The spread of agriculture, part n
If agriculture, and the social and cultural revolutions triggered by this new form of extracting economic productivity from land, was a major variable in triggering recent human evolution it is important to know when it swept over a particular region. With the big ranges given for when selection pressures began to reshape a genomic region the narrower values from archaeology might be very useful. So here’s another map of the spread of agriculture in Europe….
Dienekes has an old post with similar numbers. The recent results which imply that SLC24A5 (responsible for 1/3 of the European vs. African skin color difference) might have only started rising in frequency 6-12 thousand years ago would be constrained if we are to assume that changes triggered by agriculture were necessary; as farming only spread to northern Europe around 7,000 years ago.
(source)
Below the fold I cut & pasted some of the rows from the Agricultural Transition Data Set.
Israel 10500
Jordan 10500
Lebanon 10500
Syrian Arab Republic 10500
Iraq 10000
Turkey 10000
Iran, Islamic Rep. 9500
Kuwait 9500
Afghanistan 9000
China 9000
Pakistan 9000
Cyprus 8500
Greece 8500
India 8500
Armenia 8000
Azerbaijan 8000
Germany 8000
Italy 8000
Turkmenistan 8000
Malta 7600
Saudi Arabia 7600
Yemen 7600
Albania 7500
Bahrain 7500
Bulgaria 7500
France 7500
Macedonia 7500
Oman 7500
Qatar 7500
Romania 7500
Serbia and Montenegro 7500
United Arab Emirates 7500
Hungary 7400
Egypt, Arab Rep. 7200
Spain 7200
Bosnia and Herzegovina 7000
Croatia 7000
Moldova 7000
Slovenia 7000
Tajikistan 7000
Austria 6500
Czech Republic 6500
Kazakhstan 6500
Kyrgyzstan 6500
Portugal 6500
Slovakia 6500
Ukraine 6500
Uzbekistan 6500
Georgia 6000
Laos 6000
Nepal 6000
Netherlands 6000
Poland 6000
Vietnam 6000
Bangladesh 5500
Belgium 5500
Bhutan 5500
Denmark 5500
Libya 5500
Liechtenstein 5500
Luxembourg 5500
Sweden 5500
Switzerland 5500
Taiwan, China 5500
Thailand 5500
United Kingdom 5500
Hong Kong, China 5000
Ireland 5000
Mongolia 5000
Myanmar 5000
Norway 5000
Philippines 5000
Russia 5000
Sri Lanka 5000
Sudan 5000
Belarus 4500
Cambodia 4500
Japan 4500
Korea, Rep. 4500
Malaysia 4500
Singapore 4500
Tunisia 4500
Peru 4300
Mexico 4100
Algeria 4000
Bolivia 4000
Brunei 4000
Chile 4000
Ecuador 4000
Ethiopia 4000
Indonesia 4000
Niger 4000
Papua New Guinea 4000
Paraguay 4000
Argentina 3800
Guyana 3800
Venezuela 3800
Estonia 3700
Latvia 3700
Lithuania 3700
French Guiana 3600
Suriname 3600
Uruguay 3600
Brazil 3500
Burundi 3500
Cote d’Ivoire 3500
Finland 3500
Ghana 3500
Guatemala 3500
Kenya 3500
Mariana Islands 3500
Mauritania 3500
Morocco 3500
Somalia 3500
Uganda 3500
United States 3500
Colombia 3400
Belize 3300
Guinea 3250
Liberia 3250
Sierra Leone 3250
Benin 3100
Togo 3100
Cameroon 3000
Central African Republic 3000
Congo, Rep. 3000
Demcratic Rep. of Congo 3000
El Salvador 3000
Gabon 3000
Gambia, The 3000
Guinea-Bissau 3000
Honduras 3000
Mali 3000
Nicaragua 3000
Senegal 3000
Burkina Faso 2900
Chad 2700
Nigeria 2700
Costa Rica 2500
Rwanda 2500
Tanzania 2500
Panama 2400
Grenada 2000
Madagascar 2000
Trinidad and Tobago 2000
Malawi 1800
Zambia 1800
Barbados 1700
South Africa 1700
Canada 1500
Dominican Republic 1500
Lesotho 1500
Swaziland 1500
Mozambique 1400
Zimbabwe 1400
Angola 1250
Namibia 1250
Botswana 1000
Haiti 1000
Jamaica 1000
Labels: History
The Canadian datapoint is of interest (at least to me) – it contradicts the idea I had that none of the natives in that area were primarily agricultural before the Europeans came. Reading into the description, I see that the the 1500 yrs bp figure is based on Wyandot/Huron maize cultivation in Ontario. It doesn’t look like the cultivation of wild rice (zizania), further west, figures into their data at all, and a few minutes googling doesn’t turn up any estimates for the antiquity of that practice among the Ojibway.
Anyway, assuming this is a followup to speculations on the whiteness (or lack thereof) of native Americans, we still have to consider the following:
- in northern Europe, selection pressures had four or five times as long to operate (4-5K years versus 1K for the Wyandot)
- the relevant areas of Canada are not that far north (e.g. Toronto is at the same latitude as Florence)
- the Wyandot may well have been paler than other native Americans to the south. The few pictures I turn up don’t look especially dark, but since these follow on a couple hundred years of mixing with Europeans it would be more relevant to read what the early missionaries had to say on the topic.
