Hey Veeky Forums, what do you think about Microcephalin?
I think its pretty damn interesting.
en.wikipedia.org
"A derived form of MCPH1 called haplogroup D appeared about 37,000 years ago (any time between 14,000 and 60,000 years ago) and has spread to become the most common form of microcephalin throughout the world except Sub-Saharan Africa; this rapid spread suggests a selective sweep.[11][12"
Other urls found in this thread:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
sciencemag.org
twitter.com
"Microcephalin (MCPH1) is a gene that is expressed during fetal brain development. Certain mutations in MCPH1, when homozygous, cause primary microcephaly — a severely diminished brain.[4][2][5] Hence it has been assumed that variants have a role in brain development,[6][7] but in normal individuals no effect on mental ability or behavior has yet been demonstrated in either this or another similarly studied microcephaly gene, ASPM.[8][9]
"an association has been established between normal variation in brain structure as measured with MRI (i.e., primarily cortical surface area and total brain volume) and common genetic variants within both the MCPH1 gene and another similarly studied microcephaly gene, CDK5RAP2.[10]"
"This variant of the gene is thought to contribute to increased brain volume.[14] Modern distributions of chromosomes bearing the ancestral forms of MCPH1 and ASPM are correlated with the incidence of tonal languages, but the nature of this relationship is far from clear.[15]
Haplogroup D may have originated from a lineage separated from modern humans approximately 1.1 million years ago and later introgressed into humans. This finding supports the possibility of admixture between modern humans and extinct Homo spp.[12] While Neanderthals have been suggested as the possible source of this haplotype, the haplotype was not found in the individuals used to prepare the first draft of the Neanderthal genome.[16][17]"
Other genes thought to influence on the evolution of human brain size and/or intelligence : ASPM, DAB1, SV2B
"A new allele (version) of ASPM appeared sometime between 14,100 and 500 years ago with a mean estimate of 5,800 years ago. The new allele has a frequency of about 50% in populations of the Middle East and Europe, it is less frequent in East Asia, and has low frequencies among Sub-Saharan African populations.[8] It is also found with an unusually high percentage among the people of Papua New Guinea, with a 59.4% occurrence.[9]
The mean estimated age of the ASPM allele of 5,800 years ago, roughly correlates with the development of written language, spread of agriculture and development of cities.[10] Currently, two alleles of this gene exist: the older (pre-5,800 years ago) and the newer (post-5,800 years ago). About 10% of humans have two copies of the new ASPM allele, while about 50% have two copies of the old allele. The other 40% of humans have one copy of each. Of those with an instance of the new allele, 50% of them are an identical copy.[11] The allele affects genotype over a large (62 kbp) region, a so called selective sweep which signals a rapid spread of a mutation (such as the new ASPM) through the population; this indicates that the mutation is somehow advantageous to the individual.[9][12]
Testing the IQ of those with and without new ASPM allele has shown no difference in average IQ, providing no evidence to support the notion that the gene increases intelligence.[12][13][14] However statistical analysis has shown that the older forms of the gene are found more heavily in populations that speak tonal languages like Chinese or many Sub-Saharan African languages.[15]
The DAB1 gene, involved in organizing cell layers in the cerebral cortex, appears to have come under selection in the Chinese. The SV2B gene, which encodes a synaptic vesicle protein, likewise appears to have undergone a selective sweep among African-Americans.[16][17]
So, here are my thoughts. This kind of theories, and the genetic differences that are their basis, obviously have the potential for abuse by people of questionable morality. In my view this includes both extreme racists, and extreme sjw/pc types.
It would be tragic to have investigation and discussion of scientific facts suppressed by those who value feels over reals eg tumblr. It would also be tragic to have it hijacked by stormfront and therefore rejected by the mainstream.
So please, try to take the middle path in discussion here, and try to base claims on evidence.
This could be some very interesting data to research, and humanity has only itself to fear.
Yeah yeah this is all good and well but isn't this Veeky Forums material? I suggest you take it over there and even then most anons on Veeky Forums wouldn't be able to bring up anything meaningful to the discussion, more studies have to be done by actual scientists to get a clear picture, but like you said something like this would be awkward to study(maybe you came to Veeky Forums to discuss the morality of further studying this thing?)
