If these sorts of migrations automatically lead to large-scale, geographically defined "racial" divisions, then why hasn't that happened in SSAfrica? There has certainly been at least as much time for such differences to develop in Africa as everywhere else. And historically SS Africa has been largely self contained until very recently, with relatively little migration either in or out (aside from the slave trade) since the original Out of Africa exodus, which may well have been a one-time event.
Not that there aren't very striking morphological, cultural and even genetic differences within that continent. We see very small people (Pygmies and Bushmen), very tall people (Masai, Watutsi, etc.), lighter-skinned people (Bushmen and some Pygmies), very dark skinned people (many Bantu and Nilotic speakers), even people with epicanthic folds and other "mongoloid" characteristics (Bushmen), etc. But they are not divided into clearly differentiated regions as they are in places such as Europe (almost exclusively "caucasoid"), the Near and Middle East ("semitic"), East Asia (mostly "mongoloid"), Siberia (not usually regarded as a separate "race," but highly distinctive nevertheless), Australia ("australoid"), Amerindian (some "mongoloid" traits, but mostly a distinctive morphology nevertheless), and certain other, smaller morphologically and culturally distinctive groups as well.
While the rest of the world is more or less clearly grouped into different areas, based on "racial" difference, different types of Africans tend to share more or less the same general area. Witness the co-existence of the otherwise very different Watutsi and Hutu in Ruanda; Pygmy groups and more typically "negroid" Bantu farmers in Central Africa; and yellow-skinned, small statured Bushmen sharing roughly the same region (southern Africa) with a wide variety of other, "negroid," types.
My point is this: if the Out of Africa migration was simply a movement of a small group of Africans smoothly and continuously eastward into a new region, and then smoothly and continuously northward and from there moving out in all directions to inhabit the rest of the earth according to a smooth, continuous progression, then why doesn't the rest of the world look more like Africa, with its variety of different human types, looks, cultures, languages, etc., overlapping with one another, as would be expected from the sort of free form migration pattern usually assumed.
Bottlenecks are naturally to be expected among such groups, along with other forms of genetic drift and also contact of the sort that could produce peoples of varying morphologies, languages, musics, etc., in different places. But once the original migrants would have spread throughout a large enough area, with large enough population sizes, then the effects of any single bottleneck, genetic drift, contact, etc. would have been local and had strictly local effects, as we see for the most part in Africa.
Which is why I find the notion of a major bottleneck very early on, due to Toba or perhaps some other serious event, so compelling. Because only such an event at such an early stage could have had the sort of large-scale effect needed to produce the large-scale patterns of difference we now see. If such an event had not taken place, and there had been no bottleneck so early on (or simultaneous set of bottlenecks all produced by the same event), then it would be very difficult to explain why the world at large doesn't overlay its pattern of "racial" differences as does SS Africa.
As I see things, it is only when we pay attention to such large scale distributions of certain traits, characteristics, traditions, etc. that we can find clues potentially of real use for recreating historical events that might otherwise seem totally beyond our reach. I'm not saying that alternative interpretations are not possible, but only that this is a potentially fruitful path to follow.
*Because I subscribe quite strongly to the notion that the term "race," as applied to humans, is essentially a social construct, I prefer to speak in terms of morphological, cultural, and genetic differences, rather than "racial" differences. However, the old racial terminology can be useful, as long as we realize that it represents an insight into certain very broad, though crude, morphological distinctions, many of which could well be legitimate.
However, when an attempt is made to lump morphological and genetic difference, in an attempt to categorize everyone as belonging to one or the other biologically determined "race," the system breaks down. It is not a science, but some of the terminology does in fact prove useful in the attempt to make sense of certain large-scale human differences. And it is of course a perfectly legitimate term to use so long as we make clear that we are speaking of socially constructed "racial" differences, which can have an even greater impact on people's lives than scientifically determined ones.
If you want to go racialist, Africa south of the Sahara, is home to several distinct groups, of which the Khoisanid or Capoid one is surely the most clear cut (even at global levels they show some curious unique traits like the tendency to a wrinkled skin and marked adiposity in the buttocks).
ReplyDeleteThe rest may be slightly more homogeneous but I can easily take apart the typical Negroid (Niger-Congo and the like) from a variety of distinctive groups: Ethiopids/Nilotics are clearly different, and so are Pygmies. Others like Dinkas are also a very distinctive group.
