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Tropical limb proportion studies - ancient Egypt

Strong genetic components of limb proportions
"Human body proportions also appear to have a substantial genetic component. Differences in body proportions between Eskimos and non-Eskimos, for example, appear early in ontogeny (Guilbeault & Morazain, 1965; Y’Edynak, 1978). The low sitting height/stature ratio of Australian aborigines is present early in development (Eveleth & Tanner, 1976). Schultz (1923, 1926) found significant differences between African–American and Euroamerican fetuses in brachial and crural indices, length of the legs relative to the trunk, and relative pelvic width. The fact that these ‘‘racial’’ features are manifested early in fetal life indicates strong genetic encoding of body and limb proportions. 

In addition, body shape in human appears to be more resistant to nutritional deficiency or disease than is body size (Stini, 1975; Eveleth & Tanner, 1976; Frisancho & Housh, 1988; Martorell et al., 1988). Body proportions of human migrants, for example, are conservative; despite often exhibiting a marked increase in stature, children of migrants tend to retain the body proportions of their ancestral homeland, and do not develop the proportions of their new neighbors (Ito, 1942; Lasker, 1946; Trotter & Gleser, 1952, 1958; Greulich, 1957; Eveleth, 1966; Froehlich, 1970; Benoist, 1971, 1975; Hamill et al., 1973; Martorell et al., 1988; Feldesman et al., 1990). Also, while secular trends in body shape have been documented, they do not negate the value of body proportions as short-term phylogenetic markers. For example, in a long-term study of secular trends in body shape in Japan (Tanner et al., 1982), the authors note that nutritional differences alone cannot explain all of the global variability in body shape. Rather, they note that much of the difference seen today in body shape between broad geographic groups is genetically-driven. 

Migration within a larger time framework took place ca. 15,000–18,000 BP, when the first Asian populations crossed the Bering Strait, ultimately founding the modern Amerindian population. Despite having as much as 18,000 years of selection in environments as diverse as those found in the Old World, body mass and proportion clines in the Americas are less steep than those in the Old World (Newman, 1953; Roberts, 1978). .. This suggests that body proportions tend not to be very plastic under natural conditions, and that selective rates on body shape are such that evolution in these features is long-term."
--Holliday T. (1997). Body proportions in Late Pleistocene Europe and modern human origins. Jrnl Hum Evo. 32: 423-447



Modern Egyptians cluster with Sub-Saharan Africans on several counts
QUOTE:

"The biological characteristics of modern
Egyptians show a north-south cline, reflecting
their geographic location between sub-Saharan
Africa and the Levant. This is expressed in DNA,
blood groups, serum proteins and genetic
disorders (Filon 1996; Hammer et al. 1998; Krings
et al. 1999). They can also be expressed in
phenotypic characteristics that can be identified
in teeth and bones (Crichton 1966; Froment 1992;
Keita 1996). These characteristics include head
form, facial and nasal characteristics, jaw
relationships, tooth size, morphology and
upper/lower limb proportions. In all these
features, Modern Egyptians resemble Sub-Saharan
Africans (Howells 1989, Keita 1995)."

-- Smith, P. (2002) The palaeo-biological 
evidence for admixture between populations in the
southern Levant and Egypt in the fourth to third 
millennia BCE. in E.C.M van den Brink and TE Levy, eds. 
Egypt and the Levant: interrelations from the 4th through the 
3rd millenium, BCE. Leicester Univ Press: 2002, 118-28

Ancient "Middle Easterners" lack the tropical body proportions of ancient Egyptians

QUOTE:

"There is long-standing disagreement regarding Upper Pleistocene human evolution in Western Asia, particularly the Levant. Some argue that there were two different populations, perhaps different species, of Upper Pleistocene Levantine hominids. The first, from the Israeli sites of Qafzeh and Skhul, is anatomically modern. The second, from sites such as Amud, Kebara, and Tabun, is archaic, or "Neandertal" in morphology. Others argue that this is a false dichotomy and that all of these hominids belong to a single, highly variable population. In this paper I attempt to resolve this issue by examining postcranial measures reflective of body shape. Results indicate that the Qafzeh-Skhul hominids have African-like, or tropically adapted, proportions, while those from Amud, Kebara, Tabun, and Shanidar (Iraq) have more European-like, or cold-adapted, proportions. This suggests that there were in fact two distinct Western Asian populations and that the Qafzeh-Skhul hominids were likely African in origin - a result consistent with the "Replacement" model of modern human origins.

"What we can say, however, is that in the Holocene, humans from southwest Asia do not exhibit tropically adapted body shape (Crognier 1981; Eveleth and Tanner 1976; Schreider 1975). In addition, while Levantine winters today are generally characterized as mild (Henkin et al. 1998), they are nonetheless quite often cold, with frequent snowfall—for example, the winter of 1992 was particularly cold and snowy in Israel (Vishnevetsky and Steinberger 19%). Given that the Holocene is a warm phase, yet recent Levantine humans do not exhibit a tropically adapted morphology, there is little reason to assume that in the (generally colder) Pleistocene epoch, natural selection alone could result in tropically adapted morphology in the region.

Thus, the discovery of tropically adapted hominids in the region would therefore likely indicate population dispersal from the TROPICS, and the most logical geographic source for such an influx is Africa. In this regard, Trinkaus (1981, 1984, 1995) and Ruff (1994) have argued that the high brachial and crural indices, narrow biiliac breadths, and small relative femoral head sizes of the Qafzeh-Skhul hominids suggest an influx of African genes associated with the emergence of modern humans in the region."

---Trenton Holliday (2000) Evolution at the Crossroads: Modern Human Emergence in Western Asia. American Anthropologist. New Series, Vol. 102, No. 1, 54-68

[b]Cold-climate types in Europe displaced by more advanced tropical peoples[/b]

[QUOTE]:
"The transition in Europe from Neandertals to “early anatomically modern”
(Late Paleolithic) humans 40,000 to 25,000 years ago and subsequent changes in
morphology within the latter group, are especially interesting in that they may
provide evidence of adaptation following migration to a new climatic zone if these
populations were derived from farther south, as suggested by the preponderance
of current evidence (Klein 1999). The lack of change between European Early and
Late Paleolithic samples in distal-to-proximal limb length proportions (crural and
brachial indices) was initially puzzling in this regard because a reduction would
have been predicted if climatic adaptation were taking place (Trinkaus 1981).

However, more recent work has shown that relative to measures of trunk (vertebral
column) height, limb length did decrease significantly within the Upper Paleolithic
in Europe, beginning at proportions similar to those of sub-Saharan Africans and
ending at proportions similar to those of modern Europeans (Holliday 1997a).
Comparisons of long bone lengths to bi-iliac breadths in available European Upper
Paleolithic specimens (nD15–19, about a third from the Early Upper Paleolithic)
also indicate significant reductions in limb length to body breadth between the Early
and Late Upper Paleolithic (unpublished results based on data given in Ruff et al.
1997, supplementary information). Thus, body shape did change significantly in
Upper Paleolithic Europeans after exposure to colder climatic conditions, although
the change was mosaic in nature, beginning with a general reduction in limb
lengths followed by a reduction in distal-to-proximal limb element proportions."
[ENDQUOTE]:

-- Ruff. C. 2002. Variation in Human Body Size and Shape. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 2002. 31:211-32.