Newscientist:
First, the researchers sequenced the Microcephalin gene found in 89 ethnicities. A distinctive mutation is now in the brains of about 70% of humans, and half of this group carry completely identical versions of the gene. The data suggests the mutation arose recently and spread quickly through the human species due to a selection pressure, rather than accumulating random changes through neutral genetic drift.
Analysing variation in the gene suggests the new Microcephalin variant arose between 60,000 - 14,000 years ago, with 37,000 years ago being the team’s best estimate. The new mutation is common among people from Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas than those from sub-Saharan Africa.
The team also sequenced the ASPM gene from the same original sample and again, found a defining mutation that alters the protein the gene codes for. Estimates are that the new variant of ASPM first appeared in humans between 14,000 and 500 years ago, with the best guess that it first arose 5800 years ago. It is already present in about a quarter of people alive, and is more common in Europe and the Middle East than the rest of the world.
“The evidence for selection is compelling,” says geneticist Rasmus Nielsen. Yet it remains unclear yet how these genes work in healthy people. Many researchers doubt there is any mechanism by which nature could be selecting for greater intelligence today, because they believe culture has effectively blocked the action that natural selection might have on our brains.
Lahn and his colleagues are now testing whether the new gene variants provide cognitive advantage. Natural selection could have favoured bigger brains, faster thinking, different personalities, or lower susceptibility to neurological diseases, Lahn says. Or the effects might be counter-intuitive. “It could be advantageous to be dumber,” Lahn says. “I highly doubt it, but it’s possible.”
Journal reference: Science (vol 309, p 1717 and p 1720)
Thanks for the reply!
"The mean estimated age of the ASPM allele of 5,800 years ago, roughly correlates with the development of written language, spread of agriculture and development of cities.[10"
Sci wouldnt get the historical ramifications, which is what I think this board would be good at. Also.I think his is big and old enough now to critically analyse population genetics articles...History should attempt to be based on science and teuth anyway, right?
Im suspect it could have a relationship with some of the 4 waves of colonization of europe identified in Reich 2015 paper "massive migration from the steppe " .
Specifically, the Mal'ta/ Ancient East Asian AEA people of >20000 years ago, who are ancestral to europeans, siberians and native americans. Also perhaps neolitgic immigrants from the middle east, that started to colonize europe anout 7000 bc iirc
Also, his loves population migrations, and tends to know a lot about y chromosome haplotyles, which could be related to these genes spread. And there is the possibility of these genes coming from another species of homo, which is another favourite topic of /histrionics/
Does microcephalin cause this?
OP what are you trying to say?
Please be more clear. I'm a geneticist that specialized in ASD genetics.
There are many genetic factors that influence brain development, learning, language.
We don't understand how all these genetic factors play a role TOGETHER
studying individual genes will help us understand the better picture of things
But seriously there's at least 5,000 genes responsible for CNS development, and those genes may have more than one isoform so the true number of protein products is astronomical.
>selective sweep which signals a rapid spread of a mutation (such as the new ASPM) through the population; this indicates that the mutation is somehow advantageous to the individua
Not neccesarily 62,000bp is not very large. If the region was 1Mbp+ then it would be selected for. A 62kbp region with "selective sweep" may just have alleles that are in close LD. Just coincidence.
This board can't even get history right, so why bring in politicized biology?
So MCPH is a polymorphic gene which only rarely expresses the detrimental side as microcephaly, and is linked to brain structure and tonal languages?
While ASPM arose around the beginning of agriculture and spread rapidly but not ubiquitously, and seems to coincide with written language, but is not detected with IQ tests?
So these genes seem to be associated with the time period when the shift from hunter gatherer exclusive lifestyles to sedentary agriculture occurred and are linked to language.
I don't see why simple changes in morphology would be related to language and intelligence, instead of protection from physical injury and muscle attachment for jaws to coping with tougher food.
Thanks! You're just the kind of person I was hoping to hear from!
Im just putting it out there for comments or ideas right now. Who knows what correlations or syncronicities might be uncovered?
Im just fascinated with prehistory in general, and a lot of that these days is coming from genetic analysis of mummies over 10000 years old, which is the period of these alleles appearance.
Could there be correlations with the ice ages and population refuges? What about the theory they developed in other human species first, then spread to homo sapiens? Does this provide support for the out of africa model?
