On Richard Lynn's European IQ Data

Richard Lynn gives IQ scores for several world nations here.

In 1981, Buj gave IQ scores for several European nations. Buj's study is particularly useful, since it used the same Culture Fair test over samples representing the same fraction of each country's population, in roughly the same time period and across different age groups. In other words, it accounts for many of the factors that make IQ scores different to compare against each other.

It should be noted that Buj's study is one of the studies used by Lynn in his tabulation of IQ scores. Hence, we expect some correlation to exist between the two just due to this fact.

So, it is extremely surprising to find out that the correlation of Lynn's reported IQ scores with those of Buj is only +0.51.

UPDATE #1

I wanted to see whether either Lynn or Buj's data have any relationship with per capita income.

The regression of Lynn's reported IQ scores with 2003 per capita PPP is barely significant (P=0.046) with a correlation of +0.44.

On the other hand, with Buj's IQ scores, no correlation exists (P=0.87).

It is perhaps too convenient that Lynn's IQ scores differ from Buj's precisely in the direction that supports Lynn's theory.

What is more surprising is that Buj's reported standard deviation of IQ is an even better predictor of per capita PPP with a -0.64 correlation (P<0.01). So it seems that IQ homogeneity predicts wealth more than mean IQ does.

UPDATE #2

It is obvious that countries with a communist past have lower per capita PPP than countries with a capitalist past. So, I encoded this with 1: capitalist, and 0: communist. Indeed, this variable predicts 76% of the variance in income in Europe.

Buj's standard deviation of IQ + Communism predict 84% of the variance in income in Europe, whereas Lynn's mean IQ + Communism predict 78% of the variance.

DATA

NOTE: I had placed this entry online for a short time and then pulled it to correct some errors. Make sure you've read the final version.

UPDATE #3:

Infant mortality is again a much better predictor of income (in Europe) than IQ is. Its correlation is -0.70, significant at the P<0.001 level.

Fishing in the Pond of Correlation

Continuing the previous entry, I thought I'd take a stab at the "IQ as predictor of income" debate, and see what I could find out.

So, I compiled a list of statistics from 167 countries which can be found here, collected from the UN Human Development Report 2003. I excluded a few countries out of the 175 total which didn't have statistics for all indicators.

Many cite IQ, or "democracy" as causes of the wealth of nations. I will not deny of course that IQ and "democracy" are correlated with wealth, as measured e.g, by per capita Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), which I'm using.

Correlation, however, does not mean causation. So, I undertook the task of seeing whether or not the discrepancy in incomes around the world can be explained -in a purely statistical sense- by variables other than IQ or "democracy".

Let's take factor #1: Demographic Structure. I used % of population under age 15 as a proxy for this factor. The intuition goes that since children don't have the capacity (muscle or intellectual) to produce as much as adults, a nation with a large number of children will have a lower per capita income.

Indeed, there is a -0.71 correlation between % of population under 15 and per capita PPP, accounting for 50% of the variance of the dependent variable.

Roughly half the population in the world is women. Women get pregnant and while pregnant or rearing young children can't be as productive as men. So, we expect that nations where women have lots of children will have a lower per capita income, simply because half their population spends quite a lot of time being pregnant, breastfeeding or changing diapers. This is factor #2, which also relates to Demographic Structure.

Indeed, there is a -0.56 correlation between the fertility rate and per capita PPP, accounting for 31% of the variance of the dependent variable.

Factor #3 has to do with Child Development. I theorize that a person's outcome in life is predicted to some degree by having a good childhood, allowing him/her to develop his physical and intellectual facilities. As a proxy for this factor, I used Infant Mortality.

I found a -0.64 correlation between infant mortality and per capita PPP, accounting for 41% if the variance of the dependent variable.

Combing these three factors in a multiple regression, we can explain a total of 62% of the variance in per capita PPP.

I suspect that "democracy" would further add to the explicatory power of the model; in any case, it is clear that two simple demographic factors and a factor measuring access to health services have enormous predictive power.

