I had sent this only to Blaine. I made a couple of changes and am now
sending this to the list.
Blaine wrote:
>"Paternal contribution of mtDNA is effectively a dead issue, and can not be
used to
>criticize phylogenetic studies based on the use of mtDNA."
Unfortunately, Nature seems to have ceased sending me my journals (which
take twice as long to get to me over here anyway.) As of this time, I must
agree with what Blaine writes. Paternal inheritance can't be used to
criticize mtDNA studies. However, nothing in any of this rules out
contributions from H. erectus and Neanderthal to human nuclear genetic
material.
One cannot use the mtDNA results as if all mankind consisted of was mtDNA.
There is also much nuclear DNA. As it stands now, some of the alleles have
coalescence times of well over 500,000 years, long prior to when any
anatomically modern humans existed. Recent studies of the MHC region shows
that exons have a coalescence time of 7 million years---long before our
genus existed.
“If we apply the substitution rate of 1.4 x 10-9 per site per year, the
average intron divergence among alleles within lineages corresponds to a
mean age of 250,000 years. By contrast, the amount of exon-2 sequence
divergence among alleles within lineages is much greater and corresponds to
an average age of 7.06 Myr, using a substitution rate for MHC exon sequences
of 0.97 x 10-9 per site per year. Thus, the intron sequences yield a more
recent estimate for the diversification of alleles within a lineage than do
estimates for the diversification of alleles within a lineage than do
estimates based on exon-2 sequences.” Tomas F. Bergstrom Agnetha Josefsson,
Henry A. Erlich & Ulf Gyllensten, “Recent Origin of HLA-DRB1 Alleles and
Implications for Human Evolution” Nature Genetics, 18(1999):237-242, p. 239
And even the introns show much older contributions than the 38,000 years of
mtDNA.
"Mitochondrial DNAs from individuals of African origin show a ragged
distribution consistent with constant population size, whereas the
bell-shaped distribution of the non-African comparisons clearly indicates a
recent population expansion. The assumption of constant population size can
be verified by tests of selective neutrality that examine the correlation
between the mean pairwise sequence difference (MPSD) and the number of
segregating sites (S). In the African group, we cannot reject this
assumption (Fu and Li's D = -1.17 ; Tajima's D = -1.22 ), consistent with
the premise that the population has been of roughly constant size . However,
it can be rejected in the non-African group (D = -4.02 ; D = -2.28),
indicating that this group has experienced a period of population growth.
The time when the expansion began was estimated ( = 20.23) to be about 1,925
generations ago. Assuming a generation time of 20 yr this equates to 38,500
yr BP, a date that coincides with the onset of a period of cultural change
about 35,000-40,000 years ago. This involves, for example, the first
appearance of regional cultural variation and the acceleration of
artefactual change."MAX INGMAN*, HENRIK KAESSMANN†, SVANTE PÄÄBO† & ULF
GYLLENSTEN*, "Mitochondrial genome variation and the origin of modern humans
" Nature 408(2000):708-713
Two comments on this. First, if it is true, as the evidence suggests, that
mtDNA is only passed via the mothers, what the data means is that the
daughters of Eurasian Eve spread rapidly through the population. It really
doesn't say anything about nuclear genetics. One could explain this
young-mtDNA pattern with the old nuclear genome by assuming the following
scenario: Suppose a woman had exceptionally beautiful or sexually attractive
daughters. They would be highly prized. Their daughters inheriting this
beauty or sexual attractiveness, would also be prized. Tribes could make
peace with other tribes by marrying one of these daughters with their
enemies. Thus the mtDNA would pass throughout the world without any nuclear
genome restriction. Lots of anthropologists have given very speculative
views as to why anatomically modern humans took over the world. Things such
as the development of language, the advent of the modern mind, superior
technology, disease that wiped out the archaic populations etc. have been
suggested. But, those don't really explain the spread of mtDNA by females
alone. So what else can we hypothecate?