From a historical pov, im interested in the claim the newscientist article makes that the ASPM mutation currently seen in europe and middle east corresponds with the biggining of agriculture (they in clude writing too, but this was a historically later period- 4000bc for sumerian, abit earlier if you consider the Vinca symbols writing, which the verdict is still out on)
From a hanities pov, could some of these alleles be associated with increased creativity, or different consciousness, or the development of art (which appears to be a human , possibly late neanderthal trait)?
The papers seem contradictory about whether these alleles increase brains size or not, could they be more about using the same amount of neurons in a different manner? Obvviously it could be very subtle, but then differnces between human subtyoes often are...
They all seem to agree the rapid spread indicates some sort of advantage... would you as a geneticist have any thoughts on things?
>From a historical pov
History is the study of the documentary record of the past. Fuck off to .
Not OP but Anthropology is explicitly mentioned as a topic for the board, and includes biological/physical anthropology.
>non-interdisciplinary plebs pls go
The various papers are ambiguous as to whether the different alleles affect brain size, most seem to say no ...
My speciality was originally linguistics, and I find the argument that it correlates with tonal languages hard to find a cause for.
For example, Chinese languages apparently didnt have tones a few millenia ago, and only developed them as a way to differentiate between words that had lost final consonants until they became homophones. Even stranger, Vietnamese historically didnt have tones, but only developed them after being dominated by chinese...and african languages often have tones, but the articles seem to say subsaharan africans have very low levels of these alleles...
The correlation I can see is between the human subtypes that have neanderthal or denisovan admixture, and the newer alleles.
Thanks for the explanation.
It's anthropology you idiot.
>From a historical pov
You're illiterate mate.
>From a historical pov
You're illiterate mate.
Call it the time before written language which is covered by anthropology then, if the term 'history' has a sacrosanct value to you.
If it triggers you that much, then hide the thread.
Also, I guess im interested in these alleles as markers of migrations... and possible connections to language family distributions.
Eg Like how in puc related Reich 2015 uses functions of frequencies of certain snps to posit that the Yamna culture of the pontic steppe had elements of Mal'ta culture, ancient eastern european hunter gatherers, and some middle eastern agriculturalists.... and that the Yamna culture itself contributes between 30 to 90% of the functional frquency distances in modern european populations.
*note that these graphs show functional derivations of frequencies of certian snps, and are highly specific to certain things the authors were looking at, and other snps and haplotyoe graphs might show very different frequencies! It pisses me off when people misuse data to argue shit it has nothing to do with!
>for ants
>Implying history completely ignores archaeological and genetic evidence
>implying an allele that could correlate with the spread of the written word, ie the starting point of your narrow definition of written history, would still not be worth discussing
>Implying this board isnt called history AND HUMANITIES
Nah, I prefer doing the other thing with off-topic threads.
No, I think you mean archaeology. "Anthropology" is a fucking joke.
Biological anthropology isn't a humanity any more than biology or medicine are humanities. The sine qua non of the humanities is the analysis of the products of the mind. This is why mathematics is a humanity.
>your narrow definition
It isn't mine chum.
>>Implying history completely ignores
No, I am stating that history is the analysis of the documentary record of the past. Archaeological reports are guess what? Oral histories are guess what?
>No, I think you mean archaeology. "Anthropology" is a fucking joke.
Maybe in your country, this doesn't discredit the field itself, I'm not in anthro, but the courses I did for it weren't a joke.
And by your standards any investigation into evolution is invalid due to a lack of documentation.
please leave.
To add, of course archaeology informs anthropology, just as palaeontology informs evolutionary biology.
>And by your standards any investigation into evolution is invalid due to a lack of documentation.
Yes for Veeky Forums. We do not deal with the products of analysis of animal evolution. There is, however, a board for the investigation of evolution: . It is a very good board.
Here we deal with the history of science of "evolution," the impact of concepts of evolution on human cultures, etc.
As far as anthropology being a joke, I'm very confident in my anthropologist colleagues who have argued this at length to me. Not as sick as sociology or literary criticism, mind you, neither of which belong here because one is a social science and the other has Veeky Forums for its own personal ghetto.
This is some hardcore autism and derailing m8, but Ill allow it since its so amusing.
