Anthropology.net

Greg Laden points to a paper by Ron Pinhasi and Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel, courtesy of PLoS ONE and which is free to access – here’s the abstract:

Background

The spread of agriculture into Europe and the ancestry of the first European farmers have been subjects of debate and controversy among geneticists, archaeologists, linguists and anthropologists. Debates have centred on the extent to which the transition was associated with the active migration of people as opposed to the diffusion of cultural practices. Recent studies have shown that patterns of human cranial shape variation can be employed as a reliable proxy for the neutral genetic relationships of human populations.

Methodology/Principal Findings

Here, we employ measurements of Mesolithic (hunter-gatherers) and Neolithic (farmers) crania from Southwest Asia and Europe to test several alternative population dispersal and hunter-farmer gene-flow models. We base our alternative hypothetical models on a null evolutionary model of isolation-by-geographic and temporal distance. Partial Mantel tests were used to assess the congruence between craniometric distance and each of the geographic model matrices, while controlling for temporal distance. Our results demonstrate that the craniometric data fit a model of continuous dispersal of people (and their genes) from Southwest Asia to Europe significantly better than a null model of cultural diffusion.

Conclusions/Significance

Therefore, this study does not support the assertion that farming in Europe solely involved the adoption of technologies and ideas from Southwest Asia by indigenous Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. Moreover, the results highlight the utility of craniometric data for assessing patterns of past population dispersal and gene flow.

Reference: Pinhasi R, von Cramon-Taubadel N (2009) Craniometric Data Supports Demic Diffusion Model for the Spread of Agriculture into Europe. PLoS ONE 4(8): e6747. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0006747

The current issue of the Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders has published an open access paper announcing the discovery of a new candidate gene linked to language, KIAA0319. The paper is titled, “Convergent genetic linkage and associations to language, speech and reading measures in families of probands with Specific Language Impairment.”

The gene sits on short arm of Chromosome 6. Through linkage analysis, it was found to be associated with variability in language abilities in a study of children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and their family members, as well as with variability in speech and reading abilities. Specific alleles were confirmed with association analysis.

“A total of 322 participants, including 86 probands, 134 siblings, and 102 parents and other relatives were tested from an ongoing longitudinal study of Specific Language Impairment… The significant results cluster in the 5’ region of KIAA0319… In particular, we replicate the associated alleles for rs4504469 (allele C); rs761100 (allele G); rs6935076 (allele T) and rs3756821 (allele A).”

It should be noted that KIAA0319 was already linked to dyslexia in previous studies. But, in this paper, the pleiotropic effects of KIAA0318 alleles on language ability, speech impairments, and text comprehension were correlated.

Rice, M., Smith, S., & Gayán, J. (2009). Convergent genetic linkage and associations to language, speech and reading measures in families of probands with Specific Language Impairment Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders DOI: 10.1007/s11689-009-9031-x

The latest edition of the anthropology blog carnival is hosted this time round at a blog with which I was previously unfamiliar, namely natures/cultures (getting with the nature fetish), and I can confidently assert that once again we have a host who has assembled an excellent and eclectic selection of news and research from the present day all the way back to the Lower Palaeolithic, that has been contributed and sourced from around the blogosphere.

The next 4SH will be on Wednesday September 9th, when Ad Hominin will host – after that date there are no hosts slated, so if you’re interested in compiling an edition at your blog or website from September 23rd onwards, please get in touch with Martin Rundkvist.

Speaking of the Johansons and fossils …

Earlier this year, I’ve blogged about the 2009 Human Evolution Leakey Symposium at Stony Brook that I went to. For more about that blog post, click here.

The symposium, entitled “Hobbit in the Haystack: Homo floresiensis and Human Evolution” can now be streamed live through the Stony Brook website. The website also includes previous Human Evolution Leakey symposia. Click here to watch.

Thanks to Afarensis: Anthropology, Evolution and Science for the heads up!