Finally, I list the 10 countries whose per capita PPP is most overestimated by the model: Ukraine, Georgia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cuba, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Rep. of, Sri Lanka, Russian Federation

It is clear that adding "democracy" as a value, would help eliminate these residual errors. The 10 countries whose income is most underestimated are: Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Switzerland, Denmark, Canada, Equatorial Guinea, Norway, Iceland, Ireland, United States

It is notable that many of these countries have abundant natural resources (e.g., Iceland, Norway, Brunei), special financial status (Switzerland), or a large territory with respect to their population (Canada, Australia).

IN CONCLUSION: Simple demographic and health factors account for the difference in the wealth of nations; the observed residual errors of the 3-factor model indicate that adding "natural resources" or "democracy" would explain some of the remaining variance in per capita income.

Poverty, Flynn Effect and IQ

David B. writes about the effects of prosperity on IQ. As he noted previously, environmental factors, gauged e.g., by infant mortality, go a long way towards explaining the difference in IQ in nations around the world. David notes that the secular rise in IQ [Flynn effect] must have been in part due to the rising prosperity of developed societies since 1930. Using per capita GDP as a measure of prosperity David discovers that many nations today are at about the same level of prosperity as the UK was in 1930, or even much poorer. This may indicate that their present-day IQ scores may not be genetic in origin, but may be -at least partly- due to the fact that these countries did not experience the surge in prosperity that contributed to the rise of IQ in developed nations.

Mexican-American Ancestry-Informative Markers

Human Genetics
DOI: 10.1007/s00439-003-1058-6

Mexican American ancestry-informative markers: examination of population structure and marker characteristics in European Americans, Mexican Americans, Amerindians and Asians

Heather E. Collins-Schramm et al.

Abstract Markers with large differences in allele frequencies between ethnicities provide ancestry information that can be applied to genetic studies. We identified over 100 biallelic ancestry informative markers (AIMs) with large allele frequency differences between European Americans (EA) and Pima Amerindians from laboratory and database screens. For 35 of these markers, Mayan, Yavapai and Quechuan Amerindians were genotyped and compared with EA and Pima allele frequencies. Markers with large allele frequency differences between EA and one Amerindian tribe showed only small differences between the Amerindian tribes. Examination of structure in individuals demonstrated a clear separation of subjects of European from those of Amerindian ancestry, and similarity between individuals from disparate Amerindian populations. The AIMs demonstrated the variation in ancestral composition of individual Mexican Americans, providing evidence of applicability in admixture mapping and in controlling for structure in association tests. In addition, a high percentage of single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) selected on the basis of large frequency differences between EA and Asian populations had large allele frequency differences between EA and Amerindians, suggesting an efficient method for greatly expanding AIMs for use in admixture mapping/structure analysis in Mexican Americans. Together, these data provide additional support for the practical application of admixture mapping in the Mexican American population.

...

As a first step in examining the relationships between EA and AI, a panel of 35 indels with large differences between EA and Pima were chosen. These markers were previously identified in our screen for EA-AI AIMs, and have an average EA-Pima f of 0.36 (range, 0.18–0.59). The markers were genotyped in EA, MA, and four AI populations: Mayan, Pima, Quechuan, and Yavapai. Each AI population was compared with EA at the level of the individual using the program STRUCTURE (Fig. 1). Each marker was in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium in each population. For each comparison the STRUCTURE analysis correctly separated EA from AI individuals without prior knowledge of population membership. In each case the overall population separation is clear, with the majority of EA identified as being 80% or more derived from population 1 and the majority of AI being 80% or more derived from population 2. However, the figure also illustrates that each population has apparent outliers. Examination of the dataset by box test (see Materials and methods) confirmed this finding. There are two outliers for Mayan, three for Pima, and six each for Quechuan and Yavapai. There was slight variation in EA outliers identified by each comparison. When compared with Mayan, there were nine EA outliers, when compared with Yavapai there were eight, and when compared with Pima or Quechuan there were seven. However, six of these individuals were outliers in all comparisons. The AI outliers and the six consistent EA outliers may represent unreported recent admixture with these or other (e.g., African or Asian) ethnic groups. These individuals were removed from all subsequent analyses.

...