>sorry guise, we cant discuss proto indoeuropeans cos they didnt have any written documents
>And most of their daughter cultures until late antiquity or even the middle ages
>Scythians never had a written language, so no more threads about them
>You know those venus statuettes from neolitgic europe, and cave paintings of lascaux and the sahara? Some of the earliest art in the world? Not anymore you dont, they are not part of history
>also fuck discussing the development of agriculture and development of civilization, those chumps never even developed a way of symbolically conveying sounds or concepts graphically!
>fuck the mayans and the aztecs and the Incas. Strings with knots and pictures of monsters are NOT writing!
>IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS THE WORD, AND NOTHING EXISTED BEFORE THAT, EVER!!!!
Also, at least where I come from, 'social sciences' is synonymous with 'humanities'
You seem like a humanities dark-mirror-image of one of those elitist STEM majors who thinks anything without maths in it is a waste of time. Please, please keep posting, the autism is equisitely delicious!
>>sorry guise, we cant discuss proto indoeuropeans cos they didnt have any written documents
We can't discuss them historically. Archaeology and historical linguistics provide excellent ways to speak about them. Many of the claimed "conclusions" have been considered as bow stretching insanity.
>And most of their daughter cultures until late antiquity or even the middle ages
Yes, mildred, Slavic history begins with old church slavonic. Prior to that we only have archaeological and linguistic evidence.
>You know those venus statuettes from neolitgic europe, and cave paintings of lascaux and the sahara? Some of the earliest art in the world? Not anymore you dont, they are not part of history
You seem to be getting it at last. Because they are the results of the study of the physical remains of the past, they're archaeology.
>also fuck discussing the development of agriculture and development of civilization, those chumps never even developed a way of symbolically conveying sounds or concepts graphically!
Yes, precisely, these aren't historical topics.
>fuck the mayans and the aztecs and the Incas. Strings with knots and pictures of monsters are NOT writing!
Don't put words into my mouth. We have a translated codex for the latter, and I believe some decent ins into knot writing.
>at least where I come from
Some hysteric community college?
Get a 4.0 and get into a top 7 for your doctorate.
What's your point, the other user made an off the cuff remark mentioning history and you claim it doesn't belong on this board because it isn't 'history' while simultaneously mentioning relevant fields outside of history that are meant for this board, and no one has claimed that it was history.
top autism/10
Except this is a fucking biological anthropology thread. A wonderful combination of /x/ and Veeky Forums and Veeky Forums and /x/.
It is also using scientific racialism, a discredited pursuit which belongs in the other place.
Nope. Your opinion isn't fact. sorry to disappoint m8
>fact
Read Hume, then Russell, then Popper, then Kuhn, then Lakatos, then Feyerabend.
>It is also using scientific racialism, a discredited pursuit which belongs in the other place.
Politics aren't science. Fuck off.
Your really going to pull this card when the 'fact' I was referring to was this topic being part of the humanities?
meant for
Yes, yes I am, try some history of science or history of ideas.
It is actually the other way around mate.
And once again it's an off the cuff remark, no claim I make should ever be considered as completely correct I agree, but this topic is meant to be able to be discussed on this board.
>censorshipfags gtfo
As I have repeatedly indicated:
anthropology is not a discipline, it is a cult of conspiracy.
"biological anthropology" is scientific racism: an utterly discredited field.
OP's contributions amount to an analysis of the empirical world as the physical or natural world: ie, natural science, not humanities.
OP's attempts to speak "historically" are utter and abject failures.
Correct doesn't take half measures, and our friend Hume showed us that no claim about the empirical world can be considered correct.
Not at all, the only basis on which genetic differences between races has been discredited is a political one, an obfuscational political one which would rather hand-wave than admit humans are animals like any other and thus subject to adaptation and differentiation like any other.
>"biological anthropology" is scientific racism: an utterly discredited field.
I'm actually opposed to racism, and race (as far as this can be said to actually exist as a social construct which doesn't describe the biological reality when comparing populations). It's not a discredited field of investigation however.
Races don't exist as distinct categories, two humans from different 'races' are more similar than two chimps from different areas of a forest. And more genetic variation is observed within a race than between races.
>what is Neanderthal dna in Eurasian populations not found in African populations for a hundred alex
You fail to recognize the distinction between quality and quantity of allele variation. It is not as simple as assessing the number of distinct base-pairs.
