Comments on: 4,000-year-old frozen hair mtDNA sequenced from a Greenlandic Saqqaq settlement

By: The 28,000 Years Old Paglicci 23 Cro-Magnon mtDNA Ain’t Neandertal — It Is More Modern Than Anything Else « Anthropology.net

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:33:45 +0000

[...] horribly mistaken. What Caramelli et al. have done in this paper is hardly novel. I covered news of a May, 2008 paper in Science which isolated and extract mtDNA from 40,000 year old hair from [...]

By: Kambiz Kamrani

Kambiz Kamrani — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:32:47 +0000

Yeah, I know most multi-author blogs distinguish inside the blog post who authored it, but because WordPress.com is running this blog, I don’t have the ability to change this theme and add the feature. Anyways, I know that’s the case and I just wanted to clarify so there’s no confusion.

By: Luis

Luis — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:30:51 +0000

“To clarify, Dr. German Dziebel posted the second entry on this study.”

I meant “you” as in “you” (plural) :)

Anyhow, I could not find where it says who posted what. Most blogs, and specially muti-author blog state that.

“Good timeline for Eskimo cultures…”

Very nice, thanks. :)

By: Kambiz Kamrani

Kambiz Kamrani — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 04:12:37 +0000

Luis,

To clarify, Dr. German Dziebel posted the second entry on this study.

Kambiz

By: Richard Parker

Richard Parker — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:44:37 +0000

Good timeline for Eskimo cultures at: Palaeoeskimo and Neoeskimo

By: Luis

Luis — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:04:29 +0000

“Hey Luis,

Are you saying this Saqqaq culture were Dorset, or predecessors of Dorset peoples? ”

I tried yesterday to reply to this but the comment would not make it through (maybe because it included a link?). I really don’t know how old are the Dorset or how could be related to the Saqqaq but I read contradictory dates of both 1000 BCE and 2000 BCE. In the second case it would fit with your C-14 dates fully.

Anyhow, I see with pleasure that you have posted a second review of the paper’s conclusions, with interesting genetic considerations they seem to have ignored.

By: Four Stone Hearth #42 « Neuroanthropology

Four Stone Hearth #42 « Neuroanthropology — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 22:20:30 +0000

[...] almost offers too many posts to choose from, so we’ll just highlight 4,000-year-old frozen hair mtDNA sequenced from a Greenlandic Saqqaq settlement (the title pretty much explains it). Turns out that Greenlanders are not closely related to Inuit, [...]

By: 4,000-year-old frozen hair mtDNA sequenced from a Greenlandic Saqqaq settlement. Pt. II « Anthropology.net

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 17:58:33 +0000

[...] position of the mtDNA sequence uncovered from a 4,000 year-old lump of hair in Greenland. Kambiz has already reviewed this Science article, hence the readers should have a good idea of what it took to obtain this [...]

By: Luis

Luis — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 08:16:59 +0000

It seems my post didn’t make it through. :(

Anyhow, Kambiz: my real point was to say that there is a fallacy in claiming that these aDNA findings show something we did not know. We already knew that the Inuits were not the first in the American Arctic.

Now if this Saqqaq people are Dorset, proto-Dorset or pre-Dorset, I don’t know. It’s not my primary area of interest, really. But looking at one site (http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/archeo/cvh/arctic/earc7.htm), I see that they first declared Dorset to begin at c. 1000 BCE but then they claim that by 1000 CE their “culture had developed in the isolation of the Canadian Arctic over the previous 3,000 years”, what would make their initial stages be c. 2000 BCE in agreement with the C-14 dates you mention.

Can’t clarify anymore, sorry.

By: Luis

Luis — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 08:10:33 +0000

You got me with that, Kambiz. I just noticed that it was well known that Inuit were pretty recent and that some other people (Dorset) were before them – so there is some fallacy in the claim of newly discovered several waves in any case: we knew already that the Inuits were not the first ones over there. But if these are pre-Dorset, that I don’t know. It’s not like I have paid too much attention to arctic archaeology really, sorry.

Still now that I look at it I am not sure. This site (http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/archeo/cvh/arctic/earc7.htm), for instance, first argues with you that the Dorset culture began c. 1000 BCE and then says that by 1000 CE, their “culture had developed in the isolation of the Canadian Arctic over the previous 3,000 years”, what would mean a beginning c. 2000 BCE instead.

If so this would agree with your C14 dates.

But in any case I’m not the one able to clarify this point (if he Saqqaq are proto-Dorset or just pre-Dorset).