"Limb length proportions in males from Maadi and Merimde group them with African rather than European populations. Mean femur length in males from Maadi was similar to that recorded at Byblos and the early Bronze Age male from Kabri, but mean tibia length in Maadi males was 6.9cm longer than that at Byblos. At Merimde both bones were longer than at the other sites shown, but again, the tibia was longer proportionate to femurs than at Byblos (Fig 6.2), reinforcing the impression of an African rather than Levantine affinity."
-- Smith, P. (2002) The palaeo-biological evidence for admixture between populations in the southern Levant and Egypt in the fourth to third millennia BCE. in E.C.M van den Brink and TE Levy, eds. Egypt and the Levant: interrelations from the 4th through the 3rd millenium, BCE. Leicester Univ Press: 2002, 118-28

"These same log shape variables were subjected to two forms of cluster analysis: neighbor-joining (NJ) and unweighted pair-group method using averages (UPGMA) tree analysis. Figure 8 is the NJ tree. It has two main branches—a long and linear body build branch that includes the Egyptians, Sub-Saharan Africans (except for the Pygmies), and African-Americans and a second, less linear body form branch that includes the Inuit, Europeans, Euro-Americans, Puebloans, Nubians, and Pygmies. Note that the Nubians used in this study are thought by some to represent an immigrant population from Europe or Western Asia [see Holliday (1995)]."
--Holiday, T. (2010) Body proportions of circumpolar peoples as evidenced from skeletal data. AmerJrPhyAntrho, 142: 2. 287-302

Data on tropical limb proportions of many pharaohs

"It can be seen that all the pharonic values, including 
those of 'Smakhare', lie much closer to the negro 
curve than to the white curve. Since stature 
equations only work satisfactorily in the individuals to 
whom they have applied have similar proportions to 
the population group from which they are derived, this 
provides justification for using negro equations for
estimating stature from single bones of the New 
Kingdom pharoahs, renforcing the previous findings of 
Robins (1983). Furthermore, the Troller and Gleser 
white equations for the femur, tibia and humerus yield 
stature values that have a much wider spread than 
those from negro equations with mean values that are 
unacceptably large."

--Robins and Schute. The Physical Proportions and Stature 
of New Kingdom Pharaohs," Journal of Human Evolution 12 
(1983), 455-465

and

[quote]

"Robins (1983) and Robins & Shute
(1983) have shown that more consistent
results are obtained from ancient
Egyptian male skeletons if Trotter &
Gleser formulae for negro are used,
rather than those for whites which have
always been applied in the past. .. their
physical proportions were more like
modern negroes than those of modern
whites, with limbs that were relatively
long compared with the trunk, and distal
segments that were long compared with
the proximal segments. If ancient
Egyptian males had what may be termed
negroid proportions, it seems reasonable
that females did likewise."
From:
(Robins G, Shute CCD. 1986.
Predynastic Egyptian stature and
physical proportions. Hum Evol
1:313–324. Ruff CB. 1994.)


"Estimates of living stature, based on
X-ray measurements applied to the
Trotter & Gleser (1958) negro equations
for the femur, tibia and humerus, have
been made for ancient Egyptian kings
belonging to the 18th and 19th dynasties.
The corresponding equations for whites
give values for stature that are
unsatisfactorily high. The view that
Thutmose III was excessively short is
proved to be a myth. It is shown that the
limbs of the pharaohs, like those of other
Ancient Egyptians, had negroid
characteristics, in that the distal
segments were relatively long in
comparison with the proximal segments.
An exception was Ramesses II, who
appears to have had short legs below the
knees."

--Robins and Schute. The Physical
Proportions and Stature of New
Kingdom Pharaohs," Journal of Human
Evolution 12 (1983), 455-465

[b]Incoming Neolithic to Europe included clear "sub-Saharan" African elements - Brace 2005[/b]

QUOTE:
"The assessment of prehistoric and recent human craniofacial dimensions supports the picture documented by genetics that the extension of Neolithic agriculture from the Near East westward to Europe and across North Africa was accomplished by a process of demic diffusion (11–15). If the Late Pleistocene Natufian sample from Israel is the source from which that Neolithic spread was derived, then there was clearly a SubSaharan African element present of almost equal importance as the Late Prehistoric Eurasian element. At the same time, the failure of the Neolithic and Bronze Age samples in central and northern Europe to tie to the modern inhabitants supports the suggestion that, while a farming mode of subsistence was spread westward and also north to Crimea and east to Mongolia by actual movement of communities of farmers, the indigenous foragers in each of those areas ultimately absorbed both the agricultural subsistence strategy and also the people who had brought it. The interbreeding of the incoming Neolithic people with the in situ foragers diluted the Sub-Saharan traces that may have come with the Neolithic spread so that no discoverable element of that remained. This picture of a mixture between the incoming farmers and the in situ foragers had originally been supported by the archaeological record alone (6, 9, 33, 34, 48, 49), but this view is now reinforced by the analysis of the skeletal morphology of the people of those areas where prehistoric and recent remains can be metrically compared."
Brace, et al. The questionable contribution of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age to European craniofacial form, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2006 January 3; 103(1): p. 242-247.)

Cold-adapted European Paleolithic tribes displaced by more advanced tropical peoples

"About 80 percent of Europeans arose from primitive hunters who arrived about 40,000 years ago, endured the long ice age and then expanded rapidly to dominate the continent, a new study shows. Researchers analyzing the Y chromosome taken from 1,007 men from 25 different locations in Europe found a pattern that suggests four out of five of the men shared a common male ancestor about 40,000 years ago. This scenario supports other studies about the Paleolithic European groups. Those studies suggest that a primitive, stone-age human came to Europe, probably from Central Asia and the Middle East, in two waves of migration beginning about 40,000 years ago. Their numbers were small and they lived by hunting animals and gathering plant food. They used crudely sharpened stones and fire."

"About 24,000 years ago, the last ice age began, with mountain-sized glaciers moving across most of Europe. The Paleolithic Europeans retreated before the ice, finding refuge for hundreds of generations in three areas: what is now Spain, the Balkans and the Ukraine."

"When the glaciers melted, about 16,000 years ago, the Paleolithic tribes resettled the rest of Europe. Y chromosome mutations occurred among people in each of the ice age refuges, said Underhill. He said the research shows a pattern that developed in Spain is now most common in northwest Europe, while the Ukraine pattern is mostly in Eastern Europe and the Balkan pattern is most common in Central Europe."

"About 8,000 years ago a more advanced people, the Neolithic, migrated to Europe from the Middle East, bringing with them a new Y chromosome pattern and a new way of life - agriculture. About 20 percent of Europeans now have the Y chromosome pattern from this migration."

"Archaeological digs in European caves clearly show that before 8,000 years ago, Europeans lived by gathering and hunting. After that, there are traces of grains and other agricultural products."

National Geographic 2000 with data from:
--Underhill, et al 2000. Y chromosome sequence variation and the history of human populations. Nat Genet 26:358–361

cold adapted Neanderthals

"Cold adaptation is accepted as the best explanatory hypothesis for the postcranial skeleton and limb proportions of Neanderthals (Trinkaus, 1981; Weaver, 2003), with distal limb segments proportionally shorter (Trinkaus, 1981; Holliday, 1997; CHurchhill 1998; Steegmann et al., 2002). "
--Katerina Harvati, Terry Harrison (2006) Neanderthals revisited: new approaches and perspectives. Springer. pg 45

Tropical migrants to Europe different from cold adapted European types

"The Niger-Congo speakers, Congo, Dahomey and Haya, cluster closely with each other and a bit less closely with the Nubian sample, both the recent and the Bronze Age Nubians, and more remotely with the Naqada Bronze Age sample of Egypt, the modern Somalis, and the Arabic-speaking Fellaheen (farmers) of Israel. When those samples are separated and run in a single analysis as in Fig. 1, there clearly is a tie between them that is diluted the farther one gets from sub-Saharan Africa" (Brace, 2005)

"The surprise is that the Neolithic peoples of Europe and their Bronze Age successors are not closely related to the modern inhabitants, although the prehistoric/modern ties are somewhat more apparent in southern Europe. It is a further surprise that the Epipalaeolithic Natufian of Israel from whom the Neolithic realm was assumed to arise has a clear link to Sub-Saharan Africa... Interestingly enough, however, the small Natufian sample falls between the Niger-Congo group and the other samples used. Fig. 2 shows the plot produced by the first two canonical variates, but the same thing happens when canonical variates 1 and 3 (not shown here) are used. This placement suggests that there may have been a Sub-Saharan African element in the make-up of the Natufians (the putative ancestors of the subsequent Neolithic), .. When canonical variates are plotted, neither sample ties in with Cro-Magnon as was once suggested. The data treated here support the idea that the Neolithic moved out of the Near East into the circum-Mediterranean areas and Europe by a process of demic diffusion but that subsequently the in situ residents of those areas, derived from the Late Pleistocene inhabitants, absorbed both the agricultural life way and the people who had brought it." (Brace, 2005)

(Brace, et al. The questionable contribution of the Neolithic and the Bronze Age to European craniofacial form, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2006 January 3; 103(1): p. 242-247.)