In Eurasia you basically have two: the Caucasoid-Australoid continuum and the Mongoloid cluster. Most Negritos look proto-Caucasoid to me, as do Australian Aboriginals (who, together with some Melanesians and SE Asians, are the only non-Caucasoids to have adult blond hair) to a lesser extent and Papuans (granted that they have locally distinct features). The only group that has clearly diverged in this aspect are Mongoloids (and more in East Asia than in America, where the diversity is quite striking, probably because they represent an earlier, less defined proto-Mongoloid branch).
Races are anyhow the product of regional homogenization. Founder effects were surely important, as well as selection in some aspects like skin color, but the main factor has been regionalized "inbreeding" without any doubt.
There is no such thing as thing as a Semitic race in any case. Semitic is a linguistic tag and West Asians are archetypally Caucasoid in any case (though in some areas they may have some admixture with Africans). At best you could argue for an array of sub-races within the Caucasoid continuum, from South Asia to the Atlantic... but these are very hard to spot and show only limited regional homogeneity.
Maju: "Africa south of the Sahara, is home to several distinct groups"
ReplyDeleteYes. But my point is that there is no region of SSAfrica that can be associated exclusively with any one such group, as in the rest of the world. (A possible exception is the Pygmies in the Tropical Forest, but the same general area is also inhabited by non-Pygmy farmers.) We see distinct morphologies (and cultures) for sure, but their distribution throughout the continent is very different from what we see in the rest of the world, because in Africa very different types often share the same region.
"In Eurasia you basically have two: the Caucasoid-Australoid continuum and the Mongoloid cluster."
If we are speaking in terms of the usual "racial" divisions, the most popular is threefold: mongoloid, caucasoid and negroid. And if you see negritos, australoids and caucasoids as related, that's OK by me (though I'm not sure I agree). But that's not my point.
My point is that there are morphologically identifiable groups worldwide and each can easily be associated with a region of its own. And the morphological differences often go with cultural differences (whether they go with genetic differences is a much more complex matter).
Regardless of what the old racialist thinking was, it's possible to identify more than just three distinct groups, though the number is relatively small for sure. Paleosiberians are important, in my opinion because morphologically they are not really mongoloids though they share some traits with them. But they have a distinctive look AND a distinctive culture that is associated with a very particular geography.
Same with australoids, though in this case, the physical traits at least cut across two regions, as australoid types can be found in South Asia and parts of East Asia as well as Australia.
As far as "semitic" is concerned, you can argue that they really aren't a separate "race," but many people in the Near and Middle East do have a distinctive physiognomy -- and culture -- which can be associated with a particular region, and that's all that interests me.
In sum, we see people who look and act differently from other people and on a worldwide basis these differences are regional. But in Africa there is considerable overlap. Certain groups can be found in certain regions, yes, but other groups are also found in the same regions and live side by side with them, which is a very different sort of distribution, which must have been produced by a very different history. And the question is: why.
As I see it, the reason might have something to do with the hypothesis I'm exploring, i.e., that the worldwide distinctions could stem originally from a massive bottleneck at a very early stage. Which is basically Ambrose's idea as well. And since Africa did not, apparently experience anything of that sort, the history of Africa has been different.
Well, I think that they can well be associated with various regions, specially prior to the Bantu expansion:
ReplyDelete- Khoisan: Southern Africa
- Pygmy: Middle Africa (jungle area)
- Ethiopid: NE Africa
- Typical Negroid: West Africa
Additionally a couple of other groups, the already mentioned Dinka-like (with a homeland in Southern Sudan) and one I forgot but that shows up even in genetic studies as distinc: Peul (homeland in the Senegalese plateau/Sahel).
Of course there is much more historical interaction because Africa is smaller and does not have the large greographical barriers that make up Eurasia (Hymalayas, Central Asian deserts, oceanic gaps of SE Asia), the closest to these are the Sahara and the Mozambique Channel but these largely separate Africa from Eurasia in demographic and ethno-cultural terms. But still it has huge phenotype diversity.
Paleosiberians are important, in my opinion because morphologically they are not really mongoloids...
Not for me: they look Mongoloid, certainly more than many Amerindians. Here and there they have Caucasoid admixture but I see them as fully within the East Asian phenotype. You can of course make cultural distinctions but I see hard to make a morphological one (of course each large cluster has several subclusters but not too apparent in this case).
Same with australoids, though in this case, the physical traits at least cut across two regions, as australoid types can be found in South Asia and parts of East Asia as well as Australia.
