Mother Tongue Newsletter 28 (Spring 1997)

7/27/2019 Mother Tongue Newsletter 28 (Spring 1997)

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INTRODUCTION TO MT-28: The Newsle t te r (Edi tor t h i s i s sue : H. Fleming)THE HOTTEST AND THE LATEST NEWS, AS OF END-MAY. 1997.The ho t t e s t , l a t e s t news i s not necessa r i ly th e most impor tan tnews - - i n the wisdom o f hinds igh t it may even be i r r e l e v a n t to ourcommon e n t e rp r i s e . But, s ince the i tems are new, they have within themth e po ten t i a l of es t ab l i s h in g something o r d i s -es t ab l i sh ing somethinge l s e . This t ime around, th e h o t t e s t news came from th e Americas wherea major s c i e n t i f i c breakthrough has occurred , u n t i l May 30th when th eho t focus swi tched to Spain and th e new B-globin (DNA) ana lys i s byRosal ind Harding e t a l of John Clegg ' s Oxford team (b iogene t i c s ) .Had we f in i shed when we should have, we would have missed t h i s ;thanks to Dan McCall and the brouhaha in the press which helped us tosee th e bond between th e fos s i l s and th e proposed biogene t i c da tes .NEWS OF MEMBERS' ACTIVITIES, INCLUDING LETTERS OF COMMENTThis r i ch lode of mate r i a l - - too much fo r MT-27 - - was promised fo rFebruary. So our promises are none too good! But some of it appearshe re in , espec ia l ly Car le ton Hodge's plea fo r a r e - ap p r a i s a l of a keyOld Egyptian s ign ; it i s of ten involved in Afro-As ia t i c and Nos t ra t i cetymologies some o f which are now endangered .ANNOUNCEMENTS & ADVERTISEMENTS: THE MEMBERSHIP (PERMITTED) LIST.Cont inuing the list of members who permi t t h e i r names to be madepubl i c . It i s good to d is t ingu ish between an ASLIPer and a longranger . The former i s a member of ASLIP - - simplement. The l a t t e r mostprobably i s both an ASLIPer and one who favors long range work. Theree x i s t ASLIPers who are ac tu a l l y profoundly opposed to long range work!Do remember: th e list of permiss ions still does not equa l th efu l l membership. Many people d o n ' t bother to mail in the ques t ionna i reOBITUARIES: JOHN KERNS, S0ren Egerod, Jan Winter , Mary Haas, R. Stopa.

We note with personal sorrow t h a t good o le Aimo Murtonen jo inedt h i s group. Southeas t Asia took ano ther h i t , as Henri Haudr icour t hasdied t oo . We r e g re t t h a t th e o b i tu a r i e s have been deferred y e t ano therwhile longer . Again we ask forgiveness fo r 'bumping ' t h e i r o b i tu a r i e sin o rd e r to present the h o t t e s t news f i r s t . Said news i s very ' t imes e n s i t i v e ' as they say nowadays, while sad news ( the ob i tua r ies ) i s n ' tASLIP BUSINESSThere i s much. John Bengtson has a b r i e f r epor t on th e Annual Meeting(Boston, Apri l 19th ) . L i s t of l i b ra r i e s i s growing, including sevenmajor un iver s i ty l i b ra r i e s plus the tw o bigges t publ ic ones . S t i l lnothing in Europe. The Jrd i ssue of th e Journa l should be on th ecu t t ing edge again , with fol low-ups on Nihal i p lus seve ra l s e r iousbiogene t ic d iscuss ions , mayhap a lso new f ind ings in p a l e o - l i n g u i s t i c s .Our product ion e d i t o r , Barnhard, has res igned . Our Web Si te was a lso ina s t a t e of f lux u n t i l Mary El len Lepionka rescued it r ecen t ly .E t, bien su r , now i s t ime fo r most ASLIPers to pay t h e i r 1997dues. See th e a t t ached co lo red shee t . We a lso ask if the re are anyvolunteers out the re to help John Bengtson and th e Bostonians run t h i sopera t ion of ours . Your f i n an c i a l help or advice on it, i s so l i c i t e d !


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What has Homo an tecessor go t t o do with th e new 6-globin problem?What indeed! Some o ld bones from Spain th rea ten to r e -wr i t e th esk e l e t a l process ion from Homo erec tus t o Homo neander tha l (o r Homosap iens neander tha le l s i s ) and to Homo sap iens sap iens . A new DNAana lys i s by an Oxford team throws th e biogene t ic s ide o f th e equat iono u t o f whack, caus ing us to suppose t h a t humani ty ' s common ances to r

l ived abou t 800 kya - - i n s t ead of 100-200 kya - - and t h a t the re wasplenty o f human gene f low around th e Old World in those t imes , enought o r a i s e se r ious doubts about the 'Out o f Afr ica ' replacement theory .We w i l l give th e p a r t i c u l a r s o f th e DNA problem in a moment. For nowl e t us hark back to MT-25 in 1995 when we repor ted th e fo l lowingt h ings about Spanish bones (+ some Engl ish) not mentioned r ecen t l y .

Quoting now from MT-25, p . l .A Very Old Englishman Unear thed

Remains o f one o f th e o ld e s t inhab i tan t s o f th e B r i t i shI s l e s were r ecen t ly found in anexcavat ion a t Boxgrove ( spe l l ingnot secure) in sou thern England.As displayed on American t e l e v is ion recen t ly ( June) , a handaxe wield ing hominid s tand ingperhaps s i x f e e t tall and qu i terobus t had inhabi ted t h a t p a r to f England around 500,000 yearsago. George Wainwright of Univ e r s i t y Col lege , London, led ateam of what looked to be score so f young a rcheo log i s t s in th eendeavour. Boxgrove man wass a id , by th e program, to bean ces t r a l to Neanderthal . Thatana lys i s was based on a piece o fh is lower l eg , perhaps most of ac a l f bone. We r e g re t t h a tnothing e l se was sa id on th esqu ib and the re a re no publ i shed(wri t ten) accounts t h a t we knowo f to conf i rm th e b r i e f repor t .But Many. Even Older . Basques

More r ecen t b u t more s o l id ly repor ted and analyzed thanthe f i r s t B r i t , some 36 fos s i l s( sk u l l , den ta l and jaw fragmentsfrom four persons) were found ina cave near Burgos in th e

Atapuerca region of nor thwes tSpain . The team l eader i s Eudaldcarbone l lo of U/Tarragona b u tda t ing was done by Josep Pareso f I n s t i t u t e o f Ear th Sc iences ,Barcelona. Comments have beenmade by F. Clark Howell (U/CBerkeley) . Science (8 /11/95) hasth e r epor t as does Associa tedPress . The impor t i s very heavyand w i l l be pursued here in ,with luck by Gunter Brauer o rano ther long r ange r . The g i s t ofit i s t h a t around 780,000 yearsago (reckoned by a 'new t e ch n i que ' of geomagnetic da t ing) ad i f f e r e n t kind o f hominid l ivedin Ib e r i a . It seems to be ances t r a l to Neanderta l b u t n ot it-s e l f th e expected Homo e r ec tu s .To s t r e s s t h i s : Howell , a worldc l a s s pa leoanthropologis t , i squoted saying: "These are n otHomo e r ec tu s . These are someth ing d i f f e r e n t . " Amen, a h ott op ic ! [End of quot ing MT-25]In the in te rvening 21 months th eSpanish team has dec la red t h a tt h e i r f o s s i l men rep re sen t a newspec ie s o f Hominid younger thanerec tus gene ra l ly b u t o lder thanneander tha l o r modern man. Theyand some o the rs cla im t ha t t h i snew spec ie s , to be ca l l ed Homoan tecessor , i s an ces t r a l fo rsure to neander tha l and veryl i ke ly t o Homo sap iens sap iens .

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Although th e c l a s s i f i c a t i on maybe doubted, and may be r e j ec t ed ,because th e f ragments of an immature male ' s head had to beca re fu l ly pieced toge ther , onemay not r ead i l y dismiss twoyears of p a t i e n t fo rens i c work.Never the less an awful l o t o fpreh is to ry seems t o be res t ingon one l ad ' s sha t te red head. Soit i s l eg i t imate to have se r iousdoubts!Sources . Although an a r t i c l e ont h i s has appeared in SCIENCE onMay 30th , my copy did not reachme y e t . So t h i s i s based on TVr epor t s . However, a young paleoan th ropo log i s t from Smithsonian ,Rick P o t t s , who a lso tends toaccep t th e Spanish c l a s s i f i c a t ion , i s rush ing o f f to Kenyawhere he knows o f some 800 kyas i t e s with l o t s o f a r t i f a c t s inassoc ia t ion with which he mayf ind evidence of Homo antecessoror the a l t e rna t e erec tus fo re beare rs of Homo sap iens sapiens .As i s our custom in f o s s i lmat te r s , we asked David Pilbeam(Peabody Museum, Harvard) h isopinion on a l l t h i s . Although hehad not rece ived h is copy o fSCIENCE y e t e i t h e r , he knew al o t from th e 1995 phase. Davidsa id to d is t ingu ish between th espec ies c l a s s i f i c a t i on o f Homoantecessor and i t s evo lu t ionaryp o s i t i o n . There was an ex ce l l en tchance t h a t a new spec ies hadbeen found b u t i t s pos i t ionr e l a t i ve to H.n. and H .s . s . wasmuch more d i f f i c u l t to f igure ,unless Pot t s found a contemporary in Kenya. Since Pot t s wasd i r ec t i n g h i s a t t en t ion to thehighlands (around th e R i f tValley) - - due to a shor tage offos s i l s in th e lowlands - - , h issuccess seemed l e s s l i ke ly toboth of us . (But it might befound in Ethiopia where AlisonBrooks and some keen Ethiopian

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a rcheo log i s t s have been looking)Then th e NY Times web s i t ekicked in with th e opinions oftwo more expe r t s , Phi l Rightmire(SUNY Binghamton) and Fred Smith(Northern I l l i n o i s U.) , both ofwhom expressed scept ic ism aboutth e new spec ie s . Said Rightmire :" I am r e l u c t a n t to endorse t h i snew spec ie s . I wonder i f th ef a c i a l c h a ra c t e r i s t i c s of onejuveni le a re rea l ly diagnos t i c .It's t r i cky to compare ch i ld rento adu l t s and on t h a t bas i ses tab l i sh a new spec ies . " Ther ead e r w i l l note t h a t t h i s scept i c i sm i s based on da ta , not ontheor ies o f th e imposs ib le . TheSpanish proposers of the newHomo spec ie s , Jose Bermudez deCas t ro (Nat iona l Museum, Madrid)and Juan Luis Arsuaga (Complutense u., Madrid) s tood t h e i rground, saying i n t e r a l i a : " ( theboy ' s f a c i a l t r a i t s ) are exac t lyth e morphology we would imaginein th e common ances to r of modernhumans and Neanderthals ." EudaldCarbonel lo (U/Tarragona) was th eor ig ina l excavator & r ep o r t e r .Clear ly odd in terms of ourusual image of these hominids i sth e h e i g h t o f 6 f t (1.8m) givenfo r some males a t Atapuerca . Seeth e 'Boxgrove ' r epor t above fo rs imi l a r he igh t , very robus t too .David sa id Wainwright ' steam had only found t h a t onebone, j u s t too little to go on,b u t t h i s led us to discuss th eamazing f ind from Schoningen,Germany of long wooden spears of400,000 BP. Excavator Thieme( f i r s t name has s l ipped away)bel i eved th e spears were thrownnot jabbed o r t h r u s t . Th e cen te rof grav i ty was a t h i rd of th eway from th e sharp o r f i r e -h a rd ened end. ( I 'd c a l l t h a t th ehef t ing p o in t . ) Robin Dennell(U/Sheff ie ld ) sa id : "The c r a f t s manship of the t h ree spears


