The ~25,000-year-old Santa Elina Site in Brazil

Santa Elina is an archaeological site located deep inland, roughly 100 km (60 mi.) from Cuaiba, the capital of the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil, close to the border with Bolivia (see Google map) it is a rock shelter that has provided evidence of human presence there 25,000 years ago, or more.

See: Vialou D, Benabdelhadi M, Feathers J, Fontugne M, Vialou AV. Peopling South America’s centre: the late Pleistocene site of Santa Elina. Antiquity. 2017;91(358):865-884. doi:10.15184/aqy.2017.101

Having mentioned in a previous post the recent article that suggests a recent (4-8 ky) age for the Monte Verde site in Chile, which had been dated to 18.5 ky, I am glad that there are many more older sites in America that suggest an early date for human colonization.

Early and distant Population

It is located far from the Atlantic and Pacific coastal routes, deep inside Brazil, in an area south of the Amazon forest, yet covered with thick jungles. It is near the Cuaiba River, which forms part of the Paraná-Río de la Plata Basin, and could have helped people move through the region.

Excavations began here in 1984 and yielded remains of a giant sloth (Glossotherium) whose bone osteoderms (that formed part of its thick protective hide) have been dated to 27,000 ±2000 years ago. Charcoal remains have also been dated to 23,120±260 years ago.

There have been later occupations (~9,000 to 10,000 years ago), with more tools, ornaments, and sloth remains. Researchers conclude that: " The dates indicate two periods of human occupation, with a date of 23120±260 BP for the first, and a date of 10120±60 BP for the beginning of the second. These dates confirm the association between archaeological artefacts and Glossotherium bones. Subsequent occupations terminated around 2000 BP.!

Figure 1. Location and general view of the study area. (a) General location of the site (base map adapted from Google Earth); (b) location of the site in Brazil, the Mato Grosso State, and distribution of the major regional biomes; (c) general overview of the Serra das Araras in the studied region; (d) view of the location of the Santa Elina rock shelter (at the base of the rock wall that appears in the center of the photograph, as indicated by the arrow). Map and photographs by Caroline Bachelet. (Color online).
From Rita Scheel-Ybert and Caroline Bachelet, 2020

A study of the ecology and plants of the site by Rita Scheel-Ybert and Caroline Bachelet, 2020 gives information about the climate conditions during the occupation periods mentioned further up: "Since it was first occupied, the Santa Elina rock shelter has been part of the cerrado biome [Cerrado is a tropical savanna located in Central Brazil, with grasslands, forests, and shrublands]. At about 27,000 cal BP (AZ-1) the site was surrounded by a forested environment. The small charcoal sample does not allow for further climatic inferences, but previous paleoecological studies corroborate the existence of a cold and humid climate in Central Brazil between about 27,000 and 20,000 BP (Salgado-Labouriau et al. 1997). This same study demonstrated a decrease in humidity from about 18,500 BP onward, with a very dry climate until about 11,500 BP (Salgado-Labouriau et al. 1997). During this interval, evidence of human occupation in Santa Elina shelter is scarce or nonexistent (Vialou et al. 2017)... Between about 11,000 and 10,000 cal BP (AZ-2) the occupation resumes; "

Charcoal remains in the cave mean that there was fire, and fire seems to imply human presence, although natural fires are not uncommon and don't require a human agent. Sheel-Ybert and Bachelet write that "Fire is an ancient and important ecological agent in the cerrado (Coutinho 1990). Natural and anthropogenic fires have coexisted in its domain for thousands of years (Miranda et al. 2009): cerrado fire events have been recorded in Central Brazil since 32,400 yrs BP (Salgado-Labouriau et al. 1997). Some authors question the human presence in this region before about 11,000 yrs BP (e.g., Schmitz 1990), thus precluding the possibility of human-induced fires before the Holocene, but the chronology of the earlier occupation in Santa Elina pushes back the antiquity of human colonization."

But, regarding the cave's charcoal, they state that "The anthracological assemblage of the earliest occupation of Santa Elina rock shelter (SU-III), dated at about 27,000 cal BP, consists of a set of 16 samples, each one presenting between one and six taxa. This result is consistent with short-term human occupations, in which case temporary combustion activities would have likely produced these charcoal samples. Yet, we cannot exclude the possibility that this evidence could also have been produced by natural fires... [However,] We therefore argue that the charcoal retrieved in this unit was produced in short-term combustion features related to episodic and sporadic human activities, one of which might have involved the butchering of giant sloths."

Conclusions

The evidence seems to suggest ancient human presence. Of course, human remains would be much better, but fire, tools and butchered giant sloths are strong evidence of an early human presence in south-central South America. It also prompts us to explore and find more similar places. There must be many undiscovered sites hiding in plain site in the jungles of South America, possibly even older than Santa Elina.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2026 by Austin Whittall © 

Mapuche and the quick peopling of America

Today's post brings us back to Patagonia after a long time. The fact is that I came across an interesting paper in my quest for data on the peopling of America. I am a firm believer that Homo sapiens were not the first people to reach the New World and that our more ancient relatives may have done so long ago, surviving until recently and originating the myths that are found across the New World about "ogres", "wild men" and "monsters").

The paper has some strange facts and information which I do not agree with, so please indulge me while I review it.

The paper by Bodner, Perego et al. (2012)

The paper by Martin Bodner, Ugo A. Perego et al., (2012) [1] reports the discovery of two new mtDNA haplotypes D1g and D1j among Native Americans. They are quite rare and are found mainly in the southern tip of South America. They are dated to an average age of 16.9 +⁄- 1.6 ky, which places them right at the (officially recognized) dates for the migratory wave that peopled the New World (in the paper this date is estimated as ~ 15 to 18 kya).

The paper makes a very surprising claim: "the Paleo-Indian spread along the entire longitude of the American double continent might have taken even <2000 yr." [1]. Since we are talking about some 16,000 km (10,000 miles) this is a very quick pace of migration: look how long it took modern humans to reach Australia from Africa or Europe! Why were the Paleoindians in such a hurry?

The answer is simple: to fit the time frame imposed by orthodox science.

Since the Monte Verde site in Northern Patagonia in Chile is dated to approximately 14 kya, we have a definite date of arrival in the Southern tip of America and since the migration began in Beringia some 15 to 18 kya... we do not have too much margin here: 1,000 to 4,000 years. The authors opt for a Salomonic mid-point of 2 ky for the journey from Beringia to Patagonia and their calculation is the following:

The novel mtDNA clades arose in America some 16.9 +⁄- 1.6 ky, and as both of them belong to the mtDNA D1 haplogroup, which coalesces at 13.9 to 18.3 kya, this date imposes an upper limit to the peopling event.

They support their quick march across America stating that "such a rapid movement is consistent with the results of three simulation studies..." [1]. Of course models are only as strong as the assumptions they are based on. A stones and bones approach would be more reliable, but since mainstream scholars ignore the American sites older than 15 ky, then they have to rely on simulations to support their dates.

They favor a specific coastal route along the Pacific Ocean as the most probable path to Patagonia: "only a coastal route ... can explain the speed of the migration from Beringia to Monte Verde [in Chilean Patagoina]" [1]. They discard a two pronged entry into South America (on the East and West of the Andes).

Looking at the ethnic groups and geographical locations in which these haplotypes were found, the dismissal of other population route is odd. But the authors do so based on the dates they have defined: since D1g and D1j both split from a common source in America (in other words less than 18 kya) and had to reach Monte Verde some 14 kya, there is not much time for peopling the continent and evolving separately:

"Another potential interpretation of our results would appear much less plausible: the origin of all D1g and D1j lineages in a common source population that separated in the north with little or no later migration over the mountain barrier. This would involve a split of these founder groups after all subclades present on both Andean sides had developed (≤5 kya), and thus a very recent start of the southward movement. Furthermore, this model would not conform to the presence of humans at the Monte Verde site at ~14 kya. Hence, a common source population that split into an eastern and a western group would be likely only with extended migrations, as described above, starting or continuing after the youngest lineages had differentiated. In addition, this demographic model would find more difficulties to explain the total absence of D1g and D1j in northern South America." [1]

Of course, an earlier start from Beringia would avoid all these complications, and allow for a two pronged entry into South America, but this is not allowed in the mainstream theory.

And the problem of its "total absence... in northern South America" if true, may be due to the lack of adequate sampling and sequencing. Because the paper itself states that D1j was found in the Dominican Republic, in an extant Taino native! To reach Hispaniola Island in the Caribbean, the Tainos surely island-hopped all the way from Venezuela in Northern South America which they surely reached after splitting from the other "coastal" group in Colombia, which means that the two pronged option into America, one coastal the other on the East of the Andes is viable.

But Bodner, Perego et al., believe that "the presence of D1j mtDNAs in the Dominican Republic could represent the genetic echo of a truly South American source population's input into the Caribbean, supporting the hypothesis of a peopling of the Caribbean Islands from the southeast to the northwest." [1], that is, the proto-Tainos first peopled the Amazon, which they reached from the Pacific coast in Peru, Ecuador and Norhtern Chile, from where they then took a nortwestern route to reach the Caribbean by Trinidad-Tobago.

The paper says that the younger D1j was collected from several native groups: Mapuche, Kolla or Coya, Diaguita, Pilagá, Wichi, Mataco (actually Mataco and Wichi are the same people!) (all in Argentina), Bolivian Quechua, and the Taino in the Dominican Republic. The older D1g was found in the Mapuche and other Patagonian natives.

These natives live in completely different ecosystems, speak different languages and exploit their resources differently: the forests of the Chaco lowland natives such as Pilagá the foothills of eastern Salta Mountains below the Yunga jungle (Wichi), the arid and high altitude Andean Plateau (Coya and Quechua), the mountain valleys in the Central Argentine Andes (Diaguita), the Central Chilean Valley, the forests of the Patagonian Andes (Mapuche) to the fjords and icefields in the Fuegian region (Yaghans), adaptation took a long time.