Both skeletal/cranial and DNA studies by other authors confirm that some Neolithics did not derive from today's Middle Easterners. They most likely resembled African populations. Hence comparisons using older European Neolithics versus Africans are comparisons with older prehistoric Europeans who looked more like Africans, than modern 'white' Europeans, as shown by Brace (2005), and Hanihara (1996) also, who states "Early West Asians looked like Africans."

"The absence of mtDNA haplogroup J in the ancient Portuguese Neolithic sample suggests that this population was not derived directly from Near Eastern farmers. The Mesolithic and Neolithic groups show genetic discontinuity implying colonisation at the Neolithic transition in Portugal." (CHANDLER, H.; SYKES, B.; ZILHÃO, J. (2005) — Using ancient DNA to examine genetic continuity at the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in Portugal, in ARIAS, P.; ONTAÑÓN, R.; GARCÍA-MONCÓ, C. (eds.) — «Actas del III Congreso del Neolítico en la Península Ibérica», Santander, Monografías del Instituto Internacional de Investigaciones Prehistóricas de Cantabria 1, p. 781-786.)

Early Europeans still resembled modern tropical peoples - some resemble modern Australian and Africans, more than modern Europeans.. Nor does the picture get any clearer when we move on to the Cro-Magnons, the presumed ancestors of modern Europeans. Some were more like present-day Australians or Africans, judged by objective anatomical observations." (Christopher Stringer, Robin McKie (1998). African Exodus. Macmillan, p. 162)

Neolithic people in Europe, as recently as 6,000-9000 years ago, looked somewhat like Africans in terms of retained 'tropical' characteristics. Cold adaptation was to bring about several physical changes over time from the initial Out of Africa migrations to Europe. Retained traces of 'tropical' characteristics, indicate a "large African role in the origins of anatomically modern Europeans." (Holliday and Churchill 2003).

"Body proportions covary with climate, apparently as the result of climatic selection. Ontogenetic research and migrant studies have demonstrated that body proportions are largely genetically controlled and are under low selective rates; thus studies of body form can provide evidence for evolutionarily short-term dispersals and/or gene flow. Replacement predicts that the earliest modern Europeans will possess “tropical” body proportions (assuming Africa is the center of origin), while Regional Continuity permits only minor shifts in body shape, due to climatic change and/or improved cultural buffering. .. results refute the hypothesis of local continuity in Europe, and are consistent with an interpretation of elevated gene flow (and population dispersal?) from Africa, followed by subsequent climatic adaptation to colder conditions." (Holliday, Trenton (1997) Body proportions in Late Pleistocene Europe and modern human origins. Journal of Human Evolution, Volume 32, Issue 5, 1997, Pages 423-447)

".. while the Late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic humans have significantly higher (i.e., tropically-adapted) brachial and crural indices than do recent Europeans, they also have shorter (i.e., cold-adapted) limbs. The somewhat paradoxical retention of “tropical” indices in the context of more “cold-adapted” limb length is best explained as evidence for Replacement in the European Late Pleistocene, followed by gradual cold adaptation in glacial Europe." (Holliday, Trenton (1999) Brachial and crural indices of European Late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic humans. Journal of Human Evolution. Volume 36, Issue 5, May 1999, Pages 549-566)

"Stature, body mass, and body proportions are evaluated for the Cheddar Man (Gough's Cave 1) skeleton. Like many of his Mesolithic contemporaries, Gough's Cave 1 evinces relatively short estimated stature (ca. 166.2 cm [5' 5']) and low body mass (ca. 66 kg [146 lbs]). In body shape, he is similar to recent Europeans for most proportional indices. He differs, however, from most recent Europeans in his high crural index and tibial length/trunk height indices. Thus, while Gough's Cave 1 is characterized by a total morphological pattern considered ‘cold-adapted’, these latter two traits may be interpreted as evidence of a large African role in the origins of anatomically modern Europeans." (TRENTON W. HOLLIDAY a1 and STEVEN E. CHURCHILL. (2003). Gough's Cave 1 (Somerset, England): an assessment of body size and shape, Bulletin of the Natural History Museum: Geology, 58:37-44 Cambridge University Press)

Neanderthals and tropical adaptation

"Regarding environmental buffering, Trinkaus (1986 and this volume) reiterates that while Neanderthal limb proportions are suggestive of cold adaptation, no such indications are shown by Eurasian early modern humans. Their distinct limb proportions are instead indicative of an equatorial ancestry and better culturally based thermal protection.. the limb proportions of the Eurasian early modern samples are retentions of the African ancestral morphology of long limbs with long distal segments.."
(-- Erik Trinkaus (ed), 'The Emergence of Modern Humans", (C. Stringer p. 88). School of American Research, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1989.

Other data showing more advanced peoples in Europe were tropically adapted types like Africans
"Body proportions are under strong climatic selection and evince remarkable stability within regional lineages. As such, they offer a viable and robust alternative to cranio-facial data in assessing hypothesised continuity and replacement with the transition to agro-pastoralism in central Europe. Humero-clavicular, brachial and crural indices in a large sample (n=75) of Linienbandkeramik (LBK), Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age specimens from the middle Elbe-Saale-Werra valley (MESV) were compared with Eurasian and African terminal Pleistocene, European Mesolithic and geographically disparate recent human specimens. Mesolithic Europeans display considerable variation in humero-clavicular and brachial indices yet none approach the extreme "hyper-polar" morphology of LBK humans from the MESV. In contrast, Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age peoples display elongated brachial and crural indices reminiscent of terminal Pleistocene and "tropically adapted" recent humans. These marked morphological changes likely reflect exogenous immigration during the terminal Fourth millennium cal BC. Population expansion and diffusion is a function of increased mobility and settlement dispersal concomitant with significant technological and subsistence changes in later Neolithic societies during the late fourth millennium cal BCE."
-- Gallagher et al. "Population continuity, demic diffusion and Neolithic origins in central-southern Germany: the evidence from body proportions." Homo. 2009;60(2):95-126. Epub 2009 Mar 4.

[b]Neanderthals had higher brain growth as infants, larger brains at adulthood and a slower-paced lifestyle[/b]

"Virtual reconstructions of a Neanderthal neonate from Mezmaiskaya Cave (Russia) and of two Neanderthal infant skeletons from Dederiyeh Cave (Syria) now provide new comparative insights: Neanderthal brain size at birth was similar to that in recent Homo sapiens and most likely subject to similar obstetric constraints. Neanderthal brain growth rates during early infancy were higher, however. This pattern of growth resulted in larger adult brain sizes but not in earlier completion of brain growth. Because large brains growing at high rates require large, late-maturing, mothers [Leigh SR and Blomquist GE (2007) in Campbell CJ et al. Primates in perspective; pp 396–407], it is likely that Neanderthal life history was similarly slow, or even slower-paced, than in recent H. sapiens."
--Ponce de Leon (2008). Neanderthal brain size at birth provides insights into the evolution of human life history. PNAS. v105. no3. pp 13764-13768

