Brit-Am Anthropology and DNA Update (27 July, 2014, 29 Tammuz, 5774)
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Contents:
1. Friends Are the Family You Choose: Genome-Wide Analysis Reveals Genetic Similarities Among Friends
2. Did the Assyrians conquer West Africa (and fertilize the women) or is it just the Climate?
3. DNA and the Orkney Islands (Scotland), a Collection of Interesting DNA and other Notes
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1. Friends Are the Family You Choose: Genome-Wide Analysis Reveals Genetic Similarities Among Friends
http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/friends_are_the_family_you_choose
EWxtracts:
If you consider your friends family, you may be on to something. A study from the University of California, San Diego, and Yale University finds that friends who are not biologically related still resemble each other genetically.
Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study is coauthored by James Fowler, professor of medical genetics and political science at UC San Diego, and Nicholas Christakis, professor of sociology, evolutionary biology, and medicine at Yale.
'Looking across the whole genome,' Fowler said, 'we find that, on average, we are genetically similar to our friends. We have more DNA in common with the people we pick as friends than we do with strangers in the same population.'
The study is a genome-wide analysis of nearly 1.5 million markers of gene variation, and relies on data from the Framingham Heart Study. The Framingham dataset is the largest the authors are aware of that contains both that level of genetic detail and information on who is friends with whom.
The researchers focused on 1,932 unique subjects and compared pairs of unrelated friends against pairs of unrelated strangers. The same people, who were neither kin nor spouses, were used in both types of samples. The only thing that differed between them was their social relationship.
The findings are not, the researchers say, an artifact of people's tendency to befriend those of similar ethnic backgrounds. The Framingham data is dominated by people of European extraction. While this is a drawback for some research, it may be advantageous to the study here: because all the subjects, friends and not, were drawn from the same population. The researchers also controlled for ancestry, they say, by using the most conservative techniques currently available. The observed genetic similarities go beyond what you would expect to find among people of shared heritage - these results are 'net of ancestry,' Fowler said.
Kissing cousins
How similar are friends? On average, Fowler and Christakis find, friends are as 'related' as fourth cousins or people who share great-great-great grandparents. That translates to about 1 percent of our genes.
'One percent may not sound like much to the layperson,' Christakis said, 'but to geneticists it is a significant number. And how remarkable: Most people don't even know who their fourth cousins are! Yet we are somehow, among a myriad of possibilities, managing to select as friends the people who resemble our kin.'
In the study, Fowler and Christakis also develop what they call a 'friendship score,' which they can use to predict who will be friends at about the same level of confidence that scientists currently have for predicting, on the basis of genes, a person's chances of obesity or schizophrenia.
Beyond the average similarities across the whole genome, Fowler and Christakis looked in the study at focused sets of genes. They find that friends are most similar in genes affecting the sense of smell. The opposite holds for genes controlling immunity. That is, friends are relatively more dissimilar in their genetic protection against various diseases.
The immunity finding supports what others have recently found in regards to spouses. And there is a fairly straightforward evolutionary advantage to this, Fowler and Christakis say: Having connections to people who are able to withstand different pathogens reduces interpersonal spread. But how it is that we select people for this benefit of immunity? The mechanism still remains unclear.
'The paper also lends support to the view of human beings as "metagenomic," ' Christakis said, 'not only with respect to the microbes within us but also to the people who surround us. It seems that our fitness depends not only on our own genetic constitutions, but also on the genetic constitutions of our friends.'
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2. Did the Assyrians conquer West Africa (and fertilize the women) or is it just the Climate?
Haplogroup R1b (Y-DNA) remark by Yair Davidiy
While Western Europe is dominated by the R1b1a2 (R-M269) branch of R1b, the mostly Chadic-speaking area in Africa is dominated by the branch known as R1b1c (R-V88).
This R1b in Black Africa of the Chadic Linguistic group (related to Ancient Egyptian) covers a great many people.
It may be linked to the Assyrian Empire
See:
#2. R1b in Africa and Elsewhere; The Atlantic Modal Haplotype of Western Europe. A Possible Egyptian and Assyria Link?
http://hebrewnations.com/features/bamad/bamad118.html#a2
An Assyrian Connection?
