Middle-eastern milk drinkers?

A Der Spiegel article makes a case for the role of mass migration in shaping the European gene pool, while failing to mention the evidence for large-scale post-Neolithic population replacement. Jean M is unclear on whether the attempt to link lactase persistence to the LBK rests on unpublished aDNA results or questionable computer models. Greg Cochran on the latter eventuality:
Judging from the comment about lactose tolerance in Austria/Slovakia/Hungary, they may be relying on a paper that came out of Mark Thomas's lab last year: "The Origins of Lactase Persistence in Europe".
The authors of that paper tried to estimate the region of origin using simulations - but one of the inputs was the current distribution of that allele. Which is reasonable, except that they did not use the actual distribution of that allele, but rather a truncated distribution - their map is centered on central Europe and stops halfway through the Ukraine. That ensured that they would find an origin in somewhere in middleuropa.

The allele doesn't stop there, though: it has a second region of fairly high frequency in northern India. Before Mongols and Turks took over the Eurasian steppe, the frequency of that allele may have been high in those steppe regions. Scythians are described as milk-drinkers quite a while ago - in the Iliad. And my sources claim that the royal guard of the Hittites also 'drank sweet milk'...

Checking out ancient DNA from Kurgan burials in that region might clarify this.

I think it is difficult to imagine a historical process that moves a lot of people from Bavaria to the Punjab: it is easier to imagine one that expands to both regions from somewhere in-between.
Which would explain the distribution of the Indo-European languages, also.

When you think about it, it may not be easy for German researchers to talk about this hypothesis. I think they have trouble saying "Aryan" nowadays.
John Hawks agrees:
Problem is: from the standpoint of ancient DNA samples, the lactase persistence mutation was also absent within the early Neolithic! The article is full of details that are wrong or misleading. [. . .]

The [mtDNA] differences between early Neolithic and later Europeans suggests that post-Neolithic migrations -- real Völkerwandurung -- actually had a major impact on the European gene pool. What we see today is not a pattern established 6000 years ago, but a palimpsest richly painted with strokes from successive migrations.

One aspect of this scenario: There's no reason to link the early Neolithic with Indo-European languages. There were many later widespread population movements that might have carried this language family, and we know that these later movements were genetically decisive -- at least, as concerns the maternal genealogy. The relation of Y chromosome haplogroups with mtDNA haplogroups is a critical question, but even more necessary is the development of an effective means of testing these hypotheses with nuclear genotype data.

7 comments:

Milch ist gut said...

Some Sub-Saharan tribes drink cow's milk...and cow's blood too; the Masai tribe for instance:

"For their food throughout the centuries they have depended very largely on milk, meat and blood, reinforced with vegetables and fruits. They milk the cows daily and bleed the steers at regular intervals by a unique process. In Fig. 40 we see a native Masai with his bow and arrow, the latter tipped with a sharp knife which is guarded by a shoulder to determine the depth to which the arrow may enter the vein. If the animal is sufficiently tame, the blood is drawn while it is standing. If the animal is frightened it is quickly hobbled, as shown below. In this figure the stream of blood may be seen spurting from the jugular vein into a gourd which holds about a gallon. A torque is placed around the neck before the puncture is made. The animals did not even flinch when struck by the arrow, the operation is done so quickly and skillfully. When sufficient blood was drawn, the torque was removed and the blood immediately stopped flowing. A styptic made of ashes referred to above was used. This serves also to protect the wound from infection. The blood is defibrinated by whipping in the gourd. The fibrin is fried or cooked much as bacon or meat would be prepared. The defibrinated blood is used raw just as the milk is, except in smaller quantities. When available, each growing child receives a day's ration of blood as does each pregnant or lactating woman. Formerly, the warriors used this food exclusively. These three sources, milk, blood and meat provide them with liberal supplies of body-building minerals and the special vitamins, both fat-soluble and water soluble. Their estimate of a desirable dairy stock is based on quality not quantity."

