Super Y lineages over the past 10,000 years
Dienekes posted a bunch of abstracts from the 2009 American Society of Human Genetics meeting. This one is of interest in light of recent posts on this weblog:
Some Y-chromosomal haplotypes have been found at unusually high frequencies in Asian and European human populations. The massive spreadof these lineages has been explained by the impact of social selection i.e.the high reproductive success of some males and their relative/descendants due to their high social status. The most well-known examples are the “Khan haplotype” and the “Manchou haplotype” in Asia, and the U’Neill haplotype in Ireland. But are these frequent haplotypes always associated with recentevents of social selection, or could they be linked to much older processes? To address this question, we have surveyed ~ 3500 males in 97 populationsfrom Turkey to Japan. We have focused on the 12 most frequently represented haplotypes in Eurasia and tested whether their expansions are linked to a specific factor such as language or subsistence methods. Our results show that both recent and ancient processes are responsible for the expansions of these lineages. The recent expansions (2000-3000 years) likely to be linked to social selection are prevalent in Altaic-speaking and pastora lpopulations. This might indicate a recent cultural change in the social organizationof these populations. The ancient expansions (8000-10000 years) are over-represented in Indo-European speaking and sedentary farmer populations,and are likely to be the result of the Neolithic transition.
Asymmetries between male and female lineages are always of interest. For example, diversity of Y and mtDNA correlates well with patrilocality vs. matrilocality. The idea of “super-male” lineages was mooted by Bryan Sykes several years ago in the wake of the “Genghis Khan haplotype”, though it benefited from particular preconceptions many have about the nature of male genetic reproductive fitness. But it is likely that these dynamics vary by population due to ecological and/or social parameters. The time window for the expansion of Y lineages among Altaic speakers is very suggestive in light of historical records and archaeological data. It seems that early on (i.e., before 500 BCE) horse-based nomadism was dominated by Indo-Europeans, predominantly Iranians, in Eurasia. In the few centuries before Christ the populations of the eastern steppe, the precursors of Altaic language families, adopted this lifestyle, and to a great extent superseded the Iranian populations across the length and breadth of the non-sedentary zone over the next 1,500 years (the fact that the Ossetians are now a people who reside in the Caucasus is illustrative of the great retreat of Iranian peoples on the steppe). I have suggested that there is a winner-take-all dynamic in regards to steppe polities, and I suspect this will be reflected in the genetics of male lineages as well.
* It is notable that Ireland was to a great extent a pastoralist society during the period of domination by the Ui Neill .
“I have suggested that there is a winner-take-all dynamic in regards to steppe polities … “
Where was this?
link.
My idea is that from ~200 AD to ~ 1300 AD the “barbarian world”, especially the steppe, was a training ground for the future military and political elites of the sedentary world. The dominant people of the steppe would always tend to orient toward the wealthier urban agricultural peoples. Sometimes they conquered, sometimes they enlisted as mercenaries (and perhaps later usurped power), sometimes they were sold as slaves by their enemies, and sometimes they were massacred. Behind them they left a vacuum on the steppe which was filled by other peoples, including forest peoples.
Steppe armies could be either disordering or ordering forces, or both in succession. Sometimes when one steppe ruling group replaced another earlier one, it was like the urban agricultural peoples (who were mostly disarmed) were contracting out their government to the strongest contender.
Cliches about tough barbarians and soft civilized people are not exactly right (civilized nations have produced some fierce armies), but there’s a threshold on one side of which war is normal and honored and a good career for which men train all their lives, and on the other side of which war is a misfortune and a bad deal and people just like to live comfortably.
In part it’s just a wealth threshold. The steppe peoples were not impoverished on a per capita basis, but they had essentially no opportunity to accumulate wealth or to experience ease and luxury. In the Secret History there are reports of the luxury items of the the defeated Naiman and Kereit great khans, and they were insignificant by our standards (e.g. a silver baby cradle) because they had to be portable. (Gold and jewels were another important form of wealth.) I believe that there is a suggestion in the SH too that the Naiman and Kereit were defeated because they had become soft and addicted to luxury.
Could someone elaborate on the ‘U?Neill haplotype’?
So basically the Onion was right except the guy’s name was U’Neill?
Could someone elaborate on the ‘U?Neill haplotype’?
after a legendary high king of ireland, named niall. names like o’neil signify descent.
AJ,
Here’s more info and links on the Ui Neill haplotype and its Y-DNA markers – R1b-M222 DNA project