What's Up Cuz?

[NightskyeB4Dawn]

I get a bunch of garbage in my Feed, but sometimes I luck up on a jewel. I ran across this in my Feed this morning and I have to admit that it got the gears to turning.

This video tries to pass of a lot of information in a short amount of time. It stirs up a ton of questions, because the subject is very complex.

I could not get pass just how such large number of haplogroups show up through migration. I would think that war and combat had a lot to do with it.

In order for there to be such a large number of breakaways, there had to be others with whom the migrants mated. But it seems that those breakaways were a part of the original groups at one time.

While it is not odd that those newer migrants, would eventually create their own haplogroups. I just don't see that occurring in such large numbers. Most tribes do not welcome strange males. They will kill them, run them off, or enslave them. So for that much mating to be going on, it seems that war, rape and pillaging, may have been a predominating factor.

The spoils of war, or the remnants of war. It is almost Biblical.

Just a thought.

[Ninurta]

"Haplogroups" are groups of genetic mutations. They indeed ARE "offshoots". When enough mutations in a gene are accrued, a new haplotype is born. They branch out from the parent haplotype like branches of a tree.

There are all sorts of haplotypes, but the ones are usually referring to are the one on the Y chromosome (males only) and the ones found in mitochondrial DNA (both males and females, but passed on only from the female). Those two types of DNA, the Y chromosome and the mitochondrial DNA, do not recombine like the rest of your DNA ("autosomal DNA") does. Autosomal DNA is that DNA found in the nucleus of a cell, whereas mitochoondrial DNA is found only in the mitochondria that power the cells, like tiny batteries.

Autosomal DNA "recombines" - it splits apart, dances around, and finds new partner DNA, and that results in unique DNA combinations for each individual. It remains similar enough to create DNA matches among related individuals, but recombines enough to make each individual unique. That's why I and my brother are not mere clones of our pa.

Y-DNA and mtDNA, on the other hand, are wallflowers. They sit that recombination dance out, and do not split or recombine. Because of that, they are passed down from generation to generation relatively unchanged. The only changes that occur are random mutations, maybe 1 or 2 per generation out of thousands and thousands of nucleotides. Mutation of one or two nucleotides doesn't change very much, but over time they add up as the are passed on and successive generations add their own mutations, until eventually enough new mutations build up to create a new haplotype.

Just as new twigs in a tree branch eventually form their own branches, so does DNA haplotypes. Those in turn subdivide and form their own new twigs, and then branches. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Y-DNA is only passed down from father to son, because it resides in the Y chromosome, and only sons get one of those - if you get two X chromosomes, you are a daughter, not a son. Mitochondrial DNA passes down to both sons and daughters, but ONLY from the mother. You don't get any of your dad's mitochondrial DNA. So, Y-DNA is transmitted along an unbroken male line, and mtDNA is only transmitted along an unbroken female line.

This is a basic explanation. Some times, a person will get "too many" chromosomes - XXY, XYY, etc.  instead of the normal XX or XY. Nature likes to play tricks.

Haplotypes are confusing, because they are a lot like voodoo - what you get may be subject to "interpretation". For example, my own Y-DNA may be haplogroup E-V13... or it may be E1b1b1a1b... or it may be R1b1a2a1a2b3b. It depends on who is telling me what it is. The first two options may just be different ways to say the same thing... possibly... but the third option is entirely different from all the information I've been able to find. So, voodoo. It all depends on who you ask.

E-V13 can be traced back over 7000 years. It probably originated in the Levant, among the Natufians, purportedly the "first farmers". From there it spread into Anatolia, across the Bosporus into the Balkans (where it has it's highest concentration currently), and from there into Central Europe, spreading outward from there. Some Aryan Nations types Peg me as "African" on account of it, because it's parent haplotype - M-78 - is found mostly in the Horn of Africa nowadays. "Science" says that was the birthplace of M-78 because of that concentration, but doesn't account for the fact that it may have originated elsewhere, and is only prevalent there now because of the luck of the draw.

E-V13 is also found in a couple of isolated cases in Spain about 9000 years ago - 2000 years before it shows up in the Balkans, which makes the accepted route from the Levantine Natufians into the Balkans a "guess". You know, otherwise known as "voodoo".

My mtDNA haplotype is U4b1a, tracing a direct maternal line back to European Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, placing them in Europe at least 20,000 years ago. So they were already there (the wimmen-folk) when the male E-V13 men-folk arrived on the scene, bringing crops, and stock... and bronze.

Mixing occurred, which brings us to the migration aspect of haplogroup spread.

