Ok, finally, I'm back here posting again. I've been busy with various projects, from a paper on indigenous music and cultural history (now completed), to a proposal for a book expanding on essentially the same topic, which I am now shopping around among various literary agents and publishers. Collaborations with geneticists and others on Cantometrics-based projects are continuing, but at the usual snail's pace.
I'm also hoping to put together a web site where some of my creative ventures in the realm of electronic and computer music can be heard. I managed to find an old reel-to-reel tape deck in, of all places, the Ethnomusicology lab at the University of Pittsburgh, and was able to make digital copies of some old tapes of compositions I'd recorded back in the Sixties, in studios at Brussels, the University of Illinois and SUNY Buffalo. After many years of storage, mostly in the extreme heat, and cold, of various attics, I discovered that they'd held up remarkably well. I'll be including more recently composed examples of computer music on this website as well. When I can find the time, natch.
I was planning on continuing this blog with an extended exploration of a question that's been on my mind for some time: the origin of competition and violence. A couple months ago I came across a remarkable paper on this topic, which I was planning to discuss at some length, as it relates very strongly to issues raised on this blog. The paper, entitled A war-prone tribe migrated out of Africa to populate the world, is the only one I've come across to date that deals with the problem of violence from the perspective afforded by the "Out of Africa" model. Significantly, it was not written by an anthropologist, but a geneticst, Eduardo Moreno.
I am extremely sympathetic with Moreno's approach, which in some ways parallels my own. For example, he associates a lack of violence with those groups whose ancestry occupies the deepest clades of the mitochondrial tree, specifically L0, L1 and L2. I'm not sure I agree with his contention that the original "Out of Africa" migrants (L3) must have been warlike, but he makes a strong case, based on inferential thinking very close to my own in style, which I find gratifying. (I'm not implying he could have been influenced by me, which I'm sure is not the case.) His paper can be downloaded from the link I've provided above, though it hasn't yet been published, unfortunately. I urge everyone reading here to check it out, because in my opinion, regardless of whether or not I completely agree, I find it a document of real importance.
As I said, I was planning to undertake a systematic study of violence, based on the overall picture I've outlined on this blog, plus the work of people such as Moreno, but I find myself at this point still not yet ready to undertake such a task, which would require a considerable degree of additional research for which I lack the time.
Meanwhile, I've recently come across a very interesting book on a completely different topic, Darwinian evolution, which set in motion a series of thoughts that I've suddenly discovered I badly want to share. The book is Why Us? How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves, by James Le Fanu. There have, of course, been a great many attempts to "debunk" Darwin, most of which are easily dismissed. This one goes a bit deeper than most, however, incorporating some of the latest findings in the fields of both genetics and cognitive science, and presenting some very disturbing and compelling arguments that would appear to challenge Darwin's thinking at its base. The book also raises some questions that I find particularly compelling in the light of some of my own speculations regarding the origins of both music and language. I'm not saying I completely agree with Le Fanu, I don't. But his book opens some avenues of thought that I can't resist pursuing. In subsequent posts I'll be summarizing some of his more challenging arguments and eventually, as long as my energy holds out, offer a response of my own.
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Contemplating the history of music from the year 000,001 to the present (which according to this "calendar" would be somewhere between 100,001 and 200,001)
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
The links will take you to the first post of each section. To continue with the next post in the same section, select "Newer Post" on the bottom left.
Introduction May 2007 -- Posts 1 - 11
Music in Year One -- Some Examples
A Phylogenetic Tree May 2007 -- Posts 12 - 20
The Bottleneck -- More Branches
Year Zero and Beyond June-July 2007 -- Posts 21 - 55
More Examples -- The Missing Link -- From 000000 to 000001 -- Music Degree Zero? -- Blow Ye Winds of Morning -- Battle of the Maps -- A Phylogeographical Study, A Cantometric Table and a Yellow Bell
Our Story so Far -- an Overview July 2007 -- Posts 56 - 62
The Power of Music July 2007 -- Posts 63 - 75
Introduction May 2007 -- Posts 1 - 11
Music in Year One -- Some Examples
A Phylogenetic Tree May 2007 -- Posts 12 - 20
The Bottleneck -- More Branches
Year Zero and Beyond June-July 2007 -- Posts 21 - 55
More Examples -- The Missing Link -- From 000000 to 000001 -- Music Degree Zero? -- Blow Ye Winds of Morning -- Battle of the Maps -- A Phylogeographical Study, A Cantometric Table and a Yellow Bell
Our Story so Far -- an Overview July 2007 -- Posts 56 - 62
The Power of Music July 2007 -- Posts 63 - 75
The Great Kalahari Debate
The Power of Cantometrics August 2007 -- Posts 76 - 82
Cultural Equity Aug. - Oct. 2007 -- Posts 83 - 98
Are Indigenous Cultures Frozen in Time? -- The Double Standard -- The Lesson for Today
Music of the Great Tradition Oct. 2007 - Aug. 2008 -- Posts 99 - 159
Gamelan -- Georgia -- Europe -- Hocket -- Drone -- Dudki
The Pygmy/Bushmen Nexus July 2009 -- Posts 161 - 171, 173
African Offshoots -- A Comprehensive Musical System
Articles Now Available for Download July 2009 -- Post 172
Music and Cultural Evolution July 2009 -- Posts 174 - 181
An Overwhelming Question Aug. 2009 -- Posts 182 - 194
Utopia, Then and Now Aug.-Sept. 2009 -- Posts 195 - 200
Deconstructing the Postmodern Condition Sept. 2009 -- Posts 201 - 224
L'Affaire Turnbull -- Myth and Counter-Myth -- Tradition
The Baseline Scenarios Oct. 2009 - Jan. 2010 -- Posts 225 - 278
Conjure -- The Baseline -- Hunter-Gatherers -- The Migrants -- The Gap -- The Migration -- The Event -- Questions
The Power of Cantometrics August 2007 -- Posts 76 - 82
Cultural Equity Aug. - Oct. 2007 -- Posts 83 - 98
Are Indigenous Cultures Frozen in Time? -- The Double Standard -- The Lesson for Today
Music of the Great Tradition Oct. 2007 - Aug. 2008 -- Posts 99 - 159
Gamelan -- Georgia -- Europe -- Hocket -- Drone -- Dudki
The Pygmy/Bushmen Nexus July 2009 -- Posts 161 - 171, 173
African Offshoots -- A Comprehensive Musical System
Articles Now Available for Download July 2009 -- Post 172
Music and Cultural Evolution July 2009 -- Posts 174 - 181
An Overwhelming Question Aug. 2009 -- Posts 182 - 194
Utopia, Then and Now Aug.-Sept. 2009 -- Posts 195 - 200
Deconstructing the Postmodern Condition Sept. 2009 -- Posts 201 - 224
L'Affaire Turnbull -- Myth and Counter-Myth -- Tradition
The Baseline Scenarios Oct. 2009 - Jan. 2010 -- Posts 225 - 278
Conjure -- The Baseline -- Hunter-Gatherers -- The Migrants -- The Gap -- The Migration -- The Event -- Questions
Babel Jan. 2010 -- Posts 279 - 285
Aftermath Jan. - Feb. 2010 - Posts 286 - 310
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An investigation into the history and meaning of world music
This Blog deals with theories I'm currently exploring regarding the early history and origins of some of the oldest musical traditions still alive in the world today, based on research presented in my essay, Echoes of Our Forgotten Ancestors. [By permission of the publisher, VWB-Verlag, this essay may now be freely downloaded by clicking on the above link. A hard copy of the entire issue may be purchased at the following website: http://www.vwb-verlag.com/Katalog/m748.html.] My work is based on intriguing parallels I've noticed between the distribution patterns of certain musical style families, and the general outlines of the "Out of Africa" theory currently being explored in the field of genetic anthropology. This blog should be of special interest to professionals and students in fields such as ethnomusicology, anthropology, archaeology, historical linguistics and population genetics. However, I've made an effort to minimize the technical terminology in the hope that anyone with an interest in world music can follow most of the arguments. As my ideas are, at this point, still in the process of development, I could use as much feedback as possible, so please feel free to participate in this process with your comments and questions, even if -- especially if -- you disagree. Anyone interested in obtaining a copy of my essay should contact me privately, via email: victorag at verizon.net.
