# Population Genetics > Paleogenetics > Paleolithic & Mesolithic >  Ice Age Europeans On Brink Of Extinction

## Angela

Dienekes alerts us to a new study about Paleolithic and Mesolithic Europeans:
http://www.dienekes.blogspot.com/201...xtinction.html

"*In some cases, small bands of potentially as few as 20 to 30 people could have been moving over very large areas, over the whole of Europe as a single territory, according to Professor Ron Pinhasi, principal investigator on the EU-funded ADNABIOARC project. 

**Prof. Pinhasi’s team has found that the genomes sequenced from hunter-gatherers from Hungary and Switzerland between 14 000 to 7 500 years ago are very close to specimens from Denmark or Sweden from the same period. 

These findings suggest that genetic diversity between inhabitants of most of western and central Europe after the ice age was very limited, indicating a major demographic bottleneck triggered by human isolation and extinction during the ice age. "

Also, "**
This demographic model is based on new evidence that suggests populations were much smaller than is generally thought to be a stable size for healthy reproduction, usually around 500 people. Such small groupings may have led to reduced fitness and even extinctions. "

*Was it in Loschbour that they found some real problems in terms of fitness?

Isn't there a major issue in the fact that there are no results from southeastern Europe? I know the Bean project was supposed to be doing this, but the only paper of which I'm aware is the Sandra Wilde paper on pigmentation. Do they have dibs on that area? Couldn't Reich and co get their hands on some specimens?

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## sparkey

Mesolithic samples from southeastern Europe are completely absent right now. I also haven't seen a convincing analysis showing that any modern Y-DNA is likely to descend from Mesolithic southeastern Europeans. Testing samples from that time and place would definitely be one of the most valuable things that geneticists could do at the moment.

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## Melancon

Haha; ironically, to change the subject a little; where Y-DNA *Paleolithic/Mesolithic I2* is the most common in Europe (Sardinia/Bosnia and Herzegovina/Croatia) is ironically the locations in Europe that have some of the lowest; irreplaceable birth rates. *Continental I, or I2*; may eventually become obscure in Europe as a paternal lineage or die out in the future with the declining birth rate of Europe; and the re-population of *R1a and R1b* men.

This is probably what happened to even older European Y-DNA lineages like C or L.

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## bicicleur

we need more details about the DNA and wee they found them

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## LeBrok

It would be greatly surprising if there wasn't a bottle neck of population during Last Glacial Maximum in Europe.

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## Melancon

So E-M81 is European too? It was not brought there by Berbers, Arabs, Moors or Levantine people? How old is E-M81? Did it evolve in Iberian peninsula with C6? 

I always found the genetics of Spain to be quite unusual.

Apparently, this is the homeland of the first Neanderthals.

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## MOESAN

bottleneck, surely at the worst of the LGL but at mesolithic (immediatly with deglaciation we see in Western Central and even Northern Europe a multiplication of settlements and new human "modern" types seem arrived from far East so?
we lack serious samples fromeveywhere to say so affirmative things (it is not the first time we AND THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNAUTY are laughed at by destiny!) - 
the resurgence of apparently WHG autosomes among Europeans at Late Neolithic is something I think - and Mediterranea WHG are very badly known - I suppose exchanges existed at some scale about the 10000 >> 6000 BC in S-W Europe with more southern or southeastern lands - we have to handle with mtH1, mt-H3 and other things before to find vauable answers

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## Greying Wanderer

> bottleneck, surely at the worst of the LGL but at mesolithic (immediatly with deglaciation we see in Western Central and even Northern Europe a multiplication of settlements and new human "modern" types seem arrived from far East so?
> we lack serious samples fromeveywhere to say so affirmative things (it is not the first time we AND THE SCIENTIFIC COMMUNAUTY are laughed at by destiny!) - 
> the *resurgence of apparently WHG autosomes among Europeans at Late Neolithic* is something I think - and Mediterranea WHG are very badly known - I suppose exchanges existed at some scale about the 10000 >> 6000 BC in S-W Europe with more southern or southeastern lands - we have to handle with *mtH1, mt-H3* and other things before to find vauable answers


Has anyone ever checked for a correlation between those haplogroups and LP?

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## MOESAN

I had not yet - can welink LP to a population practizing stock breeding but not too skillful concerning cheese and milk derived products? I cannot say more about the matter

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## Tomenable

Thank you Angela!

This population size estimate based on genetics is pretty much in agreement with population size estimate based on archaeology:

I've found estimates of population of prehistoric Europe between ca. 42,000 and ca. 13,000 years ago:

http://www.ohll.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/pag...quet-Appel.pdf

http://leherensuge.blogspot.com/2009...leolithic.html

It says that in period from 42 to 13 thousand years ago entire Europe had no more than ca. 28,000 - 73,000 people at a time *(and perhaps much fewer - even just a few thousand - in some periods)*. I'm surprised as I imagined something closer to 100,000 - 200,000. But it also depends on where does Europe end and Asia begin. There is a map which shows that the largest population was in Southern France and Northern Iberia. This map (the one from first link) surprisingly suggests that the Balkans were almost uninhabited. But it is based on archaeology, maybe there is a bias resulting from fact that some regions are less thoroughly excavated, others more.

*Periods of European prehistory:*



*Estimated population of Europe:*



==============================

And here some estimates on Eurasian populations of Neanderthals and Homo Erectus:

Neanderthals (2nd link suggests they never exceeded 21,000 at one time; but 3rd link says the peak was 70,000):

http://blog.23andme.com/23andme-and-...anding-humans/

https://anthrogenetics.wordpress.com/tag/neanderthal/

http://www.quora.com/Are-there-estim...historic-times

Homo Erectus in eastern Asia (there were never more than 35,000 of them at once, according to this link):

http://dispatchesfromturtleisland.bl...s-in-asia.html

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## Tomenable

*Map by J. P. Bocquet-Appel showing estimated population size in four areas of Europe in Gravettian period
(note the Eastern European part of Gravettian north of the Black Sea - the Mal'ta boy was among their descendants):*

http://www.ohll.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/pag...quet-Appel.pdf



===================================

And here is a nice Czech website (in several languages) describing those archaeological periods (Aurignacian, Gravettian, etc.):

http://www.anthropark.wz.cz/

http://www.anthropark.wz.cz/aagalery.htm

Maps of Gravettian period:

Early Gravettian - "The map shows the area of Gravettian at the beginning of the Upper Palaeolithic era. The circles indicate some archaeologically important areas:"

http://www.anthropark.wz.cz/gravetta.htm



People from Sungir (eastern part of Gravettian - area north of the Black Sea in two maps posted above):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh0dbbBSa-k




*The Gravettian of eastern Europe:
A man from Sungir (an applied reconstructional transformation):

*

*Portraits of a man and children from Sungir made according to their skulls:

*

*A portrait of an elderly man from Sungir (a reconstructional portrait according to a skull):*



*Portraits of the children from Sungir* * 
(reconstructional portraits according to the skulls and the original unique material from the double burial of the children):

*

*A man from Sungir (a reconstructional transformation of the unique grave):*


*
A reconstructional transformation of the unique children’s double burial of Sungir:*



==========================

Pavlovian branch of Gravettian:

"Moravia, northern Austria and southern Poland, about 29,000 – 25,000 years ago. t he era of the great European cultures of the Northern-type hunters:"

http://www.anthropark.wz.cz/pavlova.htm



*The Mal'ta-Buret' culture (late Gravettian) and Mal'ta boy (Y-DNA haplogroup R*) times:*

http://www.ancestraljourneys.org/palaeolithicdna.shtml

"The map represents the borders of Europe after the glacial moved more in the North after the glacial maximum. The dashed line borders the area of the late Gravettian, the circle indicates the Mezin locality and the arrows points in the center of Siberia, in the middle of Asia and symbolises the locality of Mal'ta and Bureť:"

http://www.anthropark.wz.cz/postgravet_a.htm



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mal%27ta-Buret%27_culture

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2013/1...hic-human.html

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## Tomenable

Men of Sungir (early Eastern European Gravettian) were ancestors of the Mal'ta boy (Late Gravettian immigrants in Siberia).

And the late Eastern Gravettian Mal'ta boy was of R haplogroup.