Can someone explain to me in simple words why we should expect a correlation between fair skin genes and agriculture? I thought skin colour was essentially about modulation of sunlight intake. The only link I could see is that agriculture increases population size, perhaps causing a “Hawksian” acceleration of adaptive evolution in general?
The numbers don’t look right to me. They strike me as skewed by the degree of archaeological activity in a given area.
Israel 10500
Jordan 10500
Lebanon 10500
Syrian Arab Republic 10500
Iraq 10000
Turkey 10000
Iran, Islamic Rep. 9500
Kuwait 9500
Afghanistan 9000
China 9000
Pakistan 9000
Cyprus 8500
Greece 8500
India 8500
Most of these are arhaeological hotspots for other reasons. I’m especially suspicious of China’s high place on the list, ahead of Armenia and Yemen.
On the other hand, Egypt way down at 7200? Plenty of archaeology there!
Those are very interesting numbers, and if valid, they’ll change the way I look at things. The numbers say that agriculture came to Egypt late, while as we know urbanization came to Egypt first, or nearly first.
John,
IIRC, Jerico or Catal Hoyuk are the oldest cities in the world – thus far found. In Egypt the Sphinx is older, though not a city…
Agriculture was started in the Al-Fayuum (?) depression in Egypt, and later irrigation based on Nile valley. People from the Sahara and Middle East moved into the area…
Can someone explain to me in simple words why we should expect a correlation between fair skin genes and agriculture? I thought skin colour was essentially about modulation of sunlight intake. The only link I could see is that agriculture increases population size, perhaps causing a “Hawksian” acceleration of adaptive evolution in general?
theory: agriculture results in decrease in vitamin D intakes via a reduction in the diversification of diet (less meat & fish). empirical: the main reason the model is now is of interest is that many of the genes which cause light skin in europeans, such as SLC24A5 & OCA2, seem to only be drivin by selection in the last 10,000 years, perhaps as late as the last 5-7 thousand years. derived SLC24A5 also seems to be a recent allele across north africa, southwest asia & south asia.
The problem I have is that it has agriculture reaching Egypt 1300 years after India and 1800 years after China. Furthermore, agriculture reaches China at the same time it reaches Pakistan and Afghanistan, but before it reaches any of the intervening areas (the Turkish republics, Mongolia, SE Asia; Tibet is not mentioned).
Reporting by nation rather than location is also disappointing; Russia is more significant than Moldava and should have at least half a dozen sites.
Furthermore, agriculture reaches China at the same time it reaches Pakistan and Afghanistan, but before it reaches any of the intervening areas (the Turkish republics, Mongolia, SE Asia; Tibet is not mentioned).
the consensus today seems to be that the north china plain is an independent site of origin for agriculture. so, rice came to india from the east, wheat from the west.
I thought there was something that came out recently that said that the vast majority of the ancestry in the British Isles was from people who had been there for about 10,000 years. They’re pretty much as light skinned as the rest of the European population if not lighter, so it kind of makes me wonder if all Europeans became light and then the British Isles population diverged from the mainland or if they think that the lightending of skin tone happened independently in multiple European populations.
What lost here is that light skin in NE and NW Europe is very different.
NE Europe – circum Baltic – has a uniform white skin, that can tan in Summer.
NW Europe – Britain and Ireland – have a pinkish/white skin, interspersed with freckles, that can’t tan in Summer. Instead freckles increase in size and more appear.
The data is consistent with Diamond’s GGS. Does the same evolution pressure still apply for moden population? With today’s mobility and inter-marriage between East Asians and whites, is there any individual with both European and East Asian light-color gene having the lightest skin than their parents if those genes might work at different pathway with synergy.
“Britain and Ireland – have a pinkish/white skin, interspersed with freckles, that can’t tan in Summer. Instead freckles increase in size and more appear.” Yup. And also much of your red, exposed skin peels off very easily if you’ve misjudged your exposure.
I’m way out of date. I had thought that diffusionism of agriculture to China had replaced independent origin.
I had thought that diffusionism of agriculture to China had replaced independent origin.
the books i’m reading on 2003 and 2007. it was news to me too….
(rice was most def. not from the middle east though, we have genetic data which confirms its east asian origin now)
With today’s mobility and inter-marriage between East Asians and whites, is there any individual with both European and East Asian light-color gene having the lightest skin than their parents if those genes might work at different pathway with synergy.
i’ve asked about this. doesn’t seem like this happens, or the phenotypic isn’t discernable. but the main issues aren’t the F1s, but subsequent F2s which are crosses of F1s. if east asians and euros exhibit disjoint frequencies on some loci (e.g., SLC24A5) their offspring will be heterozygous, and since most of these are additive they’ll be midpoint. it’s in subsequent generations where you could have descendants who are overloaded on these genes.
Rice cultivation almost certainly originated in China. Based on a recent PBS show, it would seem that the Dog were domesticated in Northern China.
But domesticated animals like the Cow were most likely introduced later by a small demic diffusion of Europeans/Western Asians (aka Tokarians). Maybe also the Sheep…
One of the fiendish things about archeology is that a new dig can require rewriting a lot of books. It doesn’t happen quickly, of course. Or for another example, recalibrating Carbon 14 dating totally changed the history of NW Europe (Stonehenge, etc.)
One of the fiendish things about archeology is that a new dig can require rewriting a lot of books.
itz not a bug, it’s feature!
I wonder if the Welsh were the hypothetical last remnants of the Neanderthals?