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Dr. Victor Grauer, based in Pittsburgh, PA, is a composer, musicologist, film‑maker, media artist, poet and dramatist. He holds a Masters Degree in Ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University (1961), with additional studies in that field at UCLA (1961-62), and a Ph. D. in Music Composition from SUNY Buffalo (1972). He was co-creator, with Alan Lomax, of the Cantometric coding system in 1961 and worked on the Cantometrics Project as Research Associate, under Lomax’s supervision, from 1963 through 1966. His creative work has been presented in many venues worldwide, including Lincoln Center (the New York Film Festival), Carnegie Institute (Pittsburgh), The Kitchen (New York), The Mattress Factory (Pittsburgh), the Barbicon Center (London), etc. His writings on musicology and the arts have been published in journals such as Ethnomusicology, Semiotica, Art Criticism, Music Theory Online, Other Voices, Millennium Film Journal, The World of Music and Before Farming. In 1998 he received the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust's Creative Achievement Award. Grauer has taught at the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Filmmakers, the Pittsburgh High School of the Creative and Performing Arts and Chatham College. He is presently engaged in research linking his work with Lomax on Cantometrics with current developments in genetic anthropology and archaeology.
42 comments:
Welcome back. :)
Very interesting indeed Moreno's paper (thanks for the link). And you are right that to some extent it parallels your approach.
However (on first quick reading) I find that:
1. The only trait all "Greater Eurasian" hunter-gatherers seem to share is the existence of ritual fights.
2. In the other aspects there seems to be radical differences inside the "Greater Eurasian" hunter-gatherer collection.
3. I am concerned about a possible Native American "founder cultural effect" slanting the overall averages. I am also concerned he has not included the Zoé, which AFAIK are "nonviolent", in the American sample. I am also concerned that some groups among these hunter-gatherers, particularly the Asmat of Papua and the Amerindians may have been influenced by Neolithic neighbors (or even themselves be "regressive Neolithic" peoples in some cases).
After all these caveats, the conclusions, excepting for the ritual fights, would seem unwarranted for the overall OoA group. However (and I bet you are thinking roughly on the same line) it may imply indeed a change of mentality with a common source (or not) among some of the post-OoA groups. This may in turn have become an advantage as the population densities grew because they could push around other "rival" groups and get the prime territories.
Cheers.
Hi Maju. Nice to see you commenting here again. The ritualized combat noted by Moreno took me by surprise, because that's an aspect of socialized violence I'd never considered. And it sort of stopped me in my tracks, because it's a topic I've never researched -- and would find it difficult to research using my favorite research tool: the Internet.
I find it convincing, however, because it's hard to see how such a tradition could have taken hold among people who didn't have at least a history of warlike behavior.
It's true that there appear to be many foragers in various parts of the world with relatively pacifist values, and histories, as far as we can tell. And this MIGHT constitute evidence that the original OOA migrants were also pacifists. But if such groups have traditions, such as games of combat, that appear to promote or condone warlike behavior, that's another story.
Moreno cites several cases, but to really do the job one would have to undertake a very thorough survey of the ethnographic literature. I'm wondering whether this sort of thing might be covered in the Murdock Ethnographic Atlas -- but I doubt it.
I would say that his base data is valid. An ethnologist or anthropologist might want to put some shades to it but as far as I can tell it is correct for the peoples I have checked.
My issues are not about the raw data but about whether these may be areal features (culture is very permeating across ethnic borders) and about the indexes he deduces from them, for that same reason. I mean: if the warlike traditions existed in Berigia for instance, then all derived populations (Native Americans) would be expected to have them, so NAs should only count as 1 and not half the sample when running the equations.
I have also concerns about the Asmat (who are ethically akin to many agricultural peoples) and the Ainu, whose wars are recorded in the context of Japanese context. Both may have been behaviors caused by external influences. But these are just two cases.
I have already mentioned the Zoé, what to me means that the sample may be distorted in the American group, and I also miss huntergatherers from India and Siberia. The sample in fact only reflects the Eastern branch of the OoA, not those who remained in South Asia.
But, regardless of these caveats, Moreno is obviously onto something. Possibly not exactly the simplified conclusion he draws but something vaguely similar probably yes.
If his conclusions would stand, then an argument could be made now, after this year's spectacular genetic discoveries (which I presume you are aware of, as they hit the headlines), that it's some sort of Neanderthal heritage rather than a feature of the migrant group as such. But still I only see one shared element: fight as sport.
"I find it convincing, however, because it's hard to see how such a tradition could have taken hold among people who didn't have at least a history of warlike behavior".
Then why would they have lost all the warlike behavior and kept only ritual fight? Ritual fight after all is just a sport. It might even have permeated to them from neighbors or may have evolved regardless of the rest of the traits. It's only vaguely related.
"Moreno cites several cases, but to really do the job one would have to undertake a very thorough survey of the ethnographic literature".
Rather yes. But I'd focus on the obvious blanks, namely India and Siberia.
Possibly googling under keywords like "fight", "war", "murder" plus the name of the ethnicity one can gather some info but for sure requires some work.
Hey, Doc. Take a look at Gardner's review of Paliyan conflict management. These last Indian hunter-gatherers seem to be in the nonviolent group. I could not see any reference to ritualized fighting but I understand that this is because they lack such thing, what, if confirmed would be a major blow to Moreno's hypothesis.
I understand, as I said before that Indian hunter-gatherers are key in completing the perception of early Eurasians. Additionally to the Paliyan, it's probably convenient to research the Veddas and Irulas because even if these are already somewhat into farming, they seem to be still in transition and surely keeping much of their hunter-gatherer cultural background.
Naturally, I'd also research the Siberian foragers but these, having at least partial East Asian ancestry, are IMO less critical to the overall understanding of the matter.
Maju, you make some very interesting points, which I hope to be in a position to follow up on when the time comes. Just a few disconnected comments for now:
1. The Asmat are only one of a great many New Guinea peoples engaged in so-called "endemic warfare." This seems to be the rule throughout New Guinea, with exactly no exceptions as far as I can tell.
2. As far as the Ainu are concerned, I can't say. But there are many recorded instances of violence among the Inuit and other circum-polar peoples.
3. I don't see much in the way of "Neanderthal heritage" suggested by Paabo's results. The presence of modern human DNA in a very small percentage of the Neanderthal genome (and not the other way round) is very difficult to assess, especially in cultural terms.
4. Thanks for the link to the Gardner paper, which does strongly suggest that at least certain foragers now living in India have
retained pacifist traditions that might well have had their origin among the Out of Africa migrants.
5. Turnbull reports the popularity of tug of war games among the Mbuti, especially between males and females. There are strong overtones of male-female rivalry among many Pygmy groups and also many foragers, but no suggestion that such rivalries are associated with war-like values.
6. I agree that Moreno may be on the right track, but future research along such lines will have to be very precise regarding the nature of the games and rivalries that interest him.
7. Given the reports by Gardner, and others, regarding pacifist behavior and values among so many foraging groups outside of Africa, it does seem to me that the Out of Africa migrants may well have inherited the pacifist traditions and values of HBC, despite Moreno's very interesting argument to the contrary. The question then is: how did such values change and why is it that so many foragers and incipient agriculturalists, both in and out of Africa, became so violent?
"The question then is: how did such values change and why is it that so many foragers and incipient agriculturalists, both in and out of Africa, became so violent?"
Yes, that's the real question, which seems to go a bit beyond the, IMO, oversimplified conclusion of Moreno on not-so-conclusive data.
I think that the fact that the Andamanese, one of the early offshoots of the Eurasian, who have probably remained quite isolated since then, strongly suggests that "the virus of violence" existed since early on. But how early, how commonly and how did it spread is not easy to answer.
Looking at my latest notes and maps on a possible reconstruction of mtDNA (I did right now: I'm "thinking loud"), the Andamanese specific lineages (M31 and M32a'b) seem to appear simultaneously to the R expansion, i.e. only relatively late in the chronology of the Eurasian dispersal.
On the other hand, I have been checking the Malaysian Negrito (Semang) and other Orang Asli lineages (Hill 2006) and the oldest among them, would seem M21 (most common as M21a), which is one "moment" before the scenario described above, roughly at the very time of the coalescence of macro-haplogroup R as a distinct lineage in South Asia.