So the early Eastern Gravettian people of Sungir were the ultimate ancestors of R1 (thus R1a and R1b) and R2 haplogroups.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sungir




> Sungir (also spelled Sunghir) is an Upper Paleolithic archaeological site in Russia and one of the earliest records of modern Homo sapiens in Europe. It is situated about 200 km east of Moscow, on the outskirts of Vladimir, near the Klyazma River. It is dated by carbon analysis to between 28,000 and 30,000 years ago. (...)


More about this from Anthropark website (made by the Academy of Sciences in Brno in 2005):

http://www.anthropark.wz.cz/gravetta.htm

"A boy and a girl in clothing resembling the clothing found in the graves in Sungir. The circle in the background is the bonnet of the girl with belemnite beads. The work shows a very rich cultural pattern of the kostěnkovsko-strelecká culture of the Sungir type:"



"A Sungir family standing in front of a big house. This picture reflects the fact, that not only men, but even women and children were wearing decorated clothes (here are clothes decorated with patterns known from some Sungir artefacts). The dwelling in the background has a size of a dwelling of indigenous peoples of North America and could give a shelter for several families. The dwellings had quadratic or rectangular groudfloor shapes, which are known for a long time in Paleolithic (as these in Plateau Parain, France, and other Upper Paleolithic settlements in the USA.) It was not possible to use stakes because of the frozen ground (permafrost), therefore the people built the dwelling out of horizontally laid stocks:"



"In Sungir, the groundfloor of the dwellings were of a rectangular shape and built in pairs. The Upper Paleolithic builders used the qualities of the available materials to achieve the results of massive winter dwellings, that could last a long time. They used the jowls of the mamooths (Meziříčí), mamooths skulls (Mezin), stones with antlers (Malta in Sibirien) and long mamooths bones to build oval or circular dwellings and flat massive timber that could be easy chopped for quadrate buildings. From the ethnography of indigenous people in North America, we know, that the people did not need axes or saws; all they needed was lithic tools, wooden wedges and lump hammers. The solid planks were chopped right from the standing trees. The decoration of the dwellings was representative, as well as the decorative clothing. A tomb with Sungarian children skeletons was discovered in the middle of one of the dwellings; the man was buried later. Than, another human remains were found nearby, probably from older burials. Therefore, this place is considered as a burial- place. Two other dwellings were built probably later and farther from the graves:"



Looks like those European hunters already 30,000 years ago built more solid houses than people build in some parts of the world today.

===============================

Apart from being ancestors of Indo-Europeans and Dravidians, eastern Gravettians were also among ancestors of Native Americans:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mal%27t..._and_Europeans




> Research published in 2014 suggests that a Mal'ta like people were important genetic contributors to the American Indians, Europeans, and South Asians but did not contribute to and was not related to East Eurasians. Mal'ta had a type of R* y-dna that diverged before the hg R1 and R2 split and an unresolved clade of haplogroup U mtdna.[3] Between 14 and 38 percent of American Indian ancestry may originate from gene flow from the Mal'ta Buret people, which is essentially western Eurasian in a modern sense, while the other geneflow in the Native Americans appears to have an Eastern Eurasian origin [4]
> 
> The genetic findings at Mal'ta may also help account for the Caucasian characteristics of Kennewick Man, a 9,000 year old skeleton discovered in the state of Washington. Mal'ta suggests that the Upper Paleolithic population of western Eurasia may have spread into Siberia and contributed to the physical characteristics of some early American Indians who were different from the East Asians who contributed most of the genetic heritage of the indigenous people of the Americas.[5]

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## Greying Wanderer

@Tomenable




> And here is a nice Czech website (in several languages) describing those archaeological periods (Aurignacian, Gravettian, etc.):
> 
> http://www.anthropark.wz.cz/
> 
> http://www.anthropark.wz.cz/aagalery.htm
> 
> Maps of Gravettian period:


great posts, love those maps

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## LeBrok

> *Portraits of the children from Sungir* * 
> (reconstructional portraits according to the skulls and the original unique material from the double burial of the children):
> 
> *


These are two different phenotype or races. The one on the right looks really modern European, and has very vertical forehead which showed up in Neolithic with farmers. The one on the left has much flatter nose and protruding forward jaw and mouth, more archaic in Europe. I would be surprised to see them in one tribe.

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## LeBrok

> Men of Sungir (early Eastern European Gravettian) were ancestors of the Mal'ta boy (Late Gravettian immigrants in Siberia).
> 
> And the late Eastern Gravettian Mal'ta boy was of R haplogroup.
> 
> So the early Eastern Gravettian people of Sungir were the ultimate ancestors of R1 (thus R1a and R1b) and R2 haplogroups.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sungir
> 
> 
> ...


Are you sure people knew how and had adequate tools to build log houses 30 ky ago?

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## bicicleur

> Men of Sungir (early Eastern European Gravettian) were ancestors of the Mal'ta boy (Late Gravettian immigrants in Siberia).
> 
> And the late Eastern Gravettian Mal'ta boy was of R haplogroup.
> 
> So the early Eastern Gravettian people of Sungir were the ultimate ancestors of R1 (thus R1a and R1b) and R2 haplogroups.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sungir
> 
> 
> ...


I know the site.
It is an artist who studied the artefacts found on archeological sites well.
But then he lets his fantasy flow and makes this kind of artwork which he sells.

There is no prove at all that Sungir is ancestral to Mal'ta, nor of any migration that far east.
Sungir is a Gravettian site.
Gravettian is I, and entered Europe 33000 years ago after crossing the Caucasus.
They expanded north and west and replaced Aurignacian, who were C-V20. La Brana was one of their latest survivers.
Gravettians were better hunters, but their main advantage was better clothing keeping them warm. (they had needles, which Aurignacians didn't have)
I'm sure Gravettian population was much denser than Aurignacian, but when the ice age came, population decreased again.
Gravettian was all over Europe, but only 7 tribes from ice age (at least 20.000 years old) still live today : I1, I2b/c, I2a2a, I2a2b, I2a1b, I2a1a1 and I2a1a2. 
Of course, more than 7 tribes survived ice age, but many got extinct from competition amongst I tribes in the Mesolithic, and later with arrival of Neolithic farmers and of Indo-Europeans.

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## Tomenable

> Gravettian was all over Europe, but only 7 tribes from ice age (at least 20.000 years old) still live today : I1, I2b/c, I2a2a, I2a2b, I2a1b, I2a1a1 and I2a1a2.


Mal'ta boy from Siberia was late Gravettian - haplogroup R. Ancestor of R1a, R1b and R2.




> Are you sure people knew how and had adequate tools to build log houses 30 ky ago?


If not people then who built those houses found by archaeologists - maybe some Aliens ??? 

Here is description:

"In Sungir, the groundfloor of the dwellings were of a rectangular shape and built in pairs. The Upper Paleolithic builders used the qualities of the available materials to achieve the results of massive winter dwellings, that could last a long time. They used the jowls of the mamooths (Meziříčí), mamooths skulls (Mezin), stones with antlers (Malta in Sibirien) and long mamooths bones to build oval or circular dwellings and flat massive timber that could be easy chopped for quadrate buildings. From the ethnography of indigenous people in North America, we know, that the people did not need axes or saws; all they needed was lithic tools, wooden wedges and lump hammers. The solid planks were chopped right from the standing trees. The decoration of the dwellings was representative, as well as the decorative clothing. A tomb with Sungarian children skeletons was discovered in the middle of one of the dwellings; the man was buried later. Than, another human remains were found nearby, probably from older burials. Therefore, this place is considered as a burial- place. Two other dwellings were built probably later and farther from the graves:"

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## Tomenable

> There is no prove at all that Sungir is ancestral to Mal'ta, nor of any migration that far east.
> Sungir is a Gravettian site.


Mal'ta is also a Gravettian site, only late Gravettian.




> nor of any migration that far east.