[b] Emergence of Haplogroup M occurred among dark-skinned tropical peoples [/b] – QUOTE: "Macaulay's research team analyses the Orang Asli, the aboriginal inhabitants of the Malay Penisula, while Thangaraj and colleagues focused on the Andamese islanders, called 'Negritos' (for the characteristic phenotype of dark skin), both groups performing a large number of complete mitochondrial sequences in order to clarify the origin of these populations. They discovered that both Orang Asli and Andaman islanders harboured ancient mtDNA lineages, belonging to the founder haplogroups M, N, and R, with coalescence ages of ~44,000 to ~63,000 years, which were considered the legacy of an early diffusion of modern humans out of Africa. Thus, there was a single rapid out of Africa dispersal (~70,000 years ago) involving a founding group of individuals harbouring the L3 mtDNA haplogroup and starting from the Horn of Africa towards the Persian Gulf and further along the tropical coast of the Indian Ocean to Southeast Asia and Australasia. During this coastal migration, haplogroups M, N and R evolved and the ancestral L3 was lost. Moreover, this scenario is strongly supported by palaeoenvironmental evidence, confirming that a northern migration would have been impossible during the glacial period extending from ~70,000 to 50,000 years ago." [b]Haplogroup M not found much in Europe or the Middle East, but in Africa, M1 appears [/b] - QUOTE. "The richest basal variation in the founder haplogroups , N and R is found among the southern stretch of Eurasia, particularly in the Indian subcontinent (Figure 1), suggesting a rapid colonization along the southern coast of Asia.. Western Eurasians, in contrast with Southern Asians, eastern Eurasians, and Australasians, have a high level of haplogroup diversity within the haplogroup N and R, but lack haplogroup M also entirely (Figure 1)... Although Haplogroup M differentiated soon after the out of Africa exit and it is widely distributed in Asia (east Asia and India) and Oceania, there is an interesting exception for one of its more than 40 sub-clades: M1.. Indeed this lineage is mainly limited to the African continent with peaks in the Horn of Africa." --Paola Spinozzi, Alessandro Zironi . (2010). Origins as a Paradigm in the Sciences and in the Humanities. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. pp. 48-50

b]Misleading "Eurasian" label flagged by some scholars [/b] - QUOTE: "The historical linguistic data reported earlier would apply in the case of maternal lineages as well.. it is not likely that the "northern" genetic profile is simply due to "Eurasians" having colonized supra-Saharan regions from external African sources. It might be likely that the greater percentage of haplotypes called "Eurasian" are predominantly, although not solely, of indigenous African origin. As a term "Eurasian" is likely misleading, since it suggests a single locale of geographical origins. This is because it can be postulated that differentiation of the L3* haplogroup began before the emigration out of Africa, and that there would be indigenous supra-Saharan/Saharan or Horn-supra-Saharan haplotypes. More work and careful analysis of mtDNA and the archeological data and likely probabilities is needed. Early hunting and gathering paleolithic populations can be modeled as having roamed between northern Africa and Eurasia, leaving an asymmetrical distribution of various derivative variants over a wide region, giving the appearance of Eurasian incursion." --Keita, A, Boyce, A. (2005) Genetics, Egypt, and History... History in Africa, 32, 221-246 -------------------------------------------------- ------ “..the M1 presence in the Arabian peninsula signals a predominant East African influence since the Neolithic onwards.“ -- Petraglia, M and Rose, J (2010). The Evolution of Human Populations in Arabia:

Europeans a hybrid population per conservative geneticist Cavalli-Sforza
"One reasonable hypothesis is that the genetic distance between Asia and Africa is shorter than that between Africa and the other continents in Table 1 because both Africans and Asians contributed to the settlement of Europe, which began about 40,000 years ago. It seems very reasonable to assume that both continents nearest to Europe contributed to its settlement, even if perhaps at different times and maybe repeatedly. It is reassuring that the analysis of other markers also consistently gives the same results in this case. Moreover, a specific evolutionary model tested, i.e., that Europe is formed by contributions from Asia and Africa, fits the distance matrix perfectly (6). In this simplified model, the migrations postulated to have populated Europe are estimated to have occurred at an early date (30,000 years ago), but it is impossible to distinguish, on the basis of these data, this model from that of several migrations at different times. The overall contributions from Asia and Africa were estimated to be around two-thirds and one-third, respectively. Simulations have shown (7) that this hypothesis explains quite well the discrepancy between trees obtained by maximum likelihood and neighbor joining."

--Cavalli-Sforza Genes, Peoples Languages

Early irrigation in Egypt
"It was even proposed by the Polish archaeologist Krzyzaniak that artificial irrigation started as early as the second half of the Predynastic Period. As evidence that canals existed even before the country was unified many writers have adduced the mace-head of King Scorpion, one of the last rulers of a separate Upper Egypt, which may depict him officiating at the ceremonial opening of a new canal."

(Source: Krzyzaniak, L. 1977. Early Farming
Cultures on the Lower Nile: The Predynastic Period
in Egypt. Travaux du Centre d'Archeologie
Mediterrancenne de L'Academie Polonaise des
Sciences. Vol. 21. Warsaw.)

Two German archaeologists, Erika Endesfelder and
Wolfgang Schenkel have also independently found
evidence of canals used for transport and/or marsh
drainage.

Modern DNA analysis debunks simplistic "race" models

quote:

"It also does not mean that no differences whatsoever exist between continental groups. In fact, what Rosenberg et al. (2002) have shown is that given enough markers and the extraordinary power of Structure, the tiny amounts of genetic differences that exist between continents can also be discerned. However, this should not obscure the fact that on a worldwide scale, clines are a better representation of the human diversity than clades, and that continents do not represent more substantial discontinuities in such clines than many other geographical and cultural barriers. That clines are a more adequate representation of human genetic diversity than clades is not unexpected in view of earlier works that show that most genetic variation is found among individuals rather than among continents (e.g., Boyd 1950; Livingstone 1962; Lewontin 1972; Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994). 

In fact, also in the current data set, 87.6% percent of the total diversity is found among individuals and only 9.2% among continents (Excoffier and Hamilton 2003), in agreement with many previous studies (e.g. Lewontin 1972; Owens and King 1999; but see also Edwards 2003). The current results are also not unexpected in view of the fact that identical DNA sequences of several kilobases are found on different continents (Kaessmann et al. 1999; Gabriel et al. 2002). In fact, as much as a third of the entire human diversity of common haplotypes may be contained within single individuals (Pääbo 2003). However, in spite of this, there is a great tendency in the literature to use a few populations from the extremes of continental landmasses (such as in Fig. 1A) to make worldwide inferences about substructures in the human gene pool. In fact, because human genetic diversity tends to be distributed clinally, it is especially problematic to sample the extremes of continents because this will create the impression of sharp discontinuities in the distribution of genetic variants... 

Clustering in the human gene pool is of practical importance. It has recently been claimed that “the greatest genetic structure that exists in the human population occurs at the racial level” (Risch et al. 2002). Our results show that this is not the case, and we see no reason to assume that “races” represent any units of relevance for understanding human genetic history. In clinical practice, the “classification” of people into “races,” as recently suggested (Risch et al. 2002; Burchard et al. 2003), could perhaps have some justification as a proxy for differences in environmental and other factors of relevance for public health or to help identify rare disease alleles (Phimister 2003). However, in the absence of other knowledge, most alleles influencing susceptibility to disease or outcome of medical interventions cannot be expected to show significantly different frequencies between “races.” 

An exception may be genes where different selection regimes have acted in different geographical regions. .. even in those cases, the genetic discontinuities seen are generally not “racial” or continental in nature but depend on historical and cultural factors that are more local in nature. For example, the hemoglobin S allele that causes resistance to malaria occurs not only in sub-Saharan Africa but also in southern Europe, the Middle East, and India (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994). Lactose tolerance occurs both in Europe and in Africa (Sahi 1994), and the deleted allele of CCR5 that confers resistance to human immunodeficiency virus occurs in Europe as well as in Asia (Martinson et al. 1997). Thus, even for a rapid and rough evaluation of genetic risk factors, “racial” background is of limited use, and direct analysis of the relevant gene is the only reliable way to evaluate genetic risk in an individual (Cooper et al. 2003)."