The MA individuals examined in this study resided in Northern California and defined themselves as Mexican American. Thus, this population is slightly different than other Hispanic populations described to date, which include individuals from Arizona and from Texas (Chakraborty and Weiss 1986; Long et al. 1991). The average admixture estimates for these MA range from 22% AI to 50% AI. MA individuals in the present study had AI contributions varying from 10 to 80% AI, suggesting that there is likely to be at least as much variability in admixture ratios within a MA sub-population as between them. This stresses the importance of methods to measure and account for admixture ratios of each individual in admixture mapping.

Slavic Movements into Yugoslavia

A Test of a Migration Hypothesis: Slavic Movements into the Karst Region of Yugoslavia

Gloria Jean y'Edynak

Current Anthropology, Vol. 17, No. 3. (Sep., 1976), pp. 413-428.

CONCLUSIONS

"Mathematical analyses of Pre-Slavic and Early Medieval populations of the karst and Dinaric zones of Yugoslavia show virtually no difference between them. This implies that the indigenous population of this region was not exterminated or replaced by a new population; rather, the new group seems to have contributed less in terms of genes and more in terms of language and other aspects of culture. The other possibility is that the Slavs exterminated and replaced the indigenous population in the karst and Dinaric zones but possessed almost exactly the same material culture. The former model seems the more appropriate."

Indo-European Origins in Asia Minor?

Indo-European languages came from Turkey

[DP: Someone should tell journalists that "Turkey" is a modern country name, and the territory is called "Asia Minor" or Anatolia]

Evolutionary biologists have waded into the stormy debate over when and where Indo-European languages originated.

Dr Russell Gray and PhD student Quentin Atkinson from the University of Auckland in New Zealand have calculated this group of 87 languages - as diverse as English, Lithuanian and Gujarati - arose between 8000 and 9500 years ago.

Their findings were reported in today's issue of the journal Nature and support the theory that Indo-European languages arose around this time among farming communities in Anatolia, now known as Turkey.

The main competing theory to the Anatolian farmer theory is that these languages originated 6000 years ago among nomadic Kurgan horsemen sweeping down from the Russian Steppes. Some researchers say they spread their language and genes across Europe "through the sword" and through the use of horses and horse-drawn vehicles, Gray told ABC Science Online.

"People have been puzzled since at least Sir William Jones noticed in 1786 that Sanskrit, an ancient language in India, bore striking similarities to Greek and to Latin and to English. Where did all those languages come from and when did they split up?" he asked. "What we've been doing is to try and answer that question and in particular to test the two current major views about the origins of the European languages."

While evidence of horse-drawn wheeled vehicles supported the "power of the sword" Kurgan theory, Gray said the fact that certain genes become rarer as you get further away from the Turkish region supported the "much kinder, gentler" Anatolian farmer theory.

"People have had huge arguments about that," said Gray, who decided to try and settle the question using a technique from a branch of research called molecular phylogenetics. This computational and statistical method compares genes and builds family trees by inferring when different biological organisms diverged during evolution.

"Language like biological species diverge with time," Gray said.

Using vocabulary and grammar instead of genes, the researchers used the same method to build a "family tree" of Indo-European languages. This was the first time methods like these have been applied to finding the roots of Indo-European languages.

Gray said his study came up with a root date that agreed with the Anatolian farmer theory "unbelievably closely". The researchers checked and double-checked their findings: "We did everything we could possibly think of, like changing different assumptions, to try and see if we could get a different date range."

Evolutionary biologist Gray said the findings were bound to inflame rather than settle the debate and said there had been some "fairly vigorous responses" to the findings so far: "Some linguists have been fairly kind of agitated I guess, having people come in from the outside and saying look we can solve these problems."