Of course there is prove of that migration - read again:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mal%27t..._and_Europeans

"Research published in 2014 suggests that a* Mal'ta like people were important genetic contributors to the American Indians, Europeans, and South Asians but did not contribute to and was not related to East Eurasians.* Mal'ta had a type of R* y-dna that diverged before the hg R1 and R2 split and an unresolved clade of haplogroup U mtdna.[3] Between 14 and 38 percent of American Indian ancestry may originate from gene flow from the Mal'ta Buret people, which is essentially western Eurasian in a modern sense, while the other geneflow in the Native Americans appears to have an Eastern Eurasian origin [4]

*The genetic findings at Mal'ta may also help account for the Caucasian characteristics of Kennewick Man, a 9,000 year old skeleton discovered in the state of Washington. Mal'ta suggests that the Upper Paleolithic population of western Eurasia may have spread into Siberia and contributed to the physical characteristics of some early American Indians who were different from the East Asians who contributed most of the genetic heritage of the indigenous people of the Americas.*[5]"




> Gravettian is I, and entered Europe 33000 years ago after crossing the Caucasus.


Haplogroup I is only between 25,000 and 30,000 years old, therefore it could NOT "enter Europe" 33,000 years ago:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_I-M170

33,000 years ago haplogroup I did not exist, at that time there was only IJ which is ancestral to both I and J:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_IJ

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## Tomenable

> and later with arrival of Neolithic farmers and of Indo-Europeans.


Indo-Europeans did not "arrive". They emerged in eastern regions of Europe from its indigenous hunters.

New linguistic evidence is clear that homeland of Proto-IE language was near homeland of Proto-Uralic language:

http://historum.com/european-history...xpansions.html

Check also this - Proto-Nostratic was ancestral to both Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Uralic and Proto-Altaic:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostratic_languages

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## Tomenable

> These are two different phenotype or races. The one on the right looks really modern European, and has very vertical forehead which showed up in Neolithic with farmers. The one on the left has much flatter nose and protruding forward jaw and mouth, more archaic in Europe. I would be surprised to see them in one tribe.


But they were members of one tribe - they could be even siblings (brother and sister). 

Our modern views on phenotypes result from the fact that people with certain phenotypes propagated in certain geographic areas. But Paleolithic people did not cluster according to modern phenotypes, they had their own phenotypes which later further evolved:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...C000_years_old

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofmeyr_Skull

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofmeyr_Skull#Analysis

*"The Hofmeyr fossil was compared with skulls from Sub-Saharan Africa, including those of the KhoeSan, who are geographically close to the site of the find. Using 3-dimensional measurement and mapping techniques, the study found that the Hofmeyr Skull is rather distinct from those of recent Sub-Saharan Africans, and that its closest affinities were with the people who lived in Eurasia in the Upper Paleolithic period, at the same time as the Hofmeyr skull. Alan Morris said that the skull's owner "would not look like modern Africans or like modern Europeans, or like modern Khoisan people, but he is definitely a modern human being".[1] The skull demonstrates that humans in Africa 36,000 years ago resembled those in Eurasia."*

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## Tomenable

45,770 - 44,010 years ago in western Siberia lived people with haplogroup MPS, among descendants of which is haplogroup P, among descendants of which are haplogroups Q and R, among descendants of which are haplogroups R2 and R1, among descendants of which are haplogroups R1a and R1b:

*"Genome sequence of a 45,000-year-old modern human from western Siberia":*

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ture13810.html

Haplogroup MPS is also known as haplogroup K(xLT):

http://www.ancestraljourneys.org/palaeolithicdna.shtml

That prehistoric Siberian with haplogroup MPS was so called Ust'-Ishim man:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ust%27-Ishim_man

Ust'-Ishim man was already partially descended from Neanderthals:




> *Neanderthal DNA in modern humans occurs in broken fragments; however, the Neanderthal DNA in Ust'-Ishim man occurs in clusters, indicating that Ust'-Ishim man lived in the immediate aftermath of the genetic interchange.*[3] The genomic sequencing of Ust'-Ishim man has led to refinement of the estimated date of mating between the two hominin species to between 52,000 and 58,000 years ago.[3]


East Asian haplogroup Q, Indo-European haplogroup R1 and Dravidian haplogroup R2 are - ultimately - also descended from that population:

https://physicalanthropologymzi.wordpress.com/

https://physicalanthropologymzi.word...-modern-human/




> By comparing Ust’-Ishim’s genome to various groups of modern and ancient humans, the researchers are filling in gaps in the map of initial human migrations around the globe. *They found that he is as genetically similar to present-day East Asians as to ancient genomes found in Western Europe and Siberia, suggesting that the population he was part of split from the ancestors of both Europeans and East Asians, prior to their divergence from each other.*

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## Hauteville

> So E-M81 is European too? It was not brought there by Berbers, Arabs, Moors or Levantine people? How old is E-M81? Did it evolve in Iberian peninsula with C6? 
> 
> I always found the genetics of Spain to be quite unusual.
> 
> Apparently, this is the homeland of the first Neanderthals.


E-M81 is Berber.

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## MOESAN

I agree Tomenables
but I'm surprised people (not you) ignore yet that ancient people of human races, spite differences between them, had more ressemblances between them than to any modern type whatever the place they lived in (except the australoids who kept more archaic features concerning head: less time, less divergences, as a whole - 
it 's maybe among 'europoids' that we find the more "centroid archaic" traits concerning skull, not at all among typical southeast 'mongoloids' nor among typical 'negroids' ! (even if as a whole every big group shows proper developments of new traits -

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## bicicleur

> Here is description:
> 
> "In Sungir, the groundfloor of the dwellings were of a rectangular shape and built in pairs. The Upper Paleolithic builders used the qualities of the available materials to achieve the results of massive winter dwellings, that could last a long time. They used the jowls of the mamooths (Meziříčí), mamooths skulls (Mezin), stones with antlers (Malta in Sibirien) and long mamooths bones to build oval or circular dwellings and flat massive timber that could be easy chopped for quadrate buildings. From the ethnography of indigenous people in North America, we know, that the people did not need axes or saws; all they needed was lithic tools, wooden wedges and lump hammers. The solid planks were chopped right from the standing trees. The decoration of the dwellings was representative, as well as the decorative clothing. A tomb with Sungarian children skeletons was discovered in the middle of one of the dwellings; the man was buried later. Than, another human remains were found nearby, probably from older burials. Therefore, this place is considered as a burial- place. Two other dwellings were built probably later and farther from the graves:"


Where did you find this?
I don't believe it, no saws and no planks in paleolithic.

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## bicicleur

> Mal'ta is also a Gravettian site, only late Gravettian.
> 
> 
> 
> Of course there is prove of that migration - read again:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mal%27t..._and_Europeans
> 
> "Research published in 2014 suggests that a* Mal'ta like people were important genetic contributors to the American Indians, Europeans, and South Asians but did not contribute to and was not related to East Eurasians.* Mal'ta had a type of R* y-dna that diverged before the hg R1 and R2 split and an unresolved clade of haplogroup U mtdna.[3] Between 14 and 38 percent of American Indian ancestry may originate from gene flow from the Mal'ta Buret people, which is essentially western Eurasian in a modern sense, while the other geneflow in the Native Americans appears to have an Eastern Eurasian origin [4]
> ...


Mal'ta was not Gravettian. Where did you get this info?
Mal'ta ancestors arrived in Altai Mountains 38000 year ago, haplo P ancestral to Q and R.

Age of I : check this http://www.yfull.com/tree/IJ/ Wikipedia date is outdated.
IJ split 42900 years ago.
J stayed in Transcaucasia , see Ortvale Klde Cave and Dzudzuana Cave archeological sites, Georgia.
I stayed in northwest Caucasus, archeological site, Mezmayskaya Cave. There, 33000 years ago he invented borers, drilling tools to make eyes in the needles. Then he came into Europe. The holes in the ivory beads of the Sungir man is made with the same borers.

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## bicicleur

> 45,770 - 44,010 years ago in western Siberia lived people with haplogroup MPS, among descendants of which is haplogroup P, among descendants of which are haplogroups Q and R, among descendants of which are haplogroups R2 and R1, among descendants of which are haplogroups R1a and R1b:
> 
> *"Genome sequence of a 45,000-year-old modern human from western Siberia":*


Usht Ishim was proto-K-M2335. K-M2335 is ancestral to NO. Usht Ishim had 2 of the 7 known K-M2335 snp's. 
K-M2335 : check here http://www.yfull.com/tree/K(xLT)/
Ancestors of Usht Ishim came via Tashkent : archeological site : Obi Rakhmat Cave, oldest non-Neanderthal layer is 48800 years old.