Source: 
-- Evidence for Gradients of Human Genetic Diversity Within and Among Continents -- David Serre and Svante Pääbo Genome Research. (2004) 14: 1679-1685

Skin color, photo synthesis and vitamin D

Please, show me humans are NOT vitally dependent on the sun, which in turn enables a process which produces vitamin D in the body naturally, can you?

Wherein, if humans are darker-skinned living under cloudier lower UV environments, this ability is decreased since darker skin acts like a sunscreen and blocks out harmful UV rays and prolongs this process. Please show me where this is not true, can you?

What is the reason Inuits retain levels of melanin? Is it their diet? Does their diet consist of high amounts of vitamin d through their hunter gaherers diet? YES!!

Ad nauseum, what would happen if the Inuit were to change their traditional hunter gatherers diet? Would they become vitamin D deficient? YES!!

Why? Is it because naturally their is no sun to produce this vitamin D through UV exposure? YES!!

So what do the Inuit depend on again? Their traditional diets? Yes!!!

What comes naturally from the sun rays hitting the skin? A process in the body that produces vitamin D? YES!!

What happens when darker-skinned populations live in geographical regions wherein their is less UV exposure? Do they produce adequate amounts of vitamin D as fast lighter-skinned individuals? NO!!

What are the necessities a mother needs for her child? Vitamin D? Yes

If this mother is deficient in vitamin D is the baby likely to come out healthy? NO!!

Do darker-skinned mothers to be, and new mothers suffer from vitamin D deficiency more so than their lighter-skinned counterparts during and after pregnancy in northern latitudes, like say north America? YES!!

What would enable these humans who were originally darkly pigmented living in lower UV environments under cloudier skies for a long long time, need to be able to successfully reproduce healthy babies? Lighter skin? Which allows for quicker synthesis of vitamin D, which is vitally needed to produce strong healthy offspring? YES!!

mtdna 2008

mtDNA study finds that today’s Arab world’s Egyptians cluster more with mixed Yemenis rather than Europeans or Arabs, and that Ethiopians cluster more with Nubians rather than Europeans or Arabs. 

Modern Arab Egypt links with other Arab types such as PA- Palestine, but the closest cluster is with mixed Yemen, which is a blend between African and African derived Eurasian lineages (Kivisild 2004 - 'Ethiopian mitochondrial..')

Ethiopian samples cluster closer to Nubians (NU), rather than Europeans or Middle Easterners
--Abu-Amero, et al, (2008). Mitochondrial DNA structure in the Arabian Peninsula. BMC Evo Bio. 8:(45)

===================================================

Ancient Local Evolution of African mtDNA Haplogroups in Tunisian Berber Populations

Frigi et al.

Human Biology (August 2010 (82:4)

Abstract

Our objective is to highlight the age of sub-Saharan gene flows in North Africa and particularly in Tunisia. Therefore we analyzed in a broad phylogeographic context sub-Saharan mtDNA haplogroups of Tunisian Berber populations considered representative of ancient settlement. More than 2,000 sequences were collected from the literature, and networks were constructed. The results show that the most ancient haplogroup is L3*, which would have been introduced to North Africa from eastern sub-Saharan populations around 20,000 years ago. Our results also point to a less ancient western sub-Saharan gene flow to Tunisia, including haplogroups L2a and L3b. This conclusion points to an ancient African gene flow to Tunisia before 20,000 years BP. These findings parallel the more recent findings of both archaeology and linguistics on the prehistory of Africa. The present work suggests that sub-Saharan contributions to North Africa have experienced several complex population processes after the occupation of the region by anatomically modern humans. Our results reveal that Berber speakers have a foundational biogeographic root in Africa and that deep African lineages have continued to evolve in supra-Saharan Africa.

=============================================================

2010 Berber mtDNA study finds Berber roots foundational in Africa - frigi 2010


Ancient Local Evolution of African mtDNA Haplogroups in Tunisian Berber Populations

Frigi et al.

Human Biology

August 2010 (82:4)

Discussion
In this study we attempted to better elucidate the ancient African genetic
background in the northwest African area, particularly in Tunisia. To this aim, we
focused our study on Berber populations that are considered representative of the
ancient North African populations that probably derived from Neolithic Capsians.
During historic times, Berbers experienced a long and complicated history with
many invasions, conquests, and migrations by Phoenicians, Romans, Vandals,
Byzantines, Arabs, Bedouins, Spanish, Turks, Andalusians, sub-Saharans (communities
settled in Jerba and Gabes in the 16th–19th centuries), and French (Brett
and Fentress 1996). During these invasions, Berbers were forced back to the mountains
and to certain villages in southern Tunisia (Fadhlaoui-Zid et al. 2004). 
At present, they are restricted to some isolates in the south who maintain the Berber
language and to some populations in the north who lack an origin language.
Many genetic studies on Tunisian Berber populations demonstrate the heterogeneity
of Berbers with respect to European and sub-Saharan African contributions
and the mosaic structure of Tunisian Berber populations with an absence of ethnic,
linguistic, and geographic effects (Cherni et al. 2010).

In the present work, mtDNA data show a diversified distribution of African
haplogroups. However, a question remains concerning the date of the sub-Saharan
African inputs. Our results demonstrate an ancient local evolution in Tunisia of
some African haplogroups (L2a, L3*, and L3b). The most ancient haplogroup is
L3*, which would have been introduced from eastern sub-Saharan populations to
North Africa about 20,000 years ago. The Siwa oasis sample studied by Coudray
et al. (2009) contains sub-Saharan haplogroups L0a1, L3i, L4*, and L4b2, which
are different from our Tunisian samples, in agreement with the heterogeneity of
Berbers already shown in Tunisia.

Stevanovitch et al. (2004) suggested that the Gurna population in Egypt has
conserved the trace of an ancestral genetic structure from an ancestral East African
population characterized by a high haplogroup M1 frequency. This haplogroup is
also present in three Berber populations (Kesra, Matmata, and Sned) with variable
frequencies. In each of these populations, haplogroup L3* is also present.
The association of both eastern African haplogroups in the Berber populations is
a strong argument in favor of eastern African gene flow in Berbers. Other genetic
and archaeological studies confirmed the crucial idea that an ancient population in
East Africa constituted the basis of the ancestors of all African Upper Paleolithic
populations—and their subsequent present-day descendants (Bengtson 2008; Keita
2004; Relethford 2000; Zakrzewski 2003, 2007).

Moreover, Berber languages spoken exclusively by North African populations
belong to the Afro-Asiatic language. Diakonoff (1998) showed an exclusively
African origin (Diakonoff, 1981, 1988) for the family. He explicitly described
proto-Afro-Asiatic vocabulary as consistent with non-food-producing vocabulary
and linked it to pre-Neolithic cultures in the Levant and in Africa south of Egypt.
Moreover, Ehret. (2003) suggested that early Afro-Asiatic languages were spread
by Mesolithic foragers from Africa into the Levant. On the contrary, Diamond
and Bellwood (2003) suggested that food production and the Afro-Asiatic
language family were brought simultaneously from the Near East to Africa by demic
diffusion—in other words, by a migration of food-producing peoples. The evidence
presented by Wetterstrom (1993) does not support this latter suggestion,
however, and indicates that early African farmers in the Fayum initially incorporated
Near Eastern domesticates into an existing indigenous foraging strategy and
only over time developed a dependence on horticulture.

In conclusion, the crucial linguistic finding is that the three deepest clades
of the Afro-Asiatic family are localized in Eritrea and Ethiopia. All the other languages
of the family outside that region belong to subclades of just one of those
deep clades. This kind of cladistic distribution is a basic criterion of the 
genetic argument for the genetic lineage origins well understood by geneticists. It applies
to linguistic history as well.