Link

Nature 426, 435 - 439 (27 November 2003); doi:10.1038/nature02029

Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin

RUSSELL D. GRAY AND QUENTIN D. ATKINSON

Languages, like genes, provide vital clues about human history. The origin of the Indo-European language family is "the most intensively studied, yet still most recalcitrant, problem of historical linguistics". Numerous genetic studies of Indo-European origins have also produced inconclusive results. Here we analyse linguistic data using computational methods derived from evolutionary biology. We test two theories of Indo-European origin: the 'Kurgan expansion' and the 'Anatolian farming' hypotheses. The Kurgan theory centres on possible archaeological evidence for an expansion into Europe and the Near East by Kurgan horsemen beginning in the sixth millennium BP. In contrast, the Anatolian theory claims that Indo-European languages expanded with the spread of agriculture from Anatolia around 8,000–9,500 years BP. In striking agreement with the Anatolian hypothesis, our analysis of a matrix of 87 languages with 2,449 lexical items produced an estimated age range for the initial Indo-European divergence of between 7,800 and 9,800 years BP. These results were robust to changes in coding procedures, calibration points, rooting of the trees and priors in the bayesian analysis.

Link

Iranian Speaking Populations from Azerbaijan

Russian Journal of Genetics
39 (11): 1334-1342, November 2003

Genetic Structure of Iranian-Speaking Populations from Azerbaijan Inferred from the Frequencies of Immunological and Biochemical Gene Markers

P. Sh. Asadova et al.

Abstract

The data on the genetic studies of Iranian-speaking populations from Azerbaijan (Talyshs and Tats) are presented. In these populations gene frequency distributions for the immunological (AB0, MN, Rhesus-D, -C, -E, P, Lewis, and Kell-Chellano) and biochemical (HP, GC, C′3, TF, 6PGD, GLO1, ESD, ACP1, and PGM1) gene markers were determined. Comparison of the genetic structure of the populations examined with the other Iranian-speaking populations (Persians and Kurds from Iran, Ossetins, and Tajiks) and Azerbaijanis showed that Iranian-speaking populations from Azerbaijan were more close to Azerbaijanis, than to Iranian-speaking populations inhabiting other world regions.

Autosomal Loci Study of North Eurasian Populations

Russian Journal of Genetics
39 (11): 1326-1333, November 2003

Comparative Phylogenetic Study of Native North Eurasian Populations Using a Panel of Autosomal Microsatellite Loci

V. A. Stepanov et al.

Abstract

Genetic relationships among eight Siberian and Central Asian ethnic groups were examined using autosomal microsatellite loci. Genetic similarity of Buryats and Evenks, as well as close relationships between Tuvinians and Kyrgyzes, most likely resulting from the Altai-Slavic co-ancestry of their gene pools, was demonstrated. Studies of gene flow in these populations demonstrated that, in general, Turkic ethnic groups of Southern Siberia (Altaians and Tuvinians) were the recipients of more intense gene flow compared to Eastern Siberian populations belonging to Altaic family. The local Buryat populations displayed substantial differences in the direction and the level of deviation of the observed gene diversity from the expected one, which was probably caused by the differences in the degree of isolation and/or in effective population sizes.

Informativeness of Genetic Markers for Inference of Ancestry

Am. J. Hum. Genet., 73:000, 2003

Noah A. Rosenberg et al.

Inference of individual ancestry is useful in various applications, such as admixture mapping and structured-association mapping. Using information-theoretic principles, we introduce a general measure, the informativeness for assignment (In), applicable to any number of potential source populations, for determining the amount of information that multiallelic markers provide about individual ancestry. In a worldwide human microsatellite data set, we identify markers of highest informativeness for inference of regional ancestry and for inference of population ancestry within regions; these markers, which are listed in online-only tables in our article, can be useful both in testing for and in controlling the influence of ancestry on case-control genetic association studies. Markers that are informative in one collection of source populations are generally informative in others. Informativeness of random dinucleotides, the most informative class of microsatellites, is five to eight times that of random single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), but 2%–12% of SNPs have higher informativeness than the median for dinucleotides. Our results can aid in decisions about the type, quantity, and specific choice of markers for use in studies of ancestry.

Link

Correlation between IQ and Infant Mortality

More great analysis by David B. on IQ comparisons between nations. David uses infant mortality as a stand-in for an environmental factor negatively affecting child development and finds a strong negative correlation of -0.844 with IQ, even stronger than Lynn's discovered relationship between IQ and GDP.

Has the transition to agriculture reshaped the demographic structure of prehistoric populations?: New evidence from the Levant

American Journal of Physical Anthropology
Early View (Articles online in advance of print)

Vered Eshed et al.