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shows cons iderable depth o fplanning, soph i s t i ca t ion ofdes ign and pa t ience in carv ingwood, a l l of which have been a t t r i bu t e d only to modern humans."The con tex t appeared to be grouphunt ing o f horses . That also wastaken as a s ign of modernness.Yet one must demur. Everyoneknows t h a t both African l ionsand wild dogs show s t ra t egy andt a c t i c s in hunt ing. So it a i n ' tnecessa r i ly so human o r modern.The s igns of robustness inAtapuerca, hinted a t (Boxgrove) ,and compat ib le wi th th e Germanspea rs , could be seen in thewell-known musculature of Neande r t ha l . David has long arguedt h a t H . n . ' s powerful musclesmust have been use fu l in huntingby spear . I f he played Americanfoo tba l l , Neanderthal would be as t a r quar te rback , s e t t i ng newrecords a t throwing th e foo t b a l l . David thought t h a t themuscular l i ne from antecessor toNeanderthal was adapt ive ly l i n k ed to spear throwing, i.e., in700 ky some n a tu r a l se lec t ioninvolved in a l l t h a t muscle.(One can e a s i l y imagine soc ie tyo r women ' p r e f e r r ing ' ab le pikemen who brought home more bacono r fended o ff cave bears . I knowt h i s sounds ' r omant i c ' b u t th escenar io i s not so u n l ik e ly . )Some l i g h t was thrown ont h i s t he s i s by Stephen Jay Gould(Harvard) and Christopher Ruff(Johns Hopkins) and co l l eagueswho argue t h a t e a r l i e r humans,espec ia l ly o f th e 600 ky-30kyper iod , were t a l l e r and brawnierthan we have been s ince then .Neanderthal was 30% heav ier thanu s , a l b e i t not as tall as some,and with a l a rge r bra in thanours . But h i s /he r bra in - to -bodyr a t i o was 10% l e s s than ours ,g iv ing us an edge in bra inpower. Given th e s i ze d i f fe rence

between BaMbuti and Nuer, Semaiand Samoans, o r Sic i l i a ns andMacDonalds, one can be a b i tsc e p t i c a l of t he in fe rences . Butour spearman theory probablymeri t s even more doubt .Reminding everyone o f someobvious th ings . In old fores tedareas l i ke Europe and China th epresence of wooden t oo l s oughtto be assumed. Archeology has anunavoidable b u t inherent b ias ini t s data aga ins t per i shableth ings . The digger f r a t e rn i tyknows t h i s per fec t ly wel l b u tf inds it eas ie r , no t b e t t e r , toframe t h ings in l i t h i c t e rms . Nomeat, j u s t bones; no wood, j u s ts tones . Try to remember t ha t !Ofer Bar-Yosef once sa id aguy with j u s t a crude hand axemay still have a soph is t i ca tedto o l k i t in bamboo or bone.Thieme seems to prove him r i gh t .Sources : The remarkably pre se rv ed wooden spears o r j ave l inswere repor ted in NATURE, Feb.27,1997. NY Times web s i t e of May30, 1997 was wri t t en by JohnNoble Wilford ( thanks to AllanBarnhard). Gould 's p a r t was inNATURE, May 8, 1997, while Ruffe t a l repor ted in SCIENCE, May9, 1997. The s i zes in modernhumans are well-known genera l lyin anthropology.Inev i t ab ly Homo antecessorprovokes renewed i n t e r e s t in theso -ca l l ed ' a rcha ic sap iens ' o r' p r e - s a p i e n t s ' of Europe, v i z . ,Homo he ide lbergens is , Ste inheim,and Swanscombe. H.h. was th ee a r l i e s t (c i rca 500 kya) a goodcandidate fo r pikeman of yore ,while Sw. was c i rca 225 kya. A lll ike ly l ived in 2nd In t e rg l a c i a lRightmire be l ieves t h a t H.hi s " the l a s t common ances tor of"both Neander tha l and modern men.Smith sees antecessor as l ike lyto be an ear ly Heidelberg man or


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l a t e Homo e rec tus .Let us ske tch br i e f ly th ecompeting schemes proposed tilnow in our phylogeny. Let H. =Homo, n =n e a n d e r t h a l , s = s a p . ,an t = antecessor , e r = erec tus ,H.h. = Heidelberg man.( 1 ) H.er - - -> H.n - - -> H.ss( 2) H.er - - -> H.n (Europe)" - - -> H.ss (Afr ica)( 3) H.er - - -> H. an t - - -> H.n" " - - -> H.ss( 4) H.er - - -> H.an t - - -> H.nH.er - - -> H.er2 - - -> H.ss( 5) H.er - -> H.h - -> H.n--> H.ssNo doubt (2) i s th e dominantmodel nowadays. But e i the r (3)or (4) should replace it, i fH.ant holds up well as a taxonStay tuned to t h i s s t a t ion !* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Here i s th e a b s t r a c t of th ea r t i c l e which has di s tu rbed th ese ren i ty of th e 'Out of A f r i ca 's cho la r s . The authors are Rosal ind Harding, e t a l . (Now beginquot ing]Ti t l e : Archaic African and AsianLineages in th e Genet ic Ancest ryo f Modern Humans.Summary. A 3-kb region encompass ing the B-globin gene has beenanalyzed fo r a l l e l i c sequencepolymorphism in nine populat ionsfrom Africa , Asia, and Europe. Aunique gene t r ee was cons t ruc tedfrom 326 sequences o f 349 in th et o t a l sample. New maximum-likel ihood methods fo r analyzinggene t r e e s on th e bas i s o f coa l escence theory have been used.The most recen t common ances torof th e B-globin gene t r e e i s asequence found only in Afr icaand es t imated to have ar i sen-aoo,ooo years ago. There i s noevidence fo r an exponent ia l expansion out of a bot t leneckedfounding popula t ion , and ane f fec t ive populat ion s i z e of

-10,000 has been maintained.Modest d i f fe rences in l eve l s ofB-globin d i v e r s i t y betweenAfr ica and Asia are b e t t e r ex pla ined by g r ea t e r Africane f fec t ive populat ion s i ze thanby g r ea t e r t ime depth . There mayhave been a reduc t ion of Asiane f f e c t i v e populat ion s i ze inrecen t evo lu t ionary h i s to ry .Charac te r i s t i ca l ly Asian ancest ry i s es t imated to be olde rthan 200,000 yea rs , suggest ingt h a t th e an ces t r a l hominid popu la t ion a t t h i s t ime was widelydispersed across Afr ica andAsia. Pa t t e rns of B-globind ivers i ty sugges t extens iveworldwide l a t e Ple is tocene geneflow and are not e a s i l y reconc i led with a u n id i r ec t i o n a lmigrat ion o ut of Afr ica 100,000years ago and t o t a l replacementof archa ic populat ions in Asia.[End quote]Remembering t h a t th e DNAused was autosomal (nuclear ) ,not Y, not X, not mtDNA. Itr e f l ec t s mating and gene f low,j u s t as t he o the rs do not . SinceHarding e t a l ' s conclus ion i s' heavy ' , we repea t it here .[Now quot ing] "The new methodsused here to es t imate th e ageso f mutat ions in gene t r e e schal lenge some of th e cur ren t lyfavored i n t e rp re t a t i o n s of humangene t ic d ivers i ty regarding th eances t r a l h i s to ry o f contemporary popula t ions . These and o t h e rpopulat ion gene t ic methods w i l lbe app l ied to nuclear sequenceda ta as they become inc reas inglyava i lab le , and it i s l ike ly t h a tthe re i s much more to l ea rnabout th e evo lu t ionary h is to ryof modern humans. Our conclus ions from t h i s s tudy of a l l e l i cB-globin sequences are t h a tthe re has been su b s t a n t i a lmul t id i r ec t iona l globa l geneflow within th e l a s t 100,000


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years and t h a t modern humanshave both Afr ican and Asian ances t ry da t ing to >200,000 yearsago. We i n f e r an e a r l i e r evo lu t ion and d i s p e r s a l out of Afr icaby th e ances to r s o f modernhumans than i nd ica t ed by somei n t e rp re t a t i o n s of th e f o s s i lda ta (S t r inge r and Andrews 1988)and, t h e r e f o r e , i nc lus ion in th ean ces t r a l gene pool of nonAfr ican popula t ion groups i d en t i f i ed morphological ly as archa ico r pre - sap iens . " [End quote)Sources . Am.J.Hum.Gent. 60:772-789, 1997. Also summarized inSCIENCE vo l .27 , 25 Apr i l 1 9 9 7 ~536 which a lso repor ted themisgiv ings o f Sarah Tischkoffabout the adequacy of samplingof Afr ican haplotypes . SinceA fr i c a ' s gene t i c d i v e r s i t y tendsto have four fo c i (Mbuti Pigmies+ Centra l Afr icans [ the bulk ofwest and c e n t r a l Afr i ca ) , Khoisan speakers , and Eth iop ids ofth e Horn & Sahara) , then h a l f o fit was neg lec ted . What Hardinge t a l ca l l ed Asian was preponde r an t l y Oceanic - - a good choicefo r preh i s to ry , in my opinion.

Another c r i t i c i sm has beenmade, i.e., Harding e t a l b as i c a l ly use one locus o r one genet o i n fe r th e preh i s to ry ofeve ry th ing . That has i t s problems. Cf th e l a d ' s broken head.Rebecca Cann made e d i t o r i a lcomment on Harding e t a l in th esame i s sue of AJHG, pp.755-757.It i s an ex ce l l en t overview o fbiogene t ic s t r a t eg y which alsorehearses the d i f f e r i n g r e s u l t sfrom us ing d i f f e r e n t l oc i . A wrycomment on th e inc rea s ing ly hardmathemat ics of biogene t ics w i l ld e l i g h t non-gene t i c i s t s ! Oneshould a lso mention t h a t th eHarding e t a l a r t i c l e i s verycomplex and t e ch n i ca l , thus veryhard fo r t he r e s t of us t o eva l -

ua t e . We are now se r ious ly addi c t ed to the exper t s whose w r i t ings we can bare ly savvy! Yes,yes , we know t h a t l i ngu i s t i c s i squ i te d i f f i c u l t to unders tandtoo! Our o ld problem.Two o the r s tud ies impingedon t he se d i scuss ions . One byLynn Jorde e t a l ( inc ludingHenry Harpending) t e s t ed a l a rgenumber of nuc lea r l o c i - - 60mi c ro sa t e l l i t e l o c i - - in 14popula t ions from Afr ica , Asia ,and Europe. To t e s t th e hypothes i s o f g r ea t e r Afr ican d ive r s i ty . As t h e i r a b s t r a c t says : "Onaverage, Afr ican popula t ionshave ~ 2 0 % g r ea t e r mi c ro sa t e l l i t e

d i v e r s i t y than do Asian and European popula t ions . A comparisonof con t inen ta l d i v e r s i t y d i f f e r ences in mi c ro sa t e l l i t e s andmtDNA sequences sugges ts e a r l i e rdemographic expansion of th eances to r s o f Africans ."The second s tudy by MichaelHammer e t a l (he o f U/Arizona)c la ims to show t h a t e a r l i e r emigra t ions o f Afr icans were fo l l o wed by a b ig backf low from Asia .He be l i eves t h a t Afr ican migra t ion happened twice b u t t h a t a"major component of Afr ican d iv e r s i t y i s der ived from Asia . "Hammer s tudied Y-chromosomes,espec ia l ly th e "YAP" r eg ion , a2600-base-pa i r segment. Inher i tance i s s t r i c t l y pa t r i l i nea l .The genera l conclus ion i s t h a tHammer's team found one (haplotype) showing up " fa r more o f ~ ~ ~in Asians than Afr icans . I t s ~ 0 -quence shows more d ive rs i tyAsians , implying t h a t th e h a ; : : ; ~ -type had more t ime to acquiremutat ions in Asia than in Afr .- - and, the re fo re t h a t it arc:in Asia" Exci t ing but debatatl a t e r on! Jorde e t a l , PROC. :. ACAD.SCI, vol . 94 : 3100-3. No:read : Hammer's paper in GENE


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ARCHEOLOGY IN THE AMERICAS: MONTE VERDE (CHILE) SCENE OF SURRENDER.nThe mi l l s o f t h e gods gr ind s lowly b ut they gr ind exceeding f ine .n

