Trade Secrets

[Mick Harper]

Everybody is derived from a common ancestor. Recent findings have shown that Europeans have Neanderthal dna which is not present in African populations.

Oh yeah? How do you derive from two distinct species? If you have laboratory genetic splicing techniques I suppose it would be just about possible.

Does that mean that some of us have two common ancestors? Africans have one, we have two.

That would mean we were different species.

And then we have evidence of Denisovan dna. http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... an-genome/ Which, if true, adds another human ancestor into the mix.

It really doesn't matter who you shove into the mix since we are all the net output of whatever it was. None of your arguments affect my ageing argument. Do you accept its overall validity?

[macausland]

I'll accept that everything is as it was and everything is as old as it ever was. If that is what you are saying.

The original article was referring to the dna of people in Cornwall and Wales. It pointed out that the people of East Anglia who were tested in similar circumstances was the same as the dna of the people of the west.

I assumed that that would give further credence to the absence of an Anglo Saxon invasion which replaced the indigenous people. If I am allowed to use indigenous that is.

The article mentions that the dna of the west was older than other dna. As far as I am aware scientists are able to differentiate between different populations of dna. I am not a scientist. I would suggest getting somebody to clarify the issue.

As far as dna is concerned it is as old as when it was presumably first created. Before it was created perhaps it was just a mixed population of bacteria which came together at some point. Whatever it was we don't need to stop there. We could get it in its even older state when it was part of a molten ball of rock starting to form into a planet. Or perhaps it was in a comet. Or perhaps it was in the first speck of whatever became the universe. We are stardust after all. Unless we believe we were made out of mud and clay three thousand years ago. In which case everything is the same age. Apart from what was created on the first day which is arguably older than that which was created on the last day before the Cosmic Potter had his day off.

[Mick Harper]

The article mentions that the dna of the west was older than other dna. As far as I am aware scientists are able to differentiate between different populations of dna.

Given your comments in your last paragraph, you understand (it would seem better than some experts) that everybody's DNA is of the same age as everybody else's. So then when we turn to the sentence "The article mentions that the dna of the west was older than other dna" you will appreciate that something is wrong. You are entirely correct to say that "As far as I am aware scientists are able to differentiate between different populations of dna" because they can -- for that matter they can differentiate between individuals on the basis of DNA (see every episode of CSI). What they can't do is differentiate on the basis of age -- for the reasons you so cogently point out.

I am not a scientist. I would suggest getting somebody to clarify the issue.

I am not a scientist but I am somebody who clarifies these matters for the benefit of scientists. With cheerfully little effect. They don't argue the matter out with me which is why (I'm afraid) I'm forced to argue it out with youse guys to make sure I am covering a reasonable number of bases.

[Boreades]

The trouble is, it's no good Appealing To Authority (pick a genetics expert, any one), as these "genetics experts" just don't agree with each other. Especially about the age of DNA samples.

Even better or worse, they are still busy trying to rubbish their opposition.
e.g. http://dienekes.blogspot.co.uk/2009/10/ ... ience.html

So they should fit into TME's forum with ease!
I said it first, no you didn't, yes I did, yah boo!!!

[Mick Harper]

The trouble is, it's no good Appealing To Authority (pick a genetics expert, any one), as these "genetics experts" just don't agree with each other. Especially about the age of DNA samples.

There are two errors here. In the first place -- as far as I know, please disabuse if you can -- genetic experts all seem to agree that DNA has an age even though it hasn't. There is a good reason for this. The fact that Out-of-Africa and other palaeo-anthropological theories are using DNA-aging is a huge boost for population geneticists in general. It is hard to bite the hand that feeds.

In the second place, again as far as I am aware, geneticists do not argue about the age of DNA samples. What they do (apart from counting the mutations) is take historians' or pre-historians' word for the age of the bodies from which the DNA is taken. This is OK (though pointless) if the bodies are tested using other means but since this is highly expensive most population geneticists use rough-and-ready paradigm assumptions. Thus DNA taken from an 'Anglo-Saxon' grave is assumed to be 1000 - 1500 years old. And compared to a 'Celtic' body which is assumed to be older etc etc.

What geneticists do argue about is the meaning of the variations they come across. The current state of genetic mapping is just about sufficient to distinguish one population from another but when it comes to saying which arrived first the geneticists argue bitterly (and no wonder since it is a mare's nest). Orthodox pre-historians of course use these internal disagreements as justification to ignore the whole science of genetics. Though it will sweep them away in time.

[Boreades]

You're right to pick me up on this. I think I fell into the trap of not mentioning the haplogroups - and if you say "WTF is a haplogroup when it's home?", I'd completely agree. This
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_mito ... haplogroup
says
In human genetics, a human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup is a haplogroup defined by differences in human mitochondrial DNA. Haplogroups are used to represent the major branch points on the mitochondrial phylogenetic tree.

So - and correct me if I'm wrong- a haplogroup is a junction/signpost that marks when the mitochondrial DNA they've sampled has changed or mutated. That would be for natural or unnatural reasons. And, the change is from something(?) that might have gone before(?). But how do you construct the daisy-chain of DNA samples with any certainty of what bits go in what historical order?

Sounds and feels like a minefield to me.

Now (and I'm looking to my TME colleagues for confirmation/kicking on this) - I recall from something/somewhere else that DNA can change/mutate in a single person while they are still alive, let alone when they produce offspring with the lottery of who the other partner in the progeny production might be.

I think this is where the dating issue kicks in. Some folks assume that changes happen gradually over a long time, which means everything is nice & tidy like, and one can project a nice linear rate of change back into history. Others point out that a lot of changes happen suddenly, in a catastophic manner, with periods of calm and no change afterwards, until the next catastophic period i.e. a non-linear system change, which plays merry hell with any attempts to produce a nice orderly dating.

[Mick Harper]

I do not deny that variations can indicate (even prove) when group A budded off from group B. Because Group A will rapidly become a separate genetic pool from Group B. However, if you have read THOBR you will know that 'making trees' ie drawing a diagram in which A buds off from B, leads immediately and inevitably to assuming that the budders are newer than the buddees. After that, anything is possible. Or rather the ruling paradigm will be found to have been 'proved' genetically.

[Boreades]

An interesting "DNA Map" for the Clan Donald



Genetically, the MacDonalds are closer to Spain, Ireland and Cornwall than they are to England, Holland and Germany.

Any surprises?

[Boreades]

The same may be true for some folk in Dorset.

The Poole Harbour Heritage Project is still doing great work. You may remember they were were the ones that found two Iron Age harbour piers in Poole Harbour.

Now they've found some 600BC glass (from an era when Brits weren't supposed to have glass), and "possibly made from raw materials occurring on the Levantine (modern Lebanon) coast. "

See http://www.pooleharbourheritageproject. ... _Glass.php

[hvered]

A team investigating the genetics of ancient humans announced that six or seven thousand years ago a mystery people entered Europe, distinct from the farmers and hunter-gatherers that had been living and intermarrying heretofore.

According to David Wright from Harvard Medical School the mystery people are genetically related, if not identical, to people from Siberia and even Indo-Americans. I thought for a brief moment he'd been reading TME.