Authentic Viking DNA Retrieved From 1,000-year-old Skeletons

ScienceDaily (May 27, 2008) — Although “Viking” literally means “pirate,” recent research has indicated that the Vikings were also traders to the fishmongers of Europe. Stereotypically, these Norsemen are usually pictured wearing a horned helmet but in a new study,  Jørgen Dissing and colleagues from the University of Copenhagen, investigated what went under the helmet; the scientists were able to extract authentic DNA from ancient Viking skeletons, avoiding many of the problems of contamination faced by past researchers.

Analysis of the Viking DNA showed no evidence of contamination with extraneous DNA, and typing of the endogenous DNA gave reproducible results and showed that these individuals were just as diverse as contemporary humans.

The Vikings Had Children With Native Americans

Scanpix/Granger

The Vikings brought Native Americans to Iceland  a thousand years ago. Or so says Spanish and Icelandic researchers, who in 80 Icelanders have found a special type of DNA found only in Native Americans and East Asians.

Originally  the researchers considered that this exotic DNA came from Asians, who in modern times have settled in Iceland, but when the researchers examined the 80 Icelanders’ family tree, it turned out that all originate from the same area in southern Iceland, and that their DNA profile is at least 300 years old.

“Iceland was isolated from the rest of the world from the 900s onwards. The most likely explanation is that the genes originated from an Indian woman, brought in from America by the Vikings around the year 1000, “said DNA expert Carles Lalueza-Fox, who has participated in the new

analyzes.

The investigation  responds in historical circles, as researchers long believed that the Vikings came to America 500 years before Columbus.

Original Swedish Article: http://varldenshistoria.se/vikingarna/vikingarna-fick-barn-med-indianer

Free To Be Stoopid

westernmystery:

I just saw a comment that an atheist is under no obligation to study or understand anything about religion to critisize it unless a theist proves the existence of Deity.

And on that note i will now write a detailed article critisizing Quantumphysics .

I dont know more than any other person about it, but i dont have to until a physicist proves an entire theory.

To use science in a discussion on philosophy is like using chemistry to explain the music of Mozart….

Genetic History of Europe

The genetic history of Europe can be inferred from the patterns of genetic diversity across continents and time. The primary data to develop historical scenarios coming from sequences of mitochondrial, Y-chromosome and autosomal DNA from modern populations and if available from ancient DNA. European populations have a complicated demographic and genetic history, including many successive periods of population growth.

Relation between Europeans and other populations

According to Cavalli-Sforza’s work, all non-African populations are more closely related to each other than to Africans; supporting the hypothesis that all non-Africans descend from a single old-African population. The genetic distance from Africa to Europe (16.6) was found to be shorter than the genetic distance from Africa to East Asia (20.6), and much shorter than that from Africa to Australia (24.7). He explains:

…both Africans and Asians contributed to the settlement of Europe, which began about 40,000 years ago. It seems very reasonable to assume that both continents nearest to Europe contributed to its settlement, even if perhaps at different times and maybe repeatedly. It is reassuring that the analysis of other markers also consistently gives the same results in this case. Moreover, a specific evolutionary model tested, i.e., that Europe is formed by contributions from Asia and Africa, fits the distance matrix perfectly (6). In this simplified model, the migrations postulated to have populated Europe are estimated to have occurred at an early date (30,000 years ago), but it is impossible to distinguish, on the basis of these data, this model from that of several migrations at different times. The overall contributions from Asia and Africa were estimated to be around two-thirds and one-third, respectively”.

This particular model used an Out of Africa migration 100,000 years ago which separated Africans from non-Africans followed by a single admixture event 30,000 years ago leading to the formulation of the European population. The admixture event consisted of a source population that was 35% African and 65% East Asian. However the study notes that a more realistic scenario would include several admixture events occurring over a sustained period. In particular they cite the spread of farming from a source population in West Asia 5000–9000 years ago may have played a role in the genetic relatedness of Africans and Europeans since West Asia is sandwiched in between Africa and Central Asia. The model assumed an out of Africa migration 100kya and a single admixture event 30kya. However, most contemporary studies have more recent dates that place the out of Africa migration 50-70kya. The study also involved a direct comparison between Sub-Saharan Africans (Central Africans and Senegalese) and Europeans. North Africans population were omitted from the study as they are known to have both Eurasian and Sub-Saharan admixture. These considerations might help explain the apparent short genetic distance between Europeans and Africans.

A later study by Bauchet, which utilised ~ 10 thousand autosomal DNA SNPs arrived at similar results. Principal component analysis clearly identified four widely dispersed groupings corresponding to Africa, Europe, Central Asia and South Asia. PC1 separated Africans from the other populations, PC2 divided Asians from Europeans and Africans, whilst PC3 split Central Asians apart from South Asians.

♥ http://en.wikipedia.org/wi ki/Genetic_history_of_Euro pe ♥

pic ♥ The distribution of the V-13 sub-lineage of haplogroup E1b1b in Europe

Esoterica: How to be a successfull Atheist

westernmystery:

• Pretend that the term “religion” actually means something from an anthropological view.
• Mix science, ontology, epistemology and metaphysics in a jumble in your arguments.
• Pretend that atheism is somehow connected with science.
• Pretend that theism always has even a remote likeness from case…