Originally posted on The Prancing Papio

Here’s the abstract to a newly published paper, the contents of which are free to access:

There is an ongoing discussion in the literature on whether human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) evolves neutrally. There have been previous claims for natural selection on human mtDNA based on an excess of non-synonymous mutations and higher evolutionary persistence of specific mitochondrial mutations in Arctic populations.

However, these findings were not supported by the reanalysis of larger datasets. Using a geographical framework, we perform the first direct test of the relative extent to which climate and past demography have shaped the current spatial distribution of mtDNA sequences worldwide. We show that populations living in colder environments have lower mitochondrial diversity and that the genetic differentiation between pairs of populations correlates with difference in temperature. These associations were unique to mtDNA; we could not find a similar pattern in any other genetic marker.

We were able to identify two correlated non-synonymous point mutations in the ND3 and ATP6 genes characterized by a clear association with temperature, which appear to be plausible targets of natural selection producing the association with climate. The same mutations have been previously shown to be associated with variation in mitochondrial pH and calcium dynamics. Our results indicate that natural selection mediated by climate has contributed to shape the current distribution of mtDNA sequences in humans.

Reference: Climate shaped the worldwide distribution of human mitochondrial DNA sequence variation by François Balloux, Lori-Jayne Lawson Handley, Thibaut Jombart, Hua Liu and Andrea Manica,

Published online before print July 8, 2009, doi: 10.1098/rspb.2009.0752

Scientific American recently published a spineless attack on the state of access to paleoanthropological specimens. They titled it, “Fossils for All: Science Suffers by Hoarding,” and John Hawks lend it credibility with a nod in his post. Aside from being spineless, it reeks of ignorance and is tactless. In this post I’ll be discussing why this is not a honest criticism but rather a sloppy slam.

If you read the piece, you’ll notice that Tim White is in the cross hairs of the editors of Scientific American. Why? Tim White discovered Ardi­pithecus ramidus fifteen years ago and continues preparing the specimens. For the editors, that’s enough to pull the guns out and start shooting — claiming he’s sitting on his golden egg far too long and damaging the field as a whole. The cowards at Scientifc American decided to make this bold claim behind a wall of anonymity… publishing this piece simply as the editors. And here in lies the drama and the conflicts of interest.

See, most anthropological editorials on Scientific American are authored by Kate Wong, a twelve year veteran editor for magazine. She is their anthropology editor. Her authority on the subject matter come from a Bachelor’s degree in physical anthropology and zoology from the University of Michigan. University of Michigan is home to Milford Wolpoff, the man who supports multiregional evolution hypothesis… You know the one that claims the origins of Homo sapiens happened in multiple places around the world and not from a common African origin. He’s known for not being a field scientist. Furthermore, within the discipline, the rift between Wolpoff and White is pretty well known and deep. White got his PhD from the University of Michigan. And Wolpoff holds a ~50 year grudge against White in regards to his stance against his single species origin of humans.

Wong has worked closely with another large anti-Tim White camp, the Hadar folks, during the lead up to the Selam news frenzy that we talked about several years ago. The Hadar camp is more or less a Donald Johanson territory as he was there when Lucy was discovered and published the findings. Where Wong may not have an immediate connection to Wolpoff, aside from earning her Bachelor’s from the department Wolpoff teaches in, she does have a clear one with Johanson. She was a coauthor with Donald Johanson on a book published this year, Lucy’s Legacy.

As you may know, there’s also sour grapes shared shared between Johanson and White. I won’t get into those details… But its clearly out there and is exemplified by a passage in Lucy’s Legacy,

“Tim is a very exacting scientist who is not about to be pressured into saying more about ramidus until he is good and ready. But his unwillingness to share more information about the fossils – not to mention access to the remains themselves – in a much more timely way has drawn criticism. (So secretive are he and his team about the fossil that it has been referred to as the Manhattan Project of paleoanthropology.) In fact, spurred in part by Tim’s actions, some researchers have even proposed that funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation establish a limitation on how long the discoverer of a fossil has exclusive access to that material before having to share it with other investigators.” p. 155-156 Lucy’s Legacy

There’s no way to know if Johanson or Wong wrote this particular passage but they both share authorship and royalities of the book and ultimately agree on the points raised in the text.

