In the first phase of the Geneographic project, launched in 2005, E-M35's origin was explictly stated as the following :
"The man who gave rise to marker M35 was born around 20,000 years ago in the Middle East. His descendants were among the first farmers and helped spread agriculture from the Middle East into the Mediterranean region."
 |
| Original E-M35 National Geographic Description |
You can read what it reads today in the screen shot below:
 |
| Current E-M35 Nat. Geographic Description |
There is also the sentence, "Today, in keeping with its place of origin, this line is common among Afro-Asiatic speakers", could the part, 'in keeping with its place of origin', be also a 'nudge' at the very distinct, and in my opinion, strong, possibility that Afroasiatic may have originated in East Africa as well ?
If so, this would be a first for a major outlet like Nat Geo and others, even though, renowned Afroasiatic experts like Greenberg, Ehret, Blench et. al had said this for decades.
Update: Another point that is odd in their new phylogeny seen above, is the ordering of some of the NRY SNPs leading up-to V12, the SNPs leading up-to P147 are in standard sequence, i.e the sequence M42 > M168 > M203 > M96 > P147, is common knowledge, however P177 is listed as downstream of P2, where common knowledge says it is the reverse, i.e. P147 > P177 > P2, instead of P147 > P2 > P177. Similarliy, M215 is not known to be a subclade of M35.1 but rather the reverse, so overall, their sequence should read as follows : M42 > M168 > M203 > M96 > P147 > P177 > P2 > M215 > M35.1 > M78 > V12. Unless off-course they have found some samples that upset the standard NRY SNP sequence leading upto E-V12 that we do not know about yet.
Posts
What do you think of the emergence of Proto-Semitic in regard to E-M34 & J-P58?
ReplyDeleteBayesian linguistic phylogeny points to Semitic diversifying in the Levant region, where the pre-cursor language would have been spoken before the diversification depends on which linguist you consult, Ehret for instance would posit North-Eastern Africa, while others would posit East-Africa proper. Interestingly, newly found SNPs on the NRY, namely Z827 and Z830, which unite E-M81 and E-M34 to African specific sub-lineages of E-M35 (namely E-V42 and E-M293) would better support Bender's position than Ehret's, IMO.
DeleteWith respect to J-P58, although it seems to be reasonably associated with semitic speakers, in-terms of frequency, I am not sure how well it associates in terms of Age, we need more studies from different regions to see if there are layers of J-P58 associated with different historical time frames, example, the neolithic, Islamic expansion of the middle ages, etc.....
Interesting, though what is your opinion about the high, bottleneck-like frequency of J1 in Northern Omotic groups, Afar & Beja? Also, if we throw Fregel et al 2009's J1 Guanche samples in, wouldn't this make a strong case for that lineage joining in at an early stage of Afroasiatic?
DeleteDo you think that archeogenetic data will be needed to solve the afroasiatic equation?
I suppose the J1 in Omotic speakers and the Afar you are talking about is from the newly released Plaster dataset, while the J1 in the Beja is from Hassan (2008), if there are other sources do let me know. In any event, it is hard to say much about J1 in East Africa when we have so little data to base it on, for instance the plaster data set is a great start with many populations studied who had J lineages (most presumably to be J1) and found all over Ethiopia, but it is hard to do much of an analysis on since we only have six markers to work with, the first thing I would like to see is in which linguistic speaking group in Ethiopia is J1 most diverse, we already have data that shows that Ethiopian J1 is less diverse than J1 from say the Zagros Mountains area, naturally, but Ethiopian J1 is much more diverse than Sudanese J1 for instance, so could the J1 in the Beja be of a more recent introgression from the south? Or is it older in the Beja than other Sudanese populations? Again it is hard to answer these questions without more data. Another interesting find is that of one J (x M267, M172) case in the Omotic speaking Maale, could this be a further testimony of the antiquity of J1 in the region or just another random case that got transported with the other J1 lineages?
Delete"Do you think that archeogenetic data will be needed to solve the afroasiatic equation?"
How exactly would archaeogenetic data solve the Afroasiatic equation? How would we be certain of what language that the people from which the DNA was extracted from spoke? Perhaps the material culture that was associated with the people would also be some how associated with their presumed language? Whatever the case, for now I would be satisfied with more J1 analysis in living Ethiopian and surrounding populations, I still however do generally think that whatever brought J1 into East Africa originally did not really have much to do with the birth of Afroasiatic, it maybe did later on have an influence, but not initially.
Also, Plaster's report says that EM-34 is more diverse in Ethiopia, than the middle-east. Again, do we have to wait to conclude the Origin of EM-34 in Ethiopia (rather than the already proposed middle-eastern origin)?
ReplyDeleteThe Plaster report shows that E-M34 has a different frequency distribution in Ethiopia than was previously known, namely a South-North oriented cline versus one that is oriented North-South, in addition, its heavy presence in Omotic speakers was also previously unknown, although it was moderately present in the Wolayta (Cruciani 2004). The diversity of E-M34 in Ethiopia is comparable to that of E-M34 outside of Ethiopia, more detailed analysis is needed to make any significant conclusions one way or another. However, the information released in the Plaster data, plus unpublished information of an upstream SNP, E-Z830, that unites E-M34 with other E-M35 lineages that are restricted to East Africa, should be enough to cause a general re-think of the origin of E-M123/M34.
DeleteIn diffrent release from your site, you have said Ramsus III carried E1b1a. How can you compromise the finding with the Afro-asciatic origin of ancient Egypt? Are you concluding ancient Egyptians were Bantu like people, speaking Congo-Nigger?
ReplyDeleteOne haplogroup found in one man is not enough to make a broad generalization on huge language phylums such as Afroasiatic or Niger-Congo, by the way, notice that Niger is spelled with one 'g' in this context, don't make this mistake again on this blog.
Delete"The man who gave rise to marker M35 was born around 20,000 years ago in the Middle East. His descendants were among the first farmers and helped spread agriculture from the Middle East into the Mediterranean region."
ReplyDeleteThis statement will put almost all horners to the middle eastern origin, as opposed to the already agreed indigenous African origin. I think EM-35 descendants EV-68 and E-Z827 and their origin will remain the same (in the horn of Africa).
If we assume, the origin of its ancesster EM-215 ramin the same in the areas of Horn of Africa, it seems difficult for the scholars to find meaningful distinction between the population of today's Horn of Africa and ancient Middle East.