Abstract

This paper presents the demographic changes that followed the transition from a hunting-gathering way of life (Natufian) to an agricultural, food-producing economy (Neolithic) in the southern Levant. The study is based on 217 Natufian (10,500-8,300 BC) skeletons and 262 Neolithic (8,300-5,500 BC) skeletons. Age and sex identification were carried out, and life tables were constructed. A five-parameter competing hazard model developed by Siler ([[1979]] Ecology 60:750-757) was used to smooth life-table data. No indication of increased mortality with the advent of agriculture was noted. On the contrary, both life expectancy at birth (24.6 vs. 25.5 years) and adults' mean age at death (31.2 vs. 32.1 years) increased slightly from the Natufian to the Neolithic period (assuming stationary populations). Yet the transition to agriculture affected males and females differently: mean age at death in the Natufian was higher for adult females compared to adult males, while in the Neolithic, it was the reverse. One interpretation given to the distribution of female ages at death is that with the onset of the Neolithic period, maternal mortality increased as a result of a concomitant increase in fertility. If the adoption of agriculture in the Levant increased the rate of population growth at the beginning of the Neolithic, expectation of life may have increased dramatically.

Link

Description of Europid Races

I have translated and put online the descriptions of Europid races according to Italian anthropologist Renato Biasutti.

Description of Europid Races

Cephalometric Correlations

I'm doing some statistical analysis on a set of 152 Caucasoid individuals (on 9 variables) from Carleton Coon's The Races of Europe, and here are the most important variable correlations:

Upper Facial Height - Nasal Height 0.76
Facial Height - Upper Facial Height 0.71
Head Breadth - Bizygomatic 0.70
Bizygomatic - Bigonial 0.70
Minimum Frontal - Bizygomatic 0.58
Facial Height - Nasal Height 0.55
Head Breadth - Bigonial 0.49
Minimum Frontal - Bigonial 0.48

The PCA analysis seems to indicate that the first principal component is a general "size" factor positively associated with all cephalometric variables and accounting for 38% of the data variance. The other components seem to account for facial and cranial shape and nasal length.

Ancient Yakut DNA

International Journal of Legal Medicine
10.1007/s00414-003-0411-6

Genetic analysis of human remains found in two eighteenth century Yakut graves at At-Dabaan

François-Xavier Ricaut et al.

Abstract We extracted DNA from three skeletons belonging to the Yakut population, which were excavated from the At-Dabaan site (dating back 300 years) in the Sakha Republic (Russia). Ancient DNA was analyzed by autosomal STRs (short tandem repeats) and by the sequencing of the hypervariable region 1 (HV1) of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region. The results showed that these three skeletons were not close relatives but probably linked to the same clan structure. Comparison of their haplotypes with the haplotypes of 8,774 Eurasian individuals suggested a relative specificity and continuity of part of the Yakut mitochondrial gene pool during the last 3 centuries.

...

"With the presence of additional sequence polymorphisms at np 16189 TC and 16266 CT we can safely conclude that these sequences belong to sub-haplogroup D5a (Yao et al. 2002a). "

Native American Y Chromosomes

MBE Advance Access published online ahead of print on October 31, 2003
Molecular Biology and Evolution, 10.1093/molbev/msh009

High Resolution SNPs and Microsatellite Haplotypes Point to a Single, Recent Entry of Native American Y Chromosomes into the Americas

Stephen L. Zegura

Abstract

A total of 63 binary polymorphisms and 10 STRs were genotyped on a sample of 2,344 Y chromosomes from 18 Native American, 28 Asian, and 5 European populations to investigate the origin(s) of Native American paternal lineages. All three of Greenberg's major linguistic divisions (including 342 Amerind speakers, 186 Na-Dene speakers, and 60 Aleut-Eskimo speakers) were represented in our sample of 588 Native Americans. SNP analysis indicated that three major haplogroups, denoted as C, Q, and R, accounted for nearly 96% of Native American Y chromosomes. Haplogroups C and Q were deemed to represent early Native American founding Y-chromosome lineages; however, most haplogroup R lineages present in Native Americans most likely came from recent admixture with Europeans. Although different phylogeographic and STR diversity patterns for the two major founding haplogroups previously led to the inference that they were carried from Asia to the Americas separately, the hypothesis of a single migration of a polymorphic founding population better fits our expanded database. Phylogenetic analyses of STR variation within haplogroups C and Q traced both lineages to a probable ancestral homeland in the vicinity of the Altai Mountains in Southwest Siberia. Divergence dates between the Altai plus North Asians versus the Native American population system ranged from 10,100 to 17,200 years for all lineages, precluding a very early entry into the Americas.

