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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
The ancient population of Britain was almost completely replaced by newcomers about 4,500 years ago, a study shows.
The findings mean modern Britons trace just a small fraction of their ancestry to the people who built Stonehenge.
The astonishing result comes from analysis of DNA extracted from 400 ancient remains across Europe.
The mammoth study, published in Nature, suggests the newcomers, known as Beaker people, replaced 90% of the British gene pool in a few hundred years.
Lead author Prof David Reich, from Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, US, said: "The magnitude and suddenness of the population replacement is highly unexpected."
The reasons remain unclear, but climate change, disease and ecological disaster could all have played a role.
People in Britain lived by hunting and gathering until agriculture was introduced from continental Europe about 6,000 years ago. These Neolithic farmers, who traced their origins to Anatolia (modern Turkey) built giant stone (or "megalithic") structures such as Stonehenge in Wiltshire, huge Earth mounds and sophisticated settlements such as Skara Brae in the Orkneys.
But towards the end of the Neolithic, about 4,450 years ago, a new way of life spread to Britain from Europe. People began burying their dead with stylised bell-shaped pots, copper daggers, arrowheads, stone wrist guards and distinctive perforated buttons.
Co-author Dr Carles Lalueza-Fox, from the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE) in Barcelona, Spain, said the Beaker traditions probably started "as a kind of fashion" in Iberia after 5,000 years ago.
From here, the culture spread very fast by word of mouth to Central Europe. After it was adopted by people in Central Europe, it exploded in every direction - but through the movement of people.
Prof Reich told BBC News: "Archaeologists ever since the Second World War have been very sceptical about proposals of large-scale movements of people in prehistory. But what the genetics are showing - with the clearest example now in Britain at Beaker times - is that these large-scale migrations occurred, even after the spread of agriculture."
[...] The Nature study examines the Beaker phenomenon across Europe using DNA from hundreds more samples, including remains from Holland, Spain, the Czech Republic, Italy and France.
Another intriguing possibility links the Beaker people with the spread of Celtic languages. Although many linguistics experts believe Celtic spread thousands of years later, Dr Lalueza-Fox said: "In my view, the massive population turnover must be accompanied by a language replacement."
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 23 2018, @11:39PM (34 children)
The Angles and Saxons replaced the Bretons. The Picts replaced whoever was in Scotland before them, and the Scots replaced the Picts. The Irish legends say they came from elsewhere and replaced whoever was there before. There is an old legend that the Bretons claimed to be descended from exiled Trojans and they replaced whoever was there. And the modern British are being replaced by Muslims.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @12:27AM (3 children)
One recent Pew report says that the Muslim population of (Western) Europe could triple by 2050—just when all those baby Muhammads are coming of age, and when the imams will “call” on them. In Germany alone, nearly 20 percent of the population could be Muslim by 2050; considering that the average Muslim man is more zealous over his way of and purpose in (Islamic) life than the average German male, 20 percent is not too little for an Islamic takeover of—or at least mass havoc in—Germany. Yet the report also finds that even “if all migration into Europe were to immediately and permanently stop” and due to significantly higher Muslim birthrates, Europe’s Muslim population will still grow significantly, to about 36 million, almost double the current population.
Not that many Western Europeans seem to care; some are even glad to see their own kind die off and be replaced by Muslims—such as Dr. Stefanie von Berg, who exulted before the German parliament: “Mrs. President, ladies and gentlemen. Our society will change. Our city will change radically. I hold that in 20, 30 years there will no longer be a [German] majority in our city. …. And I want to make it very clear, especially towards those right wingers: This is a good thing!” Meanwhile, “the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency is lobbying for a repeal of laws restricting security surveillance of minors under the age of 14, arguing that the country is facing grave risks from what the German media dubs ‘kindergarten jihadists.’”
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/269364/europes-future-nightmare-baby-muhammad-jihad-raymond-ibrahim [frontpagemag.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by beckett on Saturday February 24 2018, @12:33AM (1 child)
if you hadn’t buried the lede and just cited David Horowitz’s fromtpage mag in the first sentence you could have saved a lot of efforts on your part. tryhard trolls are cute tho
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @02:18AM
That was one of the more famous things that Kaddafi said during his vile little life.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/gaddafi-quotes-the-dead-libya-dictator-275336 [mirror.co.uk]
He will be remembered for it long after other things he said or did will have been forgotten.
You may not like to hear certain facts, but that does not change whether they are facts.
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:17AM
Jesus Christ, imagine the traffic jam when all those trucks of peace take tot he road at the same time! They will bring European traffic to a stand-still! We must stop it!
(Score: 4, Informative) by Arik on Saturday February 24 2018, @12:43AM (26 children)
Nope. Simply not true. Their language, customs, and law replaced that of the Bretons in a large part of the island, yes, but you're implying biologically and nope, that's simply false. There's plenty of pre-Roman Prydish DNA in the modern "English." Which clearly speaks to a fusion, not a replacement.