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## bicicleur

> Indo-Europeans did not "arrive". They emerged in eastern regions of Europe from its indigenous hunters.
> 
> New linguistic evidence is clear that homeland of Proto-IE language was near homeland of Proto-Uralic language:
> 
> http://historum.com/european-history...xpansions.html
> 
> Check also this - Proto-Nostratic was ancestral to both Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Uralic and Proto-Altaic:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostratic_languages


The main group of Indo-Europeans were R1a-M417 and R1b-M269.
No R1a-M417 and R1b-M269 DNA has been found in Europe before Corded Ware/Bell Beaker.

Gravettian was 33000 years ago, Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Uralic and Proto-Altaic are no more than 6500 years old. 
After ice age was Epigravettian in Europe.

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## Angela

Thanks to Bicicleur for correcting the record. Material from non academic sites can sometimes be very misleading. It's also not helpful to mix vastly different time periods in discussions such as these. 

Specifically as to dwellings from these time periods, few have actually been found. As is speculated in this paper, it is probably a function of the fact that the hunter-gatherers of many of these groups were highly mobile and would likely have used tents made out of perishable materials. 
https://www.academia.edu/1904550/Spa...uthern_Poland_

When these people still hunted mammoths, some of their dwellings were made partially of mammoth tusks.
https://books.google.com/books?id=Ir...ettian&f=false

See also: 
http://books.google.com/books?id=UEc...0house&f=false

Where some reconstructions have been attempted by archaeologists, this is what they looked like...



Pit houses were also used, where the majority of the dwelling (and storage pits) were dug into the ground and then covered by either bone or hides. This method was used by hunter-gatherers around the world.

Other types of dwellings seem to have been like the teepees of the North American Indians. See:
https://books.google.com/books?id=p-...tonice&f=false

This is an artist's depiction based on the descriptions of the archaeologists.
http://www2.arch.cam.ac.uk/~ajep2/images/DVII-camp.jpg

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## Sile

> Usht Ishim was proto-K-M2335. K-M2335 is ancestral to NO. Usht Ishim had 2 of the 7 known K-M2335 snp's. 
> K-M2335 : check here http://www.yfull.com/tree/K(xLT)/
> Ancestors of Usht Ishim came via Tashkent : archeological site : Obi Rakhmat Cave, oldest non-Neanderthal layer is 48800 years old.


Does this K-M2335 sit before *or* after the K2a haplogroup ( X ydna ) of which N and O ydna belong to??

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## bicicleur

> Does this K-M2335 sit before *or* after the K2a haplogroup ( X ydna ) of which N and O ydna belong to??


the structure of the haplogroup K has been studied by Karafat in 2014 : http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v...06a.html#close
based upon that study , you can find the new structure here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_K2 , in which K2a-M147 corresponds to K-M2335 in YFull (they are the same)

note that isogg still proposes a different structure tough : http://www.isogg.org/tree/ISOGG_HapgrpK.html

----------


## bicicleur

> Thanks to Bicicleur for correcting the record. Material from non academic sites can sometimes be very misleading. It's also not helpful to mix vastly different time periods in discussions such as these. 
> 
> Specifically as to dwellings from these time periods, few have actually been found. As is speculated in this paper, it is probably a function of the fact that the hunter-gatherers of many of these groups were highly mobile and would likely have used tents made out of perishable materials. 
> https://www.academia.edu/1904550/Spa...uthern_Poland_
> 
> When these people still hunted mammoths, some of their dwellings were made partially of mammoth tusks.
> https://books.google.com/books?id=Ir...ettian&f=false
> 
> See also: 
> ...


some of these mammoth bone dwellings were found during the ice age in Mal'ta and/or Afantova Gora
they were also found in epigravettian Ukraine 15000 year old
I admit this is a similarity between these 2 cultures
but I don't think it proofs a migration from east Europe to lake Bajkal , nothing has been found in the area in between
I think both cultures found the same solution to survive in similar harsh conditions
furthermore there are claims Neanderthals would have done the same some 44000 years ago : http://phys.org/news/2011-12-neander...s-ukraine.html

this reminds me of the similarities between Solutrean and Clovis spearpoints which gave birth of the hypothesis of an ice age migration from Europe to America, which now is disproved by the fact that there was no R1b in Europe during the ice age
Solutreans and Clovis simply both invented the same spearpoints for hunting large animals like mammoths

----------


## oriental

The Ice Age acted like a huge refrigerator so animals that died their meat was preserved in their carcasses. When the Ice Age ended maybe the rotting carcasses stopped providing food so many of the huge faunas died. The sabre-toothed cat is gone. I think the cat used its sabre teeth to dig into its prey and to repeatedly stab as it cannot chew with those teeth nor bite. Don't know much about the humans. They must have had to adjust.

In another thread there was discussion about cannibalism during the Ice Age in Siberia. Well in the 70's a plane crashed in the Andes mountains and after several months the survivors were rescued. It seems that the survivors resorted to cannibalism as they ate those passengers who had died earlier and their flesh preserved in the snowy mountains provide food. In the Ice Age with a more savage culture it shouldn't be surprising that there was cannibalism as food and game can be scarce sometimes.

----------


## Yetos

I remember there is such a thing in islands North of G Britain,

Houses made by whalebones,
they make a strucure by 'pnanting' whalebones to ground, stand to face each-other giving the shape of an arch,
Do not know how old, but I am suposing older that stonehedge

----------


## LeBrok

> But they were members of one tribe - they could be even siblings (brother and sister). 
> 
> Our modern views on phenotypes result from the fact that people with certain phenotypes propagated in certain geographic areas. But Paleolithic people did not cluster according to modern phenotypes, *they had their own phenotypes* which later further evolved:


Exactly, and I think the one on the left, the more archaic European is the right reconstruction.




> "The Hofmeyr fossil was compared with skulls from Sub-Saharan Africa, including those of the KhoeSan, who are geographically close to the site of the find. Using 3-dimensional measurement and mapping techniques, the study found that the Hofmeyr Skull is rather distinct from those of recent Sub-Saharan Africans, and that its closest affinities were with the people who lived in Eurasia in the Upper Paleolithic period, at the same time as the Hofmeyr skull. Alan Morris said that the skull's owner "*would not look like modern Africans or like modern Europeans*, or like modern Khoisan people, but he is definitely a modern human being".[1] The skull demonstrates that humans in Africa 36,000 years ago resembled those in Eurasia."


My point exactly. The girl on the right looks exactly like modern European, but she shouldn't. Therefore this reconstruction is no good. 
We should be really careful with these reconstructions done by artists, till we have much better knowledge of the genome and can read prototypical traces from it.

----------


## LeBrok

> If not people then who built those houses found by archaeologists - maybe some Aliens ??? 
> 
> Here is description:
> 
> "In Sungir, the groundfloor of the dwellings were of a rectangular shape and built in pairs. The Upper Paleolithic builders used the qualities of the available materials to achieve the results of massive winter dwellings, that could last a long time. They used the jowls of the mamooths (Meziříčí), mamooths skulls (Mezin), stones with antlers (Malta in Sibirien) and long mamooths bones to build oval or circular dwellings and flat massive timber that could be easy chopped for quadrate buildings. From the ethnography of indigenous people in North America, we know, that the people did not need axes or saws; all they needed was lithic tools, wooden wedges and lump hammers. The solid planks were chopped right from the standing trees. The decoration of the dwellings was representative, as well as the decorative clothing. A tomb with Sungarian children skeletons was discovered in the middle of one of the dwellings; the man was buried later. Than, another human remains were found nearby, probably from older burials. Therefore, this place is considered as a burial- place. Two other dwellings were built probably later and farther from the graves:"


lol, I think this artist, who painted these pictures, was abducted by Aliens. Could you share with us the link to the archaeological paper describing these log and plank houses of Gravettians, please. It would be of a great interest to us, because we only know of caves, skin-stick tents and mammoth tusk tent/huts.