Our results also point to a less ancient western African gene flow to Tunisia
involving haplogroups L2a and L3b. Thus the sub-Saharan contribution to northern
Africa starting from the east would have taken place before the Neolithic. The
western African contribution to North Africa should have occurred before the Sahara’s
formation (15,000 years BP). It seems likely that an expansion would have
taken place in the Sahel zone starting about the time of a gradual climatic return
to wetter conditions, when the Senegal River cut through the dunes (Burke et al.
1971). For subhaplogroup L2a1 (data not shown) we found some haplotypes that
the Tunisian Berbers shared with Mauritanians and western sub-Saharan populations
speaking a Niger-Congo language (studied by Salas et al. 2002). 

This suggests that the people who brought these markers to the Berber populations most
likely came from West African populations that spoke languages belonging to the
Niger-Congo family when the Sahara became drier. However, this contribution
of West African haplotypes and of other haplotypes, such as those belonging to
haplogroup L1b1, could have been introduced to North Africa more recently.

Indeed, this West African contribution was difficult to date, because few
haplotypes belonging to western African haplogroups have been observed, most
of them being divergent. This result can be interpreted in different ways. Ancient
western African mtDNA contributions could have disappeared from North Africa
as a result of recent flows, or the situation observed now could be the result of a
strong drift effect on ancient western African lineages, particularly those belonging
to haplogroups L2a and L3b. A strong Iberian gene flow may have contributed
to the decrease in African haplogroups. Indeed, most of the older hypotheses
about North African population settlement used to suppose an Iberian or an eastern
origin. The dates for subhaplogroups H1 and H3 (13,000 and 10,000 years,
respectively) in Iberian and North African populations allow for this possibility.
Kefi et al.’s (2005) data on ancient DNA could be viewed as being in agreement
with such a presence in North Africa in ancient times (about 15,000–6,000 years
ago) and with the fact that the North African populations are considered by most
scholars as having their closest relations with European and Asian populations
(Cherni et al. 2008; Ennafaa et al. 2009; Kefi et al. 2005; Rando et al. 1998). 

However, considering the general understanding nowadays that human settlement of
the rest of the world emerged from eastern northern Africa less than 50,000 years
ago, a better explanation of these haplogroups might be that their frequencies reflect
the original modern human population of these parts of Africa as much as or
more than intrusions from outside the continent. The ways that gene frequencies
may increase or decrease based on adaptive selection, gene flow, and/or social
processes is under study and would benefit from the results of studies on autosomal
and Y-chromosome markers.

Since the end of the extreme Saharan desiccation, lasting from before
25,000 years ago up to about 15,000 years ago, the Sahara has had post- and pre-
Holocene cyclical climatic changes (Street and Grove 1976), and corresponding increases 
and decreases in population are probable. Wetter phases with better habitats
perhaps allowed for increased colonization and gene and cultural exchange.
Desiccation would have encouraged the emigration and segmentation of populations,
with resultant genetic consequences secondary to drift producing more
variation. During the last glacial period, the Sahara was even bigger than it is
today, extending south beyond its current boundaries (Ehret 2002). About 13,000
years ago, large parts of the Sahara were as dry as the desert is now (White and
Mattingly 2006). The end of the glacial period brought more rain to the Sahara,
especially from about 8500 to 6000 BC (Fezzan Project 2006). By around 3400
BC, the monsoon retreated south to approximately where it is today, leading to the
gradual desertification of the region (Kröpelin 2008). Thus the Sahara, through its
cyclical environmental changes, might be seen as a microevolutionary “processor”
and/or “pump” of African people that “ejected” groups to the circum-Saharan
regions in times of increasing aridity.

Indeed, it must be noted that the high frequencies of cDe, P, and V antigens
and low frequencies of FY antigens in some Berber-speaking groups (Chamla
1980; Mourant et al. 1976) indicate affinities with tropical Africans. These data
may indicate recent or ancient gene flow from sub-Saharan Africa, a common immediate
pre-Holocene ancestral group, or chance resemblance.

Our findings are in accordance with other studies on Y-chromosome markers
that have shown that the predominant Y-chromosome lineage in Berber communities
is the subhaplogroup E1b1b1b (E-M81), which emerged in Africa, is
specific to North African populations, and is almost absent in Europe, except in
Iberia (Spain and Portugal) and Sicily. Molecular studies on the Y chromosome in
North Africa are interpreted as indicating that the southern part of Africa, namely,
the Horn/East Africa, was a major source of population in the Nile Valley and
northwest Africa after the Last Glacial Maximum, with some migration into the
Near East and southern Europe (Bosch et al. 2001; Underhill et al. 2001).
Hence, contrary to the suggestion that mtDNA haplogroups were introduced
mostly from Iberia, it seems that Y-chromosome markers have an eastern
African origin with an ancient local evolution in North Africa. These observations
are in agreement with the proposal that the ancient communities ancestral
in language to more recent Berber communities absorbed a lot of females from
the existing pre-Holocene populations. This would indicate that the North African
populations arose from admixture rather than from local evolution, leading
to an intermediate genetic structure between eastern sub-Saharan Africans and
Eurasians. Rock paintings in North Africa that show people of different phenotypes
living together are a strong argument for our hypothesis (Hachid 1982,
1992, 1998).

In conclusion, our findings parallel the more recent findings of both archaeology
and linguistics on the prehistory of Africa. The present study suggests that
sub-Saharan contributions to North Africa have experienced several complex population
processes after the occupation of the region by anatomically modern humans.
Our results reveal that Berber speakers have a foundational biogeographic root in 
Africa and that deep African lineages have continued to evolve in supra-Saharan Africa.

==================================================================



Biocultural Emergence of the Amazigh in Africa: Comment on Frigi et al. (2010)
S. O. Y. Keita. Human Biology (August 2010) (82:4)

Frigi et al. [2010 (this issue)] present some new findings on a population of
Amazigh—Berber speakers in Tunisia. Although their study is not exhaustive,
they provide an outline of human population history in the Maghreb and a general
discussion of its mtDNA diversity. Their work is important in inviting researchers
to think about the concepts of continuity and change in biology, culture, language,
and identity in a geographic space. Their presentation helps in understanding the
complexity of examining the ancestry and emergence of Berber origins in Africa
as a local process and encourages the consideration of many questions about how
the human biology and culture of a known population or ethnolinguistic group can
be conceptualized through space and time.

Berber- (Tamazight-) speaking communities are thought to represent the
clearest known descendants of the ancient indigenous populations of Africa west
of the northern Nile valley in the supra-Saharan and northern Saharan regions
(Brett and Fentress 1996; Camps 1982; Desanges 1981). “Indigenous” here can
refer only to those whom we can perceive as having had the longest tenure on
the land, using available historical evidence. However, there are questions. What
constitutes “historical evidence” for earlier periods? Should it include archaeology,
paleontology, historical linguistics, skeletal biology, and genetics, as broadly
advocated by a historical anthropological approach (e.g., Kirch and Green 2001;
Mace et al. 2005)? Or is it only to be based on the interpretation of texts from
the ancient Egyptian, Greco-Roman, or Islamic periods [e.g., see comments by
Brett and Fentress (1996), Desanges (1981), Norris 1982, and Snowden (1971)]?

How is the varied evidence to be ranked in importance, reconciled when it seems
to be in contradiction, and analyzed synthetically? A simplistic positivism has to
be avoided in discussions of any facet of human history because various pathways
could lead to similar results. What is the role of evolutionary mechanisms—adaptive
selection, gene flow, drift, sexual selection—in explaining the biology of
some of the ancestors of Berber speakers at the deepest time levels and of living
Amazigh as well? Frigi et al. (2010) do not address all these questions directly, 
but their work implicitly acknowledges their importance and provides a new framework
for investigation.

Braudel’s (1980) concept of different levels of history can be adapted and
adopted in a modified form as levels of biocultural or bioethnic history, to further
consider Frigi and colleagues’ contribution, which implicitly acknowledges
the contingent and multidimensional character of population interactions through
time against an evolutionary background.

