How adventurers, outcasts and remainers shape the evolution of society

[Maciamo]

I stumbled on a very interesting article on Dienekes' Anthropology Blog :
Migration and evolution. I had been thinking about this for some time, and I am glad that Dienekes shares my view on the matter.

In summary...

The Vikings

Medieval Vikings and modern Scandinavians appear to have little in common. Vikings were aggressive, war-like, and physically more robust, hairier and taller than modern peace-loving Scandinavians. The more aggressive and adventurous types were the ones who raided most of Europe between the 9th and the 11th centuries, or embarked on exploration journeys to Iceland and Greenland. The milder types remained in Scandinavia and multiplied.

The true "Viking type" is therefore more likely to be found in regions heavily settled by the Vikings with little intermingling (e.g. Iceland) than in Scandinavia itself. This is interesting from a genetic point of view as some haplogroups found in Iceland differ considerably from the ones in Norway, Sweden or Denmark.

Adventurers and outcasts

This facet of evolution based on migrations is fundamental to understand the cultural and psychological differences between various parts of the world. North Americans are well known for being much more of the gambling, risk-taking types than Europeans. Americans buy more stocks, while Europeans prefer bonds or saving accounts. Americans purchase more on credit and have a greater capacity to contract debts. It is also easier to set up a company in a new, developing sector in the US than in Europe.

The reason is that most of the Europeans with genes for adventure left Europe to colonise North America, and notably the "Wild West". That is also why the gambler type is more common in the Western half of the USA, like California or Nevada.

Another type of emigrants are the outcasts, those that do not fit in the society where they were born, or are uncompetitive and seeks a new homeland where competition is less fierce.

In the USA they were the religious minorities who fled the persecutions in Europe. Criminals deported to Australia also come under the outcast category, but so do recent economic immigrants from developing countries, who typically make up the most deprived and least competitive part of their country's population.

[stuibhard]

Not sure I agree with the conclusions but it is interesting. The US was settled by the outcasts of Europe- people with nothing going for them. If these people already possessed the agressive gene then why had their family descended to this level in Europe? People came to the US because of offers of free land, their own land...and lots of it. That's why drove the Vikings as well. They were the first entrepeneurs of Europe. Freemen with no land, no title...and nothing to do.
Gambling in the west of the US was actually originated by men of the east (New York and Chicago) who were looking to provide services to the wealthy jet set living in California. The laws of California would not allow prostitution, gambling etc so they parked the city just east of the state line and next to a water source.
The waves of migrations across the US during the 1800s were again due to free land. Interestingly, the usual leaders in the western migrations were Quakers, who define themselves by non-violence.

[Maciamo]

If these people already possessed the agressive gene then why had their family descended to this level in Europe?

Genes aren't passed by a parent to all their children. We only inherited half of each parent's DNA. Some genes are called recessive and other dominant. Dominant ones only need one copy to be passed to be active. Recessive need a copy from each parent.

In this case, I think that the main gene involved in the dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4). I am not sure if the variant in question is recessive or dominant though. But in either situation two parents with 1 copy each can have children with 0, 1 or 2 copies. So it is obvious that, even between siblings sharing the exact same ancestry, some will have tthis genetic trait and other won't.

I hope this clarifies it.

[Bodin]

I also donnt agree with this . Scandinavians are peaceloving because they dont have a need for war - they have enough money , so they dont have need to go to raids , like Vikings who were mostly starving if they dont still the food . Nobody attacks Scandinavia , so they dont need to dfend themselves . In II WW best SS units were from Scandinavia .
America was founded by puritans , and they were against gambling or any "sin" . And also by workers who comed in search for free land .
Australia was founded like prisoner collony , and there is not realy higher rate of crime

[LeBrok]

Very interesting observation. I do agree that US is more risk oriented than Europe. The criminal element in Australia probably died out without offspring. They send mostly men, but not many women to penal colonies.
Scandinavians got pacified somehow. From conquering and ferocious Vikings thousand years ago to pussy cats of Europe today. One way or the other, one thing is for sure, Vikings left Scandinavia.