Classical racial categorization is flawed to a degree, but not the idea itself.
Africans do have Neanderthal DNA but it is very low.
It is in the humanities. I'm happy for to have their own standards, but I understand that scientific racism is restricted to a small number of clique journals that avoid generalised review: ie, a discredited science, former science, or pseudo-science in the language of the history of science.
And the test of the idea itself is a Veeky Forumsence topic, as it relates to the empirical engagement with the world of physical remains, not the empirical or pure engagement with the world of the products of human thought (the humanities).
When will interdisciplinary topics be permitted.
>Ecological economics is a trans-disciplinary field. It's not trying to be a subdiscipline of economics or a subdiscipline of ecology, but really it's a bridge across not only ecology and economics but also psychology, anthropology, archaeology, and history. That's what’s necessary to get a more integrated picture of how humans have interacted with their environment in the past and how they might interact in the future. It’s an attempt to look at humans embedded in their ecological life-support system, not separate from the environment.
Interdisciplinary studies are post-modern shit or stipendiary appointments for bourgeois hacks. You know it, I know it, we all know it.
How so? why would you assume that our current distinctions between areas of research are able to accurately identify the interactions between humans and the environment, or that the current models are useful in the long term? Obviously the way capitalism is currently operating is unsustainable in the long term and the methods used to address these issues are inadequate. Surely this is valuable research regardless of political affiliation.
>why would you assume that our current distinctions between areas of research are able to accurately identify the interactions between humans and the environment
They form large closed orders of knowledge that satisfy themselves through methodology. The core of disciplinarity is unique methodology of constructing empirically "acceptable" knowledge.
>or that the current models are useful in the long term?
I don't believe that there is absolute knowledge knowable by humans. Therefore "science" is a game, a game played by closing communities.
>Obviously the way capitalism is currently operating is unsustainable in the long term and the methods used to address these issues are inadequate.
Obviously. (op.cit.)
Wallerstein's attempt to produce a world systems analysis floundered on a twin basis: 1) it did not serve the class's praxis. 2) it didn't get appointments at Full Professor and Lecturer.
>Surely this is valuable research regardless of political affiliation.
There is no depoliticised research, but the politics of some disciplinarities are open. The politics of inter-disciplinarity are either pissant liberalism of the 1848 variety, or pissant liberalism of the manchester school variety.
As someone who doesn't 'take' The Economist, I prefer disciplinarity, there are spaces of acceptable resistance.
SHITLORD!!! YOU DONT MAKE THE DEFINITIONS HERE, I DO!!!!
"HIS-STORY"= LANGUAGE+ (OPPRESSSION + MALE PRIVELEDGE) × POWER / (MUH SORE 'GINEY)!!!!
LANGUAGE = DIALECT +( ARMY + NAVY +POWER )* 99 NUCLEAR MODIFIER
Therefore
YOU = CISHET SHITLORD SCUM= CHECK YOUR PRIVELEDGE
-> DIE AND KILL YOURSELF !!!!!
STOP MANSPLAINING, CIS SCUM!
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Fuck off.
t. guy who was discussing topic with the user who triggered you.
Have to agree with you, (IMHO) you're erudite and off-topic, but not a troll.
Ah yes, thats the stuff, delicious! Yes, my little contrarian, Let your butthurt flow, like ambroooooosia of the gods :^)
Now you have backed yourself into a corner of having redefined a word in your own personal and extremely narrow way that has no common currency! and now I am free to destroy you on so many levels it astounds even me. You have no idea how much I get off to this, you rabid, foaming imbecile!
Poor, foolish child, you dont even seem to understand the very meaning of the word 'history'. Perhaps you have a defective allelle of MCPH or ASPM?
Please, I beg of you, dear, autistic boy, dont stop! Tell me more of your special, historical snowflakeries! Let me hear more of your arrogant , egotistical convictions! Let me know how this is all you have, and how you wont let the barbarian rabble spoil your history club, like so many flies on a Troglodyte carcass! Tell me more of your bookread pastknowledge, of your Grade Point Average and your - oooooooh, your *THEEEEEEESIS*! The quickening - ooooooh it is at hand! How many years has it been now?! !I - I am nearly there; dont fail me now :o !!!