So a possibility might be that the expansion of the mtDNA R clan, which I associate in Eastern Eurasia with that of Y-DNA MNOPS (my reconstruction) may have induced patterns of violence into Eastern Eurasia.
Let's not forget that the same mtDNA R clan is the same that spread westward and, eventually, replaced the Neanderthals, which might also have implied or even required active violence.
Admittedly speculative and too reliant on my own chronological reconstructions but that's what I could conjecture so far.
Anyhow, contradicting my own idea somewhat, some R-derived lineages are quite common among the Semang, specially R21 and B5b. The Batek, which are Moreno's reference, are high in B5b and M21a.
Another line of thought I have tested is that of Y-DNA lineages. After all fighting is typically a male activity and most likely to be transmitted by men to boys (though maybe in matrilineal societies?) In this case I couldn't but help noticing that Andamanese and Ainu share some of the highest apportions of the, otherwise rare, Y-DNA D lineage. But this line of thought stops here, because I can't document Y-DNA lineages for the other "pacifist" Negritos nor for the Paliyan.
I can't make any conclusions for other lineages really. However, considering the above tentative association of the spread of mtDNA R with that of violent behavior, and my own association of the spread of mtDNA R with that of Y-DNA IJK (derived into MNOPS in Eastern Eurasia but also in the West: P, from which Q and R are derived), it's possible that IJK or MNOPS were vectors in that violent innovation pattern.
If any of this makes any sense, why would this have happened? The expansion of mtDNA R and its associated Y-DNA happens in the context of an already colonized Eurasia, so maybe they could only expand by violent means, spreading to other peoples their vicious style.
My two cents.
Victor,
Thanks for the Moreno paper. Predictably, I'm very critical of his approach, not only because it stems from the wrong genetic phylogenies, but because it's methodologically and empirically flawed. While the first "problem" is part of the general belief in out of Africa, the second "problem" is Moreno's own fault.
1. There're different kinds of institionalized violence that need to be taken into account. Ritualized combat is one. Other forms include parental violence, initiation violence, mourning-related violence, etc. Parental violence is often structured complementarily: if parents are violent with their children, grandparents are forgiving, etc. Initiation violence is also structured complementarily: some cultures practice other-focused violence, others self-focused violence (e.g., Plains Indian vision quest and the self-mutilation at Sun Dance). Cultures that are very warlike against outsiders may be very cohesive, non-violent and affectionate internally. Mourning violence also shows other-directed actions (Ilongots go head-hunting to assuage grief after the death of loved ones) vs. self-directed actions (Plains Indian women chop off their fingers and slash their bodies in case of the death of their husband).
2. There are cases of nonviolent foragers outside of Africa, including America. Piraha in South America is one of them. In the same way as you can't explain the survival of polyphony in some populations outside of Africa and still hold on to a bottleneck argument that explains the loss of polyphony in other non-African populations, it's hard to explain the existence of nonviolent tribes outside of Africa if the original out of Africa migrants were uniformly nonviolent. If they showed a mix of violent and nonviolent tribes, then we don't need genetic data to chart out an evolutionary path for us because all regions will show both violent and nonviolent behaviors.
3. Nonviolent behavior is enforced in some very recent cultural traditions, such as Hinduism, or Modern Western Civilization. Michel Foucault described well the transition from medieval tortures to the modern standard of physical restraint as the preferred treatment of criminals. Pygmies expel trouble-makers (which means sure death in the tropical forest), whereas we confine our trouble-makers to specific places within our societal borders. In both cases, there's a conscious replacement of direct physical violence with indirect physical violence. Then, Western citizens aren't supposed to administer violence, there special government bodies who are exclusively designed to execute violent measures. So, again violence is distributed across a "substructured" population. There's also a strong push to refrain from violence against children and schoolchildren in the past 200 years, which is connected to Western individualism, presumption of child innocence and other cultural ideas. So the process of cultural "de-violencization" is well attested historically, while the emergence of violence is a purely speculative scenario inspired by the out of Africa myth.
4. I think it'll be safe to assume that humans throughout their history had BOTH violent and non-violent behaviors. Culturally they have been organized and channeled differently. Some cultures such as Bushmen, Pygmies, Piraha, Western, etc. redistribute violence in similar ways and make a conscious effort to keep it down. You can think of it as "positive selection." But the situation observed in Pygmy, Bushmen, Piraha is unlikely to be original. Moreno did nothing to reconstruct the original combination of violence and non-violence but rather employed a simplistic evolutionary scenario from purely non-violent to purely violent states.
Overall, I think, and this is a complete ballpark assessment, the cultural forms associated with violence and non-violence are much more diverse outside of Africa than in Africa. This is consistent with reduced musical variation in Africa (no type B music in Africa), reduced linguistic variation (only 20 language stocks), reduced mythological variation (Berezkin's work that I've cited on this blog) and reduced kinship variation.
Correction" "In the same way as you can't explain the survival of polyphony in some populations outside of Africa and still hold on to a bottleneck argument that explains the loss of polyphony in other non-African populations, it's hard to explain the existence of nonviolent tribes outside of Africa if the original out of Africa migrants were uniformly nonviolent" to read "In the same way as you can't explain the survival of polyphony in some populations outside of Africa and still hold on to a bottleneck argument that explains the loss of polyphony in other non-African populations, it's hard to explain the existence of nonviolent tribes outside of Africa if the original out of Africa migrants were uniformly VIOLENT."
Maju: "I think that the fact that the Andamanese, one of the early offshoots of the Eurasian, who have probably remained quite isolated since then, strongly suggests that "the virus of violence" existed since early on. But how early, how commonly and how did it spread is not easy to answer."
I double checked and sure enough, there HAS been a history of endemic violence among Andamanese bands going back for some time, so it's possible they were already warlike during the paleolithic. However, since they did not inherit the African musical traditions I've associated with HMC, and in fact have an extremely simple musical culture, it's hard to see them as typical representatives of HMP. My feeling is that the musical loss must have been associated with some event which might well have had other significant effects on their culture. And as you know, the clearest candidate for me would be some sort of Toba-like event.
I've often suspected that the severe privations caused by an event of this kind could be at the root of the competitive violence we see among so many of these groups today. I admit that my theory would be more convincing if the New Guinea highlanders were a peaceful lot, but that is clearly NOT the case.
If the Semang aren't violent because, as one might assume, they were spared the effects of Toba (or some similar event in the same area), then why are New Guinea highlanders so violent?
The best idea I can come up with at the moment is that warlike behavior must have been triggered many times in the past for a variety of different reasons, both environmental and social, associated with competition for scarce resources. If a group could avoid competing by retiring to some remote refuge area it would have a better chance of maintaining the original HBC traditions.
German: "There're different kinds of institionalized violence that need to be taken into account. Ritualized combat is one. Other forms include parental violence, initiation violence, mourning-related violence, etc."
I agree. But Moreno is referring specifically to "warlike" behavior, and to competitive traditions, such as ritual combat, that seem directly related to it.
"In the same way as you can't explain the survival of polyphony in some populations outside of Africa and still hold on to a bottleneck argument that explains the loss of polyphony in other non-African populations, it's hard to explain the existence of nonviolent tribes outside of Africa if the original out of Africa migrants were uniformly VIOLENT."
Sorry, but I'm confused by the first part of this statement. The "bottleneck argument" I've presented DOES seem to account for the distribution of both P/B style and (to a lesser extent) polyphony in Asia. So the parallel you're attempting to draw is lost on me, sorry. I'm not saying I'm necessarily right, but if you're trying to convince me of something I suggest you find a more appropriate example.
German: "it's hard to explain the existence of nonviolent tribes outside of Africa if the original out of Africa migrants were uniformly VIOLENT."
On this I would tend to agree. Assuming the ancestral population (HBP) were already promoting non-violent values, then it's not difficult to see the cultural promotion of violence among certain of their descendants as a major shift due to some sort of outside cause, or causes.
It's much harder to see what could cause a shift to non-violent values among a group that was already promoting institutionalized violence to begin with.
Therefore, if the Out of Africa migrants were already violent one would assume that all of their descendants would have inherited a similar value system. And since this does not seem to have been the case, then perhaps Moreno is wrong, and HMP must have been non-violent.