The Kanem-Bornu Empire existed in modern Chad and Nigeria.
Some researches try to connect the creation of Kanem-Bornu with exodus from the collapsed Assyrian Empire c. 600 BC to the northeast of Lake Chad.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanem-Bornu_Empire .
Supposing the large-scale presence of R1b is not linked to Assyrians or any other non-African group settling in the region?
The fact is that it is found in the west.
It is found in a region bordering the Atlantic ocean.
This is the same as R1b in Europe.
Are environmental factors at work here?
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3. DNA and the Orkney Islands (Scotland), a Collection of Interesting DNA and other Notes
The Orkney Islands: Location and Naming.
The Orkney Islands lie to the northeast of Scotland with the Shetland Isles to the northeast.
# The element Orc- is usually interpreted as a Pictish tribal name meaning "young pig" or "young boar". The old Irish Gaelic name for the islands was Insi Orc ("island of the pigs").
With the arrival of Norwegian settlers from the late 9th century, orc was re-interpreted as Old Norse as orkn "seal", with the added suffix ey "island". Thus the name became Orkneyjar (meaning "seal islands"), which was later shortened to Orkney in English. #
This is another illustration as to how place-names with a meaning in one language retain the way they are pronounced but receive different signification in the language of peoples who come later.
Today the Orkneys have a population of about 20,000.
The climate is mild despite the northern location. This is due to the gulf Stream which is a strong current in the Ocean originating off the coast of Florida.
The soils are fertile and the economy relies mostly on agriculture mainly the raising of beef cattle and sheep.
Exports include beef, cheese, whisky, beer, fish and other seafood.
The use of winds and water as a power source may also prove of economic benefit to the isles. In the past fishing was important and still plays a roll along with some tourism and employment in the oil industry.
History.
Historically the islands were inhabited by peoples of Stone and Iron Age culture. The Bronze Age is missing apart from ceremonial stone circles and the introduction of metals that are linked to Bronze Age findings elsewhere. In the course of this article it will be seen that divisions into Stone,Bronze, and Iron Ages are largely artificial and the cultures associated with them run into each other.
During the Stone Age period sudden and violent changes probably took place. This is evidenced by the sudden abandonment of the village Skara Brae and by the finding of ca. 1000 human bones (at least some of whom had suffered violence) in a virtual rubbish dump known as the Tomb of the Otters. The place received that name since otters (a kind of weasel living by the sea) used it to relieve themselves there, i.e. as a tiolet, and always had done so.
The "King of Orkney" was one of 11 British leaders who are said to have submitted to the Roman Emperor Claudius in 43 CE at Colchester (Essex, southeast England) when he visited Britain.
After that the Picts ruled the isles along with some input from the Dal Riata Gaels from Ireland.
In the 700s and 800s there arrived Norwegian Vikings. Norway exercised some degree of control until 1469 when they reverted to Scotland.
After the union with Scotland there was an influx of additional settlers from Britain.
A few of the women were of Amerindian stock brought back from Canada and the USA in the early days of British colonization of North America.
Indications are that descendants of the original inhabitants continued up until the present day to comprise a significant proportion of the inhabitants.
DNA Findings:
We ourselves are skeptical of DNA findings but they are sometimes useful so the following notes are to be taken with reservation.
According to DNA less than 40% of the men on the male side are of Norwegian descent as are about 30% of the females from the maternal side. When adjustment is made for an influx of settlers from elsewhere after ca. 1469 CE the percentage of male forebears may be as high as 60% similar to the Shetlands. This means that ca. 30% of the Viking contribution derived from Viking male and female couples and another 30% from Viking who married local women.
 20 per cent of all Orcadian men carry the M17 marker (a subtype of R1a1) which is spread throughout Eurasia and associated with the Vikings.
It is claimed that,
# If the statistics are narrowed to cover only men with ancient Orcadian surnames like Linklater, Foubister, Clouston, Flett or Rendall, the percentage of M17 rockets to 75 per cent.#
The non-Scandinavian YDNA appears to be mainly R1b (like most of Western Europe) and includes a specific Pictish element also found in Ireland and distantly related to the Northwest Ireland group linked to Neil.
