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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: 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?