Doc: You know I don't agree on putting all the eggs on the basket of Toba supervolcano (additionally it's not even clear it was so bad or if even humans were in Asia at that time already - though there's some evidence in favor of that scenario).
Whatever the case I am not really sure a natural catastrophe of whatever dimensions would cause so much sociological disruption as would the sociological degeneration itself. If things are bad for whatever natural reason but you can still trust your buddies, then things are not that bad. But when you can't trust anyone around... then things really got very bad, regardless of natural phenomena. Solidarity, mutual support, is the best tool early humans (and possibly even today humans) had against natural disasters. But nothing can defend you against lack of human warmth.
Whatever the case, I don't really know what caused these changes. And IMO it's not as relevant as mapping the changes themselves in space and time. The why that happened comes at a later moment: first is to understand what happened (that we can understand).
It's very possible that what caused warlike behavior and what caused loss of P/B musical tradition are not the same phenomenon or at least not exactly the same. The Paliyan case is very illustrative in this regard.
"If the Semang aren't violent because, as one might assume, they were spared the effects of Toba (or some similar event in the same area), then why are New Guinea highlanders so violent?"
There are several comments to make here:
1. The Paliyan are nonviolent and yet their ancestors were with all likelihood affected by Toba ash, and also they are out of the P/B tradition (right?)
2. It's likely that the ancestors of Semang were also affected by Toba because it happened right near them. There was not even a sea barrier back then between Sumatra and the Malay highlands... it's likely that, if they had already moved out of India, they were affected anyhow.
3. Most Papuans are agriculturalists. The Asmat seem an exception among them and might even be a case of regressive Neolithic rather than Paleolithic continuity. Even if they have been all the time foragers, they belong to the same ethnic and broadly genetic group as other Papuans, so they may well have been influenced by these.
Alternatively (still in point #3), Papuans are high in mtDNA R (P) and in Y-DNA MNOPS (M, S and MNOPS*), which I have tentatively mentioned above as possible vectors, together with Y-DNA D maybe, of the violent culture phenomenon.
"I agree. But Moreno is referring specifically to "warlike" behavior, and to competitive traditions, such as ritual combat, that seem directly related to it."
Not really. He also talks about suicide as a form of "conflict resolution." So, he realized that cultures are interconnected wholes but he didn't go far enough with this. That's why it seems to me that Moreno's work is not rigorous methodologically. You can't extract just one aspect from interconnected phenomena and build an evolutionary theory. One needs to typologize various forms of external and internal, other-directed and self-directed violence and then try to connect them into meaningful evolutionary steps.
"Sorry, but I'm confused by the first part of this statement. The "bottleneck argument" I've presented DOES seem to account for the distribution of both P/B style and (to a lesser extent) polyphony in Asia."
Now I'm confused. In both your case and Moreno's the fact that both polyphony and monophony and P/B style and non-P/B style are present outside of Africa rebels against the idea of a bottleneck. If a bottleneck or a Toba explosion causes the loss of the original culture of an out of African migrant population (hence, in your theory there's no P/B style or polyphony in India), then why is it preserved outside of Africa and all the way into the Americas? The hypothesis of a bottleneck is only useful if only a well-circumscribed subset of original variation made it out of Africa. Imagine: Africa was both polyphonic and monophonic, while outside of Africa it's only monophonic. African populations are both violent and nonviolent, while populations outside of Africa are only violent. But that doesn't seem to be the case. If the original migrant population was mixed and subdivided musically and behaviorally, then it means a bottleneck didn't occur.
Maju: "Whatever the case I am not really sure a natural catastrophe of whatever dimensions would cause so much sociological disruption as would the sociological degeneration itself."
The "sociological degeneration" to which you refer is difficult to explain unless it was triggered by some external event or situation, either some sort of sudden catastrophe or a gradual decline in the availability of resources.
"Whatever the case, I don't really know what caused these changes. And IMO it's not as relevant as mapping the changes themselves in space and time."
I agree that the first thing to do is map the distribution of groups with both violent and nonviolent value systems, in the spirit of Moreno's research -- though he doesn't go into enough detail to get definitive results.
"It's very possible that what caused warlike behavior and what caused loss of P/B musical tradition are not the same phenomenon or at least not exactly the same. The Paliyan case is very illustrative in this regard."
I agree. Especially since many groups that carry P/B traditions are also very violent and warlike.
"The Paliyan are nonviolent and yet their ancestors were with all likelihood affected by Toba ash, and also they are out of the P/B tradition (right?)"
Yes. But it's important to understand that there is no universal law that determines how people respond to a catastrophe of this sort. The same event that produces a profound change of musical style in one group might have no effect on the music of another. And the same is true of violence. One group might respond to lack of resources by becoming more competitive, while another might respond by become more cooperative.
Doc:
You say first: "The "sociological degeneration" to which you refer is difficult to explain unless it was triggered by some external event or situation, either some sort of sudden catastrophe or a gradual decline in the availability of resources".
And later: "But it's important to understand that there is no universal law that determines how people respond to a catastrophe of this sort. The same event that produces a profound change of musical style in one group might have no effect on the music of another. And the same is true of violence".
You explain it very well yourself: there might (we can't be sure) have been a natural catastrophic trigger such as the Toba event but the effects may have been diverse.
Still I have some issues with the Toba explanation because we rather see a meaningful West (India) to East migration with the mtDNA R/Y-DNA MNOPS second flow, rather than a re-colonization of the presumably devastated South Asia from the East. There is only a very limited detectable East to West flow, probably characterized by mtDNA N/Y-DNA C, prior to the more important mtDNA R expansion from South Asia.
But I would also consider other circumstances than merely Toba as "natural triggers". I already mentioned that something all Eurasians share and Africans seem not to is a small apportion of Neanderthal genes (est. 1-4%). It's not impossible that Neanderthal introgressed genes (or any other genetic feature of the OoA "bottleneck" - i.e. founder effect) affected socio-psychological performance, though I am also inclined to think it's cultural rather than genetic.
But my real point here is to consider the effect of facing other humans (Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis) in the mentality of migrants. Maybe if some of these other humans were aggressive, this caused a defensive reaction of becoming aggressive ourselves. Or maybe they were not even really aggressive and was all a misunderstanding with long-lasting effects, shit happens.
And finally it may well have been merely the competence for resources among modern humans, maybe aggravated by the terrible situation caused by Toba, what caused that distress and such violent reactions, along musical loss.
Sadly, I don't think we will ever be in conditions to reconstruct what exactly happened. We can construct many hypothesis but proving them looks impossible.
"Especially since many groups that carry P/B traditions are also very violent and warlike".
Yes. That I understand is quite a blow to your theory as you had developed it so far, i.e. with a "conservative" branch and a "distressed, degenerating" one. This research really illustrates that the changes, while real, were more complex and variegated.
"I agree that the first thing to do is map the distribution of groups with both violent and nonviolent value systems, in the spirit of Moreno's research -- though he doesn't go into enough detail to get definitive results".
Indeed. He reaches to a too simplistic conclusion too fast.
German: "If a bottleneck or a Toba explosion causes the loss of the original culture of an out of African migrant population (hence, in your theory there's no P/B style or polyphony in India), then why is it preserved outside of Africa and all the way into the Americas?"
Please go back and reread the hypothesis as I've presented it. What I'm attempting to explain is the particular pattern of distribution I see when I consider various musical styles, both inside and outside of Africa. If we see African characteristics both in Africa and east of South Asia, then that suggests, to me at least, the possibility of a bottleneck in South Asia. Why is that so hard to understand?
"If the original migrant population was mixed and subdivided musically and behaviorally, then it means a bottleneck didn't occur."
The original migrant population is thought to have been rather small, so it's unlikely they had a "mixed" culture. In any case, what I'm responding to is the presence of a rather dramatic gap in the distribution of a highly distinctive musical style. As I see it, a bottleneck in S. Asia seems the simplest way of explaining it. But if you have another hypothesis that works as well, or better, I'd love to hear it.
Maju: "Still I have some issues with the Toba explanation because we rather see a meaningful West (India) to East migration with the mtDNA R/Y-DNA MNOPS second flow, rather than a re-colonization of the presumably devastated South Asia from the East. There is only a very limited detectable East to West flow, probably characterized by mtDNA N/Y-DNA C, prior to the more important mtDNA R expansion from South Asia."
