I've known about the Neanderthals thing for a while. It's been one of the premises for my own theory of evolution which is that so far from being the dominant hominid species on Earth, sapiens isn't even in the majority.
That's seems an entirely reasonable deduction for a Welshman to make.
Gimbutas had a theory about "Old Europeans" in the period prior to the Indo-European invasions -- which came from north of the Black Sea in fairly recent times (3000-5000 years ago) , IIRC.
Some have conjectured that the Picts were pre-Indo-European, though others jeer. The Basques and Welsh have also been named, also with accompanying jeering. Speculation and jeering are both rife in this particular area of study.
Did Gimbutas believe that the inhabitants of Europe prior to the Indo-European migration were of a genetic stock distinct from Homo Sapiens sapiens? That seems like a stretch to me -- it's one thing to say a group of people spoke a different language and had a different culture from another group, quite different to say the two groups were distinct subspecies. (Am I correct in thinking Neanderthals are regarded as a subspecies of Homo Sapiens?) Especially when Homo Sapiens sapiens is found in Europe 28,000 years ago.
I don't think that Gimbutas speculated about Neanderthals, but the Old Europeans were a different gene pool than the Indo-Europeans.
Right different gene pool, but still Homo Sapiens sapiens. No? I have not read Gimbutas so I have no idea what he is saying but I thought the only distinct subspecies of Human were sapiens and neanderthalensis.
From the Economist:
>Meanwhile, John Relethford, of the State University of New York's campus at Oneonta, has criticised the conclusions of studies on mitochondrial DNA extracted from the bones of Neanderthals. This does not resemble DNA from any known modern humans, which led the authors of the work to conclude there was no interbreeding. Dr Relethford points out that Neanderthal DNA brought into the sapiens population by interbreeding could subsequently have been lost by chance in the lottery of who does and who does not reproduce. Similar losses are known to have happened in Australia, where mitochondrial DNA from human fossils is absent from modern Australians.
I just finished reading this book by Relethford last night. It is very clearly written book on human genetic diversity and human origins. His point is since mitochondrial DNA is contributed only from the mother with no contribution from the father, Neaderthal mitochondrial DNA could have easily disapeared from the human genome while Neaderthals could have contributed to other parts of the human genome. This is analogous to surnames that are passed from the father's side; it is common for surnames to disappear completely even when the people with those surnames pass on their genes.
Trolls with inferior Neanderthal genes... hehe
Some think that about 74kyrs ago a volcanic eruption at Toba reduced the global population of humans to the level of just thousands, and perhaps similarly bottlenecked other homo species.
Also interesting, it is estimated (Douglas Rohde) that between 1000-4000 years ago lived folks who are ancestors to nearly all currently living people, and folks who are ancestors to none.
Rohde's 1000-year estimate, if actual, strikes me as loony.
Well, DeLong has it that
if they (a) have any living descendants at all, (b) were alive in 1240, and (c) lived in Europe, on the south or eastern shore of the Mediterranean, or in Mongolia, odds are that you're probably descended from them.
I estimated the math, and with doubling every generation and three generations a century, you could reach a billion in about a millenium (could someone redo the math for real, and also try four generations a century, more-than-doubling, etc.?) So numerically it's not difficult.
I suspect the model, though. How much actual migration was there? It seems that this is a familiar kind of economist's model that leaves something out. (Also, what does "most people" mean?)
Y'all could, like, read the article, where this is all explained--unfortunately, I left it on the plane, but apparently we're all descended from a genetic Adam and Eve, who, however, lived tens of thousands of years apart.
Now that's a big cock.
Here is Rohde's paper. It is just a computer simulation, but he does try to use historical human migrations in the simulation (or at least includes pretty maps in the paper).
DeLong didn't take into account any specifics about migration patterns, intermarriage, or inbreeding. Just like an economist -- it was pure statistics. Rohde is a bit more intimidating.
well, a model is a model :) i suspect rhode's work underestimates population substructure somewhat...but, i think that the last common geneological ancestor of all human beings alive today probably did live 4-5 K years ago. i've seen the 1 K number, and that is probably too low, mostly because of isolated groups (andaman islanders) who have low migration rates.
and i think rethelford is right about autosomal genes floating around in neandertals.