So I do agree that either a coastal route with trans-Andean spread or a split right in the north (Colombia) with two southward routes (Pacific and trans-Amazonian) of dispersal are both feasible.

Mapuches and inconsistencies

But the paper supports another explanation:

"The Mapuche settlement area could have enabled the two scenarios that are visible from our results (albeit to be confirmed with more data): The ancestor population of the Mapuche, possibly living in an area north of Chile, could represent the common source population compatible with the split scenario, where the incubation time before was long enough to develop all of the variation that is observed on both sides. The continuous extensive bidirectional gene flow across the mountain barrier after the initial coastal migration and differentiation postulated in the other scenario could have been mediated by the Mapuche ancestors that inhabited the areas on both sides and thereby served as a long-term genetic trans-Andean link." [1]

I find their support of a "Mapuche" core for dispersal as hard to digest. I am not an expert in genetics, far from it, I am a very amateurish amateur, but when it comes down to Patagonia and its native people, I am a well learned, well read layman. I did plenty of research into the aboriginal Patagonians during the years that I spent writing my book (Monsters of Patagonia) and I took a particular interest in the Mapuche.

The Mapuche people are the most overtly assertive natives in South America. They claim that their territory spanned most of the southern tip of the continent. They use maps like the one below (just google Mapuche Map and see how often it turns up), a map which is reproduced by Bodner, Perego et al. [1] too!! See below:

On the left, the orange shaded territory is the land that Mapuche nationalists claim was once theirs until they were expelled in 1879 by Chilean and Argentine troops. It is a mixture of half-truths and should be taken with a pinch of salt. On the right, shaded green is the map in Fig. 3.c. [1] in Bodner, Perego et al., showing the Mapuche dispersal. Both coincide!

Let's get some background on the Patagonian Natives from a reliable source (A. Whittall and Monsters of Patagonia, 2012) [2] from which the following map is taken, and which shows what scholars agree upon as the homeland of the different native groups of Patagonia:

Map showing the native groups in Patagonia. [2]. Copyright © 2014 by Austin Whittall

As you can see by comparing the maps, the Mapuche groups were firmly entrenched in Southern Chile and in the Argentine province of Neuquen. To the west, in Northern Patagonia and into the Buenos Aires Pampas we have the Puelche people, who were not Mapuche.

Bodner, Perego et al., are right when they say that the Mapuche resisted the Spanish conquest and that they were pushed south of the Bío Bío River where they held their sway until 1880. They forget that the Mapuche were subdued in Central Chile by the Inca empire between 1470 and 1536 and that there were other ethnic groups very different to the Mapuche living in Patagonia. The authors attribute their post-defeat dispersal and deportation as a cause of the spread of their genetic heritage, but this is not quite true. Because in fact, the Argentine Census Bureau (INDEC) shows that out of the current population of 113,680 Mapuch, 78,534 live in Patagonia, mainly in Neuquén, another 20,527 live in Patagonia's northernmost province of la Pampa and neighboring Buenos Aires, only 9.745 live in the Greater Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires city and only 4,874 live in the rest of the country. [3]

Southern South American Natives [2]

"Mapuche
The northwestern area of Patagonia spanning the north and central parts of Argentina's province of Neuquén and Chile's viii^th, ix^th and x^th Regions were peopled by the Mapuche (who in the past were also known as Araucanian, a name that has now fallen out of use.
They are apparently not related to the older populations that inhabited the rest of Patagonia. In fact, their origin is quite a mystery. Originally established in central Chile, they were first dislodged southwards by the Inca who invaded the region in the mid 1400s incorporating it to their Empire. Spanish conquistadors after destroying the Inca Empire entered Chile in 1541. Conquistador is the Spanish word for conqueror; they were the adventurers, soldiers and explorers who took the New World by force, seeking gold, silver and precious stones; and forcing the natives to work in the mines that produced them. Violent and merciless, they found their match in Chile. Mapuche and Spaniards engaged in a war that continued for over three hundred years; the longest standoff between natives and Europeans in America. Spanish conquest gradually forced the Mapuche to move south towards the Island of Chiloé, well beyond their original homeland. They also moved eastwards across the Andes, settling on its eastern foot-hills in what is now Neuquén, where they 'Araucanized' the local natives, who adopted their very convenient language (Mapudungun).
The Mapuche progressively extended their influence eastwards towards the Pampas, and through war, trade and cattle rustling, absorbed and Araucanized the original Puelche inhabitants of Tehuelche blood during the eighteenth-and nineteenth-centuries.
They were sedentary farmers who made pottery and wove wool. This distinguishes them from all the other Patagonian natives who were nomadic hunter-gatherers, lacking pottery and agriculture, living in leather tents, the 'toldos', hunting guanaco and ñandú (Rhea or South American ostrich). A large Mapuche community still inhabits its ancestral homeland in Argentina and Chile.
Tehuelche
They were the descendants of the ancient Patagonian Paleo-Indians. The name was given to them by the Mapuche, and meant 'fierce people'. They can be split into two distinct groups, each with their own cultural and linguistic identities: the Northern Tehuelche (Günnuna Kenna or Gennakenk—which, in their language meant 'people') and the Southern Tehuelche. The region between the Senguer, Chubut and Chico rivers was a flexible border between both groups.
Northern Tehuelche. Gradually, during the seventeenth century these northernmost Tehuelche expanded further north out of Patagonia, across the Negro and Colorado rivers and into the Pampas where they replaced the original natives of Buenos Aires province and became known as the Pampas or Puelche (the latter, in Mapudungun means 'Eastern people').
In the Pampas they encountered vast quantities of free roaming wild cattle and also the horse which the Spaniards had bought to America. The horse was quickly adopted, and through the Puelche it rapidly spread south into the heart of Patagonia.
The original Gennakenk continued living in Patagonia between the Negro and Chubut rivers until their demise in the late 1800s. There was yet another smaller group, on the flanks of the Andes in the Argentine provinces of Chubut and Río Negro. They were usually at war with the Mapuche who frequently invaded their territory. They were known as the 'Chüwach a Künna' (people at the edge of the mountains) yet little is known of them.
Southern Tehuelche. They called themselves 'Chonik', which in their language meant 'us, the people'. Originally they were 'foot Indians' and it was not until the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that they adopted the horse. The Southern Tehuelche were divided into two separate sub-groups, very similar except for their language:
• Teushen (Boreal Southern Tehuelche); that lived in the north, between the Santa Cruz and Chubut rivers.
• Aonikenk or Aonek’enk (Austral Southern Tehuelche), which meant 'people of the South'. They lived in the southern area, between the Santa Cruz River and the Strait of Magellan." [2]

There were other native groups (Chono, Selknam, etc.), I will only focus on the Mapuche since these are the ones mentioned in the paper.

Araucanization

The "Araucanization" of the natives living to the East of the Andes was a very peculiar phenomenon. It also happened to the Huarpids living in the South of what is now Mendoza Province, just north of Patagonia. This is what happened:

The Inca first and then the Spaniards pushed the Mapuche south into the forests of the Chilean Lake District (1470 - 1620). The Mapuche fought back until they razed the Spanish settlements south of the Bío Bío River (1620s) and held the border until the 1870s.

During the late 1600s They spilt over the Andes into what is now Argentina and their language was adopted by the non-Mapuche Huarpids, Pehuenche, Picunche and Poya groups that lived in what is now Neuquén province. The Mapuche traded with them, and language goes with trade. Salt from the Patagonia and cattle together with horses were rustled across the desert from the Ranches (Estancias) in Buenos Aires into Chile.

The Mapuche absorbed several Tehuelche myths and incorporated them into their beliefs, the Gualicho is one of them, and is widely dispersed across Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, yet it is not a Mapuche myth, it is Tehuelche. [2]

The northern Tehuelche groups of the province of Buenos Aires became the "Puelche" and gradually replaced the original "Querandí" groups that lived in the Pampa grasslands. In the province of La Pampa, other groups morphed into the Mapuche speaking Ranquel natives. The Puelche adopted the Mapuche language too but were a distinct group. The raids on Spanish settlements increased in virulence during the 1700s.

A border guarded by poorly equipped troops marked the edge of Spanish civilization. The pink line in the map above throug San Carlos, Rio Cuarto, Melincue and Mar del Plata marks one of those borders: it moved back and forth, pushed by both parties during their invasions.

The period of the Independence wars left the border unprotected and the natives advanced and raided the towns beyond it. Rosas in 1833 led an expedition into the heart of the native territories and pacified the region for 20 years. In Argentina civil war and war with Paraguay delayed the solution of its military border in the south until 1879. In the meantime, Chile had advanced its frontier and many Mapuche chiefs crossed the Andes and settled in Argentina, and even in La Pampa. The araucanized natives and the Chileans (they were known as "Chileans" among the local natives) organized combined raids on the Argentine towns until a military campaign put an end to it in 1879-1880.

Many Mapuche chiefs were arrested and deported with their families to Buenos Aires, others died in battle, but it was not a genocide, only a war. It ended swiftly and later the natives were allowed to return to Patagonia (1890s and early 1900s). As the demographic figures attest, they are many Mapuche living in the region nowadays.

For those interested in reading more about the Araucanization, I mention some books below:

Rodolf Casamiquela, (1985). Características de la Araucanización al oriente de los Andes. Vol 2, No 1. Revista Universidad Católica de Temuco. doi: 10.7770/cuhso-V2N1-art141
Rodolfo Casamiquela, (2007). "Racista anti-mapuche": o la verdadera antigüedad de los mapuches en la Argentina. Ed. Casamiquela.
J. Roberto Bárcenas, (1990). Culturas indígenas de la Patagonia. Turner, 1990
Fernando Oper&ecute;, (2008). Indian Captivity in Spanish America: Frontier Narratives. (See: The Araucanization of the Pampas). University of Virginia Press, pp +65
Chris Moss, (2008). Patagonia: A Cultural History (See: Chapter 8). Oxford University Press

By the way, the Mapuche dislike the idea of "araucanization" and insist on a false point of view: that they actually occupied all these territories. But this is not the case, it is akin to saying that an English speaking native Tamil in India is an Englishman. The fact that both use the same language does not make them both Brits.