We've been over this before. Oppenheimer sees genetic evidence of a bottleneck, consistent with the Toba event, and he also sees genetic evidence of a re-colonization of S. Asia from the East, afterward. And I've presented additional evidence that's consistent with this theory. You refuse to accept this evidence and prefer evidence you've found that's inconsistent with a bottleneck. You seem very sure of yourself on this matter, but I don't see why. At this point, I'd say that the genetic evidence is ambiguous on that score. However, the musical evidence is not. And that too must be accounted for.
"But I would also consider other circumstances than merely Toba as "natural triggers"."
I have no problem with that. Toba is a convenient explanation, but it could certainly turn out to be a false lead. That doesn't change either the genetic evidence or the musical evidene.
Maju: "I already mentioned that something all Eurasians share and Africans seem not to is a small apportion of Neanderthal genes (est. 1-4%). It's not impossible that Neanderthal introgressed genes (or any other genetic feature of the OoA "bottleneck" - i.e. founder effect) affected socio-psychological performance, though I am also inclined to think it's cultural rather than genetic."
Sorry, but it's very hard to see how any of the other evidence fits such a theory. It's possible that interaction with Neanderthals had some cultural effects on homo sapiens and possibly even musical effects. But it's way too soon to make much of the very odd Neanderthal evidence. For one thing, there's no evidence of Neanderthals in East Asia, just Homo Erectus.
"Sadly, I don't think we will ever be in conditions to reconstruct what exactly happened. We can construct many hypothesis but proving them looks impossible."
My approach is to look for interesting distributions of cultural practices and use them as clues in reconstructing certain aspects of deep history. If the pattern is clear enough and distinctive enough then as I see it, this tells us something. Moreno has pointed the way to doing something similar for the question of warlike behavior and warlike traditions, but as I think we both agree, a really clear pattern has not yet emerged.
"If we see African characteristics both in Africa and east of South Asia, then that suggests, to me at least, the possibility of a bottleneck in South Asia. Why is that so hard to understand?"
I'm getting even more confused. And I don't want to resuscitate all our earlier debates. Between all the versions of the founding out-of-Africa migration I'm familiar with, I keep running into fundamental logical problems. At this point, I have to admit, I don't understand how musical evidence illustrates an out of Africa migration.
"We've been over this before. Oppenheimer sees genetic evidence of a bottleneck, consistent with the Toba event, and he also sees genetic evidence of a re-colonization of S. Asia from the East"...
If you mean Soares 2009, where Oppenheimer is in the team, it clearly talks of a post-Toba timeline for the Out of Africa migration, with L3 (still in Africa) dated to 71.5 Ka (2500 years after Toba), M dated to 60.6 Ka (14 Ka after Toba) and N dated to 71.2 Ka (2800 years after Toba).
I find those dates fancy and unlikely but in any case they talk of an OoA AFTER TOBA, not before.
Anyhow, you have John Hawks (not my piece of cake either) celebrating the "death of the Toba bottleneck" with the sentence:
"Moreover, no genetic evidence suggests a sudden harsh bottleneck at 74,000 years ago -- most genes are consistent with such a bottleneck only because a recent, sudden, and short bottleneck would have almost no effect on gene diversity".
Garthone-Hardy and Harcourt-Smith concluded in 2003 that:
"... we have not been able to find any evidence to support the hypothesis that the Toba super-eruption of 73.5 Ka caused a bottleneck in the human population. The direct effects of the eruption were fairly localised, and at the time probably had a negligible effect on any human population in Asia, let alone Africa. Genetic evidence
indicates that the Pleistocene human population bottleneck was not hour-glass shaped, but rather an up-side down bottle with a long neck".
HERE you have a nice essay on Toba (TTY event), showing that not just South Asia but most of SE Asia must have been severely affected by the ash.
There is also another paper by Petraglia, where he places the archaeological evidence superimposed to an "Oppenheimer 2009" genetic tree, where mtDNA M is clearly older (72Ka) than mtDNA N (67 Ka), in contradiction to Soares' speculations and very much in agreement with my own analysis. I can perfectly accept this "Oppenheimer 2009" but this would mean that Toba affected all Eurasians alike, as there must have been very few at that time when only pre-M and pre-N lineages existed (probably) in the continent.
En fin.
German: "I'm getting even more confused."
The "bottleneck" hypothesis is pretty simple, but I'm afraid there's no one place in the blog where it's explained in a straightforward manner. My fault. It can be summarized as follows: 1. The Out of Africa migrants and their descendants appear to have ultimately spread out along the Indian Ocean Coast, from the Indus to SE Asia and possibly beyond to Sahul. 2. It seems likely that all these groups would have shared a basically similar musical style, P/B. 3. However, what we see today is the presence of P/B scattered among various groups now living in refuge areas to the East of India (including Melanesia and Central and South America), and yet none at all anywhere in S. Asia. 4. Taking this gap into account, we can postulate that there could have been a catastrophic event of some kind that affected OOA colonies in S. Asia to the extent that they could have lost certain key aspects of their (originally African) musical traditions. 5. The best candidate for such an event would be the Toba explosion, as analyzed by Stephen Oppenheimer. As Oppenheimer sees it, Toba must have erupted after the OOA migrants had already left colonies all along the Indian Ocean coast. Those in South Asia would have been most affected by the resulting population bottleneck, but those to the East would not have been so strongly affected, since the prevailing winds were to the northwest. 6. Since Oppenheimer's theory has nothing to do with music and is based solely on archaeological and genetic evidence, it makes sense as an independently derived explanation of the gap that's so apparent in the musical evidence.
It's also possible that some other event centered in the same area, such as a Tsunami, a prolonged drought, etc. could have produced the bottleneck noted by Oppenheimer. I'll add that not every investigator agrees that such a bottleneck ever took place, so Oppenheimer could be wrong and there would have to be some other explanation for the musical gap.
Maju: "Yes. That I understand is quite a blow to your theory as you had developed it so far, i.e. with a "conservative" branch and a "distressed, degenerating" one."
First of all I don't see it as a theory so much as a working hypothesis for the exploration of certain possibilities. Secondly, I don't see this discrepancy as a blow, since I was already well aware of it when I formulated the hypothesis. The hypothesis is intended as a possible explanation for the distribution of certain musical evidence as we see it today. It says nothing about the possibility of a correlation between the musical evidence and any propensity to violence or any other aspect of culture. It's possible that the bottleneck I've referred to could have been only one of many possible triggers leading to the development of warlike practices and traditions.
Maju: "If you mean Soares 2009, where Oppenheimer is in the team, it clearly talks of a post-Toba timeline for the Out of Africa migration, with L3 (still in Africa) dated to 71.5 Ka (2500 years after Toba), M dated to 60.6 Ka (14 Ka after Toba) and N dated to 71.2 Ka (2800 years after Toba).
I find those dates fancy and unlikely but in any case they talk of an OoA AFTER TOBA, not before."
Oppenheimer presents the Toba hypothesis, and the genetic evidence supporting it, in his book "The Real Eve" (printed in Britain as "Out of Eden"), published in 2003. To his credit, he makes no attempt in the Soares paper, to bend that evidence to fit his theory, but as you yourself argue, all such estimates are very shaky, so this by no means refutes what he wrote in 2003.
"Moreover, no genetic evidence suggests a sudden harsh bottleneck at 74,000 years ago -- most genes are consistent with such a bottleneck only because a recent, sudden, and short bottleneck would have almost no effect on gene diversity."
The above quote from John Hawks seems incoherent to me. He admits that "most genes are consistent" with the bottleneck and then refers to a recent bottleneck, for some reason that escapes me.
"Garthone-Hardy and Harcourt-Smith concluded in 2003 that:
"... we have not been able to find any evidence to support the hypothesis that the Toba super-eruption of 73.5 Ka caused a bottleneck in the human population. The direct effects of the eruption were fairly localised, and at the time probably had a negligible effect on any human population in Asia, let alone Africa."
This paper is largely a response to Ambrose's version of the bottleneck, not Oppenheimer's. For Ambrose, Toba must have affected humans in Africa, which seems extremely unlikely. I agree that it would have had a localized effect, centered in S. Asia, and little if any effect in either Africa or Europe.
