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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, Informative) by khallow on Saturday February 24 2018, @05:49AM (5 children)
First, mass immigration happens in Israel as well. Wikipedia indicates [wikipedia.org] that 20% of the Jewish population (75% of the total population) is first generation immigrants. That's 15% of the total population which is higher than the US which is 14% [pewhispanic.org] and which in turn is higher than most of the rest of the developed world.
And of course, if one takes third generation or less immigrants, that's almost the entire Jewish population. You don't have that high a rate of immigration in any other developed world country.
You're off by an order of magnitude. There are a lot of people who support immigration. They can't mostly be Jews, because there aren't that many Jews.
And really what's the big deal with Jews backing their own self-interest (they tend to be recent immigrants in the US and would favor pro-immigration policy). I don't get any more worked over them pursuing their interests than I do over any other ethnic group doing so.
And who knows? You might not be bullshitting us right now. But I can't help but notice that you're way off in your assertions. But I guess that's what happens when you pull stuff out of your ass. Sometimes you happen to get lucky and it's close enough to right, but most of the time, you're not even in the ballpark. One wonders what other stuff you've pulled out of your ass in this discussion.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 24 2018, @08:47AM (1 child)
Hey Khallow.
I hope you realize by now that the AC to whom you replied is either an honestly anti-semitic piece of shit with poor rhetorical skills or a troll who isn't very good at trolling.
Personally, I think he's the latter. Then again, both you and Arik did respond seriously to him, so maybe he's not so bad at it, even though I picked up on it pretty quickly.
I suppose I could be wrong, and he is just an anti-semitic piece of shit.
Either way, the result is pretty much the same.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 24 2018, @05:08PM
I think choice a).
At least, he can up his game.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday February 24 2018, @07:17PM (2 children)
I'm still confused about what this has to do with either Neanderthals *or* the Beaker People. (As an old card-carrying member of "The Beaker People Libation Font" [a drinking group] I find this of interest.)
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, @12:20AM (1 child)
I'm not similarly confused. It's off topic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 25 2018, @08:27AM
khallow is often confused by things he knows he should be against, but as a doctrinaire ideologue, he feels he must support, even though his mother is appalled. Call your mom, khallow.