[Antigone]

Very interesting observation. I do agree that US is more risk oriented than Europe. The criminal element in Australia probably died out without offspring. They send mostly men, but not many women to penal colonies.
Scandinavians got pacified somehow. From conquering and ferocious Vikings thousand years ago to pussy cats of Europe today. One way or the other, one thing is for sure, Vikings left Scandinavia.

165,000 convicts were transported to Australia over 80yrs and 20% were women. The majority of which served their time, stayed in Australia, married and produced offspring and descendants who are still living there today. Although most convicts were only petty thieves and political prisoners from Ireland, Scotland etc but the real criminal element (murderers, rapists et al) were convicted to serve a life sentence and mainly sent to Tasmania.

I think Scandanvians today are mainly descended from the farmers too, the vikings mainly left and settled in Ireland (Dublin and Waterford were originally Viking settlements for example), Scotland, England, Normandy and even as far afield as Constantinople where the royal guard mostly consisted of Vikings.

[LeBrok]

Ah, great info Antigone, it explains the situation much better than my dribble.

[Elias2]

I don't think genes affect actions to the extent as it seems. Vikings raided europe because of the lack of food in scandinavia which drove them afield. Scandinavia went through a culture change as well as it adopted christianity. Scandinavians today are decended from these poeple but the culture today is very different from the warrior culture from before.

[MOESAN]

I don't think genes affect actions to the extent as it seems. Vikings raided europe because of the lack of food in scandinavia which drove them afield. Scandinavia went through a culture change as well as it adopted christianity. Scandinavians today are decended from these poeple but the culture today is very different from the warrior culture from before.

I think a bit of truth is in all these hypothesis, because there are more than a motif to emigration :
adventure for someones and necessity for others – and sure humanity evolved and man's deportment in front of death changed and with that his deportment in front of violence – (now violence is common under softer forms like finance) – without a big change in genetic background -
but what I remarked or believe remark is that very often even when necessity is working the mean of the emigrating people are bigger bodied and a bit more borderline or physically more courageous than the mean of the people that was in the same case at home and whom a part is stayed home – but if true where is the selection at work ? : at home (self selection) or after living a few generations in the new land ? When I look at Boers from South Afrika I 'm stroken by the big percentage of 'archaïc featured faces' they present as a whole compared to the human stock they are supposed to come from (Huguenots of the Netherlands, Germany and France) – maybe selection works before and after emigration ?
For Vikings what I red is that the first ones was outcasts people, undesirable at home, surely agressive enough criminals (sometimes too political opponents) and that they was obliged to go afar to look for a better world – but someones returned home with some richess and their descriptions of the easy job they did pushed others to follow their example – then becoming a « viking » had been no more a contemptible situation ?

[nordicwarrior]

Now Maciamo, tell us what you really think of the Vikings.

Just kidding. I actually agree with 90% of this thread starter. As I delve deeper into genetics and it's impact on culture and history--I realize that seemingly unrelated or minor factors can have enormous societal impacts down the road. Things like elavated testosterone levels in a particular y-haplogroup or long time solar trends have the ability to shape civilizations.

Forthcoming explanations on the way...

[nordicwarrior]

And you are spot on about the Western U.S. being populated by adventurous individuals (I owned and operated a business in California for ten years), but please don't make the mistake of classifying the "adventure" gene as substandard in all cases. Coastal Califonia probably has a good fifteen I.Q. points on the rest of the country.

Ok, back to my errands... I have to pillage a small fishing village, gamble away my ill-gotten loot, and then shave my hairy back, not neccessarily in that order.

Oh, and regarding the long term solar trend (which in my opinion is what forced the Vikings out of Norway)... the maple tree in my back yard started pushing out on January 1, 2013. A good two months early. Yikes.

[sparkey]

And you are spot on about the Western U.S. being populated by adventurous individuals (I owned and operated a business in California for ten years), but please don't make the mistake of classifying the "adventure" gene as substandard in all cases. Coastal Califonia probably has a good fifteen I.Q. points on the rest of the country.