The pre ss (USA) has been f u l l o f r epor t s on th e 'new discovery 't h a t Amerinds (na t ive Americans) had se t t l ed i n the Americas beforeth e famous Clovis Line da te o f 11,200 BP. The schola rs who had beenblocking t h i s discovery (owing to i nappropr i a t e ly high s tandards ) gaveup en masse by accep t ing th e Monte Verde d a t e s o f 12,500 BP fo r highers t r a t a a t l e a s t , maybe 33,000 for the lowes t . Also accepted a t TomDil lehay ' s s i t e was a human foo t p r i n t and l a shings on h u t poles .Less not iced subsequent ly was an e f f o r t to undermine th e Amazonian di scove r i e s o f Anne Roosevel t and her team which had es tab l i shed acontemporary cu l tu re f a r removed from th e main Clovis-Folsom areas andone with little a f f i n i t y to th e main c u l t u ra l focus of Clov i s . Usingvery e legan t c r i t e r i a , th e c r i t i c s at tempted to show t h a t (a) Roosev e l t 's s i t e was younger than she though t and (b) th e a r t i f a c t s couldbe derived from l o ca l Amazonian cu l tu r e s of s i g n i f i c a n t l y l a t e r age .Thei r c r i t i que was pi tched to such a r a r i f i ed and t echn ica l l eve l t h a tit was t r u ly d i f f i c u l t to read - - a l l th e more reason to be l ieve 'itmust be r e a l l y s c i e n t i f i c ! ' . I f one can endure wading through sc ien tific e so t e r i c a , then Rooseve l t ' s marvelous r e b u t t a l w i l l be mostrewarding to read . Bas ica l ly , she and h er team threw the c r i t i c ' sargument back a t them "T u quoque!" by observing t h a t t h e i r own s i t e shad neve r been held to such high s tandards - - so why was th e Amazonianmate r i a l c r i t i c i zed in such inappropr ia te terms? - - plus in t e chn ica ld e t a i l s her c r i t i c s were wrong anyway. It was a tou r de force!Opinion. This could s pe l l th e end of Technocracy in American archeology. Or so one can hope. More prec i se ly one can hope fo r normalsc ience wherein we do have high s tandards bu t only in so f a r as theya f f e c t da ta ga ther ing and ana lys i s . We ought not smother venturesomehypotheses , so f requent ly f r u i t f u l and valuab le , in a dense t h i c k e t oft e c h n i c a l i t i e s . While th e inven to rs o f Technocra t a rcheology bel i evethey adhere to a sound philosophy of sc ience (Hempelian) , and emulatephys ics f a i t h f u l l y , t h e i r per formance suggests o therwise . They wouldhave s t i f l e d Planck and Eins t e in in t h e i r t e ens . Can you imagineChar les Darwin present ing h is theses to an audience of Technocra ta rcheo log i s t s? They would have murdered him.

I f we may borrow th e concept o f sp in con t ro l from p o l i t i c a ltheory , with th e assoc ia ted not ion of sp in doc to rs , we may u n d e r s t a ~ Ja most recen t s ta tement by a di s t ingu i shed a rcheo log i s t (D.Meltzer;which accepted th e v e r d i c t from Monte Verde b ut sought immediatelygovern i t s i n t e rp re t a t i o n - - con t ro l i t s spin - - by s t a t i ng t h a t m ~ ~ !othe r s i t e s had a l so broken th e Clovis t ime l i ne but t h a t they WOL.: ..each have to be examined pa ins takingly before one bel i eved in t h e ~ ~au th en t i c i t y . Ei the r t h e i r dates were ' o f f ' o r t h e i r a r t i f a c t s wererea l ly only geofac t s - - th e essence o f h is message. In othe r w o r d ~should not spin out of con t ro l and be l ieve such t h ings as G u i d o n ' ~hypothes i s in Braz i l o r MacNeish's in Texas with t h e i r 20K, 30K oeven 40K da te s . The good spin doctor would have us be l i eve t h a t Me:

l

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Verde i s only a sa l i en t along a ba t t l e f ront , not a rea l breakthroughl ike Sedan or a t rue reversa l l ike El Alamein, in mi l i tary terms. (Thepar t icu la rs of t h i s page are given below in our regular format .)Jus t as Scotty MacNeish had to be mentioned in today 's cl im-been nearly forsaken by American a te of opinion. Donald Chrismanarcheologis ts , espec ia l ly a f te r e t a l ' s summary i s :being shredded in a review of "In the excavation of Pendejoh is Mexican Neoli thic work, some Cave ... 16 f r ic t ion skin im-of h is theses received a l i t t l e pr in t s were found in f ive s t r a t -confirmation. Smithsonian 's i f i ed zones on clay nodules,Bruce Smith found firm evidence baked a t over 120oC. After care-of domesticated crops - - squash; ful ana lys is , exper t dermato-Cucurbi ta pepo - - in Oaxaca glyphologists determined tha tabout 9000 BP or twice as o ld as these imprints had pos i t iverecent revis ions of the Mexican primate charac te r i s t ics . TheNeoli thic had it. One might say imprints are probably of humantha t MacNeish was r igh t but for or ig in , since no other primatesthe wrong reasons. One might are known to have exis ted inprefer to say tha t h is s i t e s prehi s tor i c New Mexico. Eight ofwere bad but someone had recent- the imprints occurred in threely done the job proper ly . Or one well-dated zones fa l l ing in themight say tha t f au l t could be la te Ple is tocene . These zonesfound with h is excavat ions but have d i r ec t radiocarbon determi-tha t h is basic hypothesis was nat ions between 12,000 andr igh t a f te r a l l , or despi te it 37,000 BP. In addi t ion to the i ra l l . But with whimsy one might associat ion with radiocarbon de-add tha t Scot ty 's c r i t i c s were terminat ions, the pr in t s comewrong but for a l l the r igh t from three of 24 s t ra t i f i edreasons. Their technique and zones, in tens ive ly studied byanalys is i s superb but t h e i r geologis t s and pedologists , tha thypothesis i s , malheureusement, are dated in sequence by 34fa l se . Helas! other radiocarbon determinations

At the famous 1 infamouss i t e of Pendejo Cave (also ca l l ed Orogrande) in Texas some newth ings to repor t . Careful labt e s t s have es tabl ished tha thuman ha i r in some s t r a t a arec i rca 10 kya, not recent ly shedfrom the heads of diggers. Whilenot breaking the Clovis Line,th i s supports the authent ic i tyof the whole enterprise or a tl ea s t the re levant s tratum. AndmtDNA t e s t s suggest tha t thehumans a t Pendejo are l inked tosome in Siber ia c i rca 35 kya.More importantly, a recentar t i c l e accepted by AMERICANANTIQUITY, 61(2) , 1996:357-376,makes strong poin ts which need

acquired from four di f fe ren tl abora tor ie s . The imprints areassociated with a column of over35,000 paleontological specimensand more than 15,000 botanica lremains. These specimens ind ic a te Pleistocene changes and supply evidence of human t ranspor t a t ion and modificat ion of va r i ous mater ia ls . The pr in t s arealso associated with ar t i f ac t s ,ecofacts , features of human cons t ruc t ion , and human remains.The imprint specimens thereforeprovide evidence of Pleistocenehuman occupation in the NewWorld." [End of quote] .What do you have to do toge t a s i t e taken ser ious ly, anyway? The answer seems to be

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you have to be t r u s t e d and cons ide red r e l i a b l e by your co l l e agues! That i s what th e grapevine i s say ing . So th e t e s t i ngof a major hypothes is i s done byjudging t he excava to r ' s charac t e r? Mama mia! e s tupido!Sources . Ear ly r epo r t s on th econsensus re Monte Verde werea c t u a l l y on American TV. Then inth e NY Times and th e BostonGlobe (one owns th e o t h e r ) . A llin mid-February . The c r i t i que o fteam Roosevel t was in Science ,vol .275:1948-52, 28 March 1997as was the team's r e bu t t a l ( l a s t2 pages) .The shredding of MacNeish occur red in Curren t Anthropology,vol .37:700-16, 1996, by KarenHardy (Newcastle U.) , while th ed iscovery of domest icated cropsin Mexico was repor ted inScience vo l .276 :932-34 , 9 May1997. Recent f inds a t PendejoCave are in manuscrip ts fu rn i sh ed by Donald Chrisman (Yale U. ) ;a f i e l d r e p o r t on Sc o t t y ' s d igin China, hence new Neol i th icda t a , a re in PUBLICATIONS INANTHROPOLOGY No.13, EL PASO CENTENNIAL MUSEUM, U/Texas a t ElPaso, 1995. One might g e t a copyby con tac t i ng Lorra ine Farmer a tAFAR, Box 83, Andover, MA 01810,USA.Pr io r d i scuss ions in o ur Newsl e t t e r of t he da t es fo r t he peop l ing o f th e Americas go back a tl e a s t to 1987. The most r e c e n twas in MT-27, pp . 2 -7 . We havebeen accused of excess ive a t t en t i on t o American archeology bu tt h a t i s th e only r e l i ab l e sourceof American chronology withou twhich nothing can proceed.

Biogene t ic dates are f a i r l ywild , a l b e i t i n t e r e s t i ng .Lingu i s t i c dat ing cannot bet r i e d , no t so much due to i r a t econt roversy as it i s due to the

probable ances to r s being beyondth e l imi t s of g lo t tochronology -- to o o ld . That i s only my opinion; Ruhlen d o e sn ' t agree , whileGreenberg has been loa th to de pend on t h a t dat ing method - pre fe r r ing th e s imple r l og i c ofhold ing a rcheo logy ' s da te o f th ef i r s t Amerinds as de f in i t i ve .Antigue Si t e s in the AmericasWe have enclosed a nicecolored map of th e New Worldwhich shows a l l o r most o f th econ t rover s ia l s i t e s and t h e i rproposed da tes . This i s r ep ro duced by permiss ion o f th eBoston Globe whose r e po r t e r ,David Chandler , had an a r t i s tdraw th e whole scene . Who knowshow many of t hese dates wi l lsu rv ive the m i l l s o f th e gods?To th e map's group add thes i t e s l i s t e d in MT-27, p .4 ; th ef i r s t two are in Vi rg in i a :S a l t v i l l e (USA) 15,000Cactus H i l l (USA) 14,000Nebraska mammoth s i t e , nor theas tof Haystack, Colorado, 18,000+Monte Alegre (Amazon, Braz i l )(Roosevel t team) 11,075 110Even tua l ly younger bolder a rcheo l og i s t s w i l l dig v igorous ly inthe promising t e r r a i n of e a r l i e rpreh i s to ry and we w i l l be ableto s o r t ou t how t hese numerouso ld s i t e s r e l a t e to each o therand to th e c u l t u r a l sequenceswhich wi l l become apparen tl a t e r . In t ime we w i l l knowwhether th e Ur-Amerinds came bysea ( s t r a igh t across) o r coas t wise sk ipping a long th e Aleut ians or ac ross Ber ing ia to p ickt h e i r way south through th eg l a c i e r s . Twi l l be fun to f igurethese puzz les out! Then u l t imat e l y to f ind th e archa i c Na-Deneand t r a c e t h e i r rou t es from Asiathen go beyond to t h e i r purpor t ed junc t ion with Yenise ian! Yes!