For me the term Australoid can only be used for Australian Aborigines, when I break that rule is to talk of the Caucasoid-Australoid continuum that maybe would be better described as paleo-Eurasian, because it includes all Greater Eurasians but Mongoloids. Ainus or Negritos or Melanesians are not morphologically closer to Australian Natives than they are to almost any other Eurasian group.
but many people in the Near and Middle East do have a distinctive physiognomy
But many people in Spain or in Finland or in Britain... have distinctive physiognomy. Furthermore, all European types are well represented in West Asia, except maybe the more extremely depigmented ones (pale platinum blondes and little more - but check in the South Caucasus anyhow). West Asia is in fact more diverse than Europe and in a very entangled way and hence its population does not constitute a distinct single "race". Some West Asians approach Europeans, other tend towards Indians, others show clear African affinities (North African, Ethiopid and even Negroid occasionally) and maybe there is one or two types (Armenoid, Arabid) that are more typical of the area but they are Coonian typologies that are not different from similar vague European subdividisions like Alpinid or Nordic or Lappid or that catch-all term that is "Mediterranean".
In sum, we see people who look and act differently...
ReplyDeleteI can't but reject the mixing of these two verbs: look would refer to morphology or race, act to culture and sociology. There are totally unrelated: there are Norwegians who look like Greeks but they are 100% Norwegian culturally and can't be otherwise. Similarly there are Moroccans who look like typical Spaniards or Brits and Brits and Spaniards who look like typical Moroccans but that is not what defines them ethno-culturally.
And belonging to such a racially complex ethnicity as are Jews, you should know that well.
But in Africa there is considerable overlap. Certain groups can be found in certain regions, yes, but other groups are also found in the same regions and live side by side with them, which is a very different sort of distribution, which must have been produced by a very different history. And the question is: why.
You would have to study in detail the history (and prehistory) of Africa. But the lack of major geographical barriers south of the Sahara seems like a simplified, yet valid, answer. Africa has two open corridors in the Sahel and East Africa and the main geographical barrier was the tropical forest, which was eventually overcome by a well known but single demic wave: iron-armed Bantu expansion. Once they got steel they could face the forest and so they did. Most of the homogeneity you seem to perceive in Africa is because of the Bantu expansion, probably the most important human mass-migration before Modern Age.
... the reason might have something to do with the hypothesis I'm exploring, i.e., that the worldwide distinctions could stem originally from a massive bottleneck at a very early stage.
I don't see it. I do see a pseudo-bottleneck (founder effect) in the formation of Eurasians (the paelo-Eurosian or Australo-Caucasoid continuum) and there could be a secondary similar case for the formation of Mongoloids. I also see that a good deal of racialization is because of regional homogenization, that is: not just because of founder effects but because of long-term admixture between the necessarily plural origins of every regional group.
I recall vaguely certain study on Mexicans that apparently found that the resulting Mexican Mestizo phenotype is not a mere average of European and Amerindian phenotypes but something new: a true new race. Mexicans are still a young "race" but they do provide an example of how new phenotypes appear not by the mere addition of founder effects but by regional homogenization. The alchemy is greater than just the ingredients.
You make some very reasonable points, Maju, thanks. But I'm still not completely convinced, either of your argument or mine.
ReplyDelete"- Khoisan: Southern Africa
- Pygmy: Middle Africa (jungle area)
- Ethiopid: NE Africa
- Typical Negroid: West Africa"
It's certainly true that the Bantu expansion created much of the overlap I was referring to, yes.
On the other hand, if we consider Africa prior to the Bantu expansion, we see 1. Pygmies very widely spread within two or more very similar forest environments, an environment-oriented distribution very different from that of any of the other "racial" groups worldwide; and 2. Khoisan widely spread throughout most of eastern and southern Africa; 3. what else? what do we know about the origins of the "Ethiopid" groups? Did they develop from proto-Khoisan or proto-Pygmies, and did they live in more or less the same region of east Africa side by side with Khoisan?
The Bantu have been identified genetically as an offshoot of the same ancestral population that give rise to the pygmies, but they apparently branched off only about 18,000 years ago -- and for much of that time for all we know they too may have been living in the Central African forests as well. However, it's true that West Africa is generally regarded as their homeland, at least just prior to their expansion east and south.
"Of course there is much more historical interaction because Africa is smaller and does not have the large greographical barriers that make up Eurasia (Hymalayas, Central Asian deserts, oceanic gaps of SE Asia)"
Good point, that could have made a difference, yes. I'll concede that I need to learn more about African history before making too much of this comparison.