Also:

"Muhima Tribe or Anchola, Uganda. This tribe resides in southern Uganda. They, like the Masai, are primarily a cattle raising people and live on milk, blood and meat. The district in which they live is to the east of Lake Edward and the Mountains of the Moon. They constitute one of the very primitive and undisturbed groups. While the Masai raise chiefly the hump-backed cattle, the herds of this Muhima or Anchola tribe are characterized by their large wide-spread horns. Like the Masai, they are tall and courageous. They defend their herds and their families from lions and leopards with their primitive spears. Like the other primitive cattle people, they dominate the adjoining tribes.

In a study of 1,040 teeth of thirty-seven individuals, not a single tooth was found with dental caries. This tribe makes their huts of grass and sticks."

From: http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/price/price9.html

Judenspiegel said...

The dangers of a faulty translation should be accounter for, but I'm inclined to suspect that this is a theory preconceived and then the facts artfully distorted to fit. It's as if some one is working themselves into a froth to prove that all Europeans, especially the blonder ones, have Semitic origins.

Anonymous said...

The dangers of a faulty translation should be accounter for, but I'm inclined to suspect that this is a theory preconceived and then the facts artfully distorted to fit. It's as if some one is working themselves into a froth to prove that all Europeans, especially the blonder ones, have Semitic origins. - Judenspiegel

There doesn't necessarily need to be a contradiction here at all, since many have postulated over the years that the Indo-Aryans may indeed have come out of the geographic area that is known as the "Middle East" today.

I think even the National-Socialist intellectuals in Third Reich Germany believed this - that the Aryans, before their arrival in Europe - came from the East (hence the term "Indo-European").

This in no way I would think means or implies that contemporary Northern and Western Europeans are closely biologically related to the racial inhabitants of the modern-day Middle East.

N/A, or anyone else's thoughts on this?

Judenspiegel said...

"There doesn't necessarily need to be a contradiction here at all, since many have postulated over the years that the Indo-Aryans may indeed have come out of the geographic area that is known as the "Middle East" today."

Yes, according to the lingual and monumental evidence, i.e. vocabulary and inflection of their speech and representations on monuments extant, the Mitanni, Luwian and Hittite peoples of the Near-East (the last two known to Homer, the first European writer) attest an Aryan nobility of predominantly fair-haired superiors.

It's not the Oriental origin which is suspicious, as that's purely geographical but the extravagant anthropological assertion that Europeans are directly and principally descended from Middle-Easterners. The aboriginal Middle-Easterners were the first Semitic race, the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula.

Judenspiegel said...

It was Sir Keith Arthur, a pre-eminent and serious Scotsman of the evolutionary school, who proposed that the principal human races evolved separately. This is a novel theory, but hardly ridiculous or absurd as some zealots have treated it on other blog sites.

Anonymous said...

There doesn't necessarily need to be a contradiction here at all, since many have postulated over the years that the Indo-Aryans may indeed have come out of the geographic area that is known as the "Middle East" today.

I think even the National-Socialist intellectuals in Third Reich Germany believed this - that the Aryans, before their arrival in Europe - came from the East (hence the term "Indo-European").


The "Indo" does not refer to where they came from but to one of the places they ended up. They came from the North and some ended up in "the geographic area that is known as the 'Middle East,'" among other places.

Yes, according to the lingual and monumental evidence, i.e. vocabulary and inflection of their speech and representations on monuments extant, the Mitanni, Luwian and Hittite peoples of the Near-East (the last two known to Homer, the first European writer) attest an Aryan nobility of predominantly fair-haired superiors.

The Hittitles and others invaded from the North and ended up south in the Near East. They didn't originate in the Near East.

Judenspiegel said...

"The Hittitles (sic) and others invaded from the North and ended up south in the Near East. They didn't originate in the Near East."

Didn't impute a Near-Eastern origin comrade, merely pointed out that they evidently inhabited the countries thereof as an upper-caste aristocracy at the very least, and their establishment there begins at an early period.