...

The ancestral nodes leading to both Q-M3 (figure 3) and CP39 (figure 4), the two Native American-specific haplogroups, were present in the southern Altai individuals. Although the Kets and Sekups currently inhabit the eastern part of Western Siberia and the Yenisey River Valley, according to Russian ethnographers, their ancient homelands are thought to lie farther south on the slopes of the Sayan and Altai Mountains (Popov and Dolgikh 1964; Prokof'yeva 1964; Karafet et al.1999). Thus, our present data support the hypothesis that the Altai Mountain region is the principal candidate for the geographic source of the founding Native American Y chromosomes.

...

In contrast, all of our divergence time estimates range from 10,100 to 17,200 years ago irrespective of statistical method, population comparison, or haplogroup employed, while standard errors range from 3,200 to 6,000 years (table 3). Especially noteworthy is the general lack of temporal separation between the divergence dates based on the Q and C lineages with only the Upper Bound TD date hinting at an earlier separation for the Q-lineage. Our divergence dates are most compatible with the late entry (<20,000 BP) school championed by most American archaeologists (Meltzer 1993, 1997; West 1996; Fiedel 2000).

...

Our new data and analyses are most consistent with the single-migration alternative... Therefore, we have no compelling data that would refute Laughlin's (1986:490) contention that a "single small migration some 16,000 years ago appears most parsimonious."

...

In sum, our evidence supports the admixture hypothesis for the presence of R-P25 individuals in Native American populations and concurs with the recent findings of Bosch et al. (2003) who concluded that all 18 of their haplogroup R Greenlandic Inuit (n= 69) are the result of European admixture.

Link

First Neanderthal remains from Greece

Journal of Human Evolution
doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2003.09.005

First Neanderthal remains from Greece: the evidence from Lakonis

Katerina Harvati et al.

"We report the discovery of a Neanderthal tooth (LKH 1) found in association with the Initial Upper Paleolithic from Lakonis I, Southern Greece, and provisionally dated to <38–44 Ka. LKH 1 represents the first confidently identified Neanderthal specimen recovered from Greece;"

Link

Physical Anthropology and the Founding of Iceland

Composition of the founding population of Iceland: Biological distance and morphological variation in early historic Atlantic Europe
(p NA)

Benedikt Hallgrímsson et al.

Published Online: 3 Nov 2003
DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.10365

Abstract

We examined the composition of the founding population of Iceland through the study of morphological traits in skeletons from Iceland, Ireland, Norway, and Greenland. This is the first study to address this issue from the Settlement Period of Iceland and contemporary samples from Ireland. We pose the following questions: 1) Was the founding population of Iceland of mixed or homogeneous origin? 2) Is there evidence for a significant Irish cohort in the founding population, as suggested in medieval Icelandic literature? Analysis of biodistance revealed that both Settlement Age and later samples from Iceland showed a greater degree of phenetic similarity to contemporary Viking Age Norwegians than to samples obtained from early medieval Ireland. Analysis of among-individual morphological variation showed that the Settlement Age population of Iceland did not exhibit an increase in variation in comparison to other populations in the sample, suggesting a relatively homogenous origin. However, estimation of admixture between the Irish and Norwegian populations indicated that 66% of the Icelandic settlers were of Norwegian origin. Comparison of the Icelandic samples to hybrid samples produced by resampling the Viking Age Norwegian and early medieval Irish samples revealed that the Icelandic samples are much closer to the Norwegian samples than expected, based on a 66:34 mixture of Norwegian and Irish settlers. We conclude that the Settlement Age population of Iceland was predominantly (60-90%) of Norwegian origin. Although this population was relatively homogenous, our results do not preclude significant contributions from Ireland as well as other sources not represented in our analysis.