As far as Paleosiberians are concerned, I think one can make an argument for them as a separate morphological group, if not a separate "race," but more important than this is the very distinctive cultural complex they define, which is also highly regionalized. I'll conceded, however, that much in their culture could be an environmental adaptation.
"But many people in Spain or in Finland or in Britain... have distinctive physiognomy."
There does seem to be a semitic "type," if defined as much by clothing and accent (culture) as physiognomy. If not, then we wouldn't have all the fuss about "ethnic profiling" we now see both in Europe and the States. Most Jews, such as myself, no longer fit this pattern, due, no doubt to our many years of messing around with non-Jewish women. :-)
Maju: "I can't but reject the mixing of these two verbs: look would refer to morphology or race, act to culture and sociology. There are totally unrelated: there are Norwegians who look like Greeks but they are 100% Norwegian culturally and can't be otherwise."
ReplyDeleteHistorically I see a relationship, though I grant you that today things are very much mixed up. Chinese culture was traditionally very different from that of Europe and each of these regions was and is dominated by people with different morphologies. Same with Paleosiberians, Australians, Amerindians, Africans, "Semites" etc., who have traditionally had very different cultures.
DocG: "... the reason might have something to do with the hypothesis I'm exploring, i.e., that the worldwide distinctions could stem originally from a massive bottleneck at a very early stage."
Maju: "I don't see it."
Historically, the differences among the "races" were explained as due to regional continuity, as you know. That made everything simple. But when we change our thinking and derive all modern humans from a single set of ancestors, from a very specific place (Africa), then these differences are much harder to account for. It seems to me that they can only be accounted for my "genetic drift," but the problem with that idea is that the same term is applied to two very different types of process -- based either on founder effects (abrupt) or long-term stochastic processes (gradual). It's hard for me to visualize how gradual drift could turn African types into either mongoloid or caucasoid types over such a huge area, without considerable intermingling in both Europe and Asia. And it's hard to imagine how bottlenecks followed by founder effects could produce such large scale differentiations if they took place locally and had only localized effects, after most of the human race had spread itself widely throughout much of Asia and Europe. Maybe my comparison with Africa isn't as apt as it could be, but for me the fundamental problem remains. I'm wondering if anyone has ever done any mathematical modeling to determine the likelihood of getting such a widespread distribution from various initial conditions associated with different evolutionary theories.
what do we know about the origins of the "Ethiopid" groups? Did they develop from proto-Khoisan or proto-Pygmies, and did they live in more or less the same region of east Africa side by side with Khoisan?.
ReplyDeleteSince the time of Cavalli-Sforza (i.e. mid-90s) some affinity with Khoisan has been detected at the genetic level. However this is blurry, as are autosomal genetics... but I have seen some recent stuff again suggesting that affinity (can't recall where - as I could not foresee this would come up or was of any serious relevance).
However they also show minor but significant Caucasoid (or otherwise Eurasian) genetic influence.
The Bantu have been identified genetically as an offshoot of the same ancestral population that give rise to the pygmies...
Where? By whom? I believe we discussed extensively the possible Pygmy-Bantu connections in previous sections (German was the one claiming a close connection but was disproved) and this claim looks very much unwarranted. Bantus are an offshoot of Nigerians or CAR people, with some peculiarities specially in the SE, which may be founder effects or admixture (or both).
Good point, that could have made a difference, yes.
Thanks, I believe geography is important, as it creates a series of (more or less isolated) "containers" where unique processes happened in a mostly independent manner.
As far as Paleosiberians are concerned(...) but more important than this is the very distinctive cultural complex they define, which is also highly regionalized.
I won't question that but it's clearly a different thing from race.
There does seem to be a semitic "type," if defined as much by clothing and accent (culture) as physiognomy.
Culture is not race. Suit and tie are not traditional European clothes, hijab is of Greek origin... and so on.
The only two typically West Asian morphological subtypes are, as said before, the Arabid (the Bin Laden type) and the Armenoid (maybe the archetypal Jewish type, as in caricatures and such, rather than reality). The latter is of course found in SE Europe too. One could argue that the Gracil Mediterranid type might be of that origin as well. In any case these are poorly defined subtypes (wildly scattered among others) of a much more clear cluster (Caucasoid).