"HERE you have a nice essay on Toba (TTY event), showing that not just South Asia but most of SE Asia must have been severely affected by the ash."
Yes, but the winds were mostly to the northwest, so regions to the NW of Sumatra would have been those most drastically affected.
Thanks for the Petraglia reference. That paper looks very interesting. I'll take a look and get back to you on it.
"The "bottleneck" hypothesis is pretty simple, but I'm afraid there's no one place in the blog where it's explained in a straightforward manner. My fault."
Victor, the fault just as easily could be mine. Thanks for taking the time to expound on your interpretation of the Toba eruption again. I guess I've always assumed that a bottleneck often invoked to explain reduced genetic diversity in non-African populations was intrinsic to the very exodus from Africa. It means ALL populations found outside of Africa should share the traces of a genetic bottleneck. E.g., ALL non-African populations fall into mtDNA M and N macrohaplogroups, which are a subset of African L3 haplogroup.
It didn't occur to me that people - you, Victor, among them - could talk about a "bottleneck" befalling the human colonies distributed along the "southern route" AFTER their exodus from Africa. I thought that you perceived South India as the first "stop" on the way out of Africa and that the colonization of East Asia, SE Asia, and Sahul happened after the Toba eruption decimated our ancestors who were parked in South Asia.
But there're no African mtDNA or Y-DNA haplogroups outside of Africa! No L0, L1, L2, L4, L5, no Y-DNA A or B or E? If there were populations outside of Africa who preserved Sub-Saharan musical legacy (and nonviolent ethics), we would have found those "pure" Sub-Saharan lineages in them. But we don't.
So, all the instances of P/B-related signatures in Central and South America, Papua New Guinea, Polynesia, East Asia, Caucasus, Eastern and Western Europe, and the (Sub)arctic derive from those early beachcombers who somehow escaped the lethal effects of the Toba eruption? And all the dominant musical styles of South India, Australia, Siberia, North America, Asia and Europe derive from those beachcomber communities that somehow survived physically but lost their original culture?
The notion of a bottleneck seems to be a misnomer because any bottleneck presupposes the reduction of diversity. Musically, Africa is less diverse than regions outside of Africa. As I wrote earlier with respect to Moreno's paper, I suspect that the forms of violence and non-violence are also more diverse outside of African than in Africa. How can we talk about a bottleneck? If you believe that humans originated in Africa, then their expansion out of AFrica wasn't accompanied by a bottleneck but rather a small African population gave rise to a large expanding daughter population that colonized the globe (just like Mayr suggests peripatric speciation occurs). This would make at least some sense from the point of view of all the cultural evidence at our disposal. But this would be in drastic contradiction with the molecular genetic formulation of the out of Africa model.
German: "I guess I've always assumed that a bottleneck often invoked to explain reduced genetic diversity in non-African populations was intrinsic to the very exodus from Africa. It means ALL populations found outside of Africa should share the traces of a genetic bottleneck."
Yes. But according to Oppenheimer, a second bottleneck appears to have occurred later, centered in S. Asia, due to Toba. Because the first bottleneck would have represented such a huge reduction of diversity, the second one, if it occurred, would be much harder to spot.
"But there're no African mtDNA or Y-DNA haplogroups outside of Africa! No L0, L1, L2, L4, L5, no Y-DNA A or B or E?"
M and N are usually understood as immediate descendants of L3.
"So, all the instances of P/B-related signatures in Central and South America, Papua New Guinea, Polynesia, East Asia, Caucasus, Eastern and Western Europe, and the (Sub)arctic derive from those early beachcombers who somehow escaped the lethal effects of the Toba eruption?"
This is what is suggested by the very unusual distribution of P/B throughout the world, yes. I wouldn't say that any of them were completely unaffected by Toba (or some equally devastating event in the same area), because in NO case do we find a pure instance of P/B outside of Africa precisely as it is found IN Africa. But P/B does seem to be found among groups that would have been located far enough to the east to have been spared the worst effects of the catastrophe.
"And all the dominant musical styles of South India, Australia, Siberia, North America, Asia and Europe derive from those beachcomber communities that somehow survived physically but lost their original culture?"
If you take a look at the phylogenetic tree I presented in post #12, you'll see how these various styles can be related to one another, and to the hypothetical bottleneck event.
"The notion of a bottleneck seems to be a misnomer because any bottleneck presupposes the reduction of diversity."
Genetically, yes. But not necessarily so in cultural terms. For example, if we compare the music of the Pygmies and Bushmen with that of the Bantu, it's clear that Bantu music, with its wide array of different instruments and modes of performance, is far more diverse. But the Bantu are generally regarded as an offshoot from the Pygmies, not the other way around.
As I see it, a major bottleneck would not necessarily result in less musical diversity, but it might well produce significant changes, especially if members of a culture characterized by intense group activity suddenly find themselves isolated from one another or in fierce competition with one another for vital resources.
"according to Oppenheimer, a second bottleneck appears to have occurred later, centered in S. Asia, due to Toba. Because the first bottleneck would have represented such a huge reduction of diversity, the second one, if it occurred, would be much harder to spot."
But it's the second one that was actually prompted by a natural catastrophe (a more appropriate event to cause a genetic bottleneck) and that left such a huge trace in world music by splitting human groups into two markedly different music traditions. Needless to say, I'm very skeptical about this way to tie in music and genes.
"M and N are usually understood as immediate descendants of L3."
As you may know, M expands in South India or East Asia, N expands in SE Asia or East Asia. In both cases, it's far from Africa and the geographic gap is huge, especially for N. (Plus M1 and N1 are thought of as back-migrating to Africa.) If a bottleneck affected India first and foremost, then we wouldn't have seen the proliferation of early M lineages in India, but the exact opposite thereof. N may have a more easterly expansion hub, so we would expect to find it in places in which the survival of P/B is most salient, but reality is again different: N is very frequent in Australia, which is devoid of any P/B signatures.
But the point I was trying to make is that M and N aren't attested in Africa, while L0, L1, L2, L3, L4, L5 aren't attested outside of Africa. P/B style approximations are attested throughout the world. So we would expect to find some L0 and L1 lineages outside of Africa. But we don't. The mapping of musical signatures on genetic signatures of the putative out of Africa migration is again very imperfect.
"As I see it, a major bottleneck would not necessarily result in less musical diversity, but it might well produce significant changes.."
I think "selection" is a more appropriate term for what you're talking about: positive for the remnants of P/B style outside of Africa and negative for the major non-African branch that you call "B."
"But not necessarily so in cultural terms. For example, if we compare the music of the Pygmies and Bushmen with that of the Bantu, it's clear that Bantu music, with its wide array of different instruments and modes of performance, is far more diverse."
Interestingly, this is exactly what we see in America: North America is less diverse in terms of musical instruments and performance than South America. And I think you tend to think of North America as further removed from the P/B source than South America.
"But the Bantu are generally regarded as an offshoot from the Pygmies, not the other way around."
I think the general agreement is that Pygmies and Bantu are genetically related and form two different lineages within a single clade. Compare: "The L1c haplogroup of mitochondrial DNA retains a signature of a phase common to the ancestors of the two groups, while encompassing some specific sub-clades which can mark
their divergence" [Batini et al. Phylogeography of the human mitochondrial L1c haplogroup: Genetic signatures of the prehistory of Central Africa, p. 642]. For Y-DNA, Bantu and Pygmies belong to two sublades [B2a and B2b] of the same B2 lineage [Barnielle-Lee et al. "Genetic and Demographic Implications of the Bantu Expansion: Insights from Human Paternal Lineages," 2009]). There're of course traces of secondary Bantu and Khoisan lineages in Pygmies and Khoisan and Pygmy lineages in Bantu, which must stem from secondary admixture, but the core B2 nexus is shared exclusively between the two populations that also share linguistic kinship.
I just recently ran into a craniological paper which re-asserted the common origin of Pygmies and Bantu (and not Pygmies and Khoisans). To quote: "In addition, although the “inter-ethnic” variation of the Pygmies was probably under-estimated, most of the latter despite their small sample size were often localized within or close to the variation of (Bantu-speaking) Central Africa. This fact also supported previous morphological observations as well as the hypothesis of a common origin for both Pygmies and Bantu-speakers, as it was proposed by Hiernaux (1976) and Froment (1993)." (Ribot, "Differentiation of modern sub-Saharan African populations: craniometric interpretations in relation to geography and history," 2004, http://bmsap.revues.org/3873).
