Research articles
 

By Dr. Clyde Winters
Corresponding Author Dr. Clyde Winters
Uthman dan Fodio Institue, 11541 S. Peoria - United States of America 60643
Submitting Author Dr. Clyde Winters
HUMAN GENETICS

Aurignacian haplotype haplogroup craniometric

Winters C. First European Farmers were not Eastern Europeans. WebmedCentral HUMAN GENETICS 2011;2(9):WMC002265
doi: 10.9754/journal.wmc.2011.002265
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Submitted on: 28 Sep 2011 02:50:12 AM GMT
Published on: 28 Sep 2011 07:10:51 PM GMT

Abstract


Phylogenetic evidence indicate that the first European farmers carried haplogroup N1. The N haplogroup probably expanded across Africa from the Great Lakes region of East Africa into West Africa 80kya and into Iberia 40kya. The archaeological and genetic evidence indicate that although there were changes in the material culture of Euopean hunter-gatherer groups and European farmers there was probably continuity between the N1a hunter-gatherer population and the farming groups of Europe.

Introduction


Palanichamy et al1a  claims that the earliest European farmers were most likely of Greek, Balkan or Black Sea hunter gatherer descent, rather than Near Eastern origin. They argue that the Neolithic European farmers were indigenous and farming was not the result of a Near Eastern demic diffusion event .
Eventhough Palanichamy et al maintain that there was a lack of transition between European hunter-gatherers and Neolithic population; and the phylogeographic analysis of  N1a lineage emphasizes that European farmer N1a lineages might have originated from different Eastern European sources fails to be supported by archaeological, craniometric and genetic evidence.

Method


The  macrohaplogroup M and N lineages literature  in Africa and Eurasia were studied. The N1a samples came from modern and ancient African and Eurasian populations.

