan in s.e. Asia and Kartan lithic tools in Australia (Carter pers. correspondence, 1992). ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Linguistics ______________________________________________________________________________ Campbell Lyle, 1990 (source lost) Even Greenberg, Turner and Zegura (1986; 487) regard their 'genetic' data as "still without confirmation" and so as "supplementary." Therefore, since their dental/genetic claims are not supported, correlation's between such claims and Greenberg's linguistic classification (also not substantiated) can be of little value, and postulated migrations to the New World based on such correlations are unwarranted. Finally, as persuasively argued by Rebecca Cann (this volume), the mitochondrial DNA evidence indicates that there were at least eleven lineages from which American Indians descended, perhaps thirty-three; this indicates either several migrating groups or large migrating groups with many unrelated females (cf. Morell 1990; 440 in Campbell 1990). ______________________________________________________________________________ Merit Ruhlen (source lost) Soon after Sapir proposed the Na-Dene family he became aware of many striking similarities between the Na-Dene family and the Asian language family known as Sino-Tibetan. In his correspondence with Alfred Kroeber, Sapir left no doubt that he was absolutely convinced that Na-Dene and Sino-Tibetan belonged to an even more ancient linguistic family: "If the morphological and lexical accord which I find on every hand between Na-Dene and Indo-Chinese [Sino-Tibetan] is "accidental" then every analogy on God's earth is an accident. It is so powerfully cumulative and integrated that when you tumble to one point a lot of others fall into line" (Golla 1984;374). ...Owing to the recent discovery of this family (or re-discovery, in light of Sapir's earlier proposal), there is not yet a consensus on precisely which language families constitute Dene-Caucasian. I believe that the following should be included: Basque, (North) Caucasian, Sumerian, Burushaski, Nahali, Sino-Tibetan, Yeniseian, and Na-Dene (Ruhlen 1989 pp.12-13). ______________________________________________________________________________ NOTE The Amerindians maintain a specific abundance of languages that do not appear to be descendent of any ancient Old World tongue but related nonetheless (Ruhlen 1987; Greenberg 1986) Does their extensive linguistic diversity supports a northern South American origin for the initial dispersal of Joseph Greenberg's macro-phylum classification of "Amerindian?" That a majority of professional linguists are not in agreement with the methods determining the classification of "Amerind" -- as a single linguistic unit comprising 12 distinct groups -- is noteworthy considering that there is a fundamental agreement regarding Greenberg's assessment that Africa contains but 4 language groups. AMH