Another issue of some interest is the (mis)labeling of Berbers as “Eurasian”
migrants from the Near East: Did they arrive as a unit from Asia or Europe, as
a settler colonist “package” with a persistent identity analogous to Europeans in
South Africa, or did the biology, language, and culture of the Amazigh emerge
primarily from a set of interactions in Africa involving African peoples at base,
that is, as a part of authentic African historical and biological processes? There are
no ancient Berber communities outside Africa, and the idea of simple demic diffusion
of Berbers as a people to the Maghreb (e.g., Arredi et al. 2004) from the Near
East is not supported. It is of some interest that even Coon and Hunt (1965), using
a raciotypological paradigm now long discredited, postulated a massive invasion
of Africa by “Caucasians” in the Pleistocene and therefore thought that Berber
language and identity had entered the Maghreb from more southerly regions in
Africa. Frigi and colleagues suggest that several populations over time were involved
in the biological ancestry of the current Berber speakers, and this is consistent
with archaeological evidence of actual migration in the mid- to late Holocene
(Camps 1982) as well as historical documentation. Craniofacial diversity has been
documented in the region before Vandal and Arab migrations (Keita 1990).

It is important to remember that biology, language, and culture are not intrinsically
or obligatorily correlated, a principle established some time ago (Boas
1940). It is not particularly surprising that one can sometimes find markers that
will correlate across biology and culture at some levels—but the issue is how this
came to be and when, and what it represents historically and socially. There is
always the question of whether the correlation is an artifact of recent events or
of “primordial” ontology. A language or language family can be adopted slowly
or rapidly by nonnative speakers. The current biological profile of a region may
predate (or postdate) the language spoken there. Communities may adopt (nonlinguistic)
cultural practices from others without greatly changing language or
biology; or they may become primarily integrated linguistically and politically
but not biologically or exhibit other permutations of these variables, such as total
biocultural assimilation. The biology of a particular ethnolinguistic group or community
may change based on intermarriage if the social rules allow the offspring
to become group members. Such matings may have occurred long before the
recall of communal memory, whether in texts or oral tradition. Relatively nonethnocentric
polygamous societies or populations may have cultural descendants
who are genealogically heterogeneous when viewed over a millennium. 

Frigi et al. (2010) suggest these possibilities as factors in their consideration 
of the asymmetric assimilation of females of non-African origin into Berber-speaking
populations whose males currently have a predominance of lineages defined by
the African M35/81 biallelic marker. It is interesting that these “non-African”
mtDNA lineages are usually predominant while being diverse (Coudray et al.
2009; Fadhlaoui-Zid et al. 2004; Khodjet-el-Khil et al. 2008). The existence of
mtDNA lineages common to Saami and some Amazigh groups (Achilli et al.

2005) is likely to be explained by the migration of females bearing these lineages
from a region in northern Europe (perhaps in the ranks of the Vandals or far more
ancient back-migrations to Africa), whether they were ethnically Saami or not.
However, there may have been other locales where these lineages once existed.
Circular reasoning in syntheses involving multiple disciplines has to be
avoided. The criteria and methods for a given discipline usually have to be given
equal weight, and their results should be considered independently before an effort
at synthesis is made. For example, a hypothesis about the place of origin of
a language family or phylum must be based on linguistic evidence and methods,
not on DNA or craniofacial patterns. Likewise the place of origin of a particular
genetic variant or lineage has to be based on genetic data, principles, and models,
not on archaeological data. The locale of origin of a particular culture or
archaeological industry is subject to analyses based on methods and theory that
are specific to the relevant disciplines. 

The only exception to these “rules” is if a
calculated date of origin of a genetic variant found in a given locale predates the
existence of people in that place. Although the notion of population ties together
both biology and culture broadly conceived, it cannot be claimed that continuity
in one necessarily means continuity in another. If the question is about physical
population migration, then the same conclusion reached from every discipline
independently would seem to best support the claim (Rouse 1986). However, it
cannot be said absolutely that there was no movement if all lines of evidence do
not point in the same direction. The idea of Occam’s razor may sometimes mean
accepting the reality of human complexity and an inability to reconcile evidence
with preconceived models.

Frigi et al. (2010) have provided a general temporal framework for Maghreb
population history, from the Paleolithic to French colonization. This is appropriate
given the evidence for early modern human behavior and life history in the
Maghreb (Bouzouggar et al. 2007; T. Smith et al. 2007), the diversity of various
epi-Paleolithic and Neolithic cultures in or near the region associated with climatic
changes (Lubell et al. 1984; Rahmani 2003, 2004; Sereno et al. 2008; Sheppard
and Lubell 1990), and the interactions with known “peoples” at later dates
(Bennett 1960; Brown 1968; Desanges 1981; Hirschberg 1960; Nebel 2002). 

In reviewing data from multiple disciplines, Frigi and colleagues have given the region’s
populations a multidimensional existence. In providing evidence for the
ongoing microevolution in the Maghreb of ancient mtDNA lineages that emerged
in Africa and evidence of later gene flow from multiple directions, they have revealed
that this region has biological continuity with the deep past as well as change. 

Frigi and colleagues may have inadvertently revealed peoples whose ancestors
had a level of cultural flexibility in accepting outsiders as mates. As noted,
the male and female histories of a population may be different in their sources
(Wilkins 2006), although they are now seen as part of a recognizable biocultural
entity with a categorically singular identity. How is the emergence of the Amazigh
peoples in the geographic range of their homeland to be understood in terms of
culture, language, and biology? In some sense the question is about origins, a
term that can be confusing because of its various meanings. It can be applied to
different aspects of a population—which can be disarticulated and can change as a
function of time. Ancestry must not be confused with explanation, or gene history
with population or culture history. Known ancestors and the “ancestors of one’s
genes” are not the same things necessarily (Weiss and Long 2009).

Can a narrative of “origins” be constructed on the basis of an internal perspective
of the dynamics of the human communities of northwestern Africa, considered
through time? Or is this region simply an appendage of other places?
Sometimes the Amazigh, by use of the term “Eurasian” in a categorical model of
analysis, are placed in a raciotypological model without reference to evolution
and their indigenous emergence in Africa. (It can be ventured that this is largely
based on nonevolutionary ideas about phenotype, notions of bounded unchanging
populations, problematic assumptions about language families, and certain old
attitudes and theories about Africa.)

Frigi and colleagues have documented the deep-time biological connections
of current Berber speakers to Africa. The migration of “Europeans” and “Asians”
is also discussed. There has been continuity and change in the population from
original settlement. It is important to remember that high levels of gene flow and
biocultural assimilation could lead to great biological heterogeneity in a population
whose language family or culture does not change. Frigi and colleagues address
the idea of the indigenous, although not explicitly, and lay the groundwork
for more nuanced future discussions. They suggest a complex biogeographic history
not reducible to raciotypological constructs or outdated simplistic theories
of colonization and migration. They provide a basis for a rich discussion by acknowledging
the interactions of known peoples in the Maghreb and unknown
actors of a deeper past. The issue of what is indigenous is seen to be one of definition,
turning on what aspect of a population or region is ranked as its “defining”
characteristic, and whether this may change or could have changed over time.
The term indigenous unfortunately is connected to a discourse about the West and
non-West and sometimes has a negative sensibility and hence may not be the best
word, but a discussion of this issue is beyond the scope of this presentation.
Of course “indigenous” is a relative term when the temporal scope of human
evolution and history is considered, and it even seems to depend to a degree on
what part of the world is under discussion. Europe can serve as a good example. If
it is asked who are the “indigenous” Europeans, there would probably be a request
to clarify the time depth, given that modern humans are not native to Europe and
arrived there from elsewhere. 

(The next question therefore is at what point do they become “European” and what 
precisely does this mean: current limb proportions,
skin color, genetic variation, language, the presence of Neanderthal DNA?) Does
“indigenousness” require residency back to the upper Paleolithic, the Neolithic,
and so on? Is it only a biological phenomenon requiring a “drop” of Neanderthal
blood or a linguistic phenomenon requiring the speaking of Indo-European languages?
Or if the question is who were the indigenous inhabitants of northern,
southern, western, eastern, or central Europe, the answers would necessarily take
on a different tone, based on other information.