So, overall I think it's fair to say that Pygmies and Bantu are two complementary manifestations (Pygmies acquired short stature but retain foraging, Bantu retained the stature but switched to agriculture) of a single source population who lived somewhere in West Africa relatively recently.
German: "But it's the second one that was actually prompted by a natural catastrophe (a more appropriate event to cause a genetic bottleneck)"
German, it's this kind of dogmatic view of almost everything that makes it so difficult and ultimately so exhausting to engage with you over literally any issue.
There is no such thing as a "more appropriate" cause for a population bottleneck. The first bottleneck was the result of a small population leaving Africa. Such an event in itself would automatically produce a major reduction in genetic diversity. No need for a natural catastrophe. The second bottleneck, the one proposed by Oppenheimer, would have been due to such a catastrophe, yes. But why would one be "more appropriate" than the other? You have a tendency to think rigidly about almost every issue we discuss, as though there were only one "appropriate" way to consider just about aspect of anthropology or genetics.
"As you may know, M expands in South India or East Asia, N expands in SE Asia or East Asia. In both cases, it's far from Africa and the geographic gap is huge, especially for N." Etc.
I refuse to go into all these issues all over again, German. Every issue you raise here has already been discussed ad nauseum in earlier posts and comments.
German: "I think the general agreement is that Pygmies and Bantu are genetically related and form two different lineages within a single clade."
Here again, I am stopped in my tracks by your absolute refusal to treat any topic in anything other than the most dogmatically rigid manner. In paper after paper, the Pygmies (and Bushmen) are represented in the deepest clades of the human family tree, both mtDNA and Y. While it's literally true that the Bantu are considered to have originally been part of the same clade with the Pygmies, the emergence of the Bantu is universally regarded as a relatively recent offshoot rather than an equally archaic branch.
I refuse to continue discussing such issues with you because continually explaining the same things to you over and over again to no purpose just wears me out.
Victor, feel free to ignore the following.
"I refuse to go into all these issues all over again, German. Every issue you raise here has already been discussed ad nauseum in earlier posts and comments."
If you don't believe me, read what our friend Luis/Maju has to say about it: "Pre-N (L3) somehow migrated between East Africa and Indochina...we have mtDNA S and N9 expanding in the Far East right after the N node, while, instead, there's no sign of West Asian expansion yet. At least in South Asia, though I favor SE Asia for reasons of basal diversity (South/West Asia only have 4/12 N sublineages)." (http://leherensuge.blogspot.com/2010/02/full-khoi-san-genomes-published.html)
It must have slipped his mind to inform you about it: there's a 4-5,000 mile gap between the area in which L3 is common and in which N first expanded. So you have a musical "gap" to go with a biogeographic "gap." Maybe it is your Toba disaster.
"There is no such thing as a "more appropriate" cause for a population bottleneck."
So, there was one bottleneck inside Africa whereby only M and N made it out. This bottleneck left an indelible mark on human mtDNA outside of Africa: humans never recovered from it. But there's no natural disaster associated with it. And it didn't involve any major culture change. Then there was another one, so subtle that it blends with the first one. But it's this one that's associated with a natural catastrophe and a dramatic culture change. Unless I again misunderstood you, please allow me to consider these cause-effect associations inappropriate.
"In paper after paper, the Pygmies (and Bushmen) are represented in the deepest clades of the human family tree, both mtDNA and Y."
Victor, you can ignore everything that I say, but in Batini the Pygmy clades L1c1a, L1c4, L1c5 are dated at 29, 37 and 37K (rounding up), respectively, the Bantu clades L1c1b, L1c1c, L1c2 are dated at 59, 46 and 55K, respectively. So, as you can see, the Bantu clades are older than the Pygmy clades. In Barnielle-Lee et al., Y-DNA shows the divergence of the Pygmy B2b lineage at 11K and Bantu B2a lineage at 5K, which suggests that the emergence of Pygmies as a distinct population is relatively recent. In any case, geneticists' dates are notoriously fuzzy, but if you have craniologists showing that Pygmies and Bantu are related, linguists tell you that they speak the same languages, geneticists identify closely related clades into which Pygmies and Bantu diverge, then there's a pretty good chance that Pygmies are about as recent as Bantu.
"It must have slipped his mind to inform you about it: there's a 4-5,000 mile gap between the area in which L3 is common and in which N first expanded".
AFAIK he knows that. But mtDNA N probably expanded only after mtDNA M did, IMO (and the latest Oppenheimer seems to agree with my opinion - nice for a change).
However the issue seems to be that:
"In both cases, it's far from Africa and the geographic gap is huge, especially for N".
So? There were Neanderthals and deserts in between. That's why the coastal migration model was conceived: to provide a plausible theoretical model to the facts we were discovering via genetic phylogeny, specially mtDNA (but fits also pretty well with Y-DNA).
Additionally, Petraglia's findings at Jawalpurram, which have a close typological affinity with Southern African MSA, reinforce this notion. There may be variants to the purely coastal model (I have emphasized several aspects such as the use also of the riverine routes in South Asia and elsewhere) but the model is pretty good because it is a theory built around facts and confirmed by new facts (Jawalpurram, maybe "Callao man", Cretan quartz axes confirming paleo-navigation 130 Ka ago) after its inception.
The single origin of Eurasians from a small migrant population also seems confirmed by the recent discovery of small Neanderthal genetics in us and not in Africans (i.e. this intimate contact happened in the migration process and Eurasians were so homogeneous as for the effect to be the same in all descendants, it seems).
En fin, while there may be some fine tuning to make in the future, the case is quite clear: early Eurasians were few, they were able coastal foragers and expanded relatively fast, at least in part along the coasts, avoiding mostly the need to compete with Neanderthals and instead occupying a land where they did not face such a daunting competition: South Asia and the Far East.
German: "Victor, you can ignore everything that I say, but in Batini the Pygmy clades L1c1a, L1c4, L1c5 are dated at 29, 37 and 37K (rounding up), respectively, the Bantu clades L1c1b, L1c1c, L1c2 are dated at 59, 46 and 55K, respectively. So, as you can see, the Bantu clades are older than the Pygmy clades."
Nowhere in any of her work does Batini suggest that the Bantu represent a population older than the Pygmies. That's ludicrous. In her more recent thesis, of 2008, she considers three different hypotheses and concludes that the "ancient separation" theory is best supported by the preponderance of evidence. She summarizes this theory as follows:
"The origin of the two groups of Pygmies is supposed
to be a separate process and their common history, if any, ancient. After their separation,
possibly as ancient as the spreading of the first communities of Homo sapiens in sub-Saharan
Africa, the ancestors of today Pygmy populations shared a common history with the ancestors of
their neighbour farmers."
In other words, it was only after the separation of the Eastern and Western Pygmies that the common history with the ancestors of "their neighbor farmers," i.e., the Bantu, began. And, if we look carefully at her earlier paper we'll see that the common history of Bantu and Pygmies was shared ONLY by the Western and not the Eastern Pygmies, whose genetic profile is very different.
I refuse to continue debating this with you here, German, because 1. you continually argue in bad faith and 2. these issues were already discussed at length on this blog some time ago.
Maju: "There is also another paper by Petraglia, where he places the archaeological evidence superimposed to an "Oppenheimer 2009" genetic tree, where mtDNA M is clearly older (72Ka) than mtDNA N (67 Ka),"
Thanks for this reference. I was excited at the prospect of reading a new paper by Petraglia, but I must admit I was disappointed, as his attempt to be thorough makes it very difficult to get any sort of big picture from all these complicated and questionable results.
Nevertheless, see what he writes on p. 296:
"Though the distribution of haplogroup M has been used to support the southern dispersal model, the coalescence age of haplogroup M in India (ca 45ka) is considerably younger than in East Asia (ca 65ka), which does not make sense if India was part of the original route of population movements. This has suggested to some a backward movement of populations into South Asia after the Toba super-eruption of 74ka ago, as a consequence of a bottleneck and re-expansion (Oppenheimer 2003, 2009)."
While he doesn't exactly endorse this view, he doesn't dispute it either.