----------


## Greying Wanderer

Some stuff on native American long houses (NE) and plank houses (NW)

http://www.native-languages.org/houses.htm


plank house


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plank_house

"The properties of cedar trees include straight grain, very few knots, and weather resistance. The straight grain enabled separation of planks of wood from the tree. The skilled people inserted a wedge to separate a section of wood and followed the height of the tree and adzed it out at both ends. This harvest method was sustainable and enabled the people to use the wood and to have a supply of planks to rebuild in another location."

Apparently you can create planks without even cutting the tree down just by using wedges (although I expect it only works well with certain kinds of tree).

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/97/be/a3/97bea33da61e87639928ec3a489af44a.jpg


long house

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longhou..._North_America


http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/IroquoisVi...onghouselg.gif


how to build an Iroquois style long house

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amvv4P4DzJU


another on the NW plank houses with how to cut down trees, split planks and strip bark with stone tools and fire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beKxz_2UtMA

(pretty interesting imo)


edit: personally, if these Sungir people had these rectangular houses I'd expect them to look more like the Iroquois long house and less like a log cabin. If the ground was too cold for post holes then single massive logs at ground level could have been used to tie the bendy poles to make the roof (see the Iroquois video at around 5:48 to see what I mean) and then maybe covered in bark.

edit2: "I_n Sungir, the groundfloor of the dwellings were of a rectangular shape and built in pairs."

Interesting about the pairs. If they were directly adjacent then it might have been one building with the two central logs used to hold central support posts.

_

----------


## Angela

> Some stuff on native American long houses (NE) and plank houses (NW)
> 
> http://www.native-languages.org/houses.htm
> 
> 
> plank house
> 
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plank_house
> ...


I like youtube videos too, but perhaps you should take a closer look at the one you linked to about the making of the plank houses of the Pacific coast American Indians. They were made with *iron* hatchets for which they traded through Siberia. 





The Iroquois longhouses, whose reconstructions I've seen, were just poles stuck into the ground and then covered with tree bark. Regardless, they were also attested after contact with European civilizations.

This is the difficulty with comparing vastly different cultures separated by 10,000 years in very different areas. 

It's also the difficulty with relying on blogs produced by non-academics.

----------


## Greying Wanderer

> I like youtube videos too, but perhaps you should take a closer look at the one you linked to about the making of the plank houses of the Pacific coast American Indians. They were made with *iron* hatchets for which they traded through Siberia. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Iroquois longhouses, whose reconstructions I've seen, were just poles stuck into the ground and then covered with tree bark. Regardless, they were also attested after contact with European civilizations.
> 
> This is the difficulty with comparing vastly different cultures separated by 10,000 years in very different areas. 
> ...


The question is, is this second bit true (I don't know)




> They used the jowls of the mamooths (Meziříčí), mamooths skulls (Mezin), stones with antlers (Malta in Sibirien) and long mamooths bones to build oval or circular dwellings *and flat massive timber that could be easy chopped for quadrate buildings*.


and if so what would those "quadrate" buildings with (I assume) a log outline at the base look like.

points from the videos

1) Anything harder than wood can cut wood - even if very slowly - hence why they used fire to speed it up.

2) The videos clearly show how you can make planks with wedges and hammers (and a wedge and hammer could be two rocks or a piece of bone and a rock). You're right they wouldn't be all smooth and pretty like the ones in the video but they'd be planks.

3) The videos also show how you could tie them together with rope made out of bark and how bark could be used as a covering.

Given the time period, tools available and effort required I'm not convinced they'd have nice log cabins like those in the illustrations so what other reason might they have had for having logs marking out the size of the house?

(I don't think planks are likely either if they couldn't dig the post holes needed for solidity.)

If the ground was too frozen for post holes then the logs could be used as a kind of foundation mass. Lash one end of the support poles to the logs, bend them inwards and lash them together in the center creating a kind of wooden tent held together by tension, cover it with bark and you have the equivalent of an Iroquois long house.

Maybe something like this

http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/IroquoisVi...onghouselg.gif

but picture it with large logs running along the outside and the support poles lashed to those logs for support instead of in post holes.

That seems plausible to me.

The next question is why would they do that. My guess would be maybe outside winter the extended family groups wandered around with their portable mammoth tusk yurts but in the winter the whole tribe piled into a long house for the body heat - a bit like later north European long houses with sections for the animals to provide central heating on legs.

It also says these quadrate buildings were built in pairs so if the layout of the long sides of the logs was something like I---II---I i.e. directly side by side with a small gap between the two middle ones then my guess is it would be a single building with the central support poles lashed to the two central logs - which would also provide a nice seat.

So basically a large bark tent with logs to weight it down.

----------


## Tomenable

> Material from non academic sites can sometimes be very misleading.


That website is academic, at least it claims to be:

"Antropark was created as part of the website of the Academy of Sciences in Brno in 2005."




> Where did you find this?


I provided links to my sources - check them.




> Mal'ta was not Gravettian. Where did you get this info?


Why not? They had Venus figurines like Gravettian.

I provided links to sources of all info - check.




> Mal'ta ancestors arrived in Altai Mountains 38000 year ago, haplo P ancestral to Q and R.


Where did you get this info? There is no any ancient DNA from the Altai Mountains with haplogroup P.

The oldest ancient Y-DNA examined so far are 45,000 years old Ust'-Ishim man, 38,000 years old Kostenki 14 man and 24,000 years old Mal'ta boy. There is nothing else between this 38,000 years old guy and this 24,000 years old guy, so far. Certainly not any P.

Kostenki 14 was indeed 38,000 years old, but he was of haplogroup C1, not P.




> No R1a-M417 and R1b-M269 DNA has been found in Europe before Corded Ware/Bell Beaker.


There is R1a1* ancestral to M417 in Karelia (age 5500-5000 BC) and then R1a1 from Serteya in Smolensk Oblast (age 4000 BC):

http://www.ancestraljourneys.org/mesolithicdna.shtml

Check:

- Chekunova E. M. et al. (2014), The first results of genetic typing of local population and ancient humans in Upper Dvina region, in A. Mazurkevich, M. Polkovnikova and E. Dolbunova (eds.), Archaeology of lake settlement IV-II mill. BC, pp. 290-294.

- Haak, W. et al. (2015), Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe, bioRxiv preprint.

----------


## Tomenable

One more thing concerning this:




> R1a1 from Serteya in Smolensk Oblast (age 4000 BC)


They have not tested it for further subclades beyond R1a1 so far.

So it is possible that it was already R1a1a (M417). We will probably find out soon.

Even if not, then still M417 could emerge in that region, from those ancestral M420 hunters.

There are already two samples of very old (4000-5500 BC) R1a1 from European Russia - one in Karelia, one near Smolensk.

AFAIK these cases are the only samples of such old M420 found so far in ancient DNA anywhere.

----------


## Tomenable

BTW - I admit that you were right when it comes to haplogroup I, bicicleur.




> The girl on the right looks exactly like modern European, but she shouldn't.


Why not ???

That "average" looks of prehistoric peoples were different than "average" looks of modern peoples, doesn't mean that some of prehistoric individuals did not look exactly like some of modern individuals. Perhaps you have heard about Kennewick Man ???

It seems that Kennewick Man looked like modern actor Patrick Stewart:

Kennewick Man (9500 years old, North America):



Patrick Stewart (here as Captain John Luke Picard):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rYhRqf757I

And here Kennewick Man + Patrick Stewart + Chief Black Hawk of the Sauks (born 1767, died 1838):



Another reconstruction confirms that Kennewick Man - when bald and without facial hair - looks like Patrick Stewart:

----------


## LeBrok

> BTW - I admit that you were right when it comes to haplogroup I, bicicleur.
> 
> 
> 
> Why not ???
> 
> That "average" looks of prehistoric peoples were different than "average" looks of modern peoples, doesn't mean that some of prehistoric individuals did not look exactly like some of modern individuals. Perhaps you have heard about Kennewick Man ???
> 
> It seems that Kennewick Man looked like modern actor Patrick Stewart:
> ...





Have a look at her forehead. It is very vertical without big eyebrow ridges. This type of forehead came with farmers from Near East. 



