Re: Origins of Scandinavians

On Oct 7, 9:02 am, taf <t...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Oct 6, 11:20 am, James Dow Allen <jdallen2...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In most societies, importing wives is much more common
than importing husbands; thus women's genes have diffused
across Europe.  

This not the predominant trend. It was not importation of females but
exportation of males (the 'sharp end' of most movements: both in terms
of armies and traders) that drove cultural spread.

While this statement is probably true, it answers a different
question and, indeed, confirms my point! To oversimplify the point:
MALES spread CULTURE, as taf points out, but
FEMALES spread GENES,
and the thread started with a discussion of (autosomal) genes,
which will be heavily influenced by the "importation of wives."

This is why, as I stated, MALE genes provide the CRISPER picture.

As one of many examples to demonstrate that FEMALE (and autosomal)
genes diffuse readily, while MALE genes provide a crisper picture,
look at the famous "demic expansion" ca 7000-5000 BC from Anatolia
via Greece to Central and Western Europe. The mtDNA "signature"
of that expansion is smeared so diffusely across Europe that,
while there is a clear East-to-West gradient, any details of
migrations are almost lost in the noise. The Y-chromosome info,
however, is very CRISP, with the Anatolian farmers' male DNA
(e.g. J2 haplogroup) barely leaving Greece and its immediate
neighbors.
Similarly the Y-DNA boundary between Germans (mostly R1b) and
Slavs (mostly R1a) is remarkably crisp, while mtDNA along the same
"border" demonstrates female mobility.

For this reason it is *male* genes,
specifically the Y-chromosome, which gives the crispest
clues for prehistory.

Don't agree with this either.  They both tell stories, different
stories, but of equal value in reconstructing migrations.

And now you're almost contradicting yourself! First "males ...
drove cultural spread" and when I rephrase the same point to
emphasize the use of genetic evidence, you deny it!

Whatever the intrinsic value of mtDNA evidence for reconstructing
prehistory and early history, its signal-to-noise ratio is
necessarily smaller than that of Y-dna, at least in Europe where,
AFAIK, patrilocality has been the norm.

Meanwhile it would be nice to address the main point I raised:
Norway shows an unusual (and "crisp"!) genetic fact: the presence
of the Q1a2 ("Turkic") Y-chromosome haplogroup. Is this indeed
the result of ethnic Huns accompanying retreating Goths or
Herulis? Could this be "remembered" by the Odin legends which
speak of Huns and Turks?

James D. Allen
.

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