Study Casts Doubt on Europeans' Ancestral Link to Fertile Crescent

[Gil]

Europeans are most closely related to the Stone Age hunter-gatherers who arrived on the continent 40,000 years ago — not, as many archeologists have long surmised, the adept migrants from the Fertile Crescent who introduced agriculture to the continent 7,500 years ago.

That's the conclusion of the first detailed analysis of maternally inherited DNA extracted from 24 of the migrant farmers' skeletons.

The study was published Friday in the journal Science.

"We were surprised to find close to zero" resemblance between the early farmers' genes and those of modern Europeans, said Peter Forster, an archeologist at Britain's University of Cambridge who coauthored the study.

Although the farmers from the Middle East transformed European culture, bringing agriculture, distinctive pottery and advanced building techniques, the genetic mark they left is minuscule.

"In the worldwide database of 35,000 modern DNA lineages, there are fewer than 50 modern Europeans" with the farmers' DNA, Forster said.

The new data, however, clash with analyses of paternally inherited DNA, derived from the Y chromosomes of living Europeans.

Those genetic analyses suggest that the farmers may have contributed up to half of the European gene pool.

R. Alexander Bentley, an anthropologist at Britain's Durham University, said there may be an easy way to resolve the conflict.

"A simple explanation for the difference is that indigenous hunter-gatherer females intermarried" with early farmers, he said. Thus, maternally inherited DNA would show a connection to the hunter-gatherers, while paternally inherited DNA would be linked to the farmers.

Source

Manji's Note: Which would mean UP mothers and neolithic fathers....

[Agrippa]

http://forum.stirpes.net/showthread....6461#post66461

I commented it there already but might add, from a thread on Dodona this:
In fact most hunter gatherers didnt wanted to become farmers, because farmers have often worse food, more work, more dirt, more plagues etc. The main advantage was that you can get more children, children are a workers too - which is productive, and that you can, at least most of the time, plan better than as H-G.

Most likely many higher hunter cultures of Europe knew basic husbandry, they simply didnt used it. Shortly after the Ice Age, in the beginning warm period, there might have been still enough free ressources. But that changed over time and the time when Neolithics, with already more evolved husbandry, came (both autochthonous adapted and Near Eastern) it was the big change and the higher competition lead to the adoption of specialised farmers, combined economy and herders.

[Milesian]

Originally Posted by Manji

Manji's Note: Which would mean UP mothers and neolithic fathers....

Strange, here Paleolithic R1b is predominant while the mtDNA line is supposed to be overwhelmingly Neolithic.

[Carnyx]

Originally Posted by Manji

Manji's Note: Which would mean UP mothers and neolithic fathers....

Or : invaders take natives women as sexual slaves. Reminds me of something.

But in that case, what did native men and Neolithic women become? Neolithic men came in Europe without women, killed natives men and took their women or something?

[Gil]

Originally Posted by Milesian

Strange, here Paleolithic R1b is predominant while the mtDNA line is supposed to be overwhelmingly Neolithic.

Strange or perhaps it's the study who is strange. Usually the male lines are imposed and the females lines remain much more stable though this isn't a rigid rule, hence logic dictates that female lines should be overall more paleolithic and the male lines neolithic.

[Agrippa]

Originally Posted by Duchemin

Or : invaders take natives women as sexual slaves. Reminds me of something.

But in that case, what did native men and Neolithic women become? Neolithic men came in Europe without women, killed natives men and took their women or something?

As I pointed out in various threads early farmers, especially sedentary ones are usually military inferior if compared with high hunter and gatherer cultures (which they met) and herders in particular.
So the miliary advantage they might have had was primarily one of numbers if at all. But if looking at the remains in Northern Central Europe we can partly really see that they lived more side by side and some Neolithic settlements were indeed surrounded by H-G groups! So the small advantage they might have had was a the breeding results and techniques they brought in and their potentially somewhat higher reproductive rate. But in some areas which were dominated by LBK we can see that the following culture was much more dominated by European types, partly closer to late Mesolithic Europeans. And the Corded People show how a mobile herder-warrior existence (at least predominance of animal husbandry) became really dominant. Not too speak about the effects in the mixture, which certainly took place, that the selection worked against the Neolithics, they were less adapted to the climate, in group selection most likely weaker, partly less evolved as well. After losing their initial advantage, what was left?
In fact not too much and thats what we see in the record fas well. If at all, they just influenced progressive European groups (like the Corded, TBK), but we dont see a dominance of the earlist physical variants, even on the contrary, they practically disappear.
The locals learned their lesson from them, that was their main role for Europe. For a long time herder-warriors became dominant then, until more advanced techniques and social organisations made farmers almost unbeatable on the long run - you can see that in the East if looking at Russians and Tartars - you can see exactly when such a military strategy has lost. A main advantage of herders is constant training and that practically every herder or hunter is automatically a warrior (compare aristocratic hunters - relict of the old relation that the elite and warriors are always hunters as well - its often like a training for war), whereas you can say the same especially of sedentary and dependent farmers. But biologically they lost much earlier because winning battles is from the biological perspective not as important as the shere mass, the reproductive success. Thats in fact a reason why farmers finally won and why we can see often "successful societies" which degenerate biologically and use their potential they had from earlier times (when group selection was more active, mobile life, warlike etc.) until its gone or drastically reduced.