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INTERESTING BUT COOLER NEWSOldest Human Tools: Ethiopia

Perhaps b e t t e r to say'E th iop ia a g a i n ' . Nearly 3000s tone t o o l s , inc lud ing round,f i s t - s i z e a r t i f a c t s and smal lsharp-edged f l akes , poss ib lyused to crack nuts and sharpens t i c ks fo r digging up tuber s ,were found in th e Gona (Awash)reg ion . Dating to 2,500,000years ago, they are th e o ld es tknown in the world . No assoc ia t ion with any f o s s i l hominid wasfound but a s t rong presumptiont h a t Homo did it has been made,in t h i s case hab i l i s . Th e r ep o r twas by Si l e sh i Semaw e t a l (heof Rutgers U.) in NATURE, 23January, 1997. They sa id t h a tth e t oo l s showed su rp r i s ing cont r o l of the f laking process andwere much l i ke too l s made a mil l ion years l a t e r . Precocious!Music: the neglected aspect

Most of us do not know whatto do about music , an old , verydear , and unive rsa l p a r t of ourhuman r e p e r t o i r e . Music i s normally inc luded i n the c u l tu r a ls ide of th ings , r a t h e r thanl i n g u i s t i c o r b io log ica l , y e t iti s usua l ly as ephemeral as t a l k .Neuro-anatomis ts may s tudy th elocus and func t ions o f music inthe human bra in but what AlanLomax would c a l l ' song s t y l e ' orwhat we might c a l l music t r a d i t ion has no se r ious p re h i s t o r i cresearch assoc ia ted with it. Icould argue t h a t , by ord inarye thnologica l c r i t e r i a , music hasj u s t as good a p r o b ab i l i t y aslanguage to be assoc ia ted withour founding mothers. J u s t l i kekinsh ip terms. But how can wet ease some evidence out o farcheology on these th ings?

Well, some people do t h i s ,a b i t i nd i r e c t l y , it i s t r u e ,b u t still bear ing on th e t o p i c .Witness a recen t discovery t h a tNeander tha l probably p layed af lu t e ! That i s between 43 ky and67 kya o r on average 55 kya. Theassocia t ion i s with a Mousteriancu l tu re of Slovenia . The f l u t e apiece of bear t h igh bone with 4holes in jon it, with more holeson l o s t fragments of th e bone.Bob Fink, musico log i s t in Saskatoon , Saskatchewan, in fe r red th epresence o f a minor diatonicsca le , much l i ke the seven tonesca le supposedly used in th eNear Eas t 4 kya. That l a s t b i taccording to Anne Kilmer (Berkel ey ) . Fink added t h a t one-notewhis t l e type a r t i f a c t s dated tomaybe 20 ky to 30 kya. Where andby whom was not mentioned. Aminor d ia ton ic sca le would haveha l f tones and whole tones o rroughly th e same seven notesca le on which Western music i s(supposedly) based . (I d o n ' tth ink about music t h i s way, so Iam unsure of my render ing o f themusicologica l opinions . )Fink added something morei n t e r e s t i n g to me: " t h a t th ehuman b r a i n ' s percep t ion o f musi c a l tones and what cons t i tu t esharmony i s a t l e a s t par t ly hardwired - - a view bo ls te red by re cent research showing t h a t youngbabies can d is t ingu ish di scordan t from harmonious combinat ionsof no tes . " Everyone probablyknows t h a t hard-wired means t h a tt h i s musical ab i l i t y i s p a r t ofth e hardware, p a r t of th e genet i c endowment of bab ies , r a th e rthan enviromental ly given.Nevertheless , it i s use fu lto i ssue cha l l enges to readersfrom t ime to t ime . Everyoneknows t h a t b i rds s ing , dogs howland monkeys c ha t t e r . Chimps doc h a t t e r and grun t , b u t I b e t no


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one can produce an example ofany higher p r imate , any ape, whos ings in any fashion s imi la r tot he c rudes t human s ing ing ( e . g . ,th e music of th e Amami I s l an d s ) .Unless my propos i t i on i s r e f u t ed, I w i l l s t a t e t h a t music i sano ther impor tan t and exc lus ivehuman trait. Anyone care to bet?(S ta r t ing a t 1000 I t a l i an l i r e . )Source . SCIENCE Vol.276: 205, 11Apri l 1997, "Random Samples" .

And an a f t e r thought . Birdsare hard-wired to s ing , squawk,scream, e t c . , b u t may a l so beable to l e a rn new mater ia l . Theb r ig h t and g i f t e d par ro t s can doa lmost any th ing ; they seem to beunique themse lves . Like humansthey can speak any language ands ing any song in any s t y l e , ifth e normal appara tus i s pre sen t .Again human beings do no t comewith hard-wir ing fo r any p a r t i cu l a r language o r any song o rsong s t y l e . A g i r l of Samoanparents can be r a i sed in T b i l i s in a tu r a l l y to speak a languageand s ing music very unl ike th esame t h ings in gen t l e Samoa.( J u s t rehears ing some bas i cpo in t s and adding music to it.)How Many Genes do You have?

With so much research andso many conclus ions r e s t i n g ont he gene t i c composi t ion of Homosap . sap . - - and with so manycorpora t ions competing in thebio tech sphere of bus iness - - itwould be use fu l to know j u s t howmany genes the re a re in averagebodies . Ca l l th e t o t a l - - genomeas they do nowadays. We f indt h a t the re i s l e s s than p e r f ec tagreement among expe r t s . Atf i r s t it i s b e t t e r to c l e a r upone ques t ion . I s a l l o f our DNAth e same as our genome? I s a l l

of our DNA composed of genesonly? One answer i s , no! Why?"The e s se n t i a l problem i s t h a tour genes are hidden in a hays t ack of apparen t ly meaninglessgene t i c in fo rmat ion . Only aboutJ1 of th e 3 b i l l i on i nd iv idua lu n i t s known as ' b a se s ' t h a t makeup DNA ac tu a l l y code fo r p r o t e i n s , which i s th e s imples t d e f i n i t ion of a gene ." That use le s ss t u f f must be l i ke th e 'darkm a t t e r ' , th e main component o fth e universe . So say astronome r s . Ex n i h i l i s ' da rk mat te r ' ?Everyone can ca l cu l a t et h a t , ergo , we have 90 mil l ionbases . I s t h a t th e same asgenes? No, a number o f basesmake up a p a r t i c u l a r gene . Howmany? There ' s the rub! We do notknow fo r su re . The genome of th eJapanese j fugu j o r p u f f e r f i shhas 360 mil l ion bases and about6000 bases fo r each gene, fo r at o t a l of 60,000 genes . Somet h ink the human genome = 60,000too . Anyway the es t imates varyfrom as low as 42,000 to 150,000a t t he h ighes t . People are count i ng fu r ious ly a t d i f f e r e n t l absand th e answer i s expected bythe year 2003 when th e HumanGenome P ro j e c t i s completed. Byt h a t t ime it i s expected t h a t wew i l l know something about whateach gene does , as wel l as th et o t a l .Does anyone e l se rememberback when - - Sovie t s c i e n t i s t sand American c re a t ion i s t s bothchal lenged th e concep t o f genebecause no one had ever seen agene under a microscope? 1950s?It f l u s t e r ed some Western sc ien tists because they could onlyargue t h a t th e concept was va lu able in i t s e l f - - s i g h t unseen.Then one was f i na l ly seen undera more powerful microscope. Yetwe have bel i eved in atoms fo rages and t eeny e lec t rons fo r


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much longer than genes . Not tomention gods and goddesses .Source . SCIENCE had a marvelouss p ec i a l on th e human genome on 7February 1997 from which th eabove discuss ion i s t aken .On Dying Vikings & Doing Home-workIt i s no s e c r e t t h a t some scho l a rs do little b ib l iograph ic worka t a l l , while some c i t e a fewkey sources and then qu i t . Mosto f us are consc ient ious but no tper fec t ; we sometimes miss someone e l s e ' s work. And they of tenr e s en t it o r a t l e a s t s e t th erecord s t r a i g h t l e s t t h e i r ownwork be forgot ten or neg lec ted .So it i s with th e exc i t ingnews t h a t th e mystery of th eViking se t t l emen t s on Greenlandin th e Middle Ages has beenso lved . As t he b lu rb in SCIENCEsa id "B y combining da ta from ic ecore s , a rchaeo log ica l d i g s , andf o s s i l f l i e s , re sea rche rs haveshown how i nc rea s ing cold and ani n f l e x i b l e cu l tu re could havedoomed t h i s medieval Norse ou t pos t . " It was a nice a r t i c l e .The research had involved suppor t and/or co l labora t ion between b ig e n t i t i e s l ike CUNY (NewYork) , Nat ional Science Foundat i o n , Shef f ie ld Unive r s i ty andcomments by noteworthys . Thepr imary work was done by PaulBuckland (She f f i e ld ) and TomMcGovern (CUNY), with th e l a t t e rhaving spent near ly 20 yearssurveying da ta , digging, e t c .The Norse se t t l emen t s hadbegun in th e lOth century AD anddied ou t in th e 14th , becomingi n v i s i b l e ( ' van i shed ' ) by the16th . The f i r s t th ree hundred o rso years were spen t with a mildc l imate . Then c l ima te changed toth e ' L i t t l e Ice Age' . While th eneighboring Thule Eskimaux ad -

jus ted to the cold , the Norsewere c u l tu r a l l y r i g id and u l t i mate ly t he se t t l emen t died ou t .Conjecture i s t h a t th e s e t t l e r smay have gone back home to I ce land o r Denmark, r a t h e r thandying out on th e spo t . A ll re por ted by sc ience w r i t e r HeatherPr ing le i n SCIENCE vo l . 275:924-26, 14 February 1997.On May 16th 1997 SCIENCEpr in ted a l e t t e r from w. Dansgaard (Nie ls Bohr I n s t i t u t e ,Dep' t . of Geophysics , U/Copenhagen) who s t a t e d t h a t he andh is col leagues had reached as imi l a r conclus ion 22 yearsbefore and publ ished it inNATURE 255, 24, 1975. Since th epiece in SCIENCE d id not have abibl iography in it, what mayhave t r iggered Dangaard 's r e sponse was a comment in s ide thepiece by a pa leoc l ima to log i s tt h a t " the i ce -core da ta a re a tl a s t being appl ied to humanh i s t o ry . " It i s un l ike ly t h a tnobody knew of Dangaard 's workbu t those who knew did no t wri t ethe repor t . Maybe.For th e r e s t o f us it i sgood t h a t McGovern e t a l confirmDangaard e t a l in a nea t ana lysi s of one ' e v e n t ' in p reh i s to ry .This l ends c red i b i l i t y to Dangaa rd ' s o the r i c e -core hypotheses ,inc lud ing th e prec i se da te (1643 7 years BC) o f th e erupt ion o fThera which doomed Minoan c i v i l i za t ion .China ' s Zhoukoudian: New Dates

A key place in th e debateover modern human o r ig in s hasbeen, and remains , China . Somehave doubted the da tes andi n t e rp re t a t i o n o f fos s i l s , pa r t i c u l a r l y those of Choukout ien,modern Zhoukoudian, th e cave andth e inhab i tan t , of ten ca l l edPeking Man. New research with


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ESR dat ing has broad ly confirmedth e pa t te rn o f o l d e r da tes andin f a c t given a f a i r l y firm s e tof da tes which my b es t informant(who commutes to China almostmonthly) says are c r ed ib l e . Theconclusion of t he recen t s tudyby Rainer Griin e t a l i s : "TheESR age es t imates presen ted int h i s s tudy confirm th e r e s u l t sof th e prev ious mul t ida t ings tudy (Wu e t a l , 1985) . Theyind ica te t h a t H. erec tus occupied th e Peking Man Cave a t Zhoukoudian in th e range of about300,000-550,000 year s . " Grun(Aus t ra l i an Nat ional U.) hadPei-Hua Huang (U/Science andTechnology o f China , H efe i ) ,Xinzhi Wu (Academia Sin ica ,Be i j ing) , and Chris S t r in g e r(Natura l His to ry Museum, London)on h is team. Two Aus t ra l i ans ,Alan Thorne (Aus t ra l i an Nat ionalU.) and Malcolm McCUlloch (same)completed th e team. The team i sa l l l i s t e d here because o f i t si n t e r n a t i o n a l cha rac te r and because some o f them had doubtedChinese da te s in the p as t .[Note: ESR = Elect ron SpinResonance. Having no r e a l unders tand ing o f it, we r ep o r t ESR asa ' s oc i a l f a c t ' . ]We must s t r e s s , however, t h a tt h i s paper does not b ea r on th eHomo s . s . remains in the famous'Upper Cave ' o r t h e i r da tes o rt h e i r i n t e rp re t a t i o n . My informan t , Ofer Bar-Yosef , has p a r t i c ipa ted in the eva lua t ions o fth e Upper Cave and i t s da tes andi t s human remains . He i s se r iousabout th e whole mat t e r being asy e t unreso lved . We w i l l honort h a t view here and not guess .Source . JOURNAL OF HUMAN EVOLU-TION 32, 83-91, 1997.Also in a l a t e SCIENCE, Grun andThorne a t tack swisher e t a l fo rt h e i r ESR da t ing o f Ngandong Manof Java , a H .s . s . c i rca 27 kya.