And even with this earliest population of hunter-gatherers, 'replaced' is a clickbait headline, not the actual conclusion of the scholarship stated in anything like a neutral manner.
In Britain as in Europe generally, the neolithic farmer population seems to have contributed more to modern populations than the hunter-gatherers that they slowly 'replaced' over many centuries, but wait a sec. More, but again, it's a mix. Agricultural societies produce higher population densities than hunter gatherers pretty nearly across the board, so this is not at all surprising, and again 'replaced' turns out to be an inappropriate, even deceptive, choice of words. There was a mixture, a fusion, no replacement.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @12:48AM (11 children)
Although Europe is not part of the Muslim world, many European authorities nevertheless seem to feel obliged to submit to Islam in more or less subtle ways. This voluntary submission appears to be unprecedented: Dhimmi, historically speaking, is the Arabic term for the conquered non-Muslim, who agrees to live as a second-rate, "tolerated" citizen, under Islamic rule, submitting to a separate, demeaning set of laws and the demands of his Islamic masters.
In Europe, submitting to the demands of Islam, in the name of "diversity" and "human rights", has also been happening voluntarily. This submission to Islam is, of course, highly ironic, as the Western concepts of "diversity" and "human rights" do not exist within the foundational texts of Islam. On the contrary, these texts denounce in the strongest – and supremacist - terms those who refuse to submit to the Islamic concept of divinity, Allah, as infidels who must either convert, pay the jizya ["protection"] tax or die.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11932/europe-dhimmis [gatestoneinstitute.org]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Arik on Saturday February 24 2018, @01:21AM (10 children)
"This submission to Islam is, of course, highly ironic, as the Western concepts of "diversity" and "human rights" do not exist within the foundational texts of Islam."
Whether in the foundational text of Islam, Christianity, or Judaism, you have to work a bit to find them. Yet in all three religions, there are coherent intellectual traditions that manage it - and also anti-intellectual movements of much more recent origins that do not.
This post reminds me of a friend who is a true believer in a Christian tradition and sometimes says similar things. I won't call it hypocrisy, because I do not believe his character would allow it, but it is a very particular form of blindness. You can't possibly take a seemingly barbaric bible verse out of context and get away with it around him, he knows his tradition, he knows his text. Show him a fundamentalist christian using the bible to justify something barbaric and he not only can, he MUST, make it clear that this is just wrong, an illiterate misreading.
Now show him a takfiri making a similar argument from the Quran and he's instantly and completely certain this guy is a 'real muslim' and this is what 'real islam' teaches. I gave him a course of Sufi lectures once but he was never able to sit through more than a few seconds of it. It just couldn't possibly be 'real islam."
Not evil enough I guess.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @01:51AM (1 child)
Of course, Religions are the same! Have fun in your Muslim dominant society. I’m sure it will be just as peaceful as you predict. If it turns out to not to be the case, tell me, will you bow towards Mecca or will you show these unenlightened individuals the same videos?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday February 24 2018, @02:35AM
Not at all. But there are deep currents that are shared.
The most despicable of each religion have world views that are nearly mirror images of each other.
And the most enlightened, the same.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @02:41AM (7 children)
Are you suddenly an expert on islam [thereligionofpeace.com]? Try checking up on that book of theirs. It requires the killing of non-moslems [thereligionofpeace.com]. all of them [thereligionofpeace.com]. So either they follow the koran and are moslem or they don't follow the koran and cannot be called moslem.
Wishing otherwise won't change history or the present or even the future. Magial thinking is an accusation that can be leveled against more groups than just those venerating a schizoprenic, pedofilic, brigand.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday February 24 2018, @02:48AM (6 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @03:09PM
Perhaps you should study more. Islam is founded on deception. Their main prophet was a pedophile. To this day they rape and murder everyone including their own. Their book can be downloaded. Read it.
I never understood why people of one religion felt the need to kill people of another religion. I understood people hating each other, disagreeing, being mean or stupid or paycho. Full on let's kill them all? No.
Now I do.
I have read the koran.
I understand why they want to kill or convert the world.
I understand why others would feel the need to kill them.
Read the first chapter, if nothing else.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:00PM (4 children)
It's not all that modern. The violent wing of the Muslim faith has been rather dominant ever since Tamerlane wiped out the civilized branch. This isn't to say that the peaceful Muslims aren't the majority, they just haven't been dominant. This is also, of course, true of Christianity. They've been pretty dominated by the violent wing recently, and without the excuse of being violently suppressed.