Results


The N lineage is believed to have entered Eurasia via the continental route out of Africa. This hypothesis has been disputed by some researchersbecause hg N is found in India and Australia. This has led to some researchers assuming that there was a single migration of hgs M and N out of Africa.
Haplogroup N originated in Africa. There was a serial expansion of haplogroup N across Africa into Eurasia(See Map). This haplogroup probably originated in East Africa near the great Lakes region around 93.4kya. From Tanzania, Khoisan speaking people probably spread the haplogroup into Ethiopia 80kya and into West Africa 80kya. Sometime before 40kya carriers of haplogroup N from Cameroon and possibly the Senegambia migrated across the Straits of Gibraltar into Iberia. The Khoisan speakers probably spread the Aurignacian culture throughout Europe.
As a result, of the early demic diffusion of haplogroup N across Africa before the first anatomically modern humans (AMH) exited Africa 60kya, N haplogroups are found throughout Africa. Haplogroups N,N*, N1 and N1a are found  within Sub-Saharan groups including  Senegambians, Tanzanians and modern Ethiopians.  Carriers of haplogroup N in Africa speak various languages including Khoisan, Cushitic, Niger-Congo, Afrasian and Nilo-Saharan. In East Africa, we find that 85.5% of the Sub-Saharan African population carry N1 clades, while 14.5% carry one the N subhaplogroup in West Africa.  In Egypt 8.8 percent of the Gurma carry hg N1b.
The Great Lakes region of East Africa was the center for the spread of haplogroup N across Africa. As a result, it is not surprising to find that African N1a mtDNA haplotypes (minus 16000) include 147G-172-223-248-355 in Tanzania and Ethiopia. These mtDNA haplotypes are also found in Saudi Arabia, Greece, Russia and Yemen. The South Indian mtDNA N1a haplotypes (minus 16000) include 147G-172-223-248-295-355 and 147G-172-209-203-248-355.
Until recently it was assumed that the earliest dates for hg N were in Eastern Eurasia. This view has changed recently as a result of the extraction and examination of ancient mtDNA from Cro Magnon skeletons dating to the Aurignacian period.
The archaeological evidence indicates that AMH replaced Neanderthal during the Aurignacian period in Europe around 32-35kya. The Aurignacian civilization appears to have expanded from West to East.The founders of this culture came from Africa. Some researchers have argued that the Aurignacian culture was introduced to Europe from Africa. They based this conclusion on the fact that its tool kit was foreign to the Mousterian type, and the culture appears in a mature form throughout Europe from France to Central  Europe.
The Cro Magnon  DNA found in the ancient skeletons dates back to the Aurignacian period. The Cro magnon skeletons  belong to the N haplogroup. 
The Cro Magnon skeletons carried N1a,N1b,N1c and N*. It is characterized by motifs 00073G,10873C, 10238T and A4CC between nucleotide positions 10397 and 10400. Most of the skeletons carried hg N*.
It appears that the hg N was the most frequent mtDNA carried by Western European populations for over 20,000 years. This gene as discussed earlier is found primarily today outside Western Europe. The Cro Magnon people were mainly hunter-gathers.
Haak et al. found that the twenty-four samples of ancient Europeans  included haplogroups H or V, T, K, J , N1a and U3. The frequency of N1a among ancient samples ranged from 8% to 42%.
Haak et al found that the first Neolithic farmers did not have a strong  genetic influence on modern European female lineages. These researchers found that the farmers were predominately HG N1a. This is interesting because Brace et al found that the craniofacial features of these early European farmers and the  Natufians plotted with Sub-Saharan groups, just like the Aurignacians.  The existence of the hg N in western Europe from 24,000-7500 kya show continuity between the Pleistocene and Neolithic western Eurasians who carried hg N.
The craniofacial evidence makes it clear that the Levantines and Aurignacian people came from Africa. As a result we find that craniofacial features of the Grimaldi-Cro-Magnon population and especially the Natufian populations when plotted fall  within the range of Sub-Saharan populations like the Niger-Congo speakers.
The CroMagnon people were the first modern humans. The ancient European farmers matched Sub-Saharan African populations. These early European farmers fail to share haplogroups found among contemporary Europeans. Ancient DNA found in the ancient skeletons dating back to this period belong to the N haplogroup 18.
Researchers have found that the ancient Europeans fail to have a genetic link with contemporary European populations and the Neandertals. An analysis of Cro-Magnon  DNA indicates that they belonged to haplogroup N.
The lack of continuity between the contemporary Western Eurasians and ancient Western Eurasian suggest that the Cro Magnon people who originated in Africa probably took this mtDNA with them into western Eurasian when they migrated out of Africa.
The archeological evidence make it clear that at the time  modern man was migrating across western Eurasian, the dominant population in Eastern Europe and the Levant was Neanderthal. The concentration of a Neanderthal population in the Levant eliminates the hypothesized overland route into Western Europe by homo sapiens sapiens. Moreover, the archaeological evidence makes it clear that the Aurignancian civilization radiated out of Iberia to the rest of Eurasia.
There have been numerous africoid skeletons found in Europe. Marcellin Boule and Henri Vallois, in Fossil Man, provide an entire chapter on the Africans/Negroes of Europe Anta Diop also discussed the Negroes of Europe in Civilization or Barbarism (pp.25-68). Also W.E. B. DuBois, discussed these Negroes in the The World and Africa, pp.86-89. DuBois noted that "There was once  an "uninterrupted belt' of Negro culture from Central Europe to South Africa" (p.88).
Boule and Vallois, note that "To sum up, in the most ancient skeletons from the Grotte des Enfants we have a human type which is readily comparable to modern types and especially to the Negritic or Negroid type" (p.289). They continue, "Two Neolithic individuals from Chamblandes in Switzerland are Negroid not only as regards their skulls but also in the proportions of their limbs. Several Ligurian and Lombard tombs of the Metal Ages have also yielded evidences of a Negroid element. Since the publication of Verneau's memoir, discoveries of other Negroid skeletons in Neolithic levels in Illyria and the Balkans have been announced. The prehistoric statues, dating from the Copper Age, from Sultan Selo in Bulgaria are also thought to protray Negroids. In 1928 Rene Bailly found in one of the caverns of Moniat, near Dinant in Belgium, a human skeleton of whose age it is difficult to be certain, but seems definitely prehistoric. It is remarkable for its Negroid characters, which give it a reseblance to the skeletons from both Grimaldi and Asselar (p.291).
Boule and Vallois, note that "We know now that the ethnography of South African tribes presents many striking similarities with the ethnography of our populations of the Reindeer Age. Not to speak of their stone implements which, as we shall see later , exhibit great similarities, Peringuey has told us that in certain burials on the South African coast 'associated with the Aurignacian or Solutrean type industry...."(p.318-319). They add, that in relation to Bushman art ".This almost uninterrupted series leads us to regard the African continent as a centre of important migrations which at certain times may have played a great part in the stocking of Southern Europe. Finally, we must not forget that the Grimaldi Negroid skeletons show many points of resemblance with the Bushman skeletons". They bear no less a resemblance to that of the fossil Man discovered at Asslar in mid-Sahara, whose characters led us to class him with the Hottentot-Bushman group.
Trenton W. Holliday, tested the hypothesis that if modern Africans had dispersed into the Levant from Africa, "tropically adapted hominids" would be represented in the archaeological history of the Levant, especially in relation to the Qafzeh-Skhul hominids. This researcher found that the Qafzeh-Skhul hominids (20,000-10,000),were assigned to the Sub-Saharan population, along with the Natufians samples (4000 BP). Holliday also found African fauna in the area.
Holliday confirmed his hypothesis that the replacement of the Neanderthal people were Sub-Saharan Africans. The founders of civilization in South West Asia were the people, archaeologists call Natufians. By 13,000 BC, according to J.D. Clark  the Natufians were collecting grasses which later became domesticated crops in Southwest Asia. In Palestine the Natufians established intensive grass collection. The Natufians used the Ibero-Maurusian tool industry. These Natufians , according to Christopher Ehret Natufians were small stature folk who spread agriculture throughout Nubia into the Red Sea. The Natufians took the Ibero-Maurusian tools into Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.
Some researchers believe that Natufian, or some related population took the E3b alpha cluster to Europe.
The Carpathian Sub-Saharan Africans  arrived in the area in the 4th millennium B.C. The Tripolye culture dates from 3800 to 2100 B.C. The Tripolye culture was established in the Ukraine, Moldavia and Romania along the Siret River in the Ukraine. The Tripolye people may have collected/cultivated barley, millet and wheat. They also had domesticated cattle, sheep-goats and pigs. As in Africa, their principle domesticate at this time was cattle .
During the middle Neolithic copper was being exploited in several mountainous regions of Europe. The center for copper mining in Europe was the Carpathian mountains. Many copper objects have been found on Tripolyean sites .
Many animal and human figurines have been found on Tripolyean sites. The Tripolye rotund ceramic female figurines are analogous to the rotund female figurines found in ancient Nubia.
It appears that for over a millennium the Linear Pottery and Cris farming groups practiced agriculture in the core region of Tripolyean culture. The middle Neolithic Tripolye people on the other hand are associated with cattle herding and mining.
The Vinca Tordos culture is very interesting because of the evidence of writing found in this culture. The famous Tartaria tablets were produced by the Vinca Tordos culture. The Vinca Tordos culture is associated with western Bulgaria, southwest Romania and Yugoslavia.
The Vinca people in addition to possessing writing were also engaged in copper metallurgy. They also made clay and stone figurines and fine pottery. As among the contemporary Nubians and Tripolyeans culture the Vinca people made fine human and animal figurines.