Link

Brazilian Population Genetics

Am J Human Biol. 2003 Nov-Dec;15(6):824-34. Related Articles, Links

Historical genetics: Spatiotemporal analysis of the formation of the Brazilian population.

Callegari-Jacques SM et al.

A total of 1,037 individuals living in five different sociogeographic regions of Brazil were studied in relation to 12 short tandem repeat polymorphisms. The objective was to assess the degree of European, African, and Amerindian contributions to their gene pools. Although most of the genetic variability was found within regions, significant differences were also observed between regions. The estimated relative proportions of the above-indicated continental contributions showed intermediate values between those obtained with uniparental (mtDNA, Y-chromosome) data, and a higher percentage of European heritage as compared to previous autosome results. A north-south trend of increasing European contribution was also found, in agreement with the history of the Brazilian population.

Link

Absence of mtDNA haplogroup V in Ancient Basques

Am. J. Hum. Genet., 65:199-207, 1999

An mtDNA Analysis in Ancient Basque Populations: Implications for Haplogroup V as a Marker for a Major Paleolithic Expansion from Southwestern Europe

N. Izagirre and C. de la Rúa

Summary

mtDNA sequence variation was studied in 121 dental samples from four Basque prehistoric sites, by high-resolution RFLP analysis. The results of this study are corroborated by (1) parallel analysis of 92 bone samples, (2) the use of controls during extraction and amplification, and (3) typing by both positive and negative restriction of the linked sites that characterize each haplogroup. The absence of haplogroup V in the prehistoric samples analyzed conflicts with the hypothesis proposed by Torroni et al., in which haplogroup V is considered as an mtDNA marker for a major Paleolithic population expansion from southwestern Europe, occurring 10,000-15,000 years before the present (YBP). Our samples from the Basque Country provide a valuable tool for checking the previous hypothesis, which is based on genetic data from present-day populations. In light of the available data, the most realistic scenario to explain the origin and distribution of haplogroup V suggests that the mutation defining that haplogroup (4577 NlaIII) appeared at a time when the effective population size was small enough to allow genetic drift to actand that such drift is responsible for the heterogeneity observed in Basques, with regard to the frequency of haplogroup V (0%-20%). This is compatible with the attributed date for the origin of that mutation (10,000-15,000 YBP), because during the postglacial period (the Mesolithic, 11,000 YBP) there was a major demographic change in the Basque Country, which minimized the effect of genetic drift. This interpretation does not rely on migratory movements to explain the distribution of haplogroup V in present-day Indo-European populations.

Link

National IQ comparisons

David B. of Gene Expression has a very interesting post warning about the pitfalls of IQ comparisons of different nations.

Unexpected Patterns in Native American mtDNA

American Journal of Physical Anthropology
Volume 122, Issue 4 , Pages 336 - 354

Unexpected patterns of mitochondrial DNA variation among Native Americans from the Southeastern United States

Deborah A. (Weiss) Bolnick et al.

Abstract

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroups were determined by restriction fragment length polymorphism-typing for 66 individuals from four southeastern North American populations, and the HVS I portion of the mtDNA control region was sequenced in 48 of these individuals. Although populations from the same geographic region usually exhibit similar haplogroup frequency distributions (Lorenz and Smith [[1996]] Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 101:307-323; Malhi et al. [[2001]] Hum. Biol. 73:17-55), those from the Southeast instead exhibit haplogroup frequency distributions that differ significantly from one another. Such divergent haplogroup frequency distributions are unexpected for the Muskogean-speaking southeastern populations, which share many sociocultural traits, speak closely related languages, and have experienced extensive admixture both with each other and with other eastern North American populations. Independent origins, genetic isolation from other Native American populations due to matrilocality, differential admixture, or a genetic bottleneck could be responsible for this heterogeneous distribution of haplogroup frequencies. Within a given haplogroup, however, the HVS I sequences from the four Muskogean-speaking populations appear relatively similar to one another, providing evidence for close relationships among them and for reduced diversity within haplogroups in the Southeast. Given additional archaeological, linguistic, and ethnographic evidence, these results suggest that a genetic bottleneck associated with the historical population decline is the most plausible explanation for such patterns of mtDNA variation.

