# Population Genetics > Paleogenetics > Paleolithic & Mesolithic >  Mesolithic La Brana skeletons were Brothers?

## Fire Haired14

"La Brana-1" and "La Brana-2" were found in the same Mesolithic site(Dated 5960-5750 BC) in the same cave in León, Spain appear to have been brothers. We learned in 2012 they had the same mtDNA U5b2c1 and now we know *both had the same Y DNA C1a2*. They could have been brothers. Further analysis of La Brana-2(which is happening) will tell us if they were brothers or not.

https://genetiker.wordpress.com/2015...or-la-brana-2/

If they were, that means Mesolithic folk in Spain 8,000 years ago understood how babies are made. Because it's obvious La Brana-1/2 were buried together because they were brothers. I'm sure pretty much everyone has always understood how babies are made, but I've heard some isolated tribes today don't understand and it's possible some people in the past may have not understood. 

La Brana-1/2 being brothers(if they are) and buried together gives a little snip-it into the thoughts/lives of a Mesolithic tribe. It's fun to imagine what a WHG-tribe would have been like. It's hard to believe La Brana-1/2 were real people.

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## bicicleur

La Brana is pré-C1a2, they have http://www.yfull.com/tree/C1a/
They have 96 SNP's for C1a2 out of 251 SNP's known by YFull.
They split from C1a2 43200 years ago, the is when the first Aurignacians appeared in Austria.
Todays C1a2 TMRCA is 17100 years. IMO their origin is SW Asia, as they were discovered in early neolithic Hungary.
The La Brana branch went extinct as today no pre-C1a2xV86 exist

Genetiker shows La Brana 2 is C1xC1a1,C1b1, and autosomally similar, so probably C1a2 like La Brana 1.
It doesn't show they are brothers. Maybe the whole tribe was C1a2.

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## LeBrok

> "La Brana-1" and "La Brana-2" were found in the same Mesolithic site(Dated 5960-5750 BC) in the same cave in León, Spain appear to have been brothers. We learned in 2012 they had the same mtDNA U5b2c1 and now we know *both had the same Y DNA C1a2*. They could have been brothers. Further analysis of La Brana-2(which is happening) will tell us if they were brothers or not.
> 
> https://genetiker.wordpress.com/2015...or-la-brana-2/
> 
> If they were, that means Mesolithic folk in Spain 8,000 years ago understood how babies are made. Because it's obvious La Brana-1/2 were buried together because they were brothers. I'm sure pretty much everyone has always understood how babies are made, but I've heard some isolated tribes today don't understand and it's possible some people in the past may have not understood. 
> 
> .


This understanding, or connection between having sex and babies, is not needed. Beside people no animals realize this, but they all exist and have babies. Nature took care of it by feeling of sexual desire and and pleasure of love making. No animals and rarely human beings have sex thinking about new babies.




> La Brana-1/2 being brothers(if they are) and buried together gives a little snip-it into the thoughts/lives of a Mesolithic tribe. It's fun to imagine what a WHG-tribe would have been like. It's hard to believe La Brana-1/2 were real people.


 It is not such a mystery. There are still tribes of hunter gatherers with their customs and beliefs to have a gimps how it was with people in Mesolithic.

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## Fire Haired14

Delete. Delete.

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## Fire Haired14

@Lebrok,

Yes, of course people don't need to know where babies come from to continuously have babies. Who knows how far apart in age La Brana-1/2 were. They could have been several years apart like many siblings are. 

Besides knowledge of where Babies come from in Mesolithic Spain, La Brana-1/2 are evidence of other distinctly human traits in Mesolithic Spain...

Looking at Pre-Historic remains it can be difficult to tell how the people socialized with each other. There are distinctively human-ways of socializing that all humans do, and there's no way to know if Pre-Historic humans did the same things, we can just confidently assume they did. Because of DNA we know La Brana-1/2's parents were sexual partners for many years. That's something 90%+ of humans do at some-point in their life today and something no other species does.




> It is not such a mystery. There are still tribes of hunter gatherers with their customs and beliefs to have a gimps how it was with people in Mesolithic.


True. Is living in similar circumstances the only similarity modern hunter gatherers have with Mesolithic ones?

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## MOESAN

> @Lebrok,
> 
> Because of DNA we know La Brana-1/2's parents were sexual partners for many years. That's something 90%+ of humans do at some-point in their life today and something no other species does.


_

Untrue. Some rare animal species do the same: only one partner and life during fidelity.
That said, the concept of brotherhood is variable: link through the presumed father (educator) or link through the mother's side, even if ignoring the reproduction process... and nothing tells us there has not been groupings of "husbands and wives": polygamy + polyandry??? "common sexual pool" ! even if this last hypothesis stays to be proved...
But the comparisons with today far countries HGs cultures cannot provide us certainty of similarities._

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## LeBrok

Other thing to remember is that HGs lived in very small groups, of several individuals. For that reason they were very closely related, even their cousins were genetically very similar, more similar than today,s brothers and sisters.