"While he doesn't exactly endorse this view, he doesn't dispute it either".
He's an archaeologist, he is like you more or less adopting Oppenheimer's elitist view (I say "elitist" because he publishes nothing in open format) as default.
BUT he is less persuaded than you are because he is seeing stronger evidence in the form of MP continuity in India through the Toba ash layer.
Additionally, I say it's plainly absurd to claim any origin for M other than South Asia, because there is where the majority of M basal diversity is. Oppenheimer and particularly Soares, as I have argued before, are merely AVERAGING the age estimates for DIFFERENT M sublineages by regions which is futile, pointless and misleading.
Finally we disagree because I count mutations from the root down and they, as most molecular clock geneticists count from the terminal stems upwards, then averaging the results. This method is made to deal with the fact that different branches have different lengths, often very different, but I have found that it makes in general large star-like haplogroups such as M and H (and some of their largest subhaplogroups) appear much much younger than they must really be.
Because large haplogroups have rather short branches downwstream.
I argue that time must be counted from root to end through each unique branch and I account for the shortness of large haplogroups to the fact that "mother" haplogroups tend to "drift out" their offspring (they begin as overwhelming majority) unless randomness (which also plays some role) or logical demographic processes alter this status quo.
So a densely populated region colonized by M2 people, for instance will tend to remain mostly M2 and novel mutations will only accumulate at fringe areas or in very dynamic groups. In sparsely populated regions however there's much more room for randomness and hence fringe branches may become dominant more easily.
"Nowhere in any of her work does Batini suggest that the Bantu represent a population older than the Pygmies."
Look at Fig. 2 in Batini's "Phylogeography of the human mitochondrial L1c haplogroup: Genetic signatures of the prehistory of Central Africa": all the Pygmy clades are on the left and they are associated with younger dates and all the Bantu clades are on the right and they are associated with older dates. Much older dates.
You don't have to argue with me - just take it as an FYI. But always remember: genetic data is messy and contradictory. Use at your own risk. When you publish something for a musicological audience, you make genetic data look like it's bulletproof. I understand it's for the sake of the musicological argument. But it may also make sense to show the complexity of the picture. This just adds credibility.
"you continually argue in bad faith."
No, as a person with more 15 years of academic experience and two doctorates to show for it, I have a "fiduciary" responsibility to seek and tell the truth. However, you do sometimes make me feel like I'm a Danish cartoonist trampling on other people's sacred beliefs.
"So? There were Neanderthals and deserts in between. That's why the coastal migration model was conceived: to provide a plausible theoretical model to the facts we were discovering via genetic phylogeny, specially mtDNA (but fits also pretty well with Y-DNA)."
It's the glass half-empty or half-full situation. IMO, the fact that M (Y-DNA F) and N (Y-DNA C) expand nowhere close to Africa and only their derived clades are attested in Africa (Y-DNA D can be the Y-DNA correlate of mtDNA R or even B) falsifies (among other things) the out of Africa model of human dispersals. Simply because there's no "out of Africa movement" attested anywhere. There're several geographically dispersed clusters. If you add a story of genetically invisible beachcombers who got mixed with Neandertals in West Asia, crossed the desert, got covered in volcano ashes and then stampeded to Australia, it doesn't salvage the out of Africa model. It makes it even less convincing. What we are dealing here with is the poverty of alternatives...
"IMO, the fact that M (Y-DNA F) and N (Y-DNA C) expand nowhere close to Africa and only their derived clades are attested in Africa (Y-DNA D can be the Y-DNA correlate of mtDNA R or even B) falsifies (among other things) the out of Africa model of human dispersals".
It "falsifies" nothing. It may raise questions which in turn lead to new answers.
"Y-DNA D can be the Y-DNA correlate of mtDNA R or even B".
No, Y-DNA D is correlated with M mostly, at least in Andaman and largely in Japan and Tibet too. It can be argued a correlation with N but there's not such thing between Y-DNA D and mtDNA R or downstream. MtDNA R in Eastern Eurasia (macro-F, macro-B and P) is surely correlated with Y-DNA MNOPS, which is all the Y-DNA K east of Bengal, more or less, according to the latest data. They represent a second colonization wave in the East, while its Western equivalent (mtDNA R, plus some N and M, along with Y-DNA IJK plus G) seem to be the only succesful wave in most of West Eurasia (notwithstanding less important L(xM,N), correlated with Y-DNA E, direct flows from Africa).
"Simply because there's no "out of Africa movement" attested anywhere".
It is attested in the phylogeny (which is rooted in relation to other great apes and primates) and it is attested in the typological affinity of Jawalpurram industries with Southern African MSA. Additionally you have the Palestinian Homo sapiens, though most consider them a dead end migration, it's possible that they are wrong. You also have all old fossils (before 70 Ka) of our species in Africa and only there. The evidence is pretty much overwhelming.
"If you add a story of genetically invisible beachcombers who got mixed with Neandertals in West Asia, crossed the desert, got covered in volcano ashes and then stampeded to Australia, it doesn't salvage the out of Africa model".
It does not mean to "salvage" anything. It's just a most reasonable hypothesis that is being successfully tested more and more by archaeology (and genetics itself).
"...as a person with more 15 years of academic experience and two doctorates to show for it"...
I'm getting a feeling that you have an inferiority complex or something: your "academic titles" (assuming you're not plainly lying on this) don't prevent you from being wrong not from being incredibly stubborn and intentionally blind. However you always shield behind them as if they would protect you from criticism and would provide you with some sort of superior understanding, which is obvious you do not enjoy. Really pitiful.
Why don't you put your thoughts together in a blog or website and wait for interested people to reach to you there and discuss your conjectures? Beats me. Instead you act what in Internet language is called a "troll":
"In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion".
And, sure, seems I'm again "feeding the troll", so I'll stop here.
"I'm getting a feeling that you have an inferiority complex or something: your "academic titles" (assuming you're not plainly lying on this) don't prevent you from being wrong not from being incredibly stubborn and intentionally blind. However you always shield behind them as if they would protect you from criticism and would provide you with some sort of superior understanding, which is obvious you do not enjoy. Really pitiful."
It proves again and again, Luis, that you don't know what a fact is. My academic titles are a fact. And all facts have logical implications: what I write is informed by the cross-disciplinary knowledge, experience and the scientific methodology. It requires an M.D. to be able to treat people. It requires at least one Ph.D. to be able to pursue scientific research, prepare data, make epistemological changes and to claim in public what is "good science" and what is "bad science." You use words like "fact", "test," "proof," etc. but you can't even find the appropriate referent for them in the real world. You select those referents on the basis of belief and preference. And when you encounter a contradiction between your belief and facts to explain the facts away. Selecting appropriate referents for scientific terms, identifying facts and tying them together into a theory on the basis of logic only comes from pursuing an academic career for quite a while. When people say that "I argue in bad faith" or that I pursue my own version of anthropology or that I'm a troll, I'll have to remind them that this is in contradiction with some hard and very simple facts.
"Why don't you put your thoughts together in a blog or website and wait for interested people to reach to you there and discuss your conjectures?"
I wrote two books and I do have a website. I don't have time for a blog. Plus I don't know what blogs actually do.
"No, Y-DNA D is correlated with M mostly, at least in Andaman and largely in Japan and Tibet too. It can be argued a correlation with N but there's not such thing between Y-DNA D and mtDNA R or downstream."
Yeah, I thought about it various ways. Y-DNA D-E are closely related to C, which "equals" mtDNA N. R is the only "outlier" within N to warrant comparison with the relationship of D to C. I understand that the ranges of Y-DNA D and mtDNA R are vastly different but still there's no clear correlate of Y-DNA D in the mtDNA phylogeny. But maybe MNOPS is a better candidate for R.
I've decided to discontinue further comment on this thread, as it's gone way off topic and has become way too personal. German, I have to agree with Maju that you often behave very much like a typical internet troll, in that your intent much of the time seems essentially disruptive and/or destructive. From now on I'm not going to automatically clear your posts for publication.
I don't have a problem with people disagreeing with me. Maju certainly disagrees with me often enough. But too many of your posts go beyond sincere criticism to pointless nitpicking, and when I make clear that I'm not interested in rehashing all these old issues, you ignore me and persist.
Sorry, but this is my blog, not yours.
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