This post is waaaaayyy more autistic, bud,
Same guy from last night.
>Could there be correlations with the ice ages and population refuges?
What does this mean. How do you correlate time with refugees?
>alleles increase brains size
Doesn't correlate to intelligence. H.sapiens had more culture, trade, possibly refined language (FOXP2 in different in H.sapiens relative to Neanderthals and Denisovan). But Neanderthal had a bigger brain.
If you're theory is true then wouldn't other civilizations like the Maya have this allele because they had writing?
I seriously doubt there is a writing gene.However there is a genetic basis for language considering people have dyslexia and etc.
>They all seem to agree the rapid spread indicates some sort of advantage... would you as a geneticist have any thoughts on things?
Well duh that's how evolution works. But am very skeptical on their claims. What is their actual evidence. OP it sounds like you're reading the discussion section in papers which is where scientists speculate their findings (and are often wrong)
There is no hard evidence for the majority of the claims you make DESU
>Reich 2015 uses functions of frequencies of certain snps to posit that the Yamna culture of the pontic steppe had elements of Mal'ta culture
1st: I saw Reich speak and talked to a postdoc of his. Cool lab.
2st: What is this culture you're talking about. Genes =/= culture. How can you measure culture with SNPs. Really?
When two popluations share SNPs it doesn't mean they share culture (although it's possible) but what it means is that they are closer to a common ancestor than some other population.
>Yamna culture itself contributes between 30 to 90% of the functional frquency distances in modern european populations.
Why are you using the word "culture". You cannot genetically pass culture. It's learned.
What is "functional frequency distances". That's not a thing OP.
>What this figure suggests
>Europe was populated by hunter-gathers
>Yamna people (not culture) from the Pontic Steppe invaded Europe
>This invasion is one of the Indo-Aryan migrations into Europe
>What this figure says is that the Indo-Aryans admixed with the current people in Europe (the Hunter-gatherers)
>Islands like Sardinia were harder to migrate to, so they have more hunter-gatherers SNPs
>Ice-Man was a hunter-gatherer (not Aryan) this was assumed but now proven with genetics
>Germanic languages are very different from other Indo-European languages. Look up Grimms Law. This suggests a non indo-European speaking people picked up the language. The Bell Beaker and other admixed ancient genomes support this claim.
What is an ancestral SNP? It's a mutation that is different from the common ancestor. It's informative for analyses like these when people who have been geographically isolated for a while (like Pontic Steppe people) develop a unique mutation.
I think you're reading too much into the tea leaves. Population genetics is basically geography.
>>alleles increase brains size
To add OP. My work is how genetics influence psychiatric diseases.
There are some mutations that really increase brain size in humans. One example is a deletion of the chromosomal region 16p11.2.
If you delete this region you get a big head. Like 2 standard deviations from the mean.
You also get Autism.
So is it evolutionary advantageous?
Check this plot.
>Spoiler: it's not.
There is no single "intelligence gene", high intelligence is due to a large variety of genes, unlike say hair color, which makes an astouning amount of sense considering how complicated the brain is. So the effects of microcephalin are being overstated, assuming it doess have an effect on intelligence, I haven't seen anything conclusive.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
sciencemag.org
disclaimer: not an SJW, intelligence has high heredity and we should ensure populations have a higher concentration of those genes
Hair color is polygenic too but not as complex as height or IQ
Thanks again for the rational discussion!
I wasnt trying to make any claims or theories in my posts, just tossing around ideas I thought you could comment on?
Of course there isnt a writing gene! Im a linguist, we are the last to put written language on a pedestal compared to spoken languages!
the newscientist article simplifies the research into "we dont know what these genes did, but they appear to have been selected for for some reason, and hey look it happened around the same time as agriculture and writing started." ... i was wondering if this obvious simplification had any nerit to it, and if so in what way?
Mostly I was getting at the possibility of using these alleles as markers of migrations. There has been recent genetic data suggesting evidence for population bottlenecks in the ice ages, where population refuges existed in siberia (Mal'ta culture)and the caucasus. Supposedly, humans exapnded from these locations after the last few ice ages (yes I know these are technically not ice ages but cold periods)
I get that your hedging your bets until more evidence is available, but do you find any of this interesting, or have any thoughts on this research at all? Sometimes it is fun just to throw ideas around , just to see what is plausible given what you know .