Note, that just as most Muslims are peaceful, so are most Christians, and most atheists. The problem is that violent people wrap themselves in the mantle of an ideology and claim it for themselves. This is, admittedly, easier for the followers of Mohamed, as he lead an army during his lifetime, and a lot of his writings reflect that. But Christians have managed to be excessively violent without that support. The Inquisition was probably the inspiration of some of the Nazi atrocities. Of course, there've been technical improvements since the 12th century.
The problem isn't religion, either, the Communists were rather vile at time, and you could ask the American Indians about the honesty, integrity, and kindness shown but the invading citizens of a democracy. (Or the Army. President Jackson was intentionally vile.)
That said, civilizations that see themselves as more homogeneous tend to be more supportive of their citizens. I think this is because of some built-in tribalism, but that's a guess. The correlation is an observed fact. (Of course, since the causal sequence isn't proven, there could be other observations that will disprove it...but I haven't heard of any.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday February 26 2018, @03:48PM (3 children)
Wrong, wrong, and wrong.
Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703 – 1792.)
Timur was only nominally Muslim and simply used religion in a thoroughly political way and transparently cynical way. He ruled as an oriental potentate, a 'Great Khan' in conscious imitation of Genghiz, and he was viewed by such. You'll not find him listed as an Imam at all, let alone a significant one.
You should check out lettertobaghdadi.com
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday February 26 2018, @05:33PM (2 children)
Did you not read what I wrote? You aren't disagreeing with my point, even if you think you are.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday February 26 2018, @07:07PM (1 child)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday February 26 2018, @11:29PM
No, I didn't make any claim about some recently founded branch of Islam, except that they aren't both peaceful and dominant.
To be certain I went back and reread my original post.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 24 2018, @01:57AM (13 children)
Or maybe it was just a straightforward genocide. There wouldn't have been many bodies, right?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday February 24 2018, @02:15AM (12 children)
Except that's completely inconsistent with the DNA.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 24 2018, @05:28AM (11 children)
Inconsistent how?
My take is you don't have replacement this sudden without a die-off of some sort. Genocide is an obvious way for that to happen.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday February 24 2018, @05:56AM (9 children)
In that both y and mt dna strands believed to date from that original population are still found in the current population of the island, as well as in other populations derived from it at an earlier date, a result that clearly shows that no 'replacement' ever occurred?
Yeah, that's a good starter.
"Genocide is an obvious way for that to happen."
Umm, sure, I guess, if you don't really understand what was going on, that might make some sort of sense. Well, a little bit. Kind of.
Nah, sorry, I can't take the strain of lying. That makes no sense at all, not in a realistic frame. Maybe if you think 'Game of Thrones' is realistic, you'd think it does.
Make no mistake, genocide DID occur. Our ancestors were right bastards just about every time they really got a proper chance to be. It's shocking, and scandalous, and stuff. Sorry I'm getting old and I've known this since I was 3 or 4 so I can't get worked up over it in such extreme distance.
The point is while it did occur it did not occur with anything near the free-wheeling frequency that the bad writers in style at the corner of hollywood and 9mm want you to think. And while you can say the genetic evidence is 'consistent' with some pretty nasty scenarios, it's also 'consistent' with a much less nasty readings as well.
Why automatically select the meanest thing you can possibly argue for, hrmm?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 24 2018, @06:46AM (1 child)
That's not inconsistent with genocide or replacement. There have been numerous genocides since where the targets have managed in various ways to propagate their genes onward.
What bad writers? There's almost nothing written of those times. And it's not like you actually disagree.
Because that's a real possibility in this case. One population disappears right when a second population moves in.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday February 26 2018, @03:17PM
It doesn't. It's still present millennia later, in rather large proportions. How does that equal disappeared?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Saturday February 24 2018, @11:27AM
That's a good question...
In general (excluding large gaps such as the Middle Ages) I think we can see history as a progression of technology: we have much higher technology now than in the Iron Age.
Also I believe personally that the pace accelerated after the Enlightenment, and because of the Enlightenment.
I don't believe that we can see human culture as a whole as a progression of (what to call it.. sociology??). Now in our lifetimes we *have* a charter of Human Rights, however that doesn't mean that every person on earth can expect those standards and expect to be able to complain and have their complaint redressed if they're being oppressed.
So "technology" and "culture" do NOT progress apace; high technology depends on high culture I believe: keeping the nerds and weirdos alive and thriving instead of burning them at the stake. The reverse does not apply viz. Orwell.
So there can be a common thought "in old times, peope's lives were harsh, brutish and short"; "people were much more mean to each other in old times so obviously the newcomers genocided the autochthones" but I think that does not follow (it may still be true or untrue for different cases).
Sorry that I can't articulate better what I mean.