Rodolfo Casamiquela, who was born in Patagonia and studied the Tehuelche community in depth was the source of the Araucanization theory and he was attacked ruthlessly by the Mapuche activists until his death.

There are many similarities between Mapuche and Amazonian myths, involving jaguars and giant otters (which do not live in Chile, but are found in the Amazon and Chaco regions), Latcham [4] suggested that the Mapuche originated in the Amazon and later moved to Chile, perhaps furhter studies may corroborate this theory which would support a trans-Amazonic peopling route.

Trivia

Just for the fun of it, a Frenchman, Orelie-Antoine de Tounens wanted to be a king, so, in 1860 he chose a part of the world that (he thought) belonged to nobody (actually it was claimed by both Chile and Argentina as theirs, as it was the former Spanish territory in Patagonia), and he went there to claim it as his.

He landed in Chile, presented himself to the natives and offered them protection from Argentina and Chile if they accepted him as king. The natives agreed and he was appointed King of Araucania and Patagonia (in Chile but not Argentina). The Chilean army captured him and deported him back to France. He tried to return several times but died in his home in France in 1878.

Believe it or not, there still is a heir of de Tounens still claiming his throne. www.araucania.org

Closing comments

The Monte Verde site (14,000 y) shows us that people were living in Chile at that time, it does not impede the existence of sites 15, 16, 18 or even 35 ky old. It is just one site that has been found and dated in a way acceptable to orthodoxy.

To build back from that date with the constraints of a Beringian standstill (oh yes, the paper also supports the "incubation period" in Beringia) and define a 2,000 year duration for the epic adventure of peopling America is, in my opinion, a bit far fetched.

The diversity and variations found in America cannot be overly simplified. Fieldwork is required, more sites are needed, remains must be found, dated and sequenced. The pausity of ancient data puts constraints on our knowledge. We must open our minds and let the facts speak for themselves. Models and simulations are fine, but reality tends to impose itself in the long run.

Sources

[1] Martin Bodner, Ugo A. Perego et al., (2012). Rapid coastal spread of First Americans: Novel insights from South America's Southern Cone mitochondrial genomes. Genome Res. May 2012; 22(5): 811–820. doi: 10.1101/gr.131722.111
[2] Austin Whittall, (2012). Monsters of Patagonia. Zagier & Urruty, B. Aires.
[3] Indec Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas y Censos, 2004 (Census Bureau). Native population
[4] Latcham, R., (1924). La organización social y las creencias religiosas de los antiguos araucanos. Santiago: Cervantes.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2014 by Austin Whittall © 

Another anomaly in the OoA cline

Always on the lookout for genetic markers that contradict the mainstream assumption that America was populated by some very small bands of migrants that had remained in splendid isolation in Beringia for several millennia until the end of the last Ice Age, I came across a paper (Pereira, dos Santos and Junho Pena, 2006) [1] which looks into the human X chromosome (interesting because all of us carry at least one copy - women carry two). The global pattern of a marker they identified is quite odd; please read on below:

A new marker DXS225

The paper describes how the authors found a region with a low recombination rate and within that region they identified a novel polymorphic Alu insertion which was later named DXS225.

The insertion allele is the mutation, and the archaic ancestral form, found in our distant chimpanzee relatives is the "pre-insertion allele".

Interestignly, there are some specifc groups that lack the modern mutation, (well, modern is not the best word for it, because it appeared 100 kya) shown in the table below [1]:

DXS225 has two allelic states, one is the "archaic pre-insertion (marked as 0 or -) and the other is the "mutated or modern" Alu insertion allele (marked as 1 or +). [2]

Table showing only those populations in each region that only carry the archaic pre-insertion allele and not the "modern" insertion.

It is interesting because the "ancient" African groups San, Bantu and Yoruba don't carry the modern mutation, but it is also found among the Dai in Yunnan, China, the Northern Italians, the Papuans and four out of five Amerindian groups! The other African, European, Middle Eastern, Central Asian and East Asian as well as Oceanian populations carried both alleles at different ratios.

What is necessary is to explain why the "ancient" Africans, Dai, Papuans, Northern Italians and Amerindians do not carry the modern allele.

The map below shows the global distribution, the populations lacking the modern allele are marked: [1]

Analysis

1. Antiquity

The polymorphic nature of DXS225 (poly: many, morph: kinds; there are two variants of it: with and without insertion) and its absence in chimps, is taken by the authors as having taken place after our split from the other non-hominids; since it is "found in polymorphic frequencies all over the world..." [1] they conclude that it took place among modern humans some time before the Out of Africa (OoA) event some 100 kya.

The same team wrote a second paper on this allele (2007) [2] where they estimate the time of the most recent common ancestor as 182 ky (56.7 to 479 ky)* and the date that the DSX225 mutation took place: 94,4 ky (24,3 to 310 ky)*. [2] Which the authors find "compatible" with the OoA dates*.

* Comment. Just look at the error bars on this calculation! it spans from a putative OoA date to the split with Neanderthals! The mutation date also ranges from the time the world was fully peopled to a date 300 kya which possibly predates modern humans. This goes to show all the uncertainties that exist in the models used -see my post criticising models.

2. Amerindian singularity

Regarding its pan-global distribution there is a glaring exception: Native Americans: "among the five Amerindian populations [...] only the Karitiana showed presence of the Alu insertion". [2] So the "modern" allele is found all over the world but is absent in America except for only one group, the Karitiana... why?

The authors explains this singularity as follows:

• Karitiana are not pure Amerindians, they admixed with Europeans and Africans (former slaves) in the early 1900s and these introduced the Alu insertion into their genome, add to this that it is a small inbred tribe. [2][1]
• All other Native Americans lost the inseriton in a pre-hispanic founder effect. So the people who entered America did not carry this allele.[2]

They then eliminated the Karitiana from further analysis in their study!

But what about the Papuans, Dai, Northern Italians and the African groups. Nothing is said about them, no explanations are offered, but I would expect them.

Maybe the Karitiana are an admixture of extra-American genes, but the "founder effect" should be justified. As we will see below, statistically a 25% of a given population carry the mutated allele. Are we to expect that these people died out while migrating into America, (not only that, the founder effect spans Y chromosome hgs., mtDNA hgs, etc. it is indeed a fantastic excuse to explain away what is unexplainable!).

Diversity. DXS225 has a "low level of genetic structure" [1] suggesting that it is neutral to natural selection and that "the variations in insertion allele frequencies among populations result from genetic drift" [1], which is true if you look at the data for all groups except the Native Americans and Papuans, because these other groups have a very small degree of variability.

But when you look at Papuans and Native Americans, the situation is different. The authors' second paper delved in this matter when they combined DXS225 with other markers and defined several haplotypes which were analyzed using AMOVA, and, again found two regional exceptions to the general lack of genetic variation: Oceania and America (sans the Karitiana of course).

A strange finding because the variation is very large: Oceania had a 14.95% and the American Natives a 15.29% of "among-populations within-regions variation"; as a reference, the values were -0,59 in East Asia 1,06 for Eurasia and 1.99 Africa. That is almost a difference of an order of magnitude (tenfold).

This is exactly the opposite you'd expect in the American population which orthodoxy (and the paper [2] itself) have defined as subjected to "a significant bottleneck that led to a large reduction of haplotypic diversity" [2], it is a situation which does perplex the authors:

They find it "difficult to ascertain the meaning of this relatively elevated component" in Oceania because only two populations were studied. Well, why didn't they add more populations to the study to elucidate the matter?

Of course, American diversity is easily explained with the usual excuse: the"high levels of genetic drift" [2] that characterize its populations. They are excused from having to justify anything.

I believe however that the high diversity (note that these haplogroups they defined combines several markers and not only DXS225) is due to admixture with archaic hominins which carry long evolved mutations which have had plenty of time to evolve: both in Oceania (New Guinea) and the Americas... I am thinking Homo erectus here.

Speculation

The facts of these two papers are that there is a mutation (DXS225) in modern humans' X chromosomes, that ~25% carry and the other roughly 75% do not carry. Averages that make sense:

The following image shows how a man develops a chance mutation in his X chromosome and after 2 generations it appears in 4 of his 16 grandchildren: 4⁄16 = 25% carrying the mutation.

Statistically a 75% of the people would not carry the mutation and 25% would. But (see the table further up), the numbers show a different panorama:

• 75.0% Theoretical average statistical value
• 74.4% Africa
• 74.3% East Asia
• 81.0% Oceania
• 64.0% Europe
• 90.7% America
• 59.3% Middle East
• 65.3% Central Asia
• 70.6% Global Average

Further down we look into the transmission of the allele: it is matrilineal, those with more daughters will transmit more of the allele to future generations. But is this the cause for Europeans, Central Asians and Middle Eastern populations in having a much lower "archaic allele" value? (i.e. they had more daughters?) while Amerindians and Oceanians have a higher ratio of the archaic allele because they had more sons?.

Maybe the differences are due to admixture with archaic populations that did not have the modern mutation: Amerindians and Oceanians admixed with, say, H. erectus in their respective territories and took up their X chromosomes with the archaich pre-insertion variant, diluting the modern allele that they carried with them...

Getting back to DXS225, the archaic form is the lack of this insertion: chimpanzees do not carry it.

Neither do several populations within Africa, 100% of their members do not have the mutation. Since genetic diversity is highest accepted as being highest in Africa [3], this should not surprise us. An archaic form could be conserved in some groups which do not carry the "modern" mutation that appeared almost 100 kya, maybe it appeared in others that migrated out of Africa and many that stayed behind lacked the mutation or even admixed with archaic African populations (Mendez et al., 2013 [5]) and therefore had a higher influx of the archaic pre-insert variant.