For comparison this is a link to Gravettian skull from Czech Republic area. It features prominent eyebrow ridges and slanted forehead.
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads...l=1#post448518

Here is another one with very small nose bridge. She, form the picture above, has rather bigger and vertical bridge. Look at the forehead again.
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads...l=1#post448519

Similar forehead and nose situation with Kostenki individual.
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads...l=1#post443883

Gravettians look more like Kennewick man than modern Europeans. Though we could find some modern Europeans looking in similar way.
Like Brock Lesnar


If it comes to Patrick Stewart, he is not the best proxy for Gravettians. Granted he's forehead is slanted, but he doesn't have prominant eyebrow ridges. He's nose ridge and roots are high, unlike Gravettians. Kennewick man's nose roots are very low.


If it comes to the girl from the picture, she has skull more like this one, of Neolithic farmer.

http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads...l=1#post425534

----------


## Angela

> The question is, is this second bit true (I don't know)
> 
> 
> 
> and if so what would those "quadrate" buildings with (I assume) a log outline at the base look like.
> 
> points from the videos
> 
> 1) Anything harder than wood can cut wood - even if very slowly - hence why they used fire to speed it up.
> ...


I'm sure I don't need to point out that this is all conjecture on your part. What could have been done doesn't necessarily have anything to do with what was actually done...for that all we have to go on is the archaeological evidence. Regardless, a large bark tent with logs to weight it down bears no resemblance to the fantasy dwellings pictured at the Anthropark site linked to in an above post.

----------


## Angela

[QUOTE]


> That website is academic, at least it claims to be:
> 
> "Antropark was created as part of the website of the Academy of Sciences in Brno in 2005."


If that is the case then perhaps someone should inform the Academy of Sciences in Brno that this artist's renderings are totally fantastical, as they show dwellings and other artifacts which could never have been created with the technology available to the people of the Gravettian culture, and they should either get him to create drawings that comport with the archaeological evidence or cease letting him associate himself and his work with their institution. 

Indeed, the EHGs on the Pontic Caspian steppe before the encounter with the Neolithic civilizations to their west and south were still living in hide tents and dwellings half dug into the earth thousands and thousands of years later.

I actually don't understand the point of some of these latter posts. Isn't it enough that the people of the Gravettian and doubtless the EHG who later occupied the vastness of Eurasia were hardy, resourceful, courageous hunter gatherers? Why is it necessary to accrue to them technology and accomplishments which didn't exist for thousands of years? 




> I provided links to my sources - check them.


You provided a link only to one dubious site for the renderings of their houses and artifacts, houses and artifacts which couldn't have been built by them.

You have not provided links to the renderings of the people so that we may judge the qualifications of the people who made them and the anthropological measurements and other data upon which they were based.

Just generally, as LeBrok has pointed out, it is very risky coming to any hard and fast conclusions about the appearance of ancient peoples. What is clear given the evidence we do have is that it is highly unlikely that they looked very much like modern Europeans. Indeed, the first ancient skull that corresponds the best with the majority of modern Europeans is, in my opinion, that of the LBK woman.

I therefore don't take any of the reconstructions that have been done as any sort of hard and fast proof. Just take a look at the first reconstruction of Oetzi and conjectures about his appearance based just on rough measurements, and then what they came up with after extensive scanning. Also, keep in mind that in that case we have a virtual body, not just some bones or parts of bones.

At any rate, if we're going to go by any reconstructions, perhaps those of Gerasimov are worthy of a little more credit, since he was at least an anthropologist.

Here is his rendering of Kostenki 14. This is a man adapted to the tropics, which makes sense as that's where his ancestors came from, and they had not yet adapted to their new climate.


This is Gerasimov's Sunghir man...look at this nose and jaw. You may find a European somewhere who looks a bit like him, but this is not a common European phenotype.


These were done by another Russian anthropologist of two other samples from that site:


They look even less modern European...indeed, they have a decided "Siberian" or partly east Asian look to them, which brings me to the fact that Mal'ta had, according to Gerasimov, "Mongoloid" traits. While I was always a little skeptical of his claims, the finding of EDAR markers in the SHG is prompting me to give it more consideration.

What we do know is that he had none of the modern European snps for depigmentation.

Given all of this, I am highly skeptical that these people looked anything like modern Europeans. 

Of course, anyone who wishes to imagine that the Gravettians looked just like modern Eastern Europeans is free to do so.




> Why not? They had Venus figurines like Gravettian.


Obviously, that doesn't mean that Mal'ta culture is the same as the Gravettian of Europe.

----------


## Tomenable

Anthropology is slightly overrated / outdated by now. You should trust DNA instead of comparing noses.




> the finding of EDAR markers in the SHG is prompting me to give it more consideration.


These "Mongoloid" EDAR markers are also present in many modern Scandinavians (and I'm not talking about the Sami / Lapps).




> Here is his rendering of Kostenki 14. This is a man adapted to the tropics


Adopted to the tropics? What indicates that he was adopted to the tropics?




> This is Gerasimov's Sunghir man...look at this nose and jaw. You may find a European somewhere who looks a bit like him, but this is not a common European phenotype.


Maybe not very common, but why do you assume that it was common during the Gravettian period ???

LeBrok was surprised that Gravettian phenotypes greatly differed from each other. Much like today European phenotypes. I posted reconstructions of two kids who were buried in the same grave (perhaps siblings), yet LeBrok claimed they were "two different races":




> These are two different phenotype or races. The one on the right looks really modern European, and has very vertical forehead which showed up in Neolithic with farmers. The one on the left has much flatter nose and protruding forward jaw and mouth, more archaic in Europe. I would be surprised to see them in one tribe.


Apparently genetic race =/= anthropological "race". 

Those two kids, even if not siblings, were obviously part of the same clan / close reproductive community. 

So genetically they surely had much in common, despite their different "anthropological types" / phenotypes / looks.

================================

BTW - it did not take me a long time to find one who looks similar to that particular Sunghir man:






> They look even less modern European...indeed, they have a decided "Siberian" or partly east Asian look to them, which brings me to the fact that Mal'ta had, according to Gerasimov, "Mongoloid" traits.


Then either reconstructions are wrong or they had such looks despite having nothing in common (genetically) with East Asians:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mal%27t..._and_Europeans




> Research published in 2014 suggests that a Mal'ta like people were important genetic contributors to the American Indians, Europeans, and South Asians but did not contribute to and was not related to East Eurasians. Mal'ta had a type of R* y-dna that diverged before the hg R1 and R2 split and an unresolved clade of haplogroup U mtdna.[3] Between 14 and 38 percent of American Indian ancestry may originate from gene flow from the Mal'ta Buret people, which is essentially western Eurasian in a modern sense, while the other geneflow in the Native Americans appears to have an Eastern Eurasian origin [4]
> 
> The genetic findings at Mal'ta may also help account for the Caucasian characteristics of Kennewick Man, a 9,000 year old skeleton discovered in the state of Washington. Mal'ta suggests that the Upper Paleolithic population of western Eurasia may have spread into Siberia and contributed to the physical characteristics of some early American Indians who were different from the East Asians who contributed most of the genetic heritage of the indigenous people of the Americas.[5]


Genetic evidence shows that those people were not ancestors of East Asians, but of Europeans, South Asians and Amerindians.

As I wrote above, anthropology is already slightly overrated / obsolete because we have genetics.

----------


## Tomenable

> Given all of this, I am highly skeptical that these people looked anything like modern Europeans. 
> 
> Of course, anyone who wishes to imagine that the Gravettians looked just like modern Eastern Europeans is free to do so.


First of all I don't know where did the argument about looks start. I was arguing about genetic ancestry, not about looks. It was LeBrok who claimed that those two kids (probably siblings) "could not belong to the same tribe because they look so differently". For the record, I look rather different than both my biological parents. Apparently inheritance of phenotype is more complicated than you think.

I was told by family that I look much more similar to one of my great-grandfathers than to my father.

Physical traits can sometimes "skip" up to several generations, apparently.




> If it comes to Patrick Stewart, he is not the best proxy for Gravettians. Granted he's forehead is slanted


Genetic evidence > comparing foreheads. 

My forehead is slanted, my mother's is not, my father's is not (and I'm not adopted if you ask).