Linguists are very careful not to overstep the limits of their data, and always to point out when forms are reconstructed and not attested etc. And we get our fair share of uninformed laypeople asking questions about "what was the first language", and "when did speaple start talking", and we have to say we have no idea, or thats a flawed assumption or whatever. So I get that you are wary of giving an opinion on what looks like contentious data. Recently genetics and archaeology have been producing scientifically rigorous evidence of population movements, that could correlate well with reconstructed linguistic families (eg protoindoeuropean and the Yamna culture).
>we dont know what these genes did, but they appear to have been selected for for some reason, and hey look it happened around the same time as agriculture and writing started." ... i was wondering if this obvious simplification had any nerit to it, and if so in what way?
Not really. It would have merit if they found a family or a person with a mutation in that gene rendering it useless. And if that person with the mutation had a language disorder.
Seeing a mutation spread could be coincidence or it could be selection. However I doubt it was a "writing or agriculture" gene because I'm assuming that many people who are nomads (like Berbers) in the Middle East will carry the gene but they did not develop writing or agriculture.
>I was getting at the possibility of using these alleles as markers of migrations.
You're right. These are probably the only use for these alleles. Most of the alleles they test for studies like these are ancestry informative and rarely have some functional impact. They are mutations that are picked up through time from a split from a common ancestor.
>if this interesting, or have any thoughts on this research at all
I actually want to switch fields as a post-doc and go into ancient genomes. Personally I find it fascinating!
I'll try to summarize my thoughts:
>Using SNPs it's possible to track the migration of peoples through time. An obvious example is the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade or Jewish Diaspora.
>There have been bottlenecks throughout human history. We know this because H.sapiens experienced a great bottleneck over 50,000 years ago. Humans are remarkably genetically similar to each other.
>More recent bottlenecks (like the Ice Ages) are harder to track. Admixture and gene drift confounds these studies.
>Using ancient genomes we can piece together probable migrations. The study you referred to did just that.
Selective Sweeps. (part2)
Selective Sweeps:
>In the example you provided: a selective sweep near a gene associated with brain development in Eurasians was observed
>They claimed it was selecting for language
>I'm skeptical because in order to confirm this suspicion you need a mutant with a language disorder.
>What I think is likely is that these mutations are selected for but for some other advantage.
>Many of these SNPs may be functional but could be regulatory for something else (like sweat glands in the desert or something) We just don't know the function now
Language and genetics
>FOXP2 is the best candidate for a H.sapiens language gene
>It's very different in H.sapiens compared to Neanderthal and Denisovan. (and very different across other mammals)
>Mutations in FOXP2 leads to a speaking disorder but the people can understand language just can't speak it well
>Putting a human copy of FOXP2 in a mouse leads to ultrasonic vocalizations of infant mice when they are separated from the mother. This is new and kinda cool!
I just finished a linguistics lecture and find the idea of an ancestral language (the first language) interesting. FOXP2 supports that claim... kinda.
However I suspect any selective advantage for language appeared very early in human evolution (back when H.sapiens was still in Africa over 75,000 years ago)
Yes, of course culture isnt genes. This is one of the first truths of linguistics! You are preaching to the converted here bro.
You are getting too hung up on the word culture here maybe, think of it as shirt hand for "archaelogical horizon we found some mummies in ( and got.some of their dna from)"
Its been a while since I read the Reich article. And im not a geneticist so youd probly get more out of it by reading it yourself.
My spiel about the snps was basically a disclaimer to stop noobs from claiming the graph 'prooves' that x group is y% yamna or whatever. My understanding of Reich is that these graphs are 3rd derivations of snp data, that showed certain patterns when they futzed with it.
What Reich seems to be saying , is that there computational models show statistically that mummies from the Yamna culture sites in ukraine have a genetic component from ?)Mal'ta people, ancient eastern european hunter gatherers and neolithic middle easterners or caucasian mountainers. They also statistically 'proved' that later european populations have a high degree of genetic affiliation with these Yamna mummies, and they seem reasonably certain this was due to a population migration by people with the same genes as the from the Yamna mummies, westwards into europe.