It is not found among the Papuans either. These people (see my most recent post on haplogroup C, C2 haplotype) reached their territory in New Guinea very soon after leaving Africa their Y chromosome haplogroup C2 is unique to them and very old. They could have retained the non-mutated allele too.

The Dai in South China, Thailand and Myanmar are intriguing. These people are either indigenous to their territory or originated in South China and moved there [4]. This region is probably the homeland of the C* Y chromosome paragroup, the point it split into its haplotypes (C1 to C5), including the C2 found among Papuans and the C3 found in America.

What role do the Northern Italians from Bergamo have in this plot? I am at a loss. Maybe these people have C6 (the European branch of hg. C)?

Amerindians have haplotype C3 (North America) at very low frequencies and C3* in Soth America. And all have DXS225.

I mention the C hg. because in my previous post I conjectured a link between haplogroup C and Homo erectus. As we see the allele also follows the pattern of hg. C, but not because of the haplogroup itself -see below- but because it is the rang e once occupied by Homo erectus

No link between DXS225 and Y chromosome haplogroups

Unfortunately I can not make a link between a mutation in the X chromosome and Y chromosome haplogroups. The explanation is below:

The image further up shows us that the men (Man 1) carrying the X mutation (green X chromosome) do not pass it on to their sons (male descent) or his grandchildren born from those sons, so there is no link between Y chromosome haplotype of men carrying the mutated allele and the allele. The boys born from Man 1 do not carry the Allele. This is interesting, it is transmitted via women: Man 1's daughters.

His daughters will receive the mutation (green colored X), and they will of course carry the same haplogroup as their mother, Woman 1, (pink squares). Their children if boys, will have the Y chromosome haplogroup of their fathers (which may or may not be the same as that of their grandfather). So this shows there is no link between Y chromosome hgs. and the allele.

Regarding the descent via Man 1's daughters: Half of the granddaughters born from his daughters will carry the mutation and so will half of his daughters' sons; all of them will carry the mtDNA of their mother, Woman 1.

Conclusions

The most interesting scenario is the one that suggests that a non-human archaic homin left Africa long before this allele evolved (I am thinking H. erectus). They took the coastal route to New Guinea, South East Asia and onwards into America. Y chromosome haplogroup C marks their course (yes, some spread into Europe, where some Northern Italians still carry it).

It remained back in Africa too among H. erectus or related groups. Later with the evolution of modern Humans, the mutation appeared and spread globally, overlaying the C hg archaic allele carriers with other more recent haplogroups and modern populations carrying the allele at a 25% ratio. It did not erase the archaicn pre-insertion mutation however: three out of every four modern humans carry the archaic type. Some groups remained isolated from the mutation and suffered no admixture. Maybe it is not neutral (we have seen that it is found at very high frequencies in N. Guinea and America) and is subject to natural selection and this contributes to its survival despite the presence of the mutation.

America peopled by H. erectus received waves of H. sapiens with this insertion mutation, but the archaic form prevailed. Were the erectus better adapted to the New World conditions?

Sources

[1] Rinaldo Wellerson Pereira, Simone Silva dos Santos Lopes and Sérgio Danilo Junho Pena, (2006). A novel polymorphic Alu insertion embedded in a LINE 1 retrotransposon in the human X chromosome (DXS225): identification and worldwide population study. Genet. Mol. Res. 5 (1): 63-71
[2] Ibid. (2007) A Worldwide Phylogeography for the Human X Chromosome. PLoS ONE 2(6): e557. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000557
[3]Brenna M. Henn, (2011). Hunter-gatherer genomic diversity suggests a southern African origin for modern humans. vol. 108 no. 13 5154–5162, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1017511108
[4] Sun H, Zhou C, Huang X, Lin K, Shi L, et al. (2013). Autosomal STRs Provide Genetic Evidence for the Hypothesis That Tai People Originate from Southern China. PLoS ONE 8(4): e60822. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0060822
[5] Mendez et al., (2013). An African American paternal lineage adds an extremely ancient root to the human Y chromosome phylogenetic tree. Am J Hum Genet. 2013 Apr 4;92(4):637.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2014 by Austin Whittall © 

Helicobacter Pylori and Homo Erectus

I am posting once again on the Helicobacter Pylori bacteria, because I came across a paper while researching on Homo erectus in Southern Asia for my recent series on Y chromosome C haplogroup.

My previous post in case you are interested is this one: Ulcer causing bacteria and Neanderthals in America.

H. Pylori and Homo erectus

H. pylori are a type of bacteria that is found in the stomachs of roughly 66% of mankind. Its name "helicobacter", comes from its shape ("Helico" means "spiral").

People usually pick it up during childhood and in general it lives in its host unnoticed but, in certain people it causes disease (ulcers, inflamation or gastritis and in some cases, cancer).

It spreads from one person's mouth to another, so it quickly passes from parents to children and is exchanged between siblings as well as between couples. Another form of transmission is through contact with feces due to lack of hygene (a person who does not wash his or her hands after using the toilet). It can also be picked up from contaminated water or food.

Risk is higher in developing countries, but in the past, overcrowded conditions, lack of access to clean water and poor hygene allowed for an ample transmission within geographic localities and the people inhabiting them.

For this reason, it spreads rapidly within a population and is also affected by natural selection however this does not completely erase its origin.

Comment on Natural Selection.
The original American variety of H. pylori (known as hspAmerind) was specialised in infecting Native American hosts, when Europeans arrived (1492), the dramatic drop in native population due to war and disease plus the increase of Europeans and their "mestizo" mixed Amerind-European offspring allowed the more generalised European H. pylori (hspEurope) to outcompete it and greatly replace it.

This familial transmission keeps the different varieties of H. pylori within certain social groups (obviously those who live, share food, toilets, water and have sex together). This allows it to be used to study the prehistoric migrations of human beings with H. pylori in their stomachs.

Our most distant ancestors carried it in their gut, and as H. habilis evolved into our archaic ancestors (Neanderthals, H. erectus, H. heidelbergensis, etc.), H. pylori was in their stomachs, evolving too and passing along the evolving line of hominins till it reached us and (as orthodoxy states), left Africa some 60 kya in the wave of H. sapiens that would people the world and replace any other hominins out there. These human migrants settled in different regions and their H. pylori also evolved separately from those in the bellies of other humans in other places.

This is attested by the fact that there are different varieties of the bacteria specific to different geographic locations: [1]

• hpNEAfrica, from Northeast Africa.
• hpAfrica1, found in Western and Southern Africa.
• hpAfrica2, only found in South Africa.
• hpEurope, found in Europe, Western Asia, the Middle East, India and Iran.
• hpAsia2, from Northern India, Bangladesh, Thailand and Malaysia.
• hpEastAsia, found in Japan, Korea, Taiwanese Chinese, China and Vietnam.
• hpSahul, carried by natives in Papua New Guinea and the Australian Aboriginals.
• hspMaori, found among Melanesians, Taiwanese Aboriginals and Polynesians.
• hspAmerind, carried by Native Americans.

This is interesting and points out closed groups moving with their own bacterial strains into the territories they peopled. But it also shows links between them that are not so clearly revealed by the human genome studies (mtDNA or Y chromosme sequencing). Below is Figure 2., from [1], the interesting part is not the map, but the trees:

H. pylori Asian strain, in Asia and tree. From [1]

The captions from the original text are: "(A) Map of sampling locations of hspEAsia haplotypes in Southeast Asia... (B) Neighbor-joining tree from pair-wise FST values of hpEastAsia haplotypes rooted with haplotypes of the population hpSahul. (C) Neighbor-joining tree of pair-wise FST values of the subpopulation hspEAsia. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022058.g002" [1].

Look at B and C, the hspAmerind is completely separate from all the Asian and Melanesian - Polynesian branches. Very distinct indeed. They split off long ago, close to the split with hspSahul.

Looking at it from the perspective of my last post NRY haplogroup C, Eurasia and Homo erectus It is clear that hspMarori does not reflect the ancient C2 Y chromosome hapoltype of NG, instead it reflects the later arrivals from Taiwan. hspSahul on the other hand does reflect the archaic people that occupied Sahul with the C4 and C2 haplotypes. HspEAsia reflects C1 (Japan), C3 and C*. So clearly hspAmerind is the ancient C haplotypes found in America.

What about the Indian C5? and C-M130 marker, or the archaic European C6?

Let's look at the other figure from [1]:

hspEurope in Asia, map and Tree. From [1]

European varieties split into two main branches North Europe (top) and France - Spain (bottom). The La Braña remains (7 ky old) with C6 haplotype were found in Spain.

The hspEurope is also found in Asia: in India and S.E Asia. This is what the paper (Breurec S., et al., 2011) [1] deals with in detail, trying to find out how did a specifically European variety of H. pylori reach the heart of South East Asia. The conclusions are remarkable:

Since it is found at high frequencies among Khmer (52%) and the variety was similar to the one found among Thais, but different to the French type, it is clear that it was not introduced into those populations due to Colonial contact with the French in Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia), it is far older, and the paper suggests that "hpEurope bacteria in Southeast Asia might be a marker for an old human migration that predated the European colonial history." [1]

The link, as can be seen in the neighbor-joining tree (based on these pairwise FST values), shown above clusters the S.E. Asian and Indian varieties in a distinct group linked to the European types.

Recent introduction by Indians into S.E. Asia is also discarded because Malays, Thai and Khmer are closer to each other than to the Indians (from India or those that migrated to Malaysia).

Once again the paper concludes that this "suggest[s] a common origin of these strains and argu[e] against an exclusively recent acquisition of Malaysian hpEurope strains from Indian immigrants..." [1]. I fully agree, these are ancient strains that somehow were introduced into the region and prevailed despite the introduction of the hspEAsia.

