Ancient and Archaeology permalink
DNA - links
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Message 1.Â
Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Saturday, 28th July 2007
i have recently seen a documentary - called the King of Stonehenge - a grave was found with amazing grave goods - a burial next door was found to probably be his son -
has there been a link between an ancient burial to someone living nowadays ?? - ie a DNA link ????= traced over thousands of years ?? -
Message 2
Posted by Colquhoun (U3935535) on Sunday, 29th July 2007
I seem to remember on one of the 'Meet the Ancesters' programs there was an eposode where they did a test that appeared to show that some of a village's residents were decended from an individual buried in a iron age grave.
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Message 3
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Sunday, 29th July 2007
Gough Cave, Cheddar produced Britain's oldest complete skeleton, discovered in 1903. A man was buried in a crouched burial position and he is thought to be our only known Mesolithic interment. In a triumph for archaeological science geneticists sequenced his mitochondrial DNA, and local people were examined to determine if possible descendants still lived in the Cheddar area. I believe that one Adrian Targett, a local history teacher, was considered on this basis to be directly related to ‘Cheddar Man’. It goes without saying that our existence proves that we all have Mesolithic people, or frogs for that matter, in our family trees! Ancient DNA analysis is always difficult since the amplification techniques used on the tiny quantities of fragmentary material extracted are very vulnerable to modern contamination.
The possible family relationship between the ‘Amesbury archer’ and the second skeleton of a younger individual was not decided on DNA analysis but on a shared anatomical abnormality of a foot bone. As you will know the skeletons were however examined by another archaeological science technique, stable isotope analysis. Analysis of oxygen isotopes in the archer’s tooth enamel suggested that he grew up not in England, but in central Europe, possibly the Alps. On the other hand the greater presence of lighter oxygen isotopes in the tooth enamel indicated that the ’son’ grew up in Britain.
TP -
Message 4
Posted by gumption78 (U2800277) on Sunday, 29th July 2007
Unless they get chopped up by marauders or new invaders, peasants never really have had the habit of moving around a great deal, so I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if it were so! And let's be honest, even in this day and age we've all driven through one of those villages where everyone has the same face
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Message 5
Posted by stalteriisok (U3212540) on Sunday, 29th July 2007
twinprobe
thanks for that = i thought that the archer and his son was due to DNA - and also the dental records - i wold like to know how far forward the dna etc can be traced ??
your thoughts ??
st -
Message 6
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Monday, 30th July 2007
In Greece, back in the early 70s there had been a dodgy professor of archaiology of left-wing (60%-70% of them are such!) beliefs who went on a project to study the relation of modern habitants of Greece with those ancient ones. I think he actually found quite the opposite and never went on to publish his work since it would not fit the ideology of his party.
There have been done researches in Greece since then and with the advent of DNA these continue but are kept at low profile in fear of being termed this or that in our age of cosmopolitanism.
However, I would not pay so much attention to such surveys as even DNA cannot say easily the whole truth and I will give you this very example of modern Greece to explain you why.
We all know that even from prehistory Greeks had boats to travel around the Mediterranean thus they left their nest really early and were going around like tourists here and there with popular places being South Italy and Asia Minor. It is more than natural to imagine that despite the barbarian-greek tribal division there was some inter-marriage going on (e.g. when barbarian slaves where becoming free men, then citizens after generations etc.). Then in late Roman christian times pretty much everyone was "greek talking" and that was the rule. Hence, Greeks in Italy were already highly mixed with Italians, Greeks in south Thrace with Thraecians and Greeks in western and northern Asia Minor with Phrygians, Lydians, Lyceans, Bithynians and whatever leftovers of Medians and Persians. Later on some intermarriage went on with nations such as the Armenians who were the forefront of Byzantines against the Arabs (Leontian emperors were actually Armenians).