In the discussion, Reich suggests this correlates very strongly with the one of the urheimeit of PIE that linguists have suggested (pontic steppe), whereas another suggested urheimeit (anatolia) does not fit with the population genetic statistical changes Reich describes.
On a personal level, it looks like a nice enough fit to me, especially when considering the archaeology of the region, nearby cultures such as andronovo and Maikop. It also seems to fit the timeline for PIE well enough. Of course, linguistics does not have sharp enough tools to prove the Yamna were the PIEs, but to me they seem like pieces of a puzzle fitting into place, but we are still missing half the pieces
>Recently genetics and archaeology have been producing scientifically rigorous evidence of population movements, that could correlate well with reconstructed linguistic families
My thoughts on this is that correlation =/= causation.
When you have a population group separated for 1000s of years they are likely to develop their own language (esp without writing this language would change considerably)
Also in this geographic isolation they pick up new mutations that are nonfunctional but can be used to infer geographic isolation. These mutations (ancestry specific markers: SNPs used in Reich study) are unique to that group
So it's my opinion that it's only a correlation that language families and ancestry specific markers are associated. I seriously doubt that there is a "tonal language" SNP because you can have a French baby born in China speaking fluent Chinese with the tones if they picked it up as a child.
However you can totally use these markers to say that the Indo-Ayran people who spoke proto-IndoAyran once invaded India and brought their language and SNPs to the region. You can measure the degree of admixture of IndoAyran SNPs in the Dravidian population to calculate an estimated time of admixture.
Actually Reich and a postdoc of his did this for H.sapiens and Nenaderthals to find the estimated last admixture date around 30,000 years ago.
However just because a SNP is associated with Romance speakers doesn't mean it's a Romance speaking SNP. It's just a correlation not causation
>My spiel about the snps was basically a disclaimer to stop noobs from claiming the graph 'prooves' that x group is y% yamna or whatever.
Yeah it's an average estimation. When people say things like "Europeans are R haplogroup INDOAYRAN STRONK they are stupid because Hitler had a Somalian Y chr (people move around quite a bit over 1000s of years)
Yeah your assessment of the paper is very good for a nongenetist. Kudos.
>but to me they seem like pieces of a puzzle fitting into place, but we are still missing half the pieces
Beautiful summary and how I interpreted the data too. :^)
I'm kinda bored and will answer any genetics questions.
Honestly Veeky Forums is a bunch of fags that rag on biology because it's """not a real science"""
They are butthurt because physics and maths rarely get funding in the US. biomedical sciences gets a shitload of funding
proofs:
>biology PhD stipend: $31,000
>physics PhD stipend:
Is it true nords have the most cro magnon DNA? Are white people a racemix between the cro magnon aryans and fertile crescent caucasians who domesticated goats, discovered agriculture then spread throughout the world?
>nords have the most cro magnon DNA
The Saami might. Not Germanics.
Cro-Magnon arrived in Europe before IndoAyrans.
I'm going to answer all of your questions below. Best to start from the beginning.
>Europe inhabited by H.sapiens hunter-gatherer (Cro-Magnons as they are sometimes named)
>Migrations from Anatolia prior to the Bronze Age came into Europe and brought agriculture.
>These """Anatolians""" (referring to geography not the PIE speaking peoples) may have spoken a Semitic language, or a IndoEuropean language, or even something different. We don't know
>However from genetics prior to the IndoEuropean migrations we know that there were substantial migrations and ADMIXTURE of these geographic Anatolians prior and near the end of the Bronze Age (4500 years ago)
>IndoAyran migration heavily admixed with the Hunter Gatherer-Agriculturalists European peoples. They also contributed a lot of language
>However there is some speculation that separate branches of European IndoAyran languages took up characteristics of languages already existing in Europe
>Germanic languages have past verb tenses similar to Semitic ones
To me (I am born to Syrian parents) I spoke a Semitic language first (then forgot) but verbs like sit, sat, drink, drank, etc are very similar to how Arabic conjugates verbs normally.
However this Semitic ProtoGermanic substrata is very controversial .
>TLDR: Yes modren Europeans are a admixed containing at least some Hunter-Gatherer/Agriculturalist/IndoEuropeans ancestry. However more geographic isolated peoples (see Basque, Saami, some Baltic people) may have more HunterGatherer on average than some other European.