The question is when did they reach Southeast Asia. The paper supports a two stage arrival: one to India and another onwards, into S.E. Asia: "an old introduction of hpEurope strains into the Indian subcontinent by Indo-Aryan migration (4000–10000 BP) as previously described. This was followed by subsequent eastward migrations of their descendants into Southeast Asia, carrying hpEurope strains in their stomach, probably within the last 3000 years." [1].

I disagree with both dates; they are too recent. Furthermore, allow me to quote another paper on H. pylori in the region (Tay et al., 2009): "there is no evidence that ancestral Malays migrated from India [or evidnece that] supports Malays sharing direct common ancestry with Indians." [2].

The paper adds: "Therefore for the Malay population, the ancestry of H. pylori does not reflect human ancestry as in other populations." [2]. I fully agree, it does not reflect the human ancestry of these people but their archaic ancestral Homo erectus ancestry.

Tay et al., are at a loss to explain the Indian - Malaysian link, and bogged down by the constraints of orthodoxy overlook the most parsimonious explanation. I will quote the paper (bold is mine):

"Another potential source of H. pylori for non-aboriginal Malays is the Orang Asli population, who originated from early human migration out of Africa.
The Orang Asli is likely to have taken the "Southern Route" into South East Asia to reach Malaysia by traveling along the Indian Ocean Coast line 50–65,000 years ago.
Therefore the Orang Asli H. pylori, if it exists, may share common ancestry with the Indian H. pylori, leading to the observed similarity of Malay isolates to Indian isolates."
So far so good, that is exactly the correct explanation, but then they dismiss it!.
"However given that other earlier H. pylori populations such as the Maori and American Indian populations can be readily identified, one would expect that the Orang Asli H. pylori population would be unique and identifiable after such a long period of separation, arguing against acquisition from Orang Asli population and in favour of acquisition from the Indian population." [2]

Actually the Orang Asli H. pylori and that of all S. E. Asians as well as the Indians, is the original archaic hspEurope in its "Asian Clade" as shown in the figure above.

Proof of the ancient origin of the Indian clade of hspEurope is found in S Manjulata Devi et al., (2007) [3], who were cited by [2] above, and who wrote: (bold mine)

"we suggest that H. pylori might have arrived in India probably at the same time when Indo-European language speaking people crossed into India (~4000–10,000 years before present). Alternatively, the unquestionable common origin of Indian strains with the European ones could be actually more ancient, following the upper Paleolithic spread of Homo sapiens in Eurasia, as suggested by mtDNA variability, and our data on H. pylori MLST do not rule out this possibility." [3]

This is where Breurec S et al., picked their date of 10 - 40 ky, but it is clear that S Manjulata Devi admits that an earlier date is possible, the actual OoA event into Asia.

The uniform dispersal within distinct geographic locations is in my opinion a clear indicator of an extremely ancient relationship between H. pylori and hominins, one that reflects, in my opinion, the most ancient dispersal of humans from Africa, the OoA event of H. erectus and their migrations.

The African diversity reflects perhaps even more ancient roots. But in Eurasia and the Americas the H. pylori lineages mirror the Y chromosome C haplogroup regions. As I conjectured in my previous post:

Current C hg. distribution reflects the migration of Homo erectus out of Africa 1.8 Mya. A band of a few hundreds of people walking into Asia with the CF haplogroup, splitting in the Persian Gulf by acquiring the M130 marker, and thus forming C haplogroup. They moved across South Asia keeping their C hg. identity during their long trek (note that since mutation rates are slower than accepted, no mutations arose during this period).

Finally reaching the Homeland from which it differentiated into its current haplogroups, in the North of S. E. Asia. From there they spread out. Some moved into NG, Australia mutating (slowly) into C2 and C4. Others went back into India and mutated to C5. The core in S.E. Asia evolved into C* while others went north forming C1 and C3.

A group did not take the Eastern route and went West into Europe forming C6 there. Maybe it will be sequenced someday from the bones at Sima de los Huesos...

Erectus entered America long ago, and the patchy C3* distribution in South America is what remains of a once widespread coverage of H. erectus in the New World...

So we see the correlation: hpEurope = C6, hpAsia2 = C5 - C* hpEastAsia = C3 - C1, hpSahul = C2, C4, hspMaori = C2 (Polynesia), hspAmerind = C3 (America).

Sources

[1] Breurec S, Guillard B, Hem S, Brisse S, Dieye FB, et al., (2011). Evolutionary History of Helicobacter pylori Sequences Reflect Past Human Migrations in Southeast Asia. PLoS ONE 6(7): e22058. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0022058
[2] Tay CY, Mitchell H, Dong Q, Goh KL, Dawes IW, et al., (2009).Population structure of Helicobacter pylori among ethnic groups in Malaysia: recent acquisition of the bacterium by the Malay population. BMC Microbiol 9: 126. doi:10.1186/1471-2180-9-126
[3] S Manjulata Devi, et al., (2007). Ancestral European roots of Helicobacter pylori in India. BMC Genomics 2007, 8:184 doi:10.1186/1471-2164-8-184

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2014 by Austin Whittall © 

NRY haplogroup C, part 2. Eurasia and Homo erectus

Y chromosome Haplogroup C is perhaps the oldest and therefore earliest indicator of the presence of modern human males in Eastern Asia. It is found at a relatively low frequencies across most of Asia, reaching its highest frequencies in North Eastern Asia (Mongolia, Siberia); it declines in Japan, Korea, China, India, Southern Asia, but risies in Eastern Indonesia, Polynesia and Australia. It is absent in Africa, found at moderate frequencies in North America and very low frequencies in Europe and South America. [1] (see map below)

As we will see below, it has distinct geographically-specific haplotypes of which C3 is the most widespread one spanning Asia and America.

Map showing global distribution of C haplogroup, frequencies and official dispersion routes. Adapted from [2]

This extended range and low frequency coverage underlying more recent Eurasian haplogroups clearly indicate that it arose very early in Asia, among first humans that left Africa, during their trek across Western Asia and before they reached Eastern Asia.

In today's post I will summarize its regional haplotypes and frequencies and, close the post with a discussion on their origin and dispersal. I will go over the data and the "orthodox" point of view and later will suggest some non-orthodox ideas regarding C hg. and its origin. To skip the region by region information click here to go to the analysis part of this post.

A Regional Analysis of NRY Haplogroup C

We will detail the C haplogroup's haplotypes and their frequencies of in the following regions:
Australia, Melanesia, Polynesia and Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Indian subcontinent, China, Japan, Korea, Northwest Asia and Siberia, Persian Gulf, Europe, North America, (South America was discussed in a previous post.

C haplogroup across Southeastern Asia, Australia and Polynesia

To get your bearings in our regional analysis, the following map will come in handy. It shows the frequencies of the different C haplotypes in East and Southeast Asia, PNG, N. Zealand, Polynesia and Australia:

Y chromosome C haplogroup, Range and frequencies in Asia, Australia and Polynesia. Adapted by A. Whittall from [3]

The map clearly shows how hg. C is present in the region at noticeably differing frequencies and with very distinct haplotypes in the each of the geographic locations:

• C3 (M-217). North Asia (Mongolia, Korea, China) and the Americas
• C1 (M-8). Only found in Japan and Ryukyu
• C*. In South China and S.E. Asia, but this is a Paragroup and may conceal yet unknown haplotypes.
• C2 (M-38). From East Indonesia and across Melanesia, Polynesia and New Zealand, but with two distinct haplotypes in the West and the East of this vast region.
• C4 (M-347). Unique to Australia
• C5 (M-356). Not shown in the map, but unique to India, Nepal and Pakistan

As you can see, there is a clearly geographic distribution of haplotypes with little or no overlap.

The following table gives some numerical data for the whole of Asia (including Greater India, not shown in the map above and North America):

Table with C haplogroup frequencies Asia and America. Adapted from [4]

This of course mirrors what we have mentioned above: discrete regional distributions and an overlaid C* paragroup at low frequencies (highest in South East Asia) which will have to be resolved into other new haplotypes once their markers have been identified.

Below we will review each region in detail and then try to reach some conclusions.

The Australian Aboriginals - C4

Austrailian natives have their own unique haplogroup, C4, defined by SNP M347; C4 has two haplotypes: C4a (with STR DYS390 deleted) and C4b with M210.

This is the original, ancient haplogroup that arrived in Australia during its peopling wave, which took place some 50 kya and was followed by "considerable isolation after the initial arrival" [4].

The original migrants came from the southern tip of mainland Asia: "Sunda" (encompassing the main Indonesian islands and Malaysia). The "Wallace Line", a strip of sea with many minor islands forming "Wallacea" (Sulawesi, Lombok, Sumbawa, Flores, Sumba, Timor, Halmahera, Buru, etc.) separated it from the other landmass of "Sahul", which was formed by Australia and Near Oceania -New Guinea (NG) and Melanesian Island. The migrants trekked across this now submerged land (sea levels rose after deglaciation c. 9 kya) and rafted across the Wallace Line, reaching Australia.

Interestingly, the other C haplogroups and paragroup C* did not enter Australia (one study detected some C* in Arnhem which may reflect modern arrivals), or if they did, disappeared without a trace.

Despite my hopes that Homo erectus admixed with this Paleolithic migratory wave that peopled Australia and New Guinea (NG), the mainstream science does not support this notion: ""local H. erectus or archaic Homo sapiens populations did not contribute to the modern aboriginal Australian gene pool" [4].

One thing that surprised me is that the time it took the human groups to move across Sahul and Sunda was so long in comparison to what orthodoxy attributes to the peopling of America event:

• Australia. "...the migration from southwestern Asia to Australia would have taken <5,200 years ... This migration speed is in the same order of magnitude as estimated for other prehistoric continental settlements" [4]
• Americas. " the Paleo-Indian spread along the entire longitude of the American double continent might have taken even <2000 yr." [5]

Note that to cross America from Alaska to Cape Horn is about twice the distance compared to the trek from Malaysia to Tasmania yet we must believe that they did it in less than half the time. Did the Paleoindians move four times faster than the Australian Aboriginals' ancestors? Something is not quite right with these numbers. Most likely the American peopling event is far too short, but since orthodox science has to have people in Monte Verde, Chile c. 13 kya and they supposedly entered the New World 15 kya., the absurdly short 2 kya figure appears... Another example of fiddling with the dates to make them fit with preconceptions.