This is a clear conflict of interest for Scientific American and their anthropological editor, Kate Wong. As an editor of Scientific American, for Wong to be an author of a book which conveys the same criticisms as published under anonymity in their magazine and on their website, shows that she exploited her professional capacity for personal benefit.

In addition to egregious political move by Scientific American, the piece is ignorant of the whole process involved in finding, cleaning, documenting a fossil. Fossils don’t come out of the ground perfect. Believe me, I know. Some of the time these findings are as delicate as a ball of dust and require a great deal of care to preserve them during which time it is the primary investigator/discoverer’s responsibility and privilege.  I’ve actually discussed this before, very thoroughly in this comment thread.

For the editors and other supporters to suggest there should be a limit to how long it takes to prepare a fossil show how they really have no idea to what it takes to curate a fossil. There’s no way to put a time limit on this process. Aside from a select few, most field scientists are professors at universities. Again, as I’ve said before, their time in the field is limited, several months a year, of which time is split between finding new fossils and curating old ones. Field scientists, like White, can’t leave their teaching positions at places like UC Berkeley and dedicate years to preparing the specimen. They do as much as they can and they do it with quality. The Middle Awash, White’s stomping ground, has an impressive record of impactful, frequent fossil discoveries and publications which can’t really be said for Wolpoff and Johanson.

You may consider this a defense of White. I admit this is. This was a shameless jab at White and a despicable, cowardly, and haphazard move by Scientific American. Science is not about quantity. I shouldn’t have to tell freaking Scientific American that. Science is about quality. Editorials like this don’t advance the field. They completely ignore that science is a process and not a product. In doing so they damage the discipline.

One last thing… To the editors of Scientific American, grow some balls next time you wanna put out crap like this and publish your full names along side your criticism. Stand behind your words.

Here’s the abstract of a recent paper by Torben C. Rick and Jon M. Erlandson:

The development and spread of agriculture and pastoralism during the past 10,000 years is often seen as the tipping point when humans fundamentally changed our relationship with the natural world. Ancient hunter-gatherers also altered their environments, although the extent to which they did so remains hotly debated (1–3). Hunter-gatherers may have caused major alterations of terrestrial ecosystems, including the use of fire to enhance resource productivity and the translocation of various animals to new regions (3, 4). They are implicated in massive megafaunal extinctions in the Americas and Australia (2, 3). Recent archaeological research from coastal areas shows that they also substantially altered and enhanced marine ecosystems in other ways, some of which obscure the definition of the term “hunter-gatherer.”

And although the rest of the paper is behind a paywall, NPR offer some further discussion here.

Reference: Anthropology Coastal Exploitation     Torben C. Rick and Jon M. Erlandson (21 August 2009)     Science 325 (5943), 952. [DOI: 10.1126/science.1178539]     How did ancient hunter-gatherers influence coastal environments?

News from Orkneyjar, which reports on a remarkable find by archaeologist Jakob Kainz, who recently discovered a carved sandstone representation of a round human face atop a lozenge-shaped body, as depicted here. Measuring 3 cm by 3.5 cm, this tiny artefact is apparently one of only three such items dating to the Neolithic ever found in Britain, though whether this was intended to portray a human alive at the time, or symbolised something else, such as a deity, has yet to be determined. This from the linked article:

Richard Strachan, project manager and senior archaeologist with the Historic Scotland cultural resources team, explained how the discovery was made.  “The find was made by archaeologist, Jakob Kainz. It looked like the stone had been carved. As some of the mud crumbled off he saw an eye, then another and a nose, then a whole face staring back.

“It was one of those “eureka” moments. None of the archaeology team have seen anything like it before, it’s incredibly exciting. The discovery of a Neolithic carving of a human was quite a moment for everyone to share in.”

