Haplogroup 1

KnowItAll · 10-08-2005 2:12am #1

Came across an interesting map about the haplogroup distribution of europe.

http://baz.perlmonk.org/haplogroups.jpg

It shows Connaught as having the most pure haplogroup 1 (rb1) people in the world at about 98%! Haplogroup 1 is the haplogroup that was in Europe first so it makes sense that the most western part of the most western country (Iceland only recently colonised) would have the most haplogroup 1 DNA.

Wibbs · 10-08-2005 9:30am

The Basque mix really stands out as unusual too. It's amazing that with all the mixing and tooing and froing over the centuries that these markers still exist. Then again western Ireland would have been pretty isolated until recently. It's interesting to note that the Pakistani Hazara has a higher haplogroup 1 incidence than some Europeans(Didn't know that yer culchies made it as far as the sub continent. Resourceful buggers that they are.

). Might explain the high incidence of red hair in the western parts of these islands as some think that trait is inherited from the even older Neandertal Europeans. Maybe the haplogroup has a similar link. It seems to be confined to the areas where Neandertals lived. Conjecture of course as some don't think the two interbred at all, but there you go.

KnowItAll · 11-08-2005 1:34am

Wibbs wrote:

The Basque mix really stands out as unusual too.
It's amazing that with all the mixing and tooing and froing over the centuries that these markers still exist. Then again western Ireland would have been pretty isolated until recently. It's interesting to note that the Pakistani Hazara has a higher haplogroup 1 incidence than some Europeans(Didn't know that yer culchies made it as far as the sub continent.

Holland has 40% haplogroup 1 population also which is suprising.

Wibbs wrote:

Resourceful buggers that they are. ). Might explain the high incidence of red hair in the western parts of these islands as some think that trait is inherited from the even older Neandertal Europeans. Maybe the haplogroup has a similar link. It seems to be confined to the areas where Neandertals lived. Conjecture of course as some don't think the two interbred at all, but there you go.

There must have been interbreeding between neanderthals and humans.

The thing about neanderthals is not only were they phyically stronger than humans but they're brains were 13% bigger than humans too, which makes sense as you need to be smart to survive in frozen Europe.

Wibbs · 11-08-2005 9:22am

KnowItAll wrote:

Holland has 40% haplogroup 1 population also which is suprising.

True, but what is surprising is the lower incidence among the Scandinavians, which are usually held up as the Aryan European "ideal".

There must have been interbreeding between neanderthals and humans.

Sadly it's hard to prove, as what DNA does survive from that period doesn't show any commonallity. That and the popularity of the out of Africa total replacement theory doesn't help. Personally, I can't believe there wasn't any interbreeding between modern humans and the older humans they bumped into. The extent to which they contributed to the modern genepool is the issue though. DNA seems to think there's very little. That said features in the bones can show a remarkable similarity between archaic humans in an area and the moderns of today. There are skull features in Homo erectus in the far east that are present in the modern population. These are not found in the Homo Erectus of Africa, Australia or the near east/Europe, but their own localised features are. This would suggest that there was local evolution and interbreeding with the moderns that came later. What's funny is that they haven't found the DNA evidence for it as yet and when anomalies are found they tend to be treated as just that, anomalies. One example would be Australia's Mungo man who while a fully modern human has no DNA that survives into the present modern human population. Human evolution is still a fairly cloudy subject.

The thing about neanderthals is not only were they phyically stronger than humans but they're brains were 13% bigger than humans too, which makes sense as you need to be smart to survive in frozen Europe.

Stronger yes, but bigger brains don't always mean more smarts. Neandertals appear not to have had nearly the same intelligence as ourselves. Their stone tools show little evolution throughout their long history and the evidence for any form of culture in the form of art, etc is very patchy. They did seem to have some capacity for culture as late Neandertals started to make jewelry and other cultural items, but some hold that they were merely mimicing the modern humans around them.

ISAW · 03-09-2005 10:35pm

Hey, is it true for cows too?

BRADLEY, D. G., D. E. MACHUGH, P. CUNNINGHAM, and R. T. LOFTUS, 1996 Mitochondrial diversity and the origins of African and European cattle. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 93:5131-5135.

http://www.tcd.ie/Genetics/publications/Dan_Bradley_Pubs.html