Several scenarios are likely.

One: Magog, from the Eurasian steppes, has been a herdsman all his life. In the wide open prairie lands of the steppes, he just herds his flock along to wherever there is grass, never stopping for long in any one place, because the herd eats up all the grass. Then he and the herds have to move on. One day, wandering along, he enters the lands of Gog, a Central European hunter-gatherer who has never heard of the ridiculous idea of "owning" animals, much less domesticating the wild beasts. Magog espies Gog's buxom young daughter, and the fine lands in Central Europe, and decides he needs him some of that. Gog, on the other hand, has other ideas. he shouts "these is my wimmen-folk, and this is my land! Go 'way!" Magog shouts back "Duck, ya bastard!" and rides in on his domesticated horse, sweeps up Gog's comely daughter, and rides off with her. Gog is unable to follow. He doesn't have a horse. Magog's haplogroup is eventually inserted into Gog's family tree.

Two: Tubal-Cain, an artificer in that newfangled bronze stuff in Anatolia, picks up his bronze and heads west. because the grass is always greener "over there". Gog, still licking his wounds because he never got his horse, has another buxom young daughter - this one is a red-head - and Tubal Cain espies her and is smitten. In this case, Gog espies the bronze, which he thinks might be better than sharp rocks for getting things done, and decides a red-headed daughter is a fair trade for the magical metal, and a deal is struck. Tubal-Cain, weary from the trip, decides to just hunker down there, and he and the red-head raise a whole pack of fat, red-headed babies, all of the boys of whom carry Tubal-Cain's haplotype.

Three: Seth is a farmer. He replaced the farmer Abel when the herdsman Cain up and killed him over a dispute. However, Seth has a problem. His lands are depleted. He's farmed them all out, and so has to move on. He heads west, towards the setting sun, on the theory that the day is longer there because the sun clearly hasn't set in the lands of the west yet. he brings his farming seed with him, stakes out a claim in the west that no one else is squatting on at the moment, and commences to raising a crop. One day, Gog comes ambling along on the track of a deer, and is perplexed. Wild grain doesn't grow in geometric patterns like that, and it's a type of grain he's never seen before. Seth comes running out of his grass hut, yelling and waving his arms - this bumpkin is waddling along, stomping down the crop! But then, Seth gets jerked up short by the sight of yet another buxom daughter of Gog - this one has black hair, but blue eyes, and it's a fascinating combination that Seth has never seen before. Little red hearts start danging in circles around his eyes. He strikes a deal with Gog to supply grain - in perpetuity 'cause he ain't goin' NOWHERE - in exchange for Gog's brunette but blue-eyed offspring. Gog is ok with that - he can visit her anytime, and don't have to catch an extra rabbit a day to feed her... and he gets a lifetime supply of grain for when the game is scarce. What a deal!

Four: Joktan and four of his brothers hear about the good luck the other fellas have had in the west. But they're not patient. They don't grub in the dirt like those farmers, they don't work day and night to keep herds together, they aren't amenable to sitting around hammering on bronze all day.

They like fighting, thoughj.

So they roll up on Tubal-Cain's forge, and strike a deal for some of his fashionable bronze weapons. then they take those weapons westward seeking their fortunes. They just take what they want, and kill off anyone too slow to get out of their way. Due to the rape and pillage and whatnot, their haplogroups get spread around. A lot.

These are just four scenarios. They are likely to have happened, and many more. So haplotypes get spread around. Migration is always a factor, but other complexities of war and trade also enter the fray

There is a valley in Northern Germany, the Tollense Valley, where they have found a battlefield from 1200 BC - 3200 years ago. It appears that two fairly large armies, a couple thousand men to a side, clashed at the crossing of a river. One side seems to have been using mostly flint and clubs, and the other bronze weapons. They don't know who it was fighting there, as there are no records other than bones and artifacts in the ground. They don't know if it was locals defending from an invasion force, or an ambush of a commerce caravan. The only thing they know is that several thousand men fought, and hundreds died, over control of a causeway crossing the Tollense River. So it might have been invasion, or it may have been thievery of trade. No one knows, and likely never will.

Everyone likes to preach on how wars and invasions have spread haplogroups far and wide, but I think a far more influential factor is... technology. Whenever a high-tech group meets up with a low tech group, the low tech group loses, including the haplotype sweepstakes. New technologies - domesticated horse, farming, herding domesticated animals, bronze, iron, steel - all of these and more give the incoming group possessing them a comptetitive edge. Humanity being what it is, they exploit that edge... sometimes, they don't even know how far the ramifications of that can spread.

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