The find was made on the site of what had once been a farmhouse, and there is speculation that because this is such a fine example of Neolithic craftsmanship, it was unlikely to have been discarded as rubbish, leaving archaeologists to speculate whether it was unintentionally lost or deliberately secreted away on the site.

Here’s a link to a recent paper published by Michael Richards and Erik Trinkaus, in which they propose that isotopic analyses of early modern human remains indicate a broader dietary range than Neanderthals, with the specific suggestion that European EMH supplemented their food intake with items such as freshwater fish, whilst European Neanderthals obtained almost all their meat from herbivores. Here’s the abstract:

We report here on the direct isotopic evidence for Neanderthal and early modern human diets in Europe. Isotopic methods indicate the sources of dietary protein over many years of life, and show that Neanderthals had a similar diet through time (≈120,000 to ≈37,000 cal BP) and in different regions of Europe. The isotopic evidence indicates that in all cases Neanderthals were top-level carnivores and obtained all, or most, of their dietary protein from large herbivores. In contrast, early modern humans (≈40,000 to ≈27,000 cal BP) exhibited a wider range of isotopic values, and a number of individuals had evidence for the consumption of aquatic (marine and freshwater) resources. This pattern includes Oase 1, the oldest directly dated modern human in Europe (≈40,000 cal BP) with the highest nitrogen isotope value of all of the humans studied, likely because of freshwater fish consumption. As Oase 1 was close in time to the last Neanderthals, these data may indicate a significant dietary shift associated with the changing population dynamics of modern human emergence in Europe.

The rest of the paper is available here as a PDF.

Reference: Published online before print August 11, 2009, doi: 10.1073/pnas.0903821106 Isotopic Evidence for the Diets of European Neanderthals and Early Modern Humans by Michael P. Richards and  Erik Trinkaus

Link

I’ll be away from my desk for another week or so yet, but in the meantime here’s a quick heads-up to a programme airing in the US on the National Geographic Channel, on Sunday August 30th at 9 pm ET/PT, of which this is a brief description from NGC:

On a single day on a single street, with the DNA of just a couple of hundred random people, National Geographic Channel sets out to trace the ancestral footsteps of all humanity. Narrated by Kevin Bacon, The Human Family Tree travels to one of the most diverse corners of the world — Queens, N.Y. — to demonstrate how we all share common ancestors who embarked on very different journeys. Regardless of race, nationality or religion, all of us can trace our ancient origin back to the cradle of humanity, East Africa. What did our collective journey look like, and where did it take your specific ancestors? At what point in our past did we first cross paths with the supposed strangers living in our neighborhood? Now, in The Human Family Tree, the people of this quintessential American melting pot find out that their connections go much deeper than a common ZIP code.

There’s a video teaser, “Human Family Tree – Preview” – By studying the DNA of random people on a New York street, scientists prove we are all cousins in the family of man, and another video clip offers an insight into the origins of the First Americans.

Mention too is made to the Hadzabe tribe of Tanzania, as we see from this:

Hollowed Baobab tree trunks are traditionally used as places where Hadzabe give birth. The Hadzabe, who live about 15-hundred miles north of the San near Tanzania’s Serengeti, represent one of the first branches in the human family tree. They split from the founding population (the San) around 150,000 years ago. Today the Hadzabe are one of the last groups of hunter-gatherers on Earth.

The image at top depicts just such a Baobab tree. (photo credit © NGT/Chad Cohen).

Moreover, there are many other features at the dedicated site, whereby readers can:

* Meet the participants featured in Human Family Tree.     * Meet Spencer Wells, Director of the Genographic Project.     * Learn more about the Genographic Project, and get the latest updates from the Project Team.     * Check out the Time Line of Human Migration and interact with the Atlas of the Human Journey.     * Get the facts about our ancient ancestors.

As I’m blogging this via an internet cafe, I haven’t the time or battery life right now to check out all these features, but I hope nevertheless they will be of interest to all online, and hopefully the programme itself, airing only in the US, will become available in Europe at some later date.