There is however a contrary opinion saying that part of the Pict DNA was closest to that of East Europeans especially Russians (R1a) and that 60% of present-day Orcadians descend from them. They also claim that the language of the Picts was probably a Germanic dialect. This would make the Picts not much different than the Vikings.
A DNA study in 2008 by Dr Daniel Falush of University College Cork that ignored conventional YDNA and MtDNA markers but focused on other factors claimed to show that the inhabitants of Orkney were related to Yacut Reindeer herders in Siberia, the Sindhi of Pakistan, and the Hezhen (Mongolian Nani) and Han from Northern China. These findings also may be due to the Scandinavian element many of whom may be traced back to Central Asia.
MtDNA
MtDNA is transmitted solely through the female. It is now accepted the mtDNA is somehow determined by the environment as well as being transmitted by heredity.
The findings on the whole are similar to those of Ireland and Scotland.
40% are H like the rest of Europe.
An exception is MtDNA haplogroup X which is found amongst 7% of the women. MtDNA X is also found at 8% in Georgia and 27% amongst the Druze of Israel. For Europe in general it is 2%.
An offshoot of X is found at 3% in Amerindians (Algonquins 25%, Sioux 15%). The relative high (but not overwhelming) rate of X may be due to genetic drift or to the immigration of specific peoples in the past.
Ska Brae.
Sources:
DNA
The blood of the vikings - Orkney's genetic heritage
http://www.orkneyjar.com/history/vikingorkney/genetics.htm
Orkney Islanders have Siberian relatives
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3342804/Orkney-Islanders-have-Siberian-relatives.html
The Orcadians - A Relic Population of Picts (S. Goodacre).
http://hal_macgregor.tripod.com/gregor/Orcadians.html
http://www.nature.com/hdy/journal/v95/n2/full/6800661a.html
http://s1.zetaboards.com/anthroscape/topic/4201996/1/
http://www.davidkfaux.org/shetlandislandsmtDNA2.html
http://s1.zetaboards.com/anthroscape/topic/4201996/1/
Archaeology:
Stone Age
Charnel house gives up its secret: 1,000 human bones
http://www.scotsman.com/news/Charnel-house-gives-up-its.6786940.jp
By Angus Howarth
A STONE AGE burial chamber in Orkney
http://www.heartoscotland.com/Categories/History2.htm
Undercovered by a storm in 1850, the village of Skara Brae survived under sand for 5000 years almost completely intact. Why? Because virtually everything was made of stone - houses, beds, dressers and shelves - even wall recesses with drains beneath, suggesting indoor facilities. They had to use stone, since Orkney has few trees.
Other sites, similar to Skara Brae, suggest that the Orkney tribes were totem-based. At Cuween Hill, many dog skulls have been found, while the Ibister were people of the eagle.
mtDNA Orkney 40% (like most of Europe).
^5 H1 cf. Iceland 8% Germany 4% Scandinavia ca. 3.5% Scotland 3%
J ca.8% cf. Ireland 11% Scotland ca. 9%
Nothing exceptional, same as Western Europe and Europe in general.
Female (mt) DNA marker Common to Middle East, Orkney Islands (Scotland), and Amerindians (But see  note below )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_X_(mtDNA)
Sub-group X2 appears to have undergone extensive population expansion and dispersal around or soon after the last glacial maximum, about 21,000 years ago. It is more strongly present in the Near East, the Caucasus, and Mediterranean Europe; and somewhat less strongly present in the rest of Europe. Particular concentrations appear in Georgia (8%), the Orkney Islands (in Scotland), (7%) and amongst the Israeli Druze community (27%). Subclades X2a and X2g are found in North America, but are not present in native Latin Americans.[3]
Haplogroup X is also one of the five haplogroups found in the indigenous peoples of the Americas.[6] Although it occurs only at a frequency of about 3% for the total current indigenous population of the Americas, it is a bigger haplogroup in northern North America, where among the Algonquian peoples it comprises up to 25% of mtDNA types.[7][8] It is also present in lesser percentages to the west and south of this area, among the Sioux (15%), the Nuu-Chah-Nulth (11%-13%), the Navajo (7%), and the Yakama (5%).[9]
BUT see note above under heading History.
# A few of the women were of Amerindian stock brought back from Canada and the USA in the early days of British colonization of North America. #
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