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## Fire Haired14

> Other thing to remember is that HGs lived in very small groups, of several individuals. For that reason they were very closely related, even their cousins were genetically very similar, more similar than today,s brothers and sisters.


Oh, because their parents were more related than modern parents of siblings are. That's cool, I never thought of that.

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## Fire Haired14

> _
> 
> Untrue. Some rare animal species do the same: only one partner and life during fidelity.
> That said, the concept of brotherhood is variable: link through the presumed father (educator) or link through the mother's side, even if ignoring the reproduction process... and nothing tells us there has not been groupings of "husbands and wives": polygamy + polyandry??? "common sexual pool" ! even if this last hypothesis stays to be proved...
> But the comparisons with today far countries HGs cultures cannot provide us certainty of similarities._


Some animals do something similar, okay. In the case of La BRana-1/2 they were probably *conscious they had the same father*. I guess we can only speculate what type of relationship they had, but we know for a fact they had sometype of relationship with each other as a result of being brothers. 

Unlike modern Dads, a Dad in a small Mesolithic hunter gatherer tribe can't just run away and lay the burden of raising his kids on the mom and others. So, I bet La Brana-1/2's father was involved in their lives and maybe very involved. Something was going on between La Brana-1/2 and their mom/Dad, but we can only fantasize what.

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## Angela

One wonders at what point humans did figure out that sex and procreation were cause and effect. I think they got it by the late Paleolithic, at least. I think that may be why there are phallic symbols as well as mother earth figures statuettes in those cultures. 

Yes, indeed, there are a few animal species which mate for life, although not all that many I think it has to be said. Turtle doves, of course, some varieties of penguins. I think wolves, too. Swans are often said to mate for life; that's why you often see graphics that highlight their intertwined necks, sometimes forming a heart. I don't think that's strictly true, however. There are some cheaters in there! Regardless, and despite their beauty, they're nasty creatures. Don't get too close and especially don't let your children get too close!

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## EAB

Considering no one knows how exactly a Y DNA changes, isn't it possible one person gets the fresh mutation and his brother doesn't?

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## LeBrok

> Considering no one knows how exactly a Y DNA changes, isn't it possible one person gets the fresh mutation and his brother doesn't?


It doesn't matter what causes mutations much, quantum physics, free radicals, or gamma radiation. They happen regardless in every one of us. Even identical twins are not 100% identical because of spontaneous mutations.

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## MOESAN

> Other thing to remember is that HGs lived in very small groups, of several individuals. For that reason they were very closely related, even their cousins were genetically very similar, more similar than today,s brothers and sisters.


I Agree with you

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## EAB

It is really interesting that there are human chimeras also. There was a woman in America whose DNA didn't match up with her children, it turned up she had absorbed her brother in the womb and retained his DNA. Blood chimeras are also common, yet even more interesting related to the idea of multiple partners in a hunter gatherer society, some twins can have different fathers. This is really rather fun in some ways, but also bothersome for genetic reasons. In Tibet is it quite common for a woman to have more than one husband, and the father's have no idea who is the actual father of any child. They in fact don't care. I swear I have read about a case where a man had seperate dna in his sperm to that of his own body, and his DNA test for a child gave up a false paternity. I haven't however found this again yet. This could be rather curious for ancient DNA studies if there are indeed some cases of historical male chimeras carrying two y chromosomes.

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## Power77

> It is really interesting that there are human chimeras also. There was a woman in America whose DNA didn't match up with her children, it turned up she had absorbed her brother in the womb and retained his DNA. Blood chimeras are also common, yet even more interesting related to the idea of multiple partners in a hunter gatherer society, some twins can have different fathers. This is really rather fun in some ways, but also bothersome for genetic reasons. In Tibet is it quite common for a woman to have more than one husband, and the father's have no idea who is the actual father of any child. They in fact don't care. I swear I have read about a case where a man had seperate dna in his sperm to that of his own body, and his DNA test for a child gave up a false paternity. I haven't however found this again yet. This could be rather curious for ancient DNA studies if there are indeed some cases of historical male chimeras carrying two y chromosomes.


Wow!!! You are talking about a "study" reporting some kind of heteropaternal chimera. Interesting, but I doubt that the aforementioned man who "failed" the paternity test had two Y chromosomes (ie, was some freaky bipaternal organism). He could just as well have been a "regular" homoparental chimera who "failed" the paternity test. While it is interresting to entertain (or rather speculate) the possibility of such individuals, there is no need to assume it is a reality (or that it must be "very common") in order to support the subliminal idea that "after all we can be freaks of nature without knowing it LOLOL". For some reason, I suspect that these "findings" might serve as excuses for women who cheated on their husbands. I can easily entertain a scenario where the husband finds out that "his" child doesn't have his DNA, and his wife (to defend herself!) says "Oh honey, it's not that I cheated on you, it's that you are a chimera!". However, it would be interesting (and helpful!) that you find this study back so that we can have a look at it.

P.S. Are you sure that the woman you mentionned "absorbed" her brother rather than her sister?

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