C2: Melanesia, Polynesia and New Guinea (NG)

Melanesia and New Guinea (NG) were settled in the same wave that peopled Australia over 42 kya [6], but later waves of humans reached this area and account for over half the Y chromosome haplogroups in the Region. Nevertheless, haplogroup C is widespread and found at a ㅏ% frequency in Indonesia, indicating its ancient origin [3]. It is found with different haplotypes:

• C* [C-RPS4Y*(xM38, M217, DYS390.1del]. This paragroup is the oldest (50 kya) lineage in Sunda and Sahul [6]. It is very rare in Melanesia and only appears in some coastal NG samples.
  It is "notably absent from the NG Highlands and Taiwan and the Philippines" [6], reaching only 3.4% in the latter (Taiwan and Philippines are mentioned because they are apparently the ancestral home of many Melanesians, but seemingly not the C* carriers). [8]
• C2.
  
  • C2-M38*(xM208). It is almost absent west of the Wallace Line, its highest frequencies are found in East Indonesia, Moluccas Nusa Tenggara (51 - 44%) [9], coastal NG and Cook Islands.
    It is the most common haplogroup in Northwestern NG (34.6%) and the second most frequent haplogroup in New Guinea (avg. 12.8%). Since its STR diversity his highest in NWNG (Bird's Head region) it very likely originated there (or in Wallacea as the oldest hg. (42 - 61 kya) [6] , expanding east across Melanesia and NG into Polynesia (although rarely observed there); and also West, into Eastern Indonesia. [10][8]
  • C2b-M208. Found at high frequencies in the West Papua highlands and among Cook Islanders, it is old: mean age 46.2 ky [6] but had a much more recent expansion into Polynesia (5 - 2.2 kya) [8], where it is found at high frequencies (34%) and also among the New Zealand Maori (77%). [11] [10]
    Is a low frequency hg. in Northwest NG (2.5%) and NG (avg. 6.8%). [10]

A variety (originally named C6) with the P55 marker was reported [6] but is now considered as a Private SNP due to lack of positive testers [2] or a familial group of related males [12] so the C6 haplotype has been dropped and reassigned to European lineages. Three other haplotypes are absent in the region : C5, C3 and the Australian Aboriginal C4 [6].

Rest of Indonesia

• C*. Has a patchy distribution across the Asian region, it is found at high frequencies in East Indonesia (29.2% in Flores and 22.8% in Lembata) and, as mentioned above, is absent in Melanesia and Polynesia. Further north it appears in China (Yao, 20%). [3]
• C2-M38*, is absent in Western Indonesia but grows to an average of 33.5% in Eastern Indonesia (from 11% in Sulawesi to 57% in Sumba); it is found at very low frequencies in Polynesia and Melanesia. [3]

The Indian Subcontinent and the C5 clade

Haplogroup C was detected in India and had been initially classified as C* until Sengupta S. et al., (2006) [14] analysed the paragroup and identified a new haplotype, C5-M356. Almost 85% of the Indian C* individuals were assigned to the new subclade. Which is only found in the Indian subcontinent. [14]

Ancient and autochthonous

C5 is a pan-Indian lineage, absent in the rest of the world yet found at very low frequencies in India (1.4%) where it is widely distributed: It "occurs in all linguistic groups and in both tribes and castes. It also occurs in one Dravidian Brahui in Pakistan" [14]. For this reason, it "is an ancient hg... most plausibly arose in situ within the boundaries of present-day India" [14].

Unsurprisingly, The C3-M217 hg. frequent in Eastern and Central Asia has not been detected in India (it did appear in Pakistan though) [14], neither have C2 or C4.

The data regarding C hg. in India and Pakistan is the following [14] (notice the very low frequencies):

• India
  
  • C*-M216 (RPS4Y) 0.27%
  • C5-M356 1.51%
• Pakistan
  
  • C3-M217 6.82%
  • C5-M356 0.57%

Tamils of Southern India

The Tamil people inhabit southern India and northern Sri Lanka. A study [15] that sampled tribes, some of which are still foragers, found that haplogroup C was present in 19 out of the 31 groups sampled at relatively high frequency of 4.4% (avg). 90% of them were C5 and the remaining 10% were C*. C hg exhibited a high variance (0.80) suggesting a local origin for its prevailing haplotype.

China

C haplogroup is unevenly spread across China, it is scarce along the eastern coast and more frequent in the North, South and West. The C* paragroup is common in the South and East, and C3 in the North and West.

• Southeast. (Yao, 20% - C*). [3]
• Northeast. Heilongjiang (Manchu, 44.0%) and Hezhe 6.7%, Inner Mongolia (Mongolian, 52.2%; Oroqen, 61.3%), Outer Mongolia (52.8%) [2]
• Northwest. Xinjiang (Hazak, 75.5%) [2]
• Center. Miao 1.7%, Hui 6.7%, Tujia 8.2% (C-RPS4Y*), Han 6% (C-M217), Tujia 18,3% (C-M217)[7] [2]
• South. C*: Mulau 9.1% and Shui 6.9% [2]

Neolithic archaeological remains 6.5 - 2.7 kya from West Liao River valley in Northeast China carried the C3e - P53.1 haplotype. These people are believed to have originated in the northern China steppe, a region where extant populations still carry C3e at a 23.8% frequency. [[17]]

Japan and its C1

C haplogroup is found in Japan at low frequencies, and it has a local haplotype, C1 exclusive to Japan. The values are: [18]

• C1 - M105, the local haplotype, 1.5%
• C3 - M217, originated in the mainland, 2.2%

Korea - C3*

The prevalent C haplogroup in Korea is C. The values differ according to the source: [20] indicated a 12.6% frequency of C-RPS4Y (that is C*, very likely C3*). Another [7] indicated a 16.2% frequency of C3* (xC3c) and yet another [14] 9.6% of C3*.

C3* is also found in neighboring Manchuria at moderate frequencies: higher than in Southeast Asia yet lower than Northeast Asia suggesting an expansion from Mongolia or Siberia into Korea.

Siberia and Northwest Asia

The North Asian haplotypes are (always from the orthodox point of view) relatively recent: C3 as a whole (4.1 to 14.9 ky), and its subclusters are even younger still: C3c (1.6 to 5.9 ky) and C3d (0.5 to 2.0 ky). Notice how wide spread these dates are, which shows the uncertainty originated by the mutation rates used in the calculations. [14]

These are the C lineages found in Northern Asia:

• C3c. (M-48) Prevails among Manchurians, Evens, Kalmyks and Evenks. All of which are Mongolic-Tungusic peoples. [19]
• C3d. Is frequent among Mongol speaking peoples: Mongols, Khamnigans and Buryats.
• C3*. Paragroup with high frequencies (+30%) among Koryaks and Mongols it is also found in North America.

Trivia: history

There is a Genghis Khan "star cluster" (part of paragroup C3*) which is said to have originated 1 kya ago in Mongolia and spread by the Khan's relatives due to their "social status" (a neat sinophylic way of saying that the Mongol hordes raped their way across Eurasia). It now ranges from 35% among Mongols to between 3 and 8% among Buryats, Kazaks, Tuvinians, Shors and Altaians. It is between 0.27 to 2.8 ky old, so it may be related to Genghis Khan and his male relatives. [14][19] Nevertheless, the Kereys tribe in Kazakhstan have the highest frequency (76.5%) of this C3* star cluster and it is unlikely that it is due to Genghis Khan's clan. [19] So maybe these people are the original source of it.

Persian Gulf region

This in Southwestern Asia, the region where haplogroup C first appeared in Asia after leaving Africa. It is found at very low frequencies:

Iran [21]:

• C*. 0.1%. Only appears among the Zoroasterians of Yazd province (2.9%).
• C3. 0.4%, is found in 4 out of 20 ethnic groups, from 0.8% (Bandari) to 2.9% (Zoroasterian).
• C5. 0.5%, appears in 3 groups, From 1.5% (Bandari) to 2.8% (Mazandarani). This is the Indian clade, did it back-migrate into Iran recently or is this a relict?

No apparent pattern, just a patchy distribution: C3 and C5 in the north cicum-Caspian area; C3 and C* in central Iran, C3 and C5 by the Persian Gulf. Perhaps the remnants of the ancient dispersal or are they recent movements of people? [21]

Other Gulf Countries: we also have C* (C-M216) at low frequencies in: Oman 3.3%, Saudi Arabia 1,3% and the UAE 1,2%. [21]

European C6

There is a very rare Southern European haplotype within C hg. The nomenclature for this European C-V20 haplotype has changed: it is now named C6 (originally named C7, but since the NG P-55 became a private marker, C6 was reassigned to Europe). It is characterized by markers V20, V7, V86. V182. V184, V219, V222.

Very few samples were known, a recent study [22] found 1 (one) person carrying C6 out of a sample of 1965 individuals! The paper indicates that "Further studies are needed to establish whether C7 [they use the old notation] chromosomes are the relics of an ancient European gene pool or the signal of a recent geographical spread from Asia.". If the latter, the C6 hg. has yet to be identified in Asia; I am inclined towards an ancient origin in Europe.