Well, here is a fanciful, but equally effective means of spreading mtDNA
around the world. Look at the apes. Their female breasts are really small --
not much larger than male breasts. Somewhere along the line, human women
developed bigger breasts. It is a well known fact that men are highly
interested in women's breasts. Women with such an enhanced trait would
spread around the world rapidly if they were the only big breasted women in
a world of humans with ape-like breasts. Thus, the spread of mtDNA could be
due to nothing more than the development of breasts rather than of language
or the modern human mind. Of course there is no fossil record that this
occurred, but then there isn't a fossil record of the appearance of the
human mind, language or any other item often suggested as being the reason
modern humans won out. Yet those views are defended vigorously as if there
was metaphysical truth in them. I would suggest that the appearance of
breasts is much more likely to have spread the mtDNA around than is the
appearance of the human mind. My feminist friends would find their
preconceptions of men fulfilled in this theory. Men would merely be doing
what they expect--using women as sex objects rather than appreciating the
person. :-)
Is this sexist? yes. Is this demonstrable? Not any more than any of the
other speculations on why anatomically modern men won out. Is this
consistent with the mtDNA data AND the nuclear data? YES. And the beauty of
this fanciful view is that it puts in perspective the fallacy of equating
mtDNA with the advent of humanity!
One other comment must be made.
The problems with equating the appearance of the modern man with the
invention of the upper Paleolithic Aurignacian industry, which is what the
above author's are doing, are many.
First, there is NO evidence of the Aurignacian occurring outside of Europe
prior to its appearance in Europe.
"
The flake-dominated Levantine Aurignacian at Kebara with some blades,
bladelets, El Wad points, and keeled and other endscrapers dates to only
36,000-28,000 B.P.. The Early Upper Paleolithic of the Near East has not
produced any ornaments or bone tools, the 'bottom-line' diagnostics of the
European early Upper Paleolithic. Either the Aurignacian is a cultural
entity (and if so, it is younger in Israel than in Europe), or it is a
phenomenon produced in large part by technological convergence, or it spread
from Europe to the Near East. The last hypothesis was recently adopted by
Gilead and Bar-Yosef, following Garrod. Thus the dating of the Aurignacian
and other (related?) Upper Paleolithic industries in southeast Europe is
critical to all invasionist arguments."Lawrence Guy Straus, "The Iberian
Situation between 40,000 and 30,000 B.P. in Light of European Models of
Migration and Convergence," in G. A. Clark and C. M. Willermet, Conceptual
Issues in Modern Human Origins Research, (New York: Aldine De Gruyter,
1997), pp. 235-252, p. 243
Second, the earliest examples of the Aurignacian are to be found in
Spain--the last refuge of the Neanderthals and one of the last places
inhabited by modern man.
What emerges very strikingly from the pattern of radiocarbon dates plotted
in figure 2 is that whilst we now have a total of 20 separate radiocarbon
measurements of between 37,000 and 41,000 B. P. for Aurignacian levels in
the northern Spanish sites, we have not so far been able to secure a single
radiocarbon date for an early Aurignacian level in the ‘classic’ region of
southwestern France earlier than c. 36,000 B. P. As figure 2 reveals there
is now a striking clustering of the earliest Aurignacian dates in this
region between 33,000 and 36,000 B. P., with dates in this time-range from
seven sites(Abri Pataud, La Rochette, La Ferrassie, Le Flageolet, Abri
Castanet, Combe-Sauniere, and Roc-de-Combe). Unless all of these dates are
heavily distorted by contamination—which seems highly unlikely on many
different counts—the obvious implication is that the main occupation of
southwestern France by Aurignacian groups did not occur until around
35-36,000 B. P. in radiocarbon terms—that is around 4,000-5000 years later
than the earliest Aurignacian in the northern Spanish sites." Paul Mellars,
"The Neanderthal Problem Continued,” Current Anthropology,
40(1999):3:341-364, p. 347-348
This has been known for more than 7 years, yet no one changes their opinion.