Also, we wouldn't know what mitochondrial DNA [wikipedia.org] is, and that it inherits from your mom's ancestry only, without high technology.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:06PM (5 children)
More to the point, before automatic weaponry genocide over a large area was a nearly impossible undertaking, requiring centralized organization. The Greeks couldn't even exterminate the Trojans. (Troy was beleaguered, not besieged.)
So genocide is quite unlikely.
OTOH, population restriction due to habitat destruction is quite plausible...and needn't even be intentional. Agricultural land practices don't work well with hunter gatherers.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 25 2018, @04:07PM (4 children)
They or someone else succeeded in razing the city around 1200 BC. And genocide doesn't mean one entirely succeeds.
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Sunday February 25 2018, @06:53PM (3 children)
While I agree they destroyed the city, the city was not the population. Up until the 1900's generally over 80% of the population lived outside the cities. So they overthrew the government, destroyed the city, captured the defenders of the city, etc. That's not genocide. If you want early genocide, look at the Mongols, Huns, etc. who *did* commit genocide with less than 100% effectiveness. Yes, this sort of invalidates my earlier claim, but not really unless you show that the invaders had not only [slightly] superior weapons and tactics, but also more rapid means of transportation. Faster transport enables genocide by making it difficult to get away. Superior weapons and tactics are necessary to enable smaller groups to defeat larger groups This was much more necessary before the days of food preservation. The Persians lack of decent supply chains are (part of) why the Persians couldn't defeat the Greeks.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 25 2018, @11:43PM (2 children)
Not during a Bronze Age siege (beleaguer [oxforddictionaries.com] was derived from "to besiege" in Dutch BTW) , they aren't. The attackers wouldn't have the logistics or the desire to supply their army fully from home. Anything near Troy would have been looted eventually. You're not going to have the population hang around while that is going on.
Destroying the city counts just by itself as a genocide since many civilians would have died in the process. Looking at the Odyssey, Homer doesn't indicate that the city inhabitants were put to the sword, so it is possible that there would have been a good number of survivors of the genocide.
Mongols are in a class by themselves with such massacres over most of the Asian continent through to Eastern Europe. Here, genocide was a tool of subjugation not a tool of elimination. It was never meant to be 100% effective in most cases - the few survivors would carry the tales of Mongolian brutality to their fellow subjects and fear would keep the populace in line.
And perhaps you might recall writing [soylentnews.org]:
Timur took over the last khanate in the Middle East and used traditional Mongolian methods of genocide to pacify his conquests. That we can still see the brutal effects of these conquests and genocides throughout both Eastern Europe and the Middle East 600-800 years later is a demonstration of their effectiveness. For example, prior to the Mongols, Khwarezm [wikipedia.org] was a great empire centered on Turkmenistan with most of Iran, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan contained within it. Present day, it is a backwater. The scouring by the Mongolians and Timur have destroyed a great civilization.
Similarly, Ukraine was a great kingdom of Europe (possibly, the largest at the time) prior to the coming of the Mongols and the sacking of Kiev. As a result of its collapse, when Mongolian power waned, it was Russia city states not Ukraine which was able to take advantage of the power vacuum.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Monday February 26 2018, @01:52AM
The relevant epic poem here, khallow, is the P. VERGILI MARONIS AENEIDOS [thelatinlibrary.com]
(Score: 2) by Arik on Monday February 26 2018, @03:33PM
"Destroying the city counts just by itself as a genocide since many civilians would have died in the process."
The "people of the land" might not have been considered very important by the bronze age elites in their fortified city, but they were still by far the majority of the population and their perspective is a valid one to take. And you're right that they wouldn't have hung around near to the site of the siege for very long! but neither would they have retreated more than necessary, before resuming their normal livelihoods. I would read 'genocide' rather less liberally than you, however. It's genocide because civilians died? WTF? So nearly every conflict ever was genocide? Can't agree on that.
Genocide to me would imply a credible attempt by the Achæans to wipe out the Luwiya people, the 'ethnos' or tribe to which the Trojans most likely belonged, and there's no evidence of that whatsoever. It's not a war of extermination between tribes it's a war between two wealthy elites over hurt pride, and when it's done the invaders get back in their ships and head home to lick wounds and resume squabbling amongst themselves.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @08:21AM
khallow, take your hand out of your pant, right now, young man! You are never to jack-off in public over genocide again, do you understand! (We might have to go back to the mittens. You don't want to have to wear the mittens again, do you khallow?)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Behindmyscreen on Saturday February 24 2018, @01:21AM
As an Atheist.....Fuck off racist fuck.
(Score: 5, Informative) by maxwell demon on Saturday February 24 2018, @10:46AM
Muslims are members of a religion, not an ethnicity. You can become Muslim without your genes changing, and you can stop being Muslim without your genes changing.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:25PM
You had me going until the last line. You have to go back, to whichever imageboard you crawled in from. Read a book for once in your life; Britain has always been a predominantly Muslim country.