I already told you - compare DNA, not noses and foreheads.

----------


## LeBrok

> LeBrok was surprised that Gravettian phenotypes greatly differed from each other. Much like today European phenotypes. I posted reconstructions of two kids who were buried in the same grave (perhaps siblings), yet LeBrok claimed they were "two different races":


Can you post their skulls, not the reconstructions.

----------


## LeBrok

> First of all I don't know where did the argument about looks start. I was arguing about genetic ancestry, not about looks. It was LeBrok who claimed that those two kids (probably siblings) "could not belong to the same tribe because they look so differently". For the record, I look rather different than both my biological parents. Apparently inheritance of phenotype is more complicated than you think.
> 
> I was told by family that I look much more similar to one of my great-grandfathers than to my father.
> 
> Physical traits can sometimes "skip" up to several generations, apparently.


Hunter gatherer tribes are much more uniform than modern Europeans, who as we know are amalgamation of few ancient distinct populations. Look at Inuits, Australian or Amazon natives and you will see what I mean. They all look like brothers and sisters.






> Genetic evidence > comparing foreheads. 
> 
> My forehead is slanted, my mother's is not, my father's is not (and I'm not adopted if you ask).
> 
> I already told you - compare DNA, not noses and foreheads.


 What do you mean, shape of skull, forehead and nose is not determined by DNA? It is like reading DNA almost. 

I'm not sure why you are so defensive in your responses. When we pointed out some shortcomings of the renderings of Gravettians and their houses, you stood out in their deference like it was your own website. For some reason, in your mind, we have to be wrong and they have to be right. It beats me. Do you have personal interest and feelings to make Gravettians look and live like modern Europeans? Just let them be who they were, don't make them in something they've never been.

----------


## bicicleur

> That website is academic, at least it claims to be:
> 
> "Antropark was created as part of the website of the Academy of Sciences in Brno in 2005."
> 
> 
> 
> I provided links to my sources - check them.
> 
> 
> ...


this is a very good article about IUP : the spread of stone blade tools

https://www.google.be/url?sa=t&rct=j...80642063,d.d24

IMO the spread from the Levant to Europa was haplogroup C1a, the spread from the Altaï Mts into Mongolia were N & O, who split in the Altaï Mts
the oldest arrival in the Altaï Mts is 47000 years ago (Kara Bom) (I know YFull estimates these groups somewhat younger though)
before the Altaï Mts, haplogroup X (or K2a) ancestral to NO was in Obi-Rakhmat 48800 years ago : 
http://balkhandshambhala.blogspot.be...-57000-bc.html (this cave was occupied before by Neanderthals since 87000 years ago, and even before that probably by Denisovans)
Ust-Ishim was proto-X

In Siberia the are 2 paleolithic periods : early UP ( = IUP ) and late UP
Late UP started to spread 38000 years ago from the Altai Mountains into central and eastern Siberia
IMO these were haplo R and Q
unfortunately I don't have a good link for this

----------


## Greying Wanderer

> I'm sure I don't need to point out that this is all conjecture on your part. What could have been done doesn't necessarily have anything to do with what was actually done...for that all we have to go on is the archaeological evidence. Regardless, a large bark tent with logs to weight it down bears no resemblance to the fantasy dwellings pictured at the Anthropark site linked to in an above post.



The archaeological evidence (apparently) says they laid out logs in a rectangular pattern. Maybe they're wrong about the logs or maybe it was a burial thing or something else. I'm only considering what might have been possible *if* those logs were for housing.

The thing is if it was housing - and maybe it wasn't - then there'd be a reason why they did that rather than this:




> Indeed, the EHGs on the Pontic Caspian steppe before the encounter with the Neolithic civilizations to their west and south were still living in hide tents and dwellings half dug into the earth thousands and thousands of years later.


So if it was housing - and maybe it wasn't - then the reason may have been something to do with it being colder where they were.

----------


## Tomenable

> What do you mean, shape of skull, forehead and nose is not determined by DNA?


It is determined by DNA. But how genes work and get regulated is not as simple as you think. There are many ways of how genes can get "expressed" and they may be "activated" or stay "asleep". You can read more about this for example here - very similar genes can get "expressed" in different ways: 

http://enews.membs.org/Exploring-Gen...man-Brain-Size 




> (...) The fact is that you don’t need a gene to make a big brain. In fact, it’s quite likely that a lot of the DNA that’s crucial for making a big human brain doesn’t come in the form of genes at all. Here I’m using “gene” in the sense we usually mean it, a stretch of DNA that codes for a protein. That’s what ARHGAP11B does. But protein-coding genes occupy only a minuscule 1% of the human genome. The rest of it–formerly known as junk DNA, now called non-coding DNA–is largely still a mystery. But it’s clear that much of it, maybe most of it, is supervising what genes do. Regulating gene action. Which is why, forty years ago, scientists proposed that the phenotypic differences between humans and chimps—those dramatic differences in appearance and behavior–came about largely because we humans evolved new ways of regulating our similar genes. Since then researchers have identified many DNA regions that didn’t change much during the evolution of mammals, including most primates, but began to explode with variation, many of them after the first early hominins diverged from the evolutionary line leading to chimps. These DNA bits are called Human-Accelerated Regions (HAR). HARs are present in our dead-and-gone relatives, the Neanderthals and Denisovans, as well as us. HARs lie mostly in non-coding DNA. That has made their functions not so easy to figure out. But there are hints about what they do, because HARs are not scattered randomly in the genome. (...)


 ================================ 




> When we pointed out some shortcomings of the renderings of Gravettians and their houses, you stood out in their deference like it was your own website. For some reason, in your mind, we have to be wrong and they have to be right. It beats me.


 In posts #45 and #46 I actually did not continue to discuss the "Gravettian houses issue", in case if you didn't notice. 

Perhaps you are correct and that site is wrong on Gravettian houses.




> Hunter gatherer tribes are much more uniform than modern Europeans


 No they are not. By the way evolution works partially through selection, so in the past variation should be bigger than in present times. And through selection some of prehistoric phenotypes became very frequent while some others became much less frequent. Of course in different regions it worked differently and humans adapted to different conditions and climates. 

On the other hand, there are of course also new mutations and thus new phenotypes appearing all the time.

So thanks to new mutations diversity can increase, especially in large populations.




> Look at Inuits, Australian or Amazon natives and you will see what I mean. They all look like brothers and sisters.


This claim is about as far from the truth as possible. In Australia even two neighbouring groups / clans living on two sides of the same river could look as "distinct races": 

http://historum.com/european-history/88213-linguistic-diversity-europe-before-indo-european-expansions.html

http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?i...iew=1up;seq=15

 
But this excerpt is actually not telling the whole stories. Those clans did exchange genes - mostly through stealing or trading of women. But despite exchange (often not peaceful) of women between clans, they still maintained they characteristic looks.

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## Tomenable

Coming back to population density in prehistoric Europe:

https://www.academia.edu/677271/Expe...gical_Evidence

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## LeBrok

What with difensive attitude again. Everything I said was wrong? Gees.





> It is determined by DNA. But how genes work and get regulated is not as simple as you think. There are many ways of how genes can get "expressed" and they may be "activated" or stay "asleep". You can read more about this for example here - very similar genes can get "expressed" in different ways: 
> 
> http://enews.membs.org/Exploring-Gen...man-Brain-Size


Ok then, a skull is an action of expressed DNA and of coding and non-coding region. We are still comparing DNA when comparing skulls or other bones.



================================ 






> In posts #45 and #46 I actually did not continue to discuss the "Gravettian houses issue", in case if you didn't notice. 
> 
> Perhaps you are correct and that site is wrong on Gravettian houses.


 Not discussing doesn't mean agreeing. Why not mention at least "You might be right"?






> No they are not. By the way evolution works partially through selection, so in the past variation should be bigger than in present times. And through selection some of prehistoric phenotypes became very frequent while some others became much less frequent. Of course in different regions it worked differently and humans adapted to different conditions and climates.On the other hand, there are of course also new mutations and thus new phenotypes appearing all the time.So thanks to new mutations diversity can increase, especially in large populations.