Link

Etruscan Demons, Monsters Unearthed

Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News

Nov. 5, 2003 — Etruscan art, made of strange demons and monsters, is emerging in a Tuscan village, in what could be one of the most important discoveries of recent times, according to scholars who have seen the paintings.

Lurking on the left wall of a 4th century B.C. tomb, the exceptionally preserved monsters have been unearthed during the ongoing excavation of the Pianacce necropolis in Sarteano, a village 50 miles from Siena, Italy.

"So far we have found some scenes of banquets, snake-like monsters, demons, a hyppocampus and a sarcophagus broken in many fragments, probably by tomb robbers. We are confident to find more art as the digging goes on," archaeologist Alessandra Minetti told Discovery News.

One of Europe's most mysterious people, the Etruscans forged Italy's most sophisticated civilization before the Romans. They rose from Italian prehistory around 900 B.C. and dominated most of the country for about five centuries.

Yet mystery shrouds their history. First defeated by the Romans in the 4th century B.C., in 90 B.C., after centuries of decline, the Etruscans became Roman citizens. They left no literature to record their culture — few traces of their puzzling, non-Indo-European language survive. Only the richly decorated tombs they left behind provide a glimpse into their world.

"The newly excavated tomb belonged to a rich family, and shows that Sarteano wasn't just a countryside village, but a politically important center," Minetti said.

Vividly colored, the scenes in the tomb reflect a sinister change in the Etruscan concept of death. A fun loving and sensuous people, on the verge of decline they adopted the Greek vision of a demon-infested underworld.

"The figure with red hair is surely a death demon of some kind. This is confirmed by the black figure at her side, used by the Etruscans to characterize demons," chief archaeologist Mario Iozzo, director of the Center for Conservation in Florence and Chiusi's Archaeological Museum, told Discovery News.

With a chariot driven by gryphons, the demonic figure has probably come to hurry the soul of the deceased to the Underworld. Scholars are not sure whether the figure is Charu (Charon), normally shown as a bearded man with ruddy skin, the female Vanth, usually winged, or a totally unknown demon. They hope to find more clues as the digging continues.

Other paintings in the burial chamber are celebratory, showing joyful people banqueting — a scene more in tone with the spontaneity of the early Etruscan art.

Scholars are intrigued. "From what I can see, I can state that the painting is of exceptional quality, indeed a masterpiece of the late Etruscan style," Michael Padgett, curator of ancient art at Princeton University Art Museum, told Discovery News.

"With remarkably expressive features, the demonic charioteer, pictured, has come to hurry the soul of the deceased to the Underworld. The black figure at her side stands like the Shadow of Death."

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Physical Anthropology of Portuguese Visigoths

The anthropological study of human remains from the visigothic necropolis [DP: 7th c. AD] in Silveirona, on the outskirts of Estremoz, allowed us to obtain the median stature of around fifty adult individuals, both male and female, as being of 1.65m and 1.53m, respectively. Identical work, using the same methodology, presented 1.68m and 1.57m for adult males and females found in necropolae dating from the same period located in Alcoitão and Abuxarda, in the concelho (municipality) of Cascais (Cunha, 1958-59, p.42). The observed statures are, on average, inferior to those of the modern Portuguese population.

The cranial characteristics of the Silveirona skeletons are very similar to those of the modern Portuguese, displaying however a greater degree of dolicocephalism. This aspect, the observed statures, as well as the parallells with necropolae excavated in Spain allowed A. Xavier da Cunha (1958-59, p.42, 47) to conclude, following earlier observations made by J. de Barros e Cunha (1940, 692), that there exists racial continuity from the period in question, despite nordic or center-european influences, the populations in question not being visigothic in the strict sense but rather "visigothized".

The anthropoligical study of the material at the Segóbriga necropolis indicated, similarly, the preponderance of the mediterranean gracile type. (Almagro, 1975, p.132).

(translation courtesy of Silveira)

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