Conclusion


The genetic evidence makes it clear that continuity exist between European hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers. Caramelli et al,found that Cro-Magnon man who introduced the Aurignacian culture carried haplogroup N1. Using ancient DNA Haak et al makes it clear that during the Linearbandkeramik (LBK), Neolithic culture 5kya the predominate Eurasian haplogroup was haplogroup N. Caramelli et al’s discovery of the presence of haplogroup N among hunter-gatherer Aurignacian samples, suggest continuity between Western European populations from the Holocene to the Neolithic period. The discovery by Haak et al, that European farmers carried haplogroup N1 supports the continuity of European populations from prehistoric to Neolithic times.
The archaeological evidence make it clear that the Cro Magnon people probably originated in Africa where we find hg N  among various African populations throughout the continent. The spread of Cro Magnon populations from Iberia eastward into Eastern Europe and the Levant support the view that  haplogroup N was carried into Eurasia by Cro Magnon population from Africa across the Straits of Gibraltar to Iberia.
The archaeological record informs us that CroMagnon people carried hg N and replaced the Neanderthal population of the Levant,  at Ksar Akil around 32, 000 years ago, not the Natufians who entered the Levant almost 20,000 years later. Moreover, by 7000 BC the dominant haplogroup of Western Eurasians remained hg N1.
In conclusion the archaeological evidence suggest that The Old Europeans may have been Sub-Saharan Africans who carried the N1 lineage to Europe that were later replaced by Indo-European speaking populations. There were probably no ancient Greek foragers as suggested by Palanichamy et al in ancient Europe. This is supported by the fact that N1a haplotypes 147G-172-223-248-355 is spread from East Africa to Greece and Russia and suggest an early spread of Africans into Eurasia.

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