 Aren't the new mutations replacing old once and gradually old ones disappear? I'm sure we don't have many genes we used to have when we were Homo Erectus. Even if it is a slow process, when we have a secluded tribe, all mix together spreading the features and DNA evenly through the group.

Besides we were analyzing skulls found in one group and not all the groups spread through Europe. By small group standards they should be very similar. In small group genes flow quickly, they are all cousins after all.



Do you see the prototypical variety among these cousins?










> This claim is about as far from the truth as possible. In Australia even two neighbouring groups / clans living on two sides of the same river could look as "distinct races": 
> 
> http://historum.com/european-history/88213-linguistic-diversity-europe-before-indo-european-expansions.html
> 
> http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?i...iew=1up;seq=15
> 
>  
> But this excerpt is actually not telling the whole stories. Those clans did exchange genes - mostly through stealing or trading of women. But despite exchange (often not peaceful) of women between clans, they still maintained they characteristic looks.


 I can't argue with this description, as the supposed differences are in the eye of the author only. Besides, nobody here says that separation is not making a group drift into new mutations and develop distinct phenotype. 
What is important here is that it says that the separate group could be distinguished from another. It means that within each group people were very alike, almost like a different race, in eyes of the author.
This is what this discussion is all about. The likeness of people in separate group. The way these two sisters lived.

Where you able to locate the skulls of these girls?

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## Angela

Many of us have posted reconstructions, but only, in most cases, with the understanding that not all of them were done by qualified people, some of them were done before modern imaging techniques could be used, and even the latest and best done are not going to be exact, given that they were done on skulls or fragments of skulls. Then there is the fact that the subjective biases of the scientists and artists come into play. The early reconstructions of Oetzi looked like a blue eyed man from the British Isles. Then the dna came out and he is closest to a Sardinian of the fairer skinned variety. At least the latest reconstruction is based on advanced imaging of an actual body, and takes account of the dna, but none of them can be taken as gospel, including that one. 

On the other hand, to say that physical anthropology no longer has anything useful to tell us is incorrect. It is used everyday in forensic science, imperfect as it may be, to tell us that the skeleton is male or female, likely to be "Caucasian" or "African" etc.

Also, as LeBrok pointed out, genetics is written into the "bone". 

As he further pointed out, hunter gatherer groups were very homogenous, inbred really. That is the point of the paper which is the subject of this thread. They are talking about an "effective population" size of about 30*. That's different from saying that was the total population at the time period they are describing. Still, you wouldn't be talking about probably much more than 5,000 people total. An individual band could have been 30 or 40 people. The bands would have been separated from each other for long periods, which means they would have been breeding amongst themselves. Even if they occasionally bred with another group with whom they occasionally intersected, inbreeding over and over again in the same pool for thousands of years means that people within any kind of proximity to one another would have become very similar to one another, much less people from one specific site. 

Such inbreeding would also have had deleterious consequences. That's why the author said there would have been an effect on "fitness". The same issue arose with respect to Loschbour. It's only when you have large populations, the kind of population growth that occurred with the Neolithic, and then large migrations from long separated areas that you can get some genetic variety.

As to Kostenki man, the reconstruction makes him look like a Papuan or someone from far southern India.. I don't know how accurate that is, but it is certainly the way the anthropologists pictured him and his people. If he did look like that, I don't know why this is such a surprise. These people didn't drop out of a space ship. The migration path led from Africa to India and on to southeast Asia and beyond. At some point a group of them moved northward. The phenotype would have taken some time to change. I don't think there's anything controversial about any of this.

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## Tomenable

> What with difensive attitude again. Everything I said was wrong? Gees.


Well, no. I admit that most of your and Angela's points were right - thanks!

However, you continue to defend reliability of anthropology, especially comparing skulls:




> What do you mean, shape of skull, forehead and nose is not determined by DNA? It is like reading DNA almost.





> a skull is an action of expressed DNA and of coding and non-coding region. We are still comparing DNA when comparing skulls or other bones.


But I remember that you support the theory about Slavic replacement in Poland during the Migration Period. I also support the theory about Slavic immigration. But if anthropology is so reliable, then please explain why does comparing skulls show continuity since the Bronze Age in Poland, instead of replacement? Based on comparison of skulls anthropologists from Poznan University (under prof. Piontek) claim that Poles are native to Poland since the Bronze Age (Lusatian, Biskupin, etc.) and throughout the Iron Age (Przeworsk, Wielbark):




> Prof. Janusz Piontek made a demographical simulation, taking into account the level of immigration and assimilation. Thereafter he researched osteological material - examining ancient bones. On this basis he estimated what was the dynamics of demographic developments during the period of Roman influences, and during the early Middle Ages. He compared data concerning Wielbark and Przeworsk cultures and that concerning the early Middle Ages. The results of his research were in disagreement with the popular theory of total depopulation and then re-population (...) Piontek's results are consistent with results of research by dr Robert Dąbrowski, who collected rich craniological material from the period of Roman influences and from the early Middle Ages. He used the method of craniological distances of Mahalanobis, as a method taking into account individual skulls (...) It turned out, that skulls of people representing Wielbark, Przeworsk and Chernyakhov cultures were very similar to early Medieval skulls of Slavic populations. (...) According to prof. Piontek and his team, the theory according to which there took place a morphological discontinuity within populations living in what is now Poland in times between the period of Roman influence and the early Middle Ages, is impossible to sustain. Similarities were extraordinarily high.
> 
> - We anthropologists do not claim, that we are explaining political, historical, and ethnic-cultural transformations. - said prof. Piontek - We only indicate, that the popular allochthonistic hypothesis, which assumes a total depopulation of the Odra and Vistula basins and then a renewed colonization of those areas by a distinct immigrant population, is not correct.
> 
> Because some of Polish anthropologists and even archaeologists question the possibility of researching genetic similarities between human populations based on craniological and odontological features (comparing skulls, bones and teeth), prof. Piontek presented examples from recent global literature which debunk their assertions. He cited several specific examples from literature on the subject, concerning analyses of ethnogenesis based on nonmetrical features - performed by scientists from Japan. Also commonly accepted are studies on teeth, in order to prove or disprove morphological continuity of population in time - for example research by prof. Joel irish concerning the continuity/discontinuity of settlement in Egypt. Piontek proved that standards he used in his studies on ethnogenesis of Slavs are in agreement with standards accepted today in the scientific world. (...)
> 
> - Lack of intergroup differences between populations from times of Roman influences and later West Slavic populations, in terms of craniological and odontological features, testifies to the similar genetic structure of both populations - prof. Piontek finished his lecture.


Translated from: http://archeowiesci.pl/2008/11/12/od...-wisla-i-odra/

Does it mean that one population emigrated and another one immigrated but happened, by accident, to have identical skulls?

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## Tomenable

> Aren't the new mutations replacing old once and gradually old ones disappear?


I don't think that mutations easily and entirely disappear. Their frequency can drastically decrease, but survive in some individuals.




> I'm sure we don't have many genes we used to have when we were Homo Erectus.


We certainly do. We even have mostly the same genes as we used to have when we were a unity with ancestors of chimpanzees. Humans even share ca. 40% of DNA with onions, so yeah - we even have many genes that common ancestor of humans and onions had. :)

I'm not joking, we do share 40% of DNA with onions (and with chimapnzees something like 95%, IIRC).

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## MOESAN

the mutations rates, selection and disparition of old forms of genes (genes do not disappear too often, by chance?) are not the same on every part of our chromosomes or in our mitochondries, I think. adaptation. but some chains of genes are constantly modifying, slowly but surely, and at some stage, an old form of these chains can disappear, completely, not by destruction, but by proper mutations - the central form OF THE MOMENT (already with a lot of mutations, but lacking the more recent ones) is always the more numerous as a rule? BEFORE BEGINNING TO BE LESS AND LESS NUMEROUS : of course the great numbers law (statistical) can be perturbed in low number populations where new mutations are more often in big danger to disappear - even more if families are small - or in some rare cases it is the former form which can disappear - as a whole, I think small groups show rather a slow evolution (it could explain the less evolved Y-R1b of Caucasus and S-E Europe) - 
big birth rates with dispersion of small enough groups (but ot too small)at the periphery seems to me the better warrant of a great diversity, at first sight (I have not a simulation program in my computer!

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