"The new dates for the appearance of the so called Aurignacian
technology in northern Spain are far older than any from the rest of Western
Europe including SW Germany. They are much older than any dates for the
Chatelperronian of France or for the Uluzzian (the Italian stratigraphic and
typological equivalent of the Chatelperronian). They are about the same as
the CvC14 dates for the Szeletian and Bohu-nician (Mousterian-Upper
Paleolithic 'hybrid' industries) of Hungary and Czechoslovakia. While the
northern Spanish Aurignacian dates are older than several early Aurignacian
CvC14 determinations from Eastern and Central Europe (e.g., Velika Pecina,
Pesko and Krems), they are about the same or perhaps somewhat younger than
other early Aurignacian dates from Samuilica (42.8+/-1.3 ka bp) and Bacho
Kiro in Bulgaria (a single infinite date of >43 ka bp), Istallosko level 9
in Hungary (44.3+/-1.9 and 39.7+/-0.9 ka bp) and Willendorf level 2 in Lower
Austria (39.5 +1.55/-1.2 ka bp and 44.7+3.7/-2.5 ka bp). All these sites
should be redated with multiple determinations to obtain the best possible
estimates of age. Single dates published as 'finite', but that are older
than c.30ka bp, should probably be considered as minima. At most, there
would seem to be a difference of ca. 5 ka between the oldest Aurignacian
dates in Central and Eastern Europe (regions between which there is no clear
temporal cline) and those of northern Spain. Even this relatively short
amount of time for the supposed 'spread' of Aurignacian people or ideas
across ca. 2300 km from SE to SW Europe may prove illusory." ~ Straus,
Lawrence G., James L. Bischoff and Eudald Carbonell, 1993. "A Review of the
Middle to Upper Paleolithic Transition in Iberia", Prehistoire Europeenne,
3(January, 1993):11-27, p. 14
Third, the earliest well dated anatomically modern human skeleton in Europe
is dated to around 26,000 years ago--12,000 years after the first appearance
of the Aurignacian industry.
"No Neandertal fossil has been given a reliable date more recent than
36,000 years B. P. (St. Cesaire). A date of about 34,000 years B. P. has
been published for a frontal bone of modern form found at the European site
of Velika Pecina. After that, the oldest securely dated modern skeletal
material from Europe comes from a site near the town of Pavlov in the Czech
Republic at about 26,000 years B. P." ~ Bernard G. Campbell and James D.
Loy, Humankind Emerging, (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), p. 463
Velika Pecina was directly dated on the bone itself and was found to be 5000
years old and thus this is no longer considered to be relevant:
"The human frontal bone from Velika Pecina, generally considered one of the
earliest representatives of modern humans in Europe, dated to ~5 ka B.P.,
rendering it no longer pertinent to discussions of modern human origins.”
“Fred H. Smith, Erik Trinkaus, Paul B. Pettitt, Ivor Karavanic, and Maja
Paunovic, “Direct Radiocarbon Dates for Vindija G1 and Velika Pecina Late
Pleistocene Hominid Remains,” Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, 96(1999):2:12281-12286, p. 12281
"As in France and elsewhere in western Europe, there is still a real
absence of well-dated, diagnostic, well-described human fossils
uniquivocally associated with the Aurignacian before ca. 30,000 B.P. This
makes it all the more ironic that, at present, the only well-dated,
well-provenienced, well-described hominid remains to be found with both the
Chatelperronian and the early Aurignacian are Neandertals. Whether the late
Aurignacian (with unequivocal Cro-Magnons) and the early Aurignacian (with
no clear-cut hominid associations) are the same 'thing' is anything but
clear." ~ Lawrence Guy Straus, "The Iberian Situation between 40,000 and
30,000 B.P. in Light of European Models of Migration and Convergence," in G.
A. Clark and C. M. Willermet, Conceptual Issues in Modern Human Origins
Research, (New York: Aldine De Gruyter, 1997), pp. 235-252, p. 245
Neanderthals have been found with Aurignacian material at Vindija cave.
"For example, Wolpoff et al. describe a retromolar space in the Vindija 207
mandible associated with the early Aurignacian in Croatia, and wide
retromolar spaces are also found in Predmosti 3,4 and 21, Brno 2, and
Stetten 1, all dated to the early Upper Paleolithic." ~ David W. Frayer,
"Evolution at the European Edge: Neanderthal and Upper Paleolithic
Relationships," Prehistoire Europeenne, 2:9-69, p. 14
A retromolar space is diagnostic of Neanderthals as modern humans don't have
them. This is a large gap between the back tooth and the ascending part of
the jaw.
For the date on this Neanderthal see also
Fred H. Smith, Erik Trinkaus, Paul B. Pettitt, Ivor Karavanic, and Maja
Paunovic, “Direct Radiocarbon Dates for Vindija G1 and Velika Pecina Late
Pleistocene Hominid Remains,” Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, 96(1999):2:12281-12286, p. 12284
In spite of all this, the myth that data supports the origin of the
Aurignacian by modern man continues to be taught.
glenn
see http://www.flash.net/~mortongr/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Dec 09 2000 - 10:55:31 EST