I think that Coastal California (especially SF & SJ, to a lesser degree LA) having high IQ has more to do with regional discrepancies within California, rather than proving anything good about California. The San Joaquin Valley is ranked as the least intelligent region in the US, perhaps tied with the Rio Grande Valley, TX. Even after demographic skew is considered (which is worse for the Rio Grande Valley than for the San Joaquin Valley), it scores poorly. A lot of that has to do with differences in economic development and "brain drain." Very little to do with adventurousness, as far as I can tell.

(Disclaimer--I'm not ragging on the SJ Valley, just stating facts. I was born there and love the place.)

[nordicwarrior]

I hear what your saying Sparkey, and can't argue much with your point. But I had to travel throughout much of the state with my job and even factoring "less economically advantaged" areas like the Inland Empire and San Joaquin valley--Californians do seem...smarter. It may have to do with how they are exposed to many cultures (most of California is more "mixed" ethnically than other parts of the U.S.) and maybe even some of it comes from the exposure to tourists. Also, here's one of my own bizarre theories: water usage...everyone in Southern California is reliant on government provided water which increases interdependence. In the deep South, rainwater/ground water is no problem, and the population can be more solitary if they so desire.

[Grubbe]

I stumbled on a very interesting article on Dienekes' Anthropology Blog :
Migration and evolution. I had been thinking about this for some time, and I am glad that Dienekes shares my view on the matter.

In summary...

The Vikings

Medieval Vikings and modern Scandinavians appear to have little in common. Vikings were aggressive, war-like, and physically more robust, hairier and taller than modern peace-loving Scandinavians. The more aggressive and adventurous types were the ones who raided most of Europe between the 9th and the 11th centuries, or embarked on exploration journeys to Iceland and Greenland. The milder types remained in Scandinavia and multiplied.

The true "Viking type" is therefore more likely to be found in regions heavily settled by the Vikings with little intermingling (e.g. Iceland) than in Scandinavia itself. This is interesting from a genetic point of view as some haplogroups found in Iceland differ considerably from the ones in Norway, Sweden or Denmark.
(...)

Strange. How do they know that vikings were more hairy than modern Scandinavians?? Do they perhaps think that a hairy more robust body is more aggressive than a slender not so hairy body?

I don’t think that Vikings were more aggressive than other raiders in their day. That said, it seems from my own reading of old sources that Norwegians tended to be quite unruly and “uncivilized”right up to about 1700 – at least seen with modern eyes. But they were probably much like other peasant populations at the time. The pacification was probably at least in part due to a more strong government who could mete out severe punishment for offences.

[adamo]

Same post twice for some reason.

[adamo]

There is ZERO link between hairiness, height and aggressivity, aggressivity varies from individual to individual, based on how you where brought up and what environmental factors/influences from other individuals whilst in different key stages of growing up you where exposed to. There are gentle giants and little devils, and there are dangerous hairless giants, and hairy small gentle people, the short man may be hairy, or hairless, and vice versa for the tall man; it is of no relation to aggressivity in either case. One possibility though, is if I was abandoned as a child, or subjected to extreme daily violence at home as a child, the individual In question may turn out to be an EXTREMELY violent/aggressive one, as this traumatic behaviour has been implemented as a normal daily process in their lives from when they where young. Regardless of height or other physical factors.

[Grubbe]

There is ZERO link between hairiness, height and aggressivity, aggressivity varies from individual to individual, based on how you where brought up and what environmental factors/influences from other individuals whilst in different key stages of growing up you where exposed to. There are gentle giants and little devils, and there are dangerous hairless giants, and hairy small gentle people, the short man may be hairy, or hairless, and vice versa for the tall man; it is of no relation to aggressivity in either case. One possibility though, is if I was abandoned as a child, or subjected to extreme daily violence at home as a child, the individual In question may turn out to be an EXTREMELY violent/aggressive one, as this traumatic behaviour has been implemented as a normal daily process in their lives from when they where young. Regardless of height or other physical factors.

I totally agree. Seems "the hairy (Neanderthal?) brute" has crept out again...