Comments on: Autosomal Resequence Data Reveal Late Stone Age Signals of Population Expansion in Sub-Saharan African Foraging and Farming Populations – PLoS ONE http://anthropology.net/2009/07/29/autosomal-resequence-data-reveal-late-stone-age-signals-of-population-expansion-in-sub-saharan-african-foraging-and-farming-populations-plos-one/ Beyond bones & stones Wed, 30 May 2012 15:52:08 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Luis http://anthropology.net/2009/07/29/autosomal-resequence-data-reveal-late-stone-age-signals-of-population-expansion-in-sub-saharan-african-foraging-and-farming-populations-plos-one/#comment-14929 Mon, 12 Oct 2009 22:50:23 +0000 http://anthropology.net/?p=2350#comment-14929 Not sure exactly which is the question. It is quite obvious that farming (Neolithic) lead to some solid population growth at least in the mid term. But what this paper emphasizes is that this growth is not detectable through genetics (probably because it is too recent), while the Paleolithic one can be detected as a genetic signature and is for real.

]]> By: dio tariang http://anthropology.net/2009/07/29/autosomal-resequence-data-reveal-late-stone-age-signals-of-population-expansion-in-sub-saharan-african-foraging-and-farming-populations-plos-one/#comment-14926 Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:27:51 +0000 http://anthropology.net/?p=2350#comment-14926 if you please clarified something more on post neolithic population growth.

]]> By: German Dziebel http://anthropology.net/2009/07/29/autosomal-resequence-data-reveal-late-stone-age-signals-of-population-expansion-in-sub-saharan-african-foraging-and-farming-populations-plos-one/#comment-14555 Tue, 04 Aug 2009 19:04:05 +0000 http://anthropology.net/?p=2350#comment-14555 Here’s an explanation for the genetic pattern observed in Africans (high levels of allele diversity, low Fst values, an excess in private polymorphisms and low linkage disequilibrium). It’s the growth of hunter-gatherer populations from 50,000 YBP on, far exceeding that found outside of Africa, an explosion comparable in scale to Holocene demographic growth that occurred in different parts of the world as a result of the invention of agriculture. Africans may not be the oldest human population, but they definitely started expanding earlier and faster than populations outside of Africa. When compared against the recent paper by Tishkoff et al., this paper by Cox et al. indicates that the opposite genetic profile observed in America and Papua New Guinea (low diversity, high divergence /Fst/, few private polymorphisms, high levels of LD) implies a rather different demographic history, with moderate population growth mixed with bottlenecks, genetic drift, lineage extinction, etc.

Since African genetic lineages (think of mtDNA L1-L3, Y-DNA A and B) aren’t found outside of Africa, it seems unlikely that African demographic expansion resulted in any significant migration outside of Africa. It’s more likely that several small populations with an ultimate source in America (or Australasia) settled in Africa and expanded exponentially. The demographic explosion detected in Africa may have obfuscated the exact geographic sources for the original migrants into Africa. However, the peculiar phenotypic similarities between Khoisans and “Mongoloids” (lighter skin color, epicanthic fold, Mongolian spot and gracial skull morphology) may be seen as concrete signs of a historical connection.

]]> By: Weekly PLoS ONE News and Blog Round-Up « everyONE – the PLoS ONE community blog http://anthropology.net/2009/07/29/autosomal-resequence-data-reveal-late-stone-age-signals-of-population-expansion-in-sub-saharan-african-foraging-and-farming-populations-plos-one/#comment-14524 Fri, 31 Jul 2009 21:56:53 +0000 http://anthropology.net/?p=2350#comment-14524 [...] In a PLoS ONE article published on Wednesday, Michael Hammer and colleagues at the University of Arizona and the University of San Francisco report new genetic evidence, which reveals that sub-Saharan populations increased in size long before the development of agriculture, supporting the theory that population growth played a significant role in the evolution of human cultures in the Late Pleistocene. The research has been highlighted by USA Today’s Science Fair blog and by Anthropology.net. [...]

]]> By: Luis http://anthropology.net/2009/07/29/autosomal-resequence-data-reveal-late-stone-age-signals-of-population-expansion-in-sub-saharan-african-foraging-and-farming-populations-plos-one/#comment-14520 Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:11:27 +0000 http://anthropology.net/?p=2350#comment-14520 It says that there are clear signals of pre-agricultural population growth in both types of populations and that the “recent” massive post-Neolithic growth is simply not detectable using genetics.

This is, I think, the really interesting part.

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