Puzzl ing mtDNA Dive rs i ty : Afr icaSometimes research accountsare too puzzl ing to repor t onproper ly . The reasons obviouslya re our f a i l u r e to savvy th ejargon bu t a lso our f a i l u re tounders tand the conc lus ions .Las t year El izabe th Watson(U/Munich) e t a l ( inc lud ingsvante Paabo a lso o f Munich)publ i shed "mtDNA Sequence Divers i ty in Afr ica" . The s tudy wasi n i t i a l l y aimed a t repor t ing onsome prev ious ly unknown Afr icandata i n the hypervar iab le reg ionI (HVR I ) o f th e mitochondr ia lcon t ro l reg ion which would bearon ques t ions of Afr ican d iv e r s

i t y as evidence of gene t i c p re h i s to ry . While th e s tudy did re p o r t a g r ea t deal of d i v e r s i t yamong the 9 peoples bled , t h i swas n ot r e l a t e d t o th e globa lques t ion - - unless it was bysome undetec ted impl ica t ion .Ins tead Watson e t a l seemed morei n t e res t ed i n the r e s u l t s froman Afr ican perspec t ive and inte rms of subs is tence economy.In te rms o f gene t i c d i s t ancet h i s s e t of mtDNA samples s e tth e populat ions ap a r t l i ke t h i s :( 1) ! Kung(2) (a ) Biaka (Pigmy)

(b ) (1 ) Mbuti (Pigmy)(2)(a ) Turkana(b) Kikuyu vsth e r e s tTh e ' r e s t ' cons i s t s of Somali ,Tuareg, Kanuri , Rausa, Songhai ,Fulbe (Fulani ) , Mandenka (Senegal ) and Yoruba. The outs tand ingpos i t ion of Turkana has been thesource o f remarks abou t themhaving as much d i v e r s i t y as th er e s t o f humanity.St ra igh t away, t h i s pa t te rni s not good news fo r biogene t i cvs l i n g u i s t i c cor re l a t ions , excep t fo r th e Khoisan-speaking!Kung. Presumably th e Watson


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team found language co r r e l a t i o n sso unrewarding t h a t they d e se r t ed them. Anyway they a re nevermentioned. That was probably awise move! What then was t h i spa t t e rn a l l about? Subs i s tenceeconomies! They c a l l t h i s foodproducing vs food-ga ther ing . I fthe people i s r e l a t i v e l y i s o l a ted and smal l and fo rag ing , thent h e i r i n t e rn a l d i v e r s i t y i s l e s sb u t t h e i r di s t ance from othe rsi s g re a t e r . The p as to r a l or ag r i c u l t u r a l peoples on t he o the rhand show evidence o f expansionin s i z e , apparen t ly with moregene f low from o th e r s , and showth e g re a t e s t i n t e rn a l d i v e r s i t y .[Note: These conclus ionsare s l i gh t l y t roublesome. Previous di scuss ions he re in hads t ressed th e r eco r d - s e t t i n g in t e rna l d i v e r s i t y o f th e San (ofwhich th e !Kung i s of t en chosenas r ep r e s en t a t i v e ) . Mark S e i e l s tad wondered abou t t h i s t oo . ]Two examples o f th e foodproducers a re the Turkana andth e Somali . Both have t e r ro r i z e dt h e i r neighborhoods and movedothe r peoples out o f th e waydur ing t h e i r expansions . Bothare heav i ly p as to r a l & w ar l i k e ;both have incorpora ted othe rpeoples such t h a t some o f th epre sen t Turkana and Somali popul a t i o n s used to be somebody e l s e( e .g , Galab, Oromo, e t a l ) .Another example, th e Kikuyu,

r e p r e ~ e n t an olde r expansion ofBantu across Kenya from th e westto th e cen te r where t h e i r absor pt ion o f former N i lo t i c andCushi t ic peoples i s e a s i l ydemonstrable .Thus, th e t es t imony of th eWatson paper seems to be t h a tmuch so c i a l preh is to ry can beobtained from mtDNA re sea rch ,even if l i n g u i s t i c co r r e l a t i o n scannot always be found. But maybe we did no t unders tand th e

paper! (But see below)Source . AMERICAN JOURNAL OFHUMAN GENETICS (AJHG) 59:437-44,1996. (Thanks to MaryellenRuvolo fo r recommending it.)Thinking abou t Preh i s to ryPerplexed by th e Watsonpaper , I discussed t h i s bus inesswith Mark Seie l s t ad , soon to beHarvard PhD in anthropology cummolecular biology. Studen t a tboth famous l abs (C-S a t s t a n ford and Lewont in 's a t Harvard) ,Mark i s very smar t but a l so veryt hough t fu l . For a b io lo g i ca l , heknows an ex t raord ina ry amount ofAfr ican ethnology and h i s t o ry .H is recen t f i e l d work in southEthiopia was qu i te u n f a i r l ymaligned in MT-27 when I sa id hehad walked r i g h t by a group o fShabo. It were f a l s e , mes amis.My f r iend P.U. had u n f a i r l yplan ted t h a t s to ry in my head.The t r u th was t h a t Mark was notal lowed by l o ca l a u t h o r i t i e s toen t e r a p lan ta t ion where someShabo were l i v i n g . F u l l apology!L a t e r on in MT-III we w i l l ,o r we hope to , fea tu re Mark 'swork, inc lud ing th e f i r s t Ychromosome da ta and indeed thef i r s t biogene t ic da ta ever on 9peoples o f southwest Eth iop ia ;from Surma, Ni lo te , cush i te andOmotic popula t ions . Yes, Ongotatoo! But, a l a s , no Shabo y e t .(That i s more than compensatedfo r by th e new da ta on th e Nubao f Kordofan which Mark and Lucaare helping othe rs to acqu i re . )Anyway our discuss ions ledme to revamp my t h ink ing . Marki s n ot respons ib le fo r what f o l lows b u t it does r e f l e c t h iscogn i t ive in f luence .

It behooves us who seekbiogene t ic c o r re l a t e s with l anguage to r e a l i z e andjor p r ed i c tt h a t DNA research p icks up muchmore than language l i n k s . It


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picks up soc ia l and economichi s tory , including cas tes , kin-ship and marriage patterns anddisease t oo . Some t h ink t h a tabove a l l it picks up geography,of t en old co- res idence i n thesame a rea . But t h a t w i l l notamaze or confound l i n g u i s t s whohave always found language t axaco r r e l a t ed with t e r r i t o r y (no tp e r f ec t l y but l a rge ly ) . Thereasons fo r geograph ica l f ac to r sl i ke area , bodies of water , i s l ands , mountains , r i ve r va l leys ,e t c . to co r re l a t e with l i n g u i s t i c t axa are obvious o r a t l e a s twell-known. What does no t fol lowi s th e of t en dismiss ive remarkt h a t such t axa are 'merely geog ra p h i c a l ' . There a re many geograph ica l a reas on ea r th wherelanguage d i s t r i b u t i o n s are complex and we must know more thanmere loca t ion to make sense of areg ion . Some examples are B r i t i sh Columbia, th e Algie and I r i quoian a reas of North America,Mexico, nor th Tanzania , Kordofan , nor th Pak i s tan , th e Caucasus , and anc ien t Anato l i a . Oh,yes , the nor th coas t of NewGuinea + i n s u l a r Melanesia .

The r o l e of borrowings andgene flow in our preh is to ry , andth e l abor of recons t ruc t ing it,a re - - wel l , qu i te important . Wehave been misled by the c r i t i c sof our gene t i c hypotheses , andt h e i r i n t o l e r a n t onesidedness ,to play down th e importance ofword flow and loan genes . As aconsequence such exchanges andour knowledge of them are usedas c lubs to bea t down gene t i chypotheses , even when th e argument for the borrowing i s nonetoo s t rong i t s e l f . Even t rueborrowings a re no t enough. O ftc i t ed in arguments are myste r ious su b - s t r a t a which negatel i ngu i s t i c s i m i l a r i t i e s , evenwhen th e sub-s t ra tum in quest ion

i s bare ly a t t e s t e d . Southeas tAsia has probably become th eep i -cen te r fo r borrowing theor ie s wherein most l e x i c a l resemblances genera ted by the Aust r i chypothes i s are reduced to ashes .Americanis ts i nc rea s ing ly useborrowing proposa ls to exp la inaway Amerind l ex ica l s imi la r i t e s , o r ' i n f l u e n c e ' to negategrammatical cognat ions . Rare ly ,it seems, are they chal lenged ont h e i r proposed borrowings.Simply to say "it's borrowed" i senough to do th e job.Many years ago a prominentSemi t ic i s t used to do t h i s tov i r t u a l l y every proposed cognat ion between Semi t ic and Cush i t i cto such an ex ten t t h a t th e recons t ruc t ion of Semi t i c , Cush i t i c ,and Afras ian were hindered . One day a t a conference a f t e r he hadswept through a s e t of Cush i t i cetymologies , des t roy ing h a l fwith h is Semi t ic borrowing bel i e f s , a sen io r C u sh i t i c i s tpo l i t e ly sa id : " I doubt verymuch t h a t what you say i s t r ue . "A second scho la r , no doubt em boldened by th e brave ac t ion ofth e f i r s t , d ec l a red : "Yes, Idoubt it too ." Whereupon theSemi t ic i s t r e len ted and remainedcau t ious in t h i s realm fo r evera f t e r .But what decided th e f a teo f the a l leged Semi t ic loanwords in t h i s case? S t r i c t phonolog ica l ru l e s? Exact phonet iccorrespondences? No, it was dec ided by chutzpah ( s t rong s e l f conf idence)! Amazing, what!However, when we come toeva lua te loans more pruden t ly ,we sh a l l f ind t h a t they con ta ina mass of v i t a l in fo rmat ionabout preh i s to ry in addi t ion toth e equal ly v i t a l in fo rmat iongiven by gene t ic taxonomy. ourrecons t ruc t ion o f overa l l humanpreh i s to ry w i l l become a r i ch e r

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -


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th ing , no t j u s t t r a c in g th efamily t r e e s o f language groupsor see ing who evolved t oge the rin a r eg i o n . A ll kinds of e v i dence fo r con tac t and i n f luence ,movement and adap ta t ion , spheresof c u l tu r a l i n f luence , und sowei t e r , wi l l be av a i l ab l e .So l e t us demand b e t t e rarguments and ' p ro o f ' from th e'it's a l l borrowed' school ofh i s t o r i c a l l i n g u i s t i c s o r b io gene t ics . Then l e t us incorpor a te th e r e a l exchanges in to ourbook of preh is to ry .Actua l ly we come back againto anc ien t debates in ethnology& anthropology. We can s implyl ab e l th e 'it's a l l borrowed'school as DIFFUSIONISM and i d en t i f y a major source i n thet each ings o f Franz Boas. S t r a n gely enough, e thnology ' s r e a lcoun te rpa r t to d i f fus ion wasINVENTION which has been th ec ha ra c t e r i s t i c s t ance o f so muchof th e 'new archeo logy ' and th emany ' e c o - f r e a k s ' who see everyt h ing de r iv ing from sys tems andcon tex t s . Another l o g i c a l a l t e r na t ive was HERITAGE o r a l l th egene t i c t r a i t s o f body andlanguage. And cu l tu r e ( e . g . ,r e l i g i o n , song s t y l e , games,common law, e t c . ) . We probablyshould l ink Heri tage to EdwardSapi r who s t rugg led with Boasover Amerind taxonomy.To i l l u s t r a t e t he se d o c t r ines in ac t i o n , l e t us t ake th eJapanese word j f u g u j fo r puf fe rf i sh (see above) . An invent ionist l ike Trask would say t h a tj fugu / i s na tu ra l ly onomatopoeic- - th e word im i t a t e s puf f ing . Ad i f fus ion i s t l i ke Campbellwould say t h a t j f u g u j was b o r r owed from o r had di f fused fromSouth Omotic where it i s commonfo r 'b low, p u f f ' , o r ' b l a dde r ' .An i n h e r i t i s t l i ke Bomhard o rGreenberg would say t h a t / fugu /

was an anc ien t word which J ap anese and Omotic both inher i t edfrom Nos t ra t i c .So who i s r igh t? Well, weg e t our r i ch preh is to ry perhapsb e s t o f a l l if some th ings a reinvented , some borrowed, & somei nher i t ed . Like English and ourbodies (muta t ions= inven t ions ) .Apropos o f these po in t s : Lemba