Archaic La Braña C6 individual

C6 has been identified in the 7,000 year old remains of a Mesolithic man, discovred at the La Braña site in Spain, supporting its ancient origin. However, with the usual caution of a scientific paper, the authors indicate that: (bold mine):

"... La Braña 1 sample belongs to either haplogroup C or F. When mutations defining those haplogroups were checked, only ancestral alleles were found in the haplogroup F-defining mutations, whereas seven C-defining mutations (M130, M216, P255, P260, V183, V199 and V232) showed only derived alleles. Thus, La Braña 1 most likely belonged to haplogroup C [...] The fact that we found ancestral alleles in mutations defining C1, C2, C3 and C4 (Table S9), together with their actual phylogeographic distribution restricted to Asia, Oceania and the Americas suggests that our individual does not belong to any of these branches. Rather, a new branch within haplogroup C (C6, originally named C7) has recently been identified in several men from Southern Europe, suggesting this could be an ancient European clade. Importantly, mutation V20 showed one read with the derived allele (A), which points to C6 as the most probable sub-clade for La Braña 1 sample. It could also be possible that this G to A mutation is a result of DNA damage. Other less likely haplogroup affiliations are C* and C5 (no read covered SNP M356), both found mainly in present-day India." [23]

North American C3b

Haplogroup C is present in North America at moderate frequencies in a unique haplotype found only in that part of the New World: C3b (P39). The details of the frequencies among the native people: [24]

Tanana (Alaska): 41.7%, Cheyenne: 15.9%, Sioux: 11,4%, Apache: 14.6%, Navajo: 1.3%. It was not detected among any other population across North or Central America.

See my previous post on C3* in South American natives.

Analysis and Discussion

Above I pointed out that Y chromosome hg C is absent in Africa; this means it originated outside of Africa. Conventional mainstream science will therefore place this origin after the OoA (Out of Africa) migration of Modern Homo sapiens some 60 kya.

1. Origin

The accepted theory is that Haplogroup C originated with the split from the hypothetical Haplogroup CF -or CF(xDE). Its marker is SNP P143, which is ancestral to F and C hgs. This split took place somewhere in Southwestern Asia, perhaps on the shores of the Persian Gulf 60 kya.

2. Dispersal across Asia

Men carrying hg. C are believed to have taken an eastern "coastal" route along the coast of the Arabian Sea, reaching the mouth of the Indus River. I see no objections to the possibility that they also advanced inland along the main rivers of this area, but the official dispersal theory sticks to a coastal route (perhaps to tie in the timing of the OoA event and the peopling of Australia, a quick march along the coasts of Asia is required).

2.a. India

From the Indus, C entered the Indian subcontinent, we can suppose that the typically Indian C5 arose later, from those who stayed behind in India, because it is unlikely that C mutated and only those with the C5 marker stayed in India and all the rest, with the non-mutated version kept on moving. Another option is that the mutations arose later from some other region and back- ispersed into India, where it is now prevalent. But this needs us to explain why it became lost in its point of origin.

2.b. Into Austronesia

These migrants pushed on south towards Cape Comorin and Sri Lanka, and then north along the Bay of Bengal and across modern Bangladesh, Myanmar and down into Malaysia, till they reached the edge of the emerged continental shelf in Indonesia: (during the Ice ages sea level was lower so all East Indonesian islands were joined into the Sunda landmass). They boated across the Wallace Line, a stretch of deep seas that blocked access of placental mammals southwards into Australia and New Guinea (NG) -as well as marsupial migrations towards the north. They finally reached Sahul the joined continent of NG and Australia.

Peopling of Sahul and Southeast Asia. Adapted from [25]

The map above shows the current continental area and the emerged continental shelves (in grey), the red arrow shows the migration into Sahul.

It was during these moves that C2 appeared in Wallacea (Western Indonesia and NG) and stayed there while C4 appeared in Australia and also stayed there... why? what kept them from expanding and overlapping in a unified landmass?

The answer: Culture and Topography. Swamps, jungle, valleys and mountain ranges, deserts, rugged shores have kept NG people physically isolated. Tribal societies with their cultural imprint also kept them separated. Current language diversity is a clear indicator of isolation in NG. It is likely that these factors plus population bottlenecks may have kept PNG and Australian natives isolated after the initial single-wave peopling event allowing them to develop their own specific haplotype mutations without any furhter admixture. (Further reading on the peopling of Sahul, McEvoy et al., 2010).

Only much later did another migratory spasm take C2 across the vast Pacific Ocean to people Polynesia and New Zealand but this was a new C2 subclade (C-M208).

2.c. Northwards

We have not considered that these people may have crossed India via the Narmada (by this river, remains of H. erectus were unearthed) and Ganges Rivers or advanced upstream and inland along the Indus, Sutlej, Brahmaputra, Irrawaddy or Saleween rivers, reaching Tibet and Central China or that they may have gone across the continent from Dhaka (Bangladesh) to Hanoi (Vietnam) along the Tropic of Cancer (yellow arrow in map above) and from there advanced inland too (Mekong and Pearl rivers).

No, we have supposed that they took the long tortuous coastal route proposed by orthodoxy, which, in an Ice Age World is shown above (red arrow along Sunda and Blue one northwards towards S.E. Asia). Don't ask me why we must stick to the coast.

I bet that if populations in the interior, in North of Myanmar, Thailand, Yunnan and Laos are sampled, C* and maybe C5 will appear at low frequencies.. maybe this is the homeland of C* from which all others radiated and C5 back-migrated into India.

The following map shows all these possible routes (actually these make more sense than the coastal route for the North Asian populations):

Entry and dispersal routes of C haplogroup in Asia. Copyright © 2014 by Austin Whittall. Data from [13]

The Green route is the official route. In blue, my suggested change, following the rivers (this explains why it is not so frequent along the East China Sea), a radically different route but also feasible is the Red route, across the Indus, Tian Shan, Altai and Southern Siberia into Manchuria.

I will cite a very interesting paper by Derevianko and Shunkov (2011) [27] which deals with the OoA theory it is worth reading it:

"Early human migration was a slow process, not a relay race. It is hard to conceive why the migrants should have moved directly to the east along the narrow coastal line rather than exploring the banks of the rivers which flow into the ocean and thus moving far to the north, where favorable ecological niches were available." [27]

Having said this, we will assume that, as per Zhong et al., [19] they moved in a "single coastal northward expansion route... in China about 32 to 42 thousand years ago."

2.d. China

They reached Southern China, and the paragroup C* formed here some 36 kya; the migrants continued along the coast (once again we must explain why C* stayed behind and the others moved on), part entered Taiwan (and from there Japan), the others and kept on towards North China leaving barely a trace in the coastal areas of Eastern China (now isn't that strange?).

In North China (Liaoning, Heilongjiang) the C3 haplotype appeared (33 to 20 kya) and dispersed widely: Eastwards, from Manchuria into Korea and Japan. West into Mongolia and South-Central Siberia, Western China, Altai, etc. (20 to 8 kya), and finally as the ices receeded at the end of the last Ice Age, (15 kya) Northwards into Northeast into Eastern Siberia, Beringia and... finally, America.

Another group entered Japan via Ryuku from Taiwan and originated the local C1 haplotype there.

And this is the end of the Orthodox dispersal version.

3. Sub-haplogroups

We have seen above that C hg. has various discrete subhaplogroups (C1, C2, C3, C4, C5 and C6 plus a paragroup C*) each with a specific geographical distribution. Common sense indicates that they "have undergone long-time isolation" [2]. But little is said about how they originated without spreading into other regions.

Below I adapted Fig. 2, from Redd A., et al., (2002) [26]; at that time the C5 haplotype from India was not known and the C4 among Australians was not shown in the tree, so I added the C4 dotted line around the yellow Aboriginal dots; I also wrote C5? around the green Indian dots within C* paragroup (top part). C3 in this figure does not include Native Americans and surely contains a lot of paragroup C3*. So I included on the right hand side, the C3* data for Asia and America from Roewer et al., (2013) [19], correlating the regions to the color code of Redd et al. (I added the South American natives in pink), but I maintained the individual data dots with their original colour (key is on upper right corner).

Also see C3* phylogenetic tree in my previous post.

C haplogroup unrooted tree. Adapted from [26] and [19]

The tree is quite revealing as it shows a central core of C* from which the other branches appear. Actually, a closer look at the tree reveals that this central C* as per Redd et al., is Indian, and it is linked to the probable root in the form of the branch joining it with haplogroup B (on the left).

The most central branches of the tree are the Australian C4 (left-center) tightly gathered in the middle, and Indian C5 (center and top-center) with the other branches located further apart:

• C2. (bottom left). Is diverse as can be judged from its spread branches, and it arises from C4
• C1. (upper left). Is quite diverse and arises from C*
• C3. (upper right). Is diverse and is also born from C*
• C*. (middle and bottom center). Is diverse. The main branch on the bottom is mainly South East Asian, but there are also some Indian in it. It is very spread and closely linked to the root of C2 and C4, which suggests that this South Asian C* and the Austronesian lineages C2 and C4 are the very old lines of the C hg. peopling wave.

Comments:

The bottom clusters are basically a widely divergent C2 sprouting from the Australian C4, and C* in S.E. Asia

The top clusters are C1, C5 and C3 all sprouting from the archaich core.

Redd's original root from Hg. B, anchors in Indian C* (green dots). I have no way of telling apart the C5 and the C* of (See data above: Indian origin), my guess is that the upper cluster is genuine C5 while the green dots in the central part of the tree and the bottom are actually C*.

The core from which C1, C5, C3, C* and C4 sprout from are green Indian subcontinent dots... surely C* from India. Only C2 is clearly rooted in one line of C4

1. Origins

C2. Arose in Wallacea from an ancestral lineage of C (which must be the original C M-130 variety) carried by the group that would move into Australia and Melanesia. Part of them moved on into Australia forming C4, the other proto-C people remained in Wallacea and formed derived clades: paragroup C-M38* and haplogroup C-M208, which remained in this territory located East of the Wallace Line and much later moved into Polynesia. Topography, tribal structure and bottlenecks kept C2 and C4 apart.

C4. See above, the "ancestral C stock" from Wallacea entered Australia and remained there in isolation.