Are the Basque speakers the indigenous inhabitants of Europe, if currently
spoken language phyla and families are used as “population markers,” a problematic
assumption? Basque predates Indo-European, and there is some indication
of some level of biological distinctiveness (Alonso et al. 2005). The fact that
historical linguists (e.g., Ehret 2002; Nichols 1997) can reconstruct the existence
of culture-linguistic units for a proto-language family (e.g., Adamawa) or phylum
(e.g., Niger-Congo), which may have migrated, does not mean that they are suggesting
that the people making up such entities connote genetic units or Mendelian
breeding populations. It also does not mean that the speakers of such proto-entities
had a common molecular or social genealogical origin at foundation, or that the
linguists are suggesting this. 

Defining “origins” or “indigenous” becomes one of
perspective. How much “Basque ancestry” would a European population have to
have for the label of “indigenous European” to apply? If none, why not? (What is
the relationship between cultural and biological genealogy?) Can it be assumed
that the Basques of today biologically represent those of the past “accurately”?
The post-Paleolithic European assimilation of males from Africa and Asia bearing
younger genetic variants is documented (Cruciani et al. 2004, 2007): Are such
ancient admixed populations to be viewed as “less” European or non-European?
Are Nordics or the Basques the “standard” European? Is language, biology, culture,
geography, or something else the arbiter of European-ness? In practice, this
question seems to be little asked in studies of Europeans: All these groups and
nationalities are considered European with little question. Aegean peoples are not
presented as “hybrids.” The linguistic and genetic diversity is not a factor in the
designation of “indigenous” for Europe.

But in the case of Africa there seems to be a problem with diversity for
some scholars. The Indo-European language phylum, in the standard evidence-based
interpretation, did not originate in the European heartland (Ehret, personal
communication, 2010). Most people in Europe today speak Indo-European
languages—now considered as “indigenous” as Basque. What does it mean for
the concept of European if Europe’s major language phylum did not originate
in what is considered Europe proper? How much of the spread of early Indo-European
was due to outright settler colonization and how much to language
shift—these are questions that will likely be debated for some time. Are the
Finns, Saami, and Hungarians (or their “original” ancestors)—all non-Indo-
European-speaking—to be considered Europeans? Apparently so. Contrast this
with ideas held by some about Berbers as “Eurasians” who speak a language family 
that belongs to a phylum whose proto-parent emerged in Africa using
standard historical linguistic criteria and whose major history and differentiation
occurred in Africa (Ehret 2002; Greenberg 1963; Nichols 1997). In discussions
about Europe, geography seems to be enough to define what is “indigenous”—
with the exception of the Turks. This contrast deserves review by students of the
sociology of knowledge.

The European example is relevant to the discussion of Berbers because of
the use of terms by some researchers that imply that Berbers are not an African
development, an African people, in their beginning and current state. Calling the
Amazigh “Eurasian” based primarily on skin color without a discussion of process
in history, language, evolution, and Y-chromosome variants can easily be
seen as problematic when literature about Europe is examined carefully. The possibility
of asymmetric gene flow with more Eurasian females being assimilated
into the ancient Maghreb—and their lineages simply differentially surviving in
greater frequencies—is addressed in a preliminary fashion by Frigi et al. (2010)
and further engages us in the history of social interactions that may influence
population biology.

Returning to the Amazigh, the findings and comments of Frigi et al. (2010)
on Tunisian Berbers, and Berbers in general, suggest a new way of looking at
the Maghreb region of Africa. Their review and analysis offer the opportunity to
begin to develop a new and nuanced narrative about the peopling of the region,
one that avoids the biases of past writings. Their findings of ongoing evolution
in the Maghreb of ancient mtDNA lineages that originated in Africa, synthesized
with the evidence of the assimilation of migrants (mainly female?) from Europe and
the Near East, the predominance of uniquely African Y-chromosome lineages, and
the observation that Berber is the only extant indigenous language in the region
suggest the workings of both biological and cultural processes. There are clearly
different levels of biological and cultural history. Except in situations of migrationist
settler colonialism associated with the annihilation or conquest of local
peoples, groups emerge from local elements and new additions—all influenced
by the social and physical environments. This view of populations as assemblages
and processes is different from a notion of them as essentialist primordial entities
with fixed traits having continuity over time. In any geographic space groups can
interact at various levels with various strictures; languages can be adopted partly
or fully, and social rules may allow the acceptance of offspring by foreign females
but not males, or vice versa. It is possible for a group to view itself as genealogically
homogeneous by memory but to evince a genetic heterogeneity of lineages
obtained in the remote past. “Admixture” in the late Pleistocene in the deep background
of a regional population is to be differentiated from gene flow between
known historical entities.

Frigi and colleagues’ suggestion that supra-Saharan Africans are an indigenous
development with a complex story is a corrective to past models. The settlement
of the coastal Maghreb in the Middle and Late Stone Age is a part of the
settlement of the world outside Saharo-tropical Africa. The early modern human presence 
in the Maghreb suggests that that region played a role in modern human
developments (Bouzouggar et al. 2007). Even if whole communities later came
from outside Africa into the Maghreb (before the Phoenicians), which is not knowable,
they became thoroughly assimilated into the autochthonous population—
which adopted some of its culture (Camps 1982), and their descendants are a
part of the emergence of the much later Amazigh world. Less arid climatic conditions
in the early to mid-Holocene Sahara allowed for the interaction of various
peoples who no doubt contributed to the population history, as observed by Frigi
et al. (2010). Saharan developments likely help to explain the Berber emergence,
because, based on recent work [see Kuper and Kropelin (2006) and Sereno et al.
(2008)], the desert was likely the site of a metapopulation and cultural differentiation.
Whether the early Saharan rock paintings depict only Africans of varying
phenotypes or such Africans and Asians (as suggested by Frigi and colleagues)
can be debated, but the net result was assimilation into Amazigh communities,
because there are no Berbers in Europe or Asia. The light skin color of Mediterranean
Africa may be the result of adaptive evolution or drift, given the length of
time of modern people in Africa, including the Maghreb, or gene flow, but more
likely some combination.

The Maghreb has several Neolithic traditions (Camps 1982; Phillipson
2005), which might indicate different peoples or simply cultural adoption or adaptation
by heterogeneous populations who became unified under singular cultural
practices and one language family. The Neolithic Capsian tradition shows continuity
with previous cultures, with evidence of these accepting domesticated sheep
and goat into a local subsistence pattern, thus becoming Neolithicized with a pastoralist
economy (Rahmani, 2003, 2004; Sheppard and Lubell 1990). A. B. Smith
(2005) and McDonald (1998) indicate the importance of pastoralism in the Holocene
Sahara, and this economy may help in the understanding of Berber emergence.
In the coastal Maghreb various Neolithic and post-Neolithic interregional
interactions are in evidence, based on archaeology and the eventual settlements of
the Phoenicians, Romans, Vandals, and others (Camps 1982). 

In aggregate, over time, these peoples, along with the later importation of Europeans 
(Bennett 1960; Davis 2004), would seemingly have contributed far more to the current biological
picture than has been realized. The much later trans-Saharan trade in enslaved
individuals no doubt played a role in genetic contributions, but the egress from a
desiccating Sahara with subsequent population formations would explain some
of the younger “sub-Saharan” variation, be it from western or eastern Africa. The
“Eurasian” component seems to have come in over a longer period of time, as
noted earlier. A small amount of gene flow per generation into a population or
geographic region can drastically change its original gene frequencies in only a
few thousand years, as noted by Cavalli-Sforza (1991).

The development of a narrative of the population history of the Maghreb requires
careful analysis using several approaches. Frigi and colleagues have made
an important contribution to studies of African human biology and culture in suggesting
the complexity of Maghreban population history.


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