As if t a i lo r -made t o showth e p re h i s t o r i c t r easu res in DNAre sea rch , we have th e case o fth e Lemba, a dispersed cas t e o fth e Bantu Venda o f fa r nor thernSouth Afr ica + adjacent Zimbab-we. Metal workers in gold , s i l v e r , copper and i ron , Lemba havealways claimed s p ec i a l s t a tus asanc ien t co lo n i s t miners whoseances to rs came ages ago from fa raway ( A r a b i a ? ) , becoming t r apped in Afr ica because a mightykingdom had conquered t h e i r homec i t y , a major cen te r of c i v i l i z a t i o n , t r ad e , and meta l working.Lemba spoke a language d i f f e r e n tfrom Venda, ci rcumcized t h e i rboys a t puberty , and had othe rcustoms which suggested Jews buta lso Muslim Arabs. Moreover th eLemba t r i e d might i ly to keept h e i r p a t r i - l i n e s pure , i.e.,f r ee o f Bantu o r o t h e r loca lmales. But they perforce marr iedl o ca l = Bantu women. Well , th ewomen might have been Bushmen oreven Twa, s ince t h e i r d i s t r i bu t i ons a re n o t so f a r away.These t r a d i t i o n s , and thef asc ina t ing Zimbabwe archeo loq : ca l c i v i l i z a t i o n near by, causeJsome i n t e r e s t in th e Lemba, e ~ c -e c i a l l y s ince meta l working c :t r ade in meta ls with the Ind: : Ocean seemed to be p a r t of tr: 'Zimbabwe scene . Since the olit r a d i t i o n of th e ' l o s t t r i b e ~ I s r a e l ' was always pre sen t i :scho la r ly heads , one working


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theory could always be l inked tothe ' Jewish ' aspec t o f th eLemba. A f t e r a l l , the re was th epreceden t of th e Falasha Jews inEth iop ia , even some connect ionwith a l o s t Sabean c i v i l i z a t i o n .For the phys ica l an th ropo log i s t sano ther f ac to r was th e r epor t sof ' J ewish ' o r ' S emi t i c ' faceson the men. More p r ec i s e ly , somemen had hooked (beaked) nosesand long o r narrow faces . Onemight suppose t h a t such faceswere an ' i n v en t io n ' of l o ca lBantus, caused by something int h e i r d i e t o r j u s t chance . S i l l ygenes j u s t mutated fo r no goodreason! A f t e r a l l such faceswere not uncommon in Ind ia ( theKrishna Menon look) and verymuch th e rage in New Guinea.The r e s u l t s of many probeswere t he se : (a) the s e c r e t l an guage was a v a r i e ty o f Bantufrom f a r t h e r nor th , (b) b ut itcon ta ined some names qui t e s imi l a r to Muslim ones , (c) circumc i s ion of boys a t puberty a lsoi s prac t i ced by those Bantusfa r the r nor th , (d) regu la r bloodgroup s tu d i e s showed Lemba to bel i ke th e Bantus o f t h e i r reg ion ,(e) mtDNA showed th e same th ing!bu t ( f ) Y-chromosome s tud ies nowshow the Lemba to be qu i te d i s t i nc t from a l l sou thern Bantus! +Bushmen and Twa; b u t 'Caucaso id 'y e t not l i ke Falasha o r Europeans so much as l i ke (you guessedi t ) - - Jews! e i t h e r Sephardim o rAshkenazim. [As i s wel l known bynow, the Falasha a re g en e t i c a l l yAgau CUshites l i ke TigrejAmhara]Furthermore , c i rcumcis iona t puber ty i s not , nor has itbeen, th e Jewish custom. Eigh tdays a f t e r b i r t h , unless th ebaby i s weak, i s th e ru le fo rJews. Moslems may circumcize a tpuberty - - a few do, most don ' t .There i s no Quranic ru le andmost loca l ru les f a l l in ch i ld -

hood. The MSA Soqot r i do it a tpuber ty , e xp l i c i t l y as prepa ra t ion fo r marr iage , and probablyd id before Is lam. Most of thepeople of E as t Afr ica + th e Horn+ much of the Bantu realm do ita t puberty o r l a t e r , pr imar i lyas a def in i t ion of adul thood o rin t roduc t ion to age s e t s . TheseAfr ican cases are most l i ke ly topre-da te Semit ic in f luence bymany mil lennia .But what t h i s case shows i st h a t one DNA f ac to r which l i n k swith a p a t r i l i n e a l t r a d i t i on mayshow us t h a t a Jewish or verys imi l a r Semi t ic group was a keye lement i n the format ion of aBantu cas t e , giving c lues to th et r a d e r s & miners involved in oldZimbabwe. This was d i f fus ion , ino r ig in , while th e many Bantuismsplus the t r a d i t i on i t s e l f plusthe preserva t ion of Y-chromosomefea tu re s were h e r i t ag e . We oughtto add t h a t many of these th ingscame t oge the r many years ago toinven t g r ea t Zimbabwe. QED, no?Source . Many olde r ones . The keyrecen t one i s by Amanda Spurdleand Trefor Jenk ins (U/Witwatersrand) , AJHG 59:1126-33, 1996. I twas p a r t of Spurd le ' s d i s s e r t a t ion . Trefor i s a world c l a s sb iogene t i c i s t , maybe most famousfo r h is Gamma Globul in s tud ieson Bushmen and sou thern Bantu.Also Akbar J a f r i , Said o f Lahore(personal communication) , CyrusGordon (a l so p . c . ) , Danie l l eBar-Yosef (a l so p . c . ) . It i sf asc ina t ing in te rms of th e socio logy of sc ience t h a t Jewishschola rs c i t ed B ib l i c a l sourcefo r Muslim p r ac t i c e , while Muim sources c i t ed custom fo r M_ -lim p r ac t i c e . In th e t ime ofIshmael Arabs may have c i r c L ~zed boys a t puber ty ; however.custom no t sanct ioned in Qur,Also see G.P.Murdock's AFRI .


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book (1959) and H.C.Fleming 's1965 doc to ra l d i s s e r t a t i on .Y-Chromosomes & Migra t ions

An a r r e s t i ng p iece of e v i dence fo r what some c a l l th e' i n c r ed ib l e power ' o f Y-DNAana lyses a t r e t r i e v i ng humanpreh i s to ry comes from the Maya!In a case which cannot be viewedas e i t h e r an innova t ion (muta t i on) or d i f fus ion (gene f low) - t hese fo r t echnn ica l reasons - - ,an ' A f r i c a n ' haplo type in a Mayan sample was i n t e rpre t ed as ares idue from much e a r l i e r t imes .To quote the r e l evan t passage:"That a s ing le Mayan i nd iv idua lca r r i e s th e G a l l e l e on a chromosome with th e Alu i n s e r t i onsugges t s an African or ig in fo rt h i s Y chromosome. However, compar i sons of t h i s Mayan with Afri cans and o the r Maya a t 30 au to somal micr os a t e l l i t e l oc i . .f a i l to show s i g n i f i c a n t Afr icanadmixture . This discrepancy canbe expla ined by cons ider ing therap id decrease of an a nc e s t o r ' sautosomal con t r ibu t ion to succeeding genera t i ons . While a p a r t i cu l a r Y chromosome would remainunchanged over many genera t i ons ,an a nc e s t o r ' s con t r ibu t ion tothe autosomes dec l ines exponent i a l l y with each genera t i on . Thisobserva t ion sugges ts t h a t Yomosome haplotypes may be moreusefu l in iden t i fy ing anc i en tpopula t ion admixture than au to somal l oc i such as microsa t e l l i t e s . Based on our da ta a lone ,it i s no t possib le to determinewhether th e G t r ans i t i on occur red independent ly on a YAP cont a in ing chromosome t h a t reachedthe Americas from Asia . We cons i de r such an event un l ike ly ,bu t th e discovery and a pp l i c a t ion of add i t iona l wel l def inedpolymorphisms may c l a r i f y the

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i s su e . In t e r e s t i ng l y , a highfrequency of th e YAP i nse r t i onin the Japanese has been obse r ved in t h i s and another s tudy(5) . A r e c e n t massive i n fus iono f African Y chromosomes inJapan o r Japanese Y chromosomesin Afr ica can be excluded. Presumably th e Alu i nse r t i on e x i s t ed (o r still does) in some mainland Asian popula t ions whichcolonized Japan . " [End quo te ] .Reference (5) i s to a 1994 paperby Michael Hammer in MOL.BIOL.EVOL.,11, 749-761. (See abovefo r more abou t Hammer's work. )Source . Mark T. Se ie l s t ad e t a l ,HUMAN MOLECULAR GENETICS, 1994,vol .3 , no.12 , 2159-61. The l a s tauthor l i s t ed was Luca c-s.Y-Chromosomes and Geography

Following on Mark 's 1994paper , a 1996 paper by A.RuizLinares (U/Ant ioquia , Colombia)e t a l (which included Mark andLuca) produced a dendrogram,s t rong ly r e f l ec t i ng geography.As t h e i r summary says : [Quote]"Five polymorphic markers on th eY-chromosome (most ly microsa te l l i t e s ) were typed in 121 i nd i v i dua ls from 13 popula t ions aroundth e world . With t hese markers 78d i f f e r e n t haplo types were de tec t ed . Haplotypes p r e s e n t morethan once tend to be shared byind iv iduals from the same popula t ion or cont inent . A reconst ruc t ion of haplo type phylogeny a l so ind ica tes s i g n i f i c a n t geographic s t ruc t u r e in the da ta . Based on th e s imi l a r i t y of the hapl o types , popula t ion r e l a t i o n sh ips were examined and found tobe l a rge ly concordant wi th thoseobta ined wi th o ther markers .Even though th e sample s ize andthe number of markers are sm a l l ,the re i s very s i g n i f i c a n t c l u s t er ing of the haplo types by con t -


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i n e n t of o r i g i n . " [End quote]The summary fo rgo t to mention ano ther f inding: "A s withothe r markers , th e g re a t e s t gene t i c di s t ance i s seen betweenAfr ican and non-Afr ican popula t ions ; a f inding compat ible withan Afr ican or ig in fo r humans.Based on Y-chromosome da ta ,the re seems to be a p a r t i c u l a r l yc lose re l a t ionsh ip between Asian(most ly Chinese) and Oceanianpopula t ions ." And l a t e r "Linkageof Y-spec i f i c markers w i l l makephylogenet ic t r e e s very s e n s i t i ve to migra t ion ap a r t from th ef a c t t h a t haplotype and popula t ion t r e e s need not agree , as hasbeen seen with mtDNA hap lo types The f a c t t h a t geographicc lus te r ing has been de tec tedwith only f ive markers sugges t st h a t microsa te l l i t e -based Y-haplo type t r e e s might have mores t ru c t u re than those seen withmitochondr ia l DNA."[To update some te rms fo r ourco l l eagues - - th e kinds o f genesused i n the grand opus o f Lucac - s e t a l which we reviewed inMT-24 a re now being ca l l ed' c l a s s i c a l ' o r ' au tosomal ' inth e l i t e r a t u r e . The te rms areno t , however , exac t ly the same.Autosomal r e f e r s to those chromosomes which a re no t sex- l inked ;most of t h em= non-Y, non-X,non-mtDNA. Another term ' nuc lea rDNA' r e f e r s t o pre t ty much th esame t h ing . ]