When I see very normal West Asians (like the leader of Hamas or Saddam Hussein or all the Iranian ayatollahs for example) they look often perfectly within the European variability and would pass unnoticed in Paris or even further north. Some other phenotypes are arguably more exotic (Ahamdinajad, Bin Laden) but you can't judge only based on them, the same you can't define the European phenotype based on just Swedes.
If not, then we wouldn't have all the fuss about "ethnic profiling" we now see both in Europe and the States.
Ethnic profiling (as in racial profiling - not really sure what they want to do in fact) can hardly work with West Asians in Europe. It may affect some more marked subtypes and can probably discern many (but not all) North Africans. But, meh, one of the imams (?) of my local mosque looks Dutch (he might be Dutch or Afghan or Daghestani or whatever) and you can only spot him as Muslim because of his religious clothes.
Historically I see a relationship...
ReplyDeleteI won't deny some correlation but it's very much limited, even in the past. Whatever the case, if you discuss phenotype, race, you should not happily mix it with culture, moreso as many cultural elements have changed once and again in history (and surely prehistory).
Historically, the differences among the "races" were explained as due to regional continuity, as you know. That made everything simple. But when we change our thinking and derive all modern humans from a single set of ancestors, from a very specific place (Africa), then these differences are much harder to account for.
Not really. My family alone accounts for nearly all the variability in Europe and even possibly beyond (one of my cousins could pass as mulatto, her brother, who has a Brad Pitt look, has been said to have East Asian affinities and yet another cousin from a different branch could pass as Indian or something like that). And there is no recorded extra-European ancestor: all come from SW Europe (from Veneto to Galicia). And Europeans are one of the most homogeneous ("inbred") populations on Earth, at least genetically.
I can perfectly see how different branches of a single clan can produce such a large variability by mere founder effect plus regional homogenization.
It's hard for me to visualize how gradual drift could turn African types into either mongoloid or caucasoid types over such a huge area.
Notice that I did not mention drift anywhere above.
The Mongoloid type has some particular issues anyhow, as no Paleolithic skulls, other than one from Okinawa (Minatogawa, I think) appear to be Mongoloid but would rather belong to the Caucaso-Australoid continuum. Some have argued for a Neolithic (or maybe Epipaleolithic) spread of the type but the archaeological data is not sufficient to judge.
The Caucasoid type may also have a late UP consolidation, though in this case at least there is some consensus that older types (Cro-Magnon, Aurignacian quasi-Australoid types) are ancestral.
Even the modern Australoid type seems product of a recent Holocene expansion.
The issue is most complex and murky. I would certainly not use racial formation as any kind of support for almost anything else, as it's a very much unsolved problem.
Anyhow, I am quite sure to have read recently on some genetic elements with regional variation that seem to be behind cartilage formation and hence facial differences, mostly defined by cartilage shaping. However I can't find it right now (I believe I read in science Daily or PLoS but could be BMC or any other source).
... without considerable intermingling in both Europe and Asia.
That is what I call regional homogenization: intermingling of maybe originally distinct groups within a world region for a long period of time.
And it's hard to imagine how bottlenecks followed by founder effects could produce such large scale differentiations...
ReplyDeleteFounder effect (which is similar to a bottleneck in effect but not in cause).
I often put the example of me and my brother: a population founded by me would be probably dominated by people of dark curly hair and reddish skin with average height and complexion, a population founded by my brother (the one who is more like myself in facial features) would be dominated by traits such as blond straight hair, pinky skin, short height and robust complexion. If I pick any of my other siblings the differences would be at least as strong if not even more.
And we have a quite homogeneous ancestry! So IMO founder effects matter a lot.
Note: of course, founder effects can't be as simple as one individual, but they can perfectly include a very small founder population of even as little as a few dozen, many already related among them.
I'm wondering if anyone has ever done any mathematical modeling to determine the likelihood of getting such a widespread distribution from various initial conditions associated with different evolutionary theories.
Maybe but I can't help you with that. While I do have a healthy curiosity for racial differences, it's not my focus (as I realize it can be a very misleading and confusing epiphenomenon)
docG: "The Bantu have been identified genetically as an offshoot of the same ancestral population that give rise to the pygmies..."
ReplyDeleteMaju: "Where? By whom? I believe we discussed extensively the possible Pygmy-Bantu connections in previous sections (German was the one claiming a close connection but was disproved) and this claim looks very much unwarranted."
See http://www.pnas.org/content/105/5/1596.full.pdf
Maju: "I won't question that but it's clearly a different thing from race."