In mainland Greece things were a bit dodgy as there was a huge reduction of population and complete destruction of cities after the raids of Goths in the 4th century while Emperors had repopulated certain places with populations from Western Asia Minor and Cyprus while when again the place was wrecked by Bulgarian raids (the worst ones) Basilius practically emptied South Italy bringing the Greek populations to rebuild the Greek mainland thus preparing the fall of South Italy to Normands and the demise of the Hellenic character of the south Italic area. It is also interesting that Byzantines whenever populated Greek areas were "accidentally" bringing in greek popylations, whenever populating other areas like in Danube or Anatolia they "accidentally" would not mind populations of other background... implying some sort of hidden nationalism in the heart of anti-nationalist christian medieval ideology - a really interesting subject for study! In anyway it is strongly suggested that more than 65% of the population of Greece after Basilius (11th century) were coming from South Italy.
Then during the Ottoman Empire christian slavic and christian albanian populations had moved in parts of Greece contributing to the population (though their numbers and importance had been often overinflated by those that ideologically want to prove the discontinuity in the area ignoring the obvious fact that the bulk of Greeks differ substantially from Slavs and Albanians). A mix with muslim turkish-talking populations was going on but could only happen in case a christian became forcefully or willingly muslim meaning that all the mix fell to the side of Ottomans (that is why tourists often mention that western Turks look like Greeks!). Well there is no case that Greeks look like Kazaki or Ouzbeeki people i.e. tribes more close to original Turkish (not even the average Turk in Anatolia looks like original turks) and it is true that ironically Greece is one of the parts of Europe with the least of steppe-influence (along with Italy and Spain - why do you think we are still of the most hairy people? steppe people are not famed for their body hair).
Now on the top of all the above, in 1922 a huge wave of refugess of Greeks from Minor Asia gave the modern population of Greece.
The result of all that is that there is little case that modern Greeks mainly derive from Greek populations that lived in Greek mainland in 5th century. More than 80% of their genes must be from Greeks that back in the ancient times lived either in South Italy or in Asia Minor. Thus they are more descendants of Archimedes and Â鶹ԼÅÄr rather than of Pericles or Alexander the Great. 99,9% of modern Greeks ignore that fact due to misleading education (what would be the point either to include all these in the national curriculum?)!
However, what has happened here? Modern Greeks are also a high mix of Italic tribes with Thraecians, Lydians, Phrygians, Lyceans, even a few Medians and Persians among others and quite some Armenians and such with a sprinkle of Slavic, Albanian and perhaps traces of some Gothic-Varangian-Gaulic influence, who knows? However, most of the aforementioned people were nations that were actually anthropologically not substantially different to original proto-Greek tribes. External traits like hair colours and eyes were very similar while when anthropoligists find it difficult to state the difference of a skeleton of a Nordic or a Mediterranean they are not in position to state whether a skeleton is Italic or Greek or Phrygian. DNA studies also might give very misleading facts since say if Greeks in South Italy were 70% Greeks and 30% Italians and Greeks in Asia Minor 60% and 10% Lydians, 10% Phrygians and 20% the rest then the resulting melting pot back in Greece would show a 65% Greek, 15% Italic 5% Lydians, 5% Phrygians and 10% the rest. Imagine that even DNA will not tell necessarily the difference between tribes so similar like Greeks and Phrygians thus the percentage will rise to amazing 90 and 95% of "greek connection", thus in the end scientists would say that indeed there is a continuity in the population habitating the Greek peninsula across the centuries that contradicts the historic facts and the mass movements across the Italic and Minor Asian peninsula. Essentially in a sense, modern Greeks have largely a connection with the ancient Greeks' gene pool but then the continuity/discontinuity issue is highly debatable and not even the study of DNA can solve important details like who came from who.
Hence, beware even of DNA studies, they cannot always tell the whole truth. -
Message 7
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Monday, 30th July 2007
Maybe, but after all what can tell the 'whole' truth?
As far British pre-history is concerned I guess that DNA analysis is an additional strand of evidence to add to archaeology, placenames, and environmental studies.
TP -
Message 8
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Monday, 30th July 2007
Exactly. Comparative analysis. DNA as a complementary tool along with all other evidence be it archaiological, anthropological etc.
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