In t h e i r dendrogram o f 10popula t ions they merged da tafrom th e Lisongo, a non-Pygmypeople from Cent ra l Afr icanRepubl ic (CAR) with t h a t o f th el o ca l Pygmies (probably Biaka) .They a lso combined Aus t ra l i an ,Papuan, and Melanes ian data tomake up an Oceanian c l u s t e r . Thequest ion they did not answer, as

few of t h e i r co l l eagues ev e r doe i t h e r , was which Chinese theysampled. North o r South? We a l ready know t h a t th e sou th Chinese jo in Southeas t Asians , whilenor th Chinese j o in Mongols andEskimaux. I f th e g r ea t power ofthe Y-chromosome ana lys i s doesshow nor th Chinese drawn to' A u s t r a l o i d s ' , t h a t i s news!Here i s t h e i r scheme:Base --> Pigmies vs th e RestPigmies - -> Mbuti vs CARRest --> Braz i l - Ind vs OtherBraz i l - Ind- -> Suru i vs Kart ianaOther - -> P ac i f i c Rim vs E-MP ac i f i c Rim - -> Japan vs CCOCCO --> Cambodia vs Sino-Oceanis ino-ocean i - -> China + OceaniaE-M - - -> Europeans vs MayasAs they say , a p ic tu r e i s wortha thousand words. A diagramwould be much b e t t e r !Source . ANN. HUM. GENET (1996) ,60,401-408The Oldes t Family Tree

It su rp r i sed a man in England to f ind t h a t h is remoteances to r on h is mother ' s s idehad l ived maybe a mile from th eEngl ishman's home. His mtDNA wasjudged to be descended from t h a tof Cheddar Man in southwesternEngland. The f o s s i l an ces t o r hadl ived 9000 years e a r l i e r .

It was a cu te little s to ryt h a t some g e n e t i c i s t s say wasr id icu lous because the re wereprobably thousands o f people innorthwest Europe who q u a l i f i ed .Source. The Boston Globe, March9, 1997.UBAR: Old Semites in South Arabia ? Or an o ld Semi t ic date?Ubar in sou th Arabia, onth e edge of th e Rub a l Khal i ,th e huge d es e r t , was red i scove r ed by as tu t e a rch eo l o g i ca l work,


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a ided by ' remote sens ing ' andNASA and keen h i s t o r i c a l workand some good luck on theground. It was a c i t y whicht raded with th e c iv i l i z e d nor thb u t f e l l vict im to t remendoussand s torms and was thus bur ied .Moslem t r a d i t i on has it t h a tUbar was ca l l ed Irem and waspunished by Allah fo r i t s s i n s .The people are sa id to have beenca l l ed Ad. The s i t e by oneaccount ex is ted 2500 y ea r s agobut by ano ther it was 5000 yearsago. The problem i s t h a t goodin fo rmat ion i s hard to t r ackdown because every th ing hase i the r been on TV o r was on theWeb - - l i g h t l y .We need help with t h i s because Ubar p o t e n t i a l l y i s to bei d e n t i f i e d as a locus of th eModern South Arabian (MSA) primebranch of Semi t ic , not to beconfused with e i the r Arabic o rth e Sabean c i v i l i z a t i o n and i t sEthiopian co lon ie s . MSA includeslanguages such as Soqot r i , J ibba l i , e t a l . (Some Muscovi tes andBostonians agree t h a t MSA meri t sa higher place , c lo s e r to th ei n i t i a l o r top node in Semi t ic . )

Dogs and Cows - Again! Pigs too!What 's a nice l i n g u i s t l i keyou doing in a top ic l i ke t h i s?No mystery . Preh i s to ry i s g r ea tfun! But we have reasons fo r r e t u rn ing to our symbiot ic p a l s .F i r s t , we ac tu a l l y scoop SCIENCEt h i s t ime. Next week they w i l lannounce t h a t dogs were domest i ca ted about 100 kya! That i sbased on mtDNA and 6 t imes olde r

than the usual archeo log ica l ageof 14 kya o r 3 t imes th e biogene t i c date of 15-30 kya which weannounced in MT-25. With a l l duere spec t fo r b iogene t i c da t ing ,th e 70 ky to 80 ky spread between the two dog da tes i s a b i t

off -pu t t ing . Never having beenhappy with th e prev ious datesfo r our marriage wi th our b es tf r i ends , I embrace th e 100,000date e n t h u s i a s t i c a l l y because it"s tands to reason" in preh i s to r y . Since th e new d a t e s d i f f e r somuch from R. Wayne's dates inMT-25, perhaps we are a lso f reedfrom h is ins i s tence t h a t a l ldomest ic dogs are descended fromgrey wolves? Mayhap it happenedseve ra l t imes , given th e ease o fr a i s i n g puppies?Secondly, Roger Blench wasdis turbed by the comments onc a t t l e in MT-27 which he l abe ledas ' b i z a r r e ' and probably t akenfrom G au t i e r ' s (presumably) mist aken t h eo r i e s . I do not knowwhat Gaut ie r ' s theor ies a re ;though I ' ve l ea rned a lo t fromFrench archeo log ica l research inth e Sahara and North Africa .Even though not over ly impressedby mtDNA da t ing , and in MT-27 wecor rec t ed one such da te by 20%,still they are s c i e n t i f i c hypotheses not to be discarded sol i g h t l y . Yet my espoused d a t e sfo r a Saharan Neol i th ic a rebased on archeology - - French,American, B r i t i sh , & Pol i sh .Third , Roger Blench wantedus to know t h a t a major s tudy ofp igs in Afr ica has been made byhimsel f . En t i t l ed "A History ofPigs in Afr ica" , i t s roughly 10pages w i l l appear in R.M.Blenchand K.MacDonald, eds . THE EVOLUTION AND DEVELOPMENT OF AFRICANLIVESTOCK: ARCHAEOLOGY, LINGUISTICS AND DNA. UCL Press , London.1997. Since Roger s en t a dra f t ,not the f i n a l pages , we can sayonly l imi ted th ings . But , s inceit i s h is book, su re ly our wordscan be t aken as a s o r t of pub l i c i t y . Let h is a b s t r a c t su f f i c e :[Begin quote]"Almost a l l t e x t s concerning th edomest ic pig argue t h a t th e pigs


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of Africa are a recen t in t roduc t i o n , with th e excep t ion ofthose in th e Nile Val ley . Thisappears to be cont radic ted byboth l i n g u i s t i c and c u l t u ra levidence which suggests t h a t ananc ien t pig-keep ing cu l tu re wasspread from the Sudan-Ethiopianborder lands t o ea s t e rn BurkinaFaso. The Nile Val ley , however,i s l i ke ly to have been th e p r i mary co r r i d o r of t ransmiss ion toSub-Saharan Afr ica s ince pigscannot be herded with othe r pas t o r a l an imals . Pigs were i n t r o duced by th e Portuguese in th eear ly period o f con tac t and seemto have spread rap id ly in landand crossbred with ' n a t i ve ' pigsThere i s add i t iona l fragmentaryevidence t h a t pre-European pig keeping may have extended in toth e Congo and Angola. An anc ien tcent re of p ig breed ing i s a lsonoted in th e Senegambia, a l though i t s or ig in i s d i f f i c u l tto expla in . Pigs in eas te rn andsouthern A fr i ca , by co n t r a s t ,seem to be derived e i t h e r fromPortuguese i n t roduc t ions on th ee a s t coas t , o r l a t e r in t roduc t ions by miss iona r i e s . "[End of quot ing]A nice paper! We might sugg es t to the author t h a t eas te rnand southern Afr ica once had amajor con tac t with one of theg r ea t pig-keep ing areas o f th eworld - - Southeas t Asia . In th eform of old Indian Ocean t r adewhich eventua l ly brought th eances to rs of th e Malagasy to th ecoas t s of Eas t Africa , then th eComorros, then Madagascar. Someby-products o f t h a t con tac t d idspread to West Afr ica ( e .g . th exylophone, t a r o , some yams). Whydid t h i s leave no pigs in Eas tAfr ica? J u s t an amiable query.

We Must Rethink What We KnowAbout PigmiesWith th e title "ARE THEAFRICAN PYGMIES AN ETHNOGRAPHICFICTION" Roger Blench has mounted a roo t and branches a t tack onmuch s e t t l e d preh is to ry , o r o s t ens ib ly se t t l ed preh is to ry , invo lv ing the i nhab i t an t s o f theg r ea t ra in fo res t s of c e n t r a lA fr i ca . More sp e c i f i c a l l y , heargues t h a t th e pigmies are theproduct of n a t u r a l s e l ec t i o n fo rsmal l s i ze b u t t h a t t h i s dimini sh ing of normal cen t r a l A f r i cans i s not an anc ien t even t .Nor are the pigmies th e anc ien tinhab i t an t s of th e r a in fo re s t .For people who l i ke to be up toda te , going with th e f low, cha l l eng ing th ings , break ing newground - - t h i s w i l l be an e x c i t ing t he s i s .Certa in ly the t he s i s i s widerang ing , and very ambi t ious , anda c l a s s i c use o f b io lo g i ca l ,l i n g u i s t i c , and c u l t u ra l da ta(some of th e l a s t from archeology) . For th e most p a r t , however , Roger i s scornfu l of bio gene t i c conclus ions and qu i terough on Cava l l i -S fo rza ' s hypotheses , a t l e a s t about pigmies.Although one might say a g r ea tdea l about th e Blenchian t he s i s ,we confron t again th e f a c t t h a tt h i s too i s a d r a f t . The paperw i l l be publ ished, presumably,in K.Biesbrouck, S.Elders andG.Rossel , eds . PROCEEDINGS ofthe LEIDEN CONFERENCE on HUNTER-GATHERS of EQUATORIAL AFRICA.Publ i sher i s Research School ,Centre fo r Non-Western s tu d i e s ,Leiden .

Since it i s unfa i r to c r i t i c i ze an unpubl ished work premat u r e l y , I make a s ing le recommendat ion. Before f i n a l publ i sh ingRoger should re -check h i s f a c t sand r e -wr i te some hypotheses . Ani tem: in repea t ing the be l i e f


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t h a t d i v e r s i t y in Papua and th eNew World each exceeds t h a t o fAfr i ca , he gives no bas i s fo rbe l i ev ing so . One does no t knowhow he f igures t h i s out . In anycase it i s imposs ib le to accep t .It seems a l l backwards, oppos i t eto t r u t h .Aus t ra l i a and New Guinea: Unity

An unread a r t i c l e in AJHGhas th e provocat ive t i t l e : "AnAncient Common Origin of Aborigi n a l Aust ra l ians and New GuineaHighlanders i s Supported by a-Globin Haplotype Analys i s . " I t sauthors : J.M.Roberts-Thompson e ta l . We r e g re t t h a t we could n o tge t to it but it sounds l i ke iti s based on autosomal DNA. Aseveryone probably knows by now,the se t t l i ng o f New Guinea bymodern humans i s a lmost as oldas t h a t o f Aus t ra l i a . It f igure st h a t new se t t l i ng was by t h e i rcommon ances to r , assuming t h a tt h i s new s tudy i s cor rec t .Source . AJHG, vol .58:1017-24More News from Ofer Bar-Yosef

Thanks again to my b es tinformant who I pe rpe tua l lyt rouble with my ques t ions . He i skind. F i r s t , from Japan, newst h a t could have been repor ted inth e h o t t e s t sec t ion alongsideth e spear from Germany. Noexcuse except t h a t the re i s nosource save ' pe r sona l communicat i o n ' . In e f f e c t t h i s i s aconference & consul t ing r ep o r t .Early pa le o l i t h i c a r t i f a c t s froma s i t e in Japan date to 400-500kya. No f o s s i l hominids werefound. One could s u s p ec t Homoerec tus b ut the context inducescau t ion - - it could have beenth e proposed Homo antecessorbecause some s tones in caches

seem to show long range planningor the kind o f r a t i o n a l copingt h a t c o r re l a t e s wel l with th eGerman spea r .While the re are no bones,the re a re b i f ace adzes o f s tone .It i s genera l ly th e case t h a thand axes or bi face axes arer a t h e r more assoc ia ted with th ewestern p a r t o f Eurasia thanwith th e e a s t . And bi face adzesmore with th e e a s t . Ofer wondered if these Japanese adzes andth e chopper t oo l s a t th e Dirings i t e in Siber ia t e s t i f i e d infavor of th e o f t refu ted and o f tproposed Movius Line . For thosewho may not have tuned in a fewyears ago, the famous Line wasinvented by Hallam Movius ( l a t eof Harvard) to exp la in a hemispher ic (near ly g loba l) t endency fo r t oo l s o f axe type to beconcen t ra ted i n the west andt oo l s o f adze type to be concent r a t e d in th e e a s t . The borderran roughly through eas te rnInd ia .Ralph Linton used to sayt h a t "chasing adze types aroundth e Pac i f i c" was an e thnologica lgame he did no t want to play .Even if Movius Line th inkingappl ied to the t imes o f Homoerec tus , still t he typo log ica ls p l i t between e a s t and westseems to have some e thnologica lva l id i t y i n the modern world ,i.e., it's fac tua l . Hmmm!

