New Jeanson Book: Traced Human DNA's Big Surprise

[Tim]

Valerie, your response is more than a little tangled, and it is not clear what connection it has with my comment:

@Tim

Yes, and there is evidence that R1b arrived in Europe during the stone age , long before Jeanson’s time-frame.

Were you intending your response to be an argument against this comment? If so, then your argument must fail, as any argument must fail that contradicts the evidence (unless