Of course the ancestra C line is ancestral to current C* in S. E. Asia, and the C4, C5, C1 and C3 lines. C* is still found in India and other parts of S.E. Asia, it is represented by the green dots in the central part of the image. These will prove to be a new haplotype (H7?) when their marker is found. This is the ancestral lineage, from which all others sprout, it is Indian.

This may help explain some of the questions we posed during the haplotype analysis:

C5 originated from this ancestral C in India, the ancestral C people are the original peopling wave, they moved north and became C3 and C1, they moved south and became C4 in Australia and C* in S.E. Asia, a yet to be discriminated haplogroup (H8?) It

The European C6 is not placed in the tree but it is surely a group that split early in Asia and marched West into Europe.

Clearly further analysis is necessary to breakdown C* into newer sub-clades.

C* in Indonesia has a very high STR variance: this means that it has had plenty of time to mutate; it is very old. In Indonesia it is more frequent in the East, because a "continual eastward migration of the initial settlers (i.e., settlements were not permanently established in western Indonesia) or later waves of (partial) replacement." overlaid it. [3] This corroborates is antiquity.

As we can see in the Table of C haplotype distribution, above, haplotype C3 is concentrated in Northern Asia and has a decreasing cline towards the south (absent in Australia, NG and Polynesia) and west, it is found in North America at relatively high frequencies (C3b - P39, unique to the New World) and in South America in a patchy C3* distribution (see my previous post on C3* in South America.

A sinophile paper [19] proposes that this cline is due to its Chinese origin some 42 to 32 kya, and a coastal north route of expansion, it adds that the highest STR diversity for C3 is found in Southeast Asia. This, in my opinion corrobrates its origin from the ancestral C group, but not in China; it appeared in a region that is central to the other Haplotypes:

The region currently occupied by Myanmar, North Thailand, East India and Yunnan in China.

From there it irradiated and became the current regional haplotypes.

Some Crazy ideas

Having given the official story and facts, allow me to let my imagination fly and suggest an alternative scenario based on these same facts.

The area where C hg. is found with a highest diversity in Asia is precisely the area where Homo erectus lived for over 1.5 million years: Southern and Eastern Asia (from China and Korea in the North, to India and Indonesia in the south).

Haplogroup C's coastal route is precisely the one supposedly taken by our distant H. erectus ancestor.

The OoA theory with H. sapiens originating in Africa and peopling the world, totally replacing previous extant populations (if they existed), is so widely accepted that it dealt a death blow to the multiregional theory (H. sapiens evolved in different regions from a common archaich ancestor). But recent genetic discoveries of admixture with Neanderthals, Denisovans and mysterious "X" hominins as well as some remains in China with a mosaic of archaic and modern features have put fresh wind in the sails of the Multiregional theory.

For instance, Derenko and Shunkov (2011) question the OoA theory and support the Multiregional hypothesis in which an "independent formation of anatomically modern humans occurred", this took place in three regions with four subspecies all of which merged into modern humans:

• East and South East Asia, with Homo sapiens orientalensis
• Rest of Eurasia, with Homo sapiens neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens altaiensis (Denisovans)
• Africa, with Homo sapiens africanensis

Among other things, they also use the evidence of a distinct post-Middle Paleolithic South East Asian lithic industry that was different to that of Europe and Asia, with an "autochthonous development of the Upper Paleolithic,"[27]

They go a step further and suggest a Homo erectus evolution into modern humans in Asia:

"...population of anatomically modern humans descended from Homo erectus locally. .... progressive biological traits are due to parallel evolution. Both in East Asia and in Africa, anatomically modern humans apparently originated from the same ancestral species – Homo erectus sensu lato. ...The totality of evidence speaks in favor of a progressive in situ evolution of Homo erectus in East Asia over a span of more than one million years. This does not preclude the immigration of small populations from adjacent regions, small-scale gene flow, or admixture." [27]

If this is the case, then the C haplogroup found among South East Asians is in fact the one carried by H. erectus from Africa into Asia and later mutated in situ in Asia.

But this would contradict the accepted notion that our Y chromosomes are exclusively human, and that our ancestors (and their Y chromosomes) split from those of H. erectus long ago. Their genes disappeared with them and therefore do not appear in us.

But a study has already suggested an ancient origin for human Y chromosome: (Mendez et al, 2013) it reports the discovery of a novel Haplogroup named A00, which gave a very old age: "338 thousand years ago (kya) (95% confidence interval = 237-581 kya). Remarkably, this exceeds current estimates of the mtDNA TMRCA, as well as those of the age of the oldest anatomically modern human fossils..." [16]. In other words this "human" Y chromosome haplogroup is older than humans!

Which of course has been criticised by OoA proponents as using incorrect mutation rates that pushed the dates too far into the past.

I wonder, (read my previous posts criticising the mutation rate calculations) if actually the mutation rates for this (and All other) haplogroups is not underestimated by a factor of three or four, which would mean that the dates could be 711 - 2,381 ky, more than enough to accomodate H. erectus in the picture.

This means that Y chromosomes mutate far slower than currently accepted. And that when we look at the current distribution of NRY hgs. we are seeing the ancient migrations of pre-sapiens men across the globe.

Current C hg. distribution reflects the migration of Homo erectus out of Africa 1.8 Mya. A band of a few hundreds of people walking into Asia with the CF haplogroup, splitting in the Persian Gulf by acquiring the M130 marker, and thus forming C haplogroup. They moved across South Asia keeping their C hg. identity during their long trek (note that since mutation rates are slower than accepted, no mutations arose during this period).

Finally reaching the Homeland from which it differentiated into its current haplogroups, in the North of S. E. Asia. From there they spread out. Some moved into NG, Australia mutating (slowly) into C2 and C4. Others went back into India and mutated to C5. The core in S.E. Asia evolved into C* while others went north forming C1 and C3.

A group did not take the Eastern route and went West into Europe forming C6 there. Maybe it will be sequenced someday from the bones at Sima de los Huesos...

Erectus entered America long ago, and the patchy C3* distribution in South America is what remains of a once widespread coverage of H. erectus in the New World, and not a recent transpacific junk with Jomons from Japan shipwrecked on the shores of Ecuador.

Of course this could be proved or rejected if DNA could be sampled and sequenced from H. erectus remains (maybe impossible due to DNA decay). Maybe in the future it could be done, who knows?

Sources

[1] Chuan-Chao Wang and Hui Li, (2013). Inferring human history in East Asia from Y chromosomes. Investigative Genetics 2013, 4:11 doi:10.1186/2041-2223-4-11
[2] Hua Zhong et al., (2010). Global distribution of Y-chromosome haplogroup C reveals the prehistoric migration routes of African exodus and early settlement in East Asia. Journal of Human Genetics doi: 10.1038/jhg.2010.40
[3] Tatiana M. Karafet et al., (2010). Major East–West Division Underlies Y Chromosome Stratification across Indonesia. Mol Biol Evol (2010) 27 (8): 1833-1844. doi: 10.1093/molbev/msq063 First published online: March 5, 2010
[4] Georgi Hudjashov et al., (2007). Revealing the prehistoric settlement of Australia by Y chromosome and mtDNA analysis. vol. 104 no. 21, 8726–8730, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0702928104
[5] Martin Bodner, Ugo A. Perego et. al., (2012). Rapid coastal spread of First Americans: Novel insights from South America's Southern Cone mitochondrial genomes. Genome Res. May 2012; 22(5): 811–820. doi: 10.1101/gr.131722.111
[6] Laura Scheinfeldt, (2006). Unexpected NRY Chromosome Variation in Northern Island Melanesia. Mol. Biol. Evol. 23(8):1628–1641. 2006. doi:10.1093/molbev/msl028
[7] Yali Xue, et al., (2006). Male demography in East Asia: a north-south contrast in human population expansion times Genetics 172:4 (April 2006): pages 2431-2439.
[8] Stephen Oppenheimer, (2006). The 'Austronesian' story and farming-language dispersals: Caveats on timing and Independence in Proxy Lines of Evidence from the Indo-European Model, from "Uncovering Southeast Asia's Past: Selected Papers from the 10th International Conference of the European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists : the British Museum, London, 14th-17th September 2004" European Association of Southeast Asian Archaeologists. NUS Press, Jan 1, 2006
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[11] Underhill PA, Cavalli-Sforza LL., et al., (2001). The phylogeography of Y chromosome binary haplotypes and the origins of modern human populations. Ann Hum Genet 65:43–62
[12] Y-DNA Haplogroup C and its Subclades - 2014. International Society of Genetic Genealogy
[13] Asian Ancestry based on Studies of Y-DNA Variation: Part 1 Early origins – roots from Africa and emergence in East Asia. Genebase Tutorials. http://www.genebase.com/learning/article/21
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[23] Iñ,igo Olade, et al., (2014). Derived immune and ancestral pigmentation alleles in a 7,000-year-old Mesolithic European, Nature (2014) doi:10.1038/nature12960
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[25] Moss, S. J. & Wilson, E. J. 1999. Biogeographic implications of the Tertiary palaeogeographic evolution of Sulawesi and Borneo. In Hall, R. & Holloway, J. D. (eds) Biogeography and Geological Evolution of SE Asia. Backhuys Publishers, Leiden, 133-155. [26] Redd, Alan J., et al., (2002). Gene Flow from the Indian Subcontinent to Australia: Evidence from the Y Chromosome. Current Biology, Vol. 12, Issue 8, 16 April 2002, Pages 673–677. doi: 10.1016/S0960-9822(02)00789-3
[27] A.P. Derevianko and M.V. Shunkov, (2011) Anthropogenesis and colonization of Eurasia by Archaic Populatoins. Formation of anatomically Modern Human. From Proceedings of the International Symposium “Characteristic Features of the Middle to Upper Paleolithic Transition in Eurasia: Development of Culture and Evolution of Homo Genus” (July 4–10, 2011, Denisova Cave, Altai). Edited by A.P. Derevianko, M.V. Shunkov. pp 50 - 74.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2014 by Austin Whittall ©