Second, a Tabun female, aNeanderthal , has da tes of probably 60-70 kya. We a re nowpre t ty sure t h a t Neanderthalsare l a t e comers to I s r a e l andth e Middle Eas t . The s i t e ofShanidar ( I ran) i s now c ru c i a lfo r t e s t i ng t h i s not ion , whent h a t s i t e i s re -examined. Thekey quest ion i s : when d id th eNeanderthals disappear from th eMiddle East? Was it e a r l i e r or


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l a t e r than t h e i r disappearancefrom Europe? [This again fromOfer Bar-Yosef] .Third , we now have a littleb e t t e r unders tanding of the dateof th e Near Easte rn Neol i th ic

moving i n to ad jacen t a reas fromth e Levant ine Corr idor (Euphrat es to Jer icho) where e a r l i e s tagr i cu l tu re i s found. In th esecond s t age ( a f t e r th e Levant)farmers expanded in to c e n t r a lAnatol ia around 9000 BP. By 8000th e technology, bu t no t necessa r i l y the people , moved to th eZagros and then a l l the way toKhuzistan (Sus iana) . Through oraround th e Caucasus to Turkmeni s t an by 8000 a l so . F ina l ly in toBaluchis tan over th e mountainsby 8000 t oo .Even though Ofer i s an acknowledged au tho r i ty on the NearEastern Neol i t h i c , he recommendded a source : David R.Har r i s ' sbook on the Neol i th ic (fromSmithsonian) . I 'm sor ry th e booktitle escaped me. There also wasno name given for the s i t e inJapan; twas my over s igh t .Our Fellow Animals: Our Cousins

Something l i ke a de f in i t i vetaxonomy and dat ing of th e apefamily , whose t a l l e s t and meane s t members we a re , has beenworked ou t by Maryel len Ruvolo.The means are molecular r a t he rthan morphologica l bu t it i shard to see how her r e s u l t swould d isp lease a morphologis tvery much. We presen t a crudevers ion of her scheme for thwi th :.!-Proto-Ape a t 11 my (11,000,000)Proto-Ape - -> Orangutan + Res tUr-Orangutan a t 3.5 my - -> B + SB + S - - -> Bornean + SumatranRes t o f us a t 8 .7 my - -> A + BA - -> Gor i l l a s - -> Eas t + West

Ur-Gor i l la a t 2.2 myWest = Western Lowland a t 705 ky( s p l i t to two branches)Eas t = Eastern Lowland + Mounta in Gar . s p l i t @ 400 kyB - -> Chimps and Humans @ 6 .9 myChimps - -> Pygmy + Common @ 2 myPygmy Chimps halved @ 400 kyCommon halved @ 900 ky, then1 ha l f halved again 600 kyHumans halved @ 298 ky

[Note: Her humans = Homo s . s . ormodern humans. Our fo s s i l fo re beare r s occurred between 6 .9 myand 298 ky. Since we lack mtDNAfo r them, t h e i r pos i t ion on thescheme cannot be ca lcu la ted .Thei r da ted bones (morphology)sure ly l i e along the human l i nea f t e r 6,900,000 years ago . ]We cannot reproduce her nea tscheme because it i s still ad r a f t . To appear in ANNUALREVIEW OF ANTHROPOLOGY, vo l .25 ,in October , 1997, en t i t l ed"Genet ic Divers i t y in HominoidPr imates" . We wi l l give her Abst r a c t because it sums up so wellthe gene ra l s t ra t egy of molecul a r work. [Begin quot ing]

"Humans a re only one of thespec i es produced by th e hominoidevolu t ionary rad ia t ion . Commonand pygmy chimpanzees (our c l os e s t r e l a t iv e s ) , g o r i l l a s , orangu tans , and th e l e s s e r apes alsobelong to t h i s group. In humans,pa t t e rns of gene t i c var i a t ionare becoming i nc reas ing ly b e t t e rcharac t e r i zed by modern molecul a r methods. But unders tandinghuman var i a t ion in an evo lu t ion ary context requi res comparisonof human p a t t e r n s with those ofo ther hominoids, in order to r e vea l f ea tu res shared among hominoids and those unique to humansGenet ic var i a t ion among chimpanzees, g o r i l l a s , and orangutansi s beginning to be cha rac t e r i z -


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ed , so t h a t compar isons are nowposs ib le .From gene t i c da t a , s eve ra ld i f f e r e n t kinds o f in fo rmat ioncan be recons t ruc ted , inc lud ingth e evo lu t ionary re l a t edness o fsubspecies and popula t ions , t imees t ima te s fo r evo lu t ionary dive rgences , p as t populat ion dynami c s , ex ten t o f gene flow overgeograph ica l l andscapes , andgroup so c i a l s t ru c t u re . Knowledge o f hominoid gene t ic var i a t iona l so has re levance t o app l iedf i e lds such as p r imate conservat i on and medic ine ." [End quote ] .

In th e t e x t around herscheme (F ig .3 ) she adds t ha t :"Humans show th e l e a s t var i a t ionwith in spec ie s and thus have acommon ances tor which i s morerecen t than t h a t of a l l othe rhominoid spec ie s . Orangutan subspec ie s a re more d i f f e r e n t fromone ano ther than are the twospec ies o f chimpanzees; th e samei s t rue fo r wes te rn lowlandg o r i l l a s versus th e o t h e r twog o r i i l l a subspec ies . The t r e e i sca l ib ra t ed using 298,000 yearsas th e divergence da te fo r mode rn humans (Ruvolo e t a l 1993) ,and t r e e propor t ions are i n f e r r ed from th e cytochrome oxidasesubun i t I I gene da ta (Ruvolo e ta l 1994, Ruvolo 1996) "Addi t ional Sources . Her r e f e r en ces are found in (1993) MOL.BIOLEVOL. 10:1115-35; (1994) PROC.NATL.ACAD.SCI.USA 91 :8900-8904;(1996) MOL.PHYLOGENET.EVOL.5:202-19.Hominoids: Def in i t ive Review o f

I s sues & More Deta i l sI r a r e l y use th e wordb r i l l i a n t of scho la r s , assumingt h a t most long rangers a rea l ready p re t t y b r i g h t . But t h i sscho la r causes me to dus t o ff

th e o ld word and apply it toh e r . Maryel len Ruvolo haswri t t en what appears to be th el a s t word on an i s sue - - whichof us apes i s c lo s e r to which?Man may be alone in th e v as tco ld .un ive rse b u t the re i s a weebonobo . tugging a t h is s l eeve ,say ing : "Hey, what about me?"Ever s ince Becky Cann f i r s tamazed us with h e r mtDNA work inth e high 1980s , we have been r e por t ing b iogene t ic r e s u l t s int h i s Newsle t t e r . Frankly , it i sremarkable how t o l e r a n t th e proswere o f our repor t s ! But wes taggered a long , t ry ing to giveth e g i s t o f t h ings to th e nonb io lo g i ca l s . In th e process wementioned a number o f d i f f e r e n tkinds of genes and DNA l oc i ,many o f which gave conf l i c t ingr e s u l t s , so t h a t th e es t imateso f da tes and homelands and migra t ions kep t vary ing from i s sueto i s sue . But a enormous amounto f work was being done by l a rgeand coopera t ive groups o f smar ts c i e n t i s t s and sooner o r l a t e rit was a l l bound t o be i n t e g ra t ed by someone - - a t l e a s t withr e s p e c t to some key hypothesesand i s sues .That i s what Maryellen hasdone and in th e process summedup th e s t r eng ths and l imi t a t ionsof many kinds of locus & method.We cannot give th e whole paperwhich i s ho t o f f t he p re s s ; wehave only permiss ion to quotefrom it. One i s s incere ly adv i s ed to read it, even though it i sbloody t e ch n i ca l , because h erEnglish t r a n s l a t i o n i s f i r s tr a t e . J us t sk ip the pages ons t a t i s t i c s . But we be l i eve t h a tshe i s r i g h t to hold firm to h e rconclus ions which we be l ieve tobe s c i e n t i f i c t r u t h . For a longt ime to come. [Note : ' c l a de ' i sa b ra n c h < Greek / k l a d o s j . ] Herei s her a b s t r a c t : [Quoting now)


27/36

"Consensus on th e evo lu t ionaryr e l a t i o n s h ip s o f humans, chimpanzees , and g o r i l l a s has notbeen reached , desp i te th e e x i s t ence o f a number o f DNA sequence da ta s e t s r e l a t i ng to th ephylogeny, p a r t l y because no ta l l gene t r e e s from these da tas e t s agree . However, given th ewell-known phenomenon o f genet r e e - s p ec i e s t r e e mismatch,agreement among gene t r e e s i snot expected . A major i ty of genet r e e s from ava i lab le DNA sequence data suppor t one hypothes i s ,b u t i s t h i s evidence s u f f i c i e n tfo r s t a t i s t i c a l confidence inth e major i ty hypothes i s?A ll ava i lab le DNA sequenceda ta s e t s showing phylogenet icr eso lu t ion among th e hominoidsare grouped accord ing to gene t i cl inkage of t h e i r correspondinggenes to form independent da tas e t s . Of th e 14 independent datas e t s defined in t h i s way, 11suppor t a human-chimpanzeec lade , 2 suppor t a chimpanzeeg o r i l l a c lade , and one supportsa human-gor i l l a c lade . The hypot he s i s of a t r ichotomous s p ec i a t ion ev en t l ead ing to Homo,Pan, and Gor i l l a can be f i rmlyr e jec ted on th e bas i s o f t h i sdata s e t d i s t r i b u t i o n . Themul t ip l e - locus t e s t (Wu, 1991},which eva lua tes hypotheses usinggene t r e e - s p ec i e s t r e e mismatchp ro b a b i l i t i e s in a l i ke l ihoodr a t i o t e s t , favors th e phylogenywith a Homo-Pan c lade andr e j e c t s th e o t h e r a l t e rn a t i v e swith a p-va lue o f 0.002. Whenth e p ro b a b i l i t i e s are modif iedto r e f l e c t e f f e c t i v e populat ions ize d i f f e rences among d i f f e r e n ttypes o f gene t i c l o c i , the observed data s e t d i s t r i b u t i o n i seven more l i ke ly under the HomoPan c lade hypothes i s . Maximuml i ke l ihood es t imates fo r th et ime between success ive hominoid

d ivergences are in th e range of300,000-2 ,800,000 yea rs , basedon a reasonab le range of es t ima t e s fo r long-term hominoide f f e c t i v e populat ion s i ze andfo r genera t ion t ime.The impl ica t ion o f th emul t ip l e - locus t e s t i s t h a tex i s t ing DNA seq

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Mother Tongue Newsletter 28 (Spring 1997)