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posted by CoolHand on Thursday November 19 2015, @09:54PM   Printer-friendly
from the five-strands-of-dna dept.

The first sequencing of ancient genomes extracted from human remains that date back to the Late Upper Palaeolithic period over 13,000 years ago has revealed a previously unknown "fourth strand" of ancient European ancestry.

This new lineage stems from populations of hunter-gatherers that split from western hunter-gatherers shortly after the 'out of Africa' expansion some 45,000 years ago and went on to settle in the Caucasus region, where southern Russia meets Georgia today.

Here these hunter-gatherers largely remained for millennia, becoming increasingly isolated as the Ice Age culminated in the last 'Glacial Maximum' some 25,000 years ago, which they weathered in the relative shelter of the Caucasus mountains until eventual thawing allowed movement and brought them into contact with other populations, likely from further east.

This led to a genetic mixture that resulted in the Yamnaya culture: horse-borne Steppe herders that swept into Western Europe around 5,000 years ago, arguably heralding the start of the Bronze Age and bringing with them metallurgy and animal herding skills, along with the Caucasus hunter-gatherer strand of ancestral DNA - now present in almost all populations from the European continent.


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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 20 2015, @04:55AM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday November 20 2015, @04:55AM (#265660)

    Whatever you may find in history books about the origins of Bronze will be based on wild speculation, more likely wrong than right.

    They've got guys interpreting the neolithic cave paintings in France based on the acoustic properties of the locations that are painted, apparently (if you are lacking in any advanced entertainment) you can find "sonically interesting" locations in the caves where the echoes are interesting, and the paintings appear to cluster near these spots... any attempt to interpret that will require ample amounts of imagination and invention, and then it will get published, because: old cave paintings.

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  • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday November 20 2015, @06:54AM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Friday November 20 2015, @06:54AM (#265692) Journal

    Yes, isn't archaeology fun! If only we had Henry Jones on the case. Although, DNA evidence does thicken the plot, as it were. The interesting thing about the Tarim mummies is the suggestion that the secret of bronze could have been given to the Chinese by caucasians, as opposed to the Chinese figuring out metallurgy all be theirselfs. On the other hand, when the site that I cited (for you lesser Soylentils, not the correct use and syntax of these two homophones. And no, Runaway, that does not mean you have to get all gay married.) goes on to say things like this:

    Tattoos should not be ignored as if they are simply a decoration. A tattoo becomes the living flesh. When an ancient person chose to be tattooed, they were choosing to be changed, transformed, and brought closer to their deities. A person, either modern or ancient, intends to carry their tattoo to the next world with them; in other words, it is a big decision not to be made lightly, and a commitment to quite a bit of pain. In ancient societies, the magic, prestige and power associated with a tattoo would have been an integral facet of the culture and an important aspect of their lives.

    Yeah. . . . Tats, man, I mean, Bro! Tubular! Totally! Just think if future archaelogists exhuming Americans with the very most important things inked into their once living flesh! Things like "mom". Or that neat Chinese character that they think means "true love" but actually means "Rough Sex". And now we are back to Eth.. Sorry.

    So, yes, Joe, point taken that most theories about the origin of metal are going to be speculation. The other, and one I am partial to since it is in my ancestral neighborhood, if Cyprus. The island is named after Cupros, or copper in English. Allegedly, there occurs on that island a correct mixture, in the ore, of copper and tin, so that when this ore is smelted, viola! Bronze. Other such possible facilities exist, for example Damascus steel was supposedly imported from India, where there was a particular iron mine that by chance contained other alloys that produced the most excellent steel every know to man. Outside of Japan, but that is another story.

    And, language lesson alert! Xenos (actually ξένος) is Greek for "foreigner", and the feminine form would be Xena, thus the warrior princess. But more important is that the secret of bronze is not nearly so important as the "Secret of Steel", as voiced by James Earl Jones in the original Konan the Barbarian movie. Do you know what it is? Closely related to terrorism.

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday November 20 2015, @01:47PM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday November 20 2015, @01:47PM (#265791)

      I do remember something about the piss of a read headded boy, being the accidental discovery of quenching and copied for years - to the exact details, to make the strongest swords of the time...

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