I'm not talking about race, but certain aspects of morphology and culture that in the past were often unscientifically combined in people's thinking into what is called "race." Maybe I shouldn't even use that term, since it's so confusing.
What interests me is the large-scale divisions we see in the world today between populations that can be grouped, either on the basis of morphology or culture or both. And in many cases the two do go together. Not so much as far as language is concerned, but other aspects of culture and certainly music. In this more general sense we CAN set the Paleosiberians aside in a different group from, say, the Chinese, even though you might prefer to think of both as "mongoloid." Actually in my mind it seems as though the P/S can be seen as proto-mongoloid -- but also perhaps proto-caucasoid too. There are also the "mongol" people of eastern central Asia, whose culture sets them apart from both P/S and Chinese, though technically they could also be called "mongoloid."
In short, there are large-scale groupings in much of Asia and Europe that in my view are hard to explain simply on the basis of localized "founder effects," mixing and drift.
"I can perfectly see how different branches of a single clan can produce such a large variability by mere founder effect plus regional homogenization."
To me this is far from clear. I agree that founder effects can definitely produce morphological and cultural differences (and genetic ones too, obviously), but doesn't it seem obvious that the largest scale differences would have to be produced by relatively early founder effects, while differences on a smaller scale, say between Scandinavians and British, would be due to more recent and more localized founder effects?
As far as regional homogenization is concerned, I'm not sure how that could produce homogenous morphologies and cultures over really large regions. This sort of "genetic drift" is usually considered typical of small communities, right? Not large populations spread out over thousands of miles, with many natural obstacles between them, as with the Chinese, for example, or Paleosiberians.
1. Pygmies and Bantus:
ReplyDeleteSee http://www.pnas.org/content/105/5/1596.full.pdf
That is the paper that German posted precisely. What shows is that the Bantu have picked some Pygmoid lineagesof the L1c haplogroup. Out of Central Africa, Bantus (or other NCs) have nearly no L1c (and the relatively high presence in the Central African sample is surely only because its mixed Pygmy/Bantu nature). We already discussed this matter.
More intriguing for me is the L1a lineage that Mozambicans show at high apportions and that may be (I imagine) original from some other non-Bantu population now totally absorbed (extinct as separate group?). Mozambicans also showed as distinct within Niger-Congo in the autosomal DNA study of Pygmies, with a component that also appears strong among the Twa Pygmies.
Maybe I shouldn't even use that term, since it's so confusing.
ReplyDeleteMacro-ethnicity maybe? Super-ethnicity? A slippery concept in any case probably. But sure, I understand it.
but doesn't it seem obvious that the largest scale differences would have to be produced by relatively early founder effects...
A mix of two factors is what I'm arguing for:
1. The founding factor
2. The regionalization process along time. "Drift" if you wish but not exactly what I have in mind, as it may also include biological and cultural selective pressures - or lack of them. For example Europeans were pushed toward depigmentation, while Negritos were not. Sexual or social selection (which may be largely cultural) can also play a role, selecting for what is intuitively more akin and against what is more different maybe. If a society values blonds over brunettes, even if just subtly, it may have an impact in parental favoritism and consort availabality. Same if they favor big noses (Papuans) or whatever other trait. The pressure might be small... but in the long term it may have a very marked accumulative effect.
Maju: "That is the paper that German posted precisely. What shows is that the Bantu have picked some Pygmoid lineages of the L1c haplogroup."
ReplyDeleteI discussed the Pygmy-Bantu relationship starting in Post 46 of this blog (http://music000001.blogspot.com/2007/07/46-phylogeographical-study-cantometric.html).
See the reference to the article by Batini et al. Here's a quote:
". . . the unique feature of the L1c is that it retains a signature of a phase common to the ancestors of the Bantu and Western Pygmies, while encompassing some specific sub-clades which can indicate their divergence. This allowed us to attempt a phylogenetically based assessment of the evolutionary relationships between the two groups. Taking into consideration estimates of the time to the most recent common ancestor of L1c and its clades together with archaeological and paleoclimatological evidence, we propose that the ancestors of Bantu and Western Pygmies separated between 60 and 30 kya."
There have been other studies of this relationship as well, including Batini's thesis, which is rather long but very interesting -- she considers different scenarios and tests each.
Sorry, we have gone over all that already and these discussions are too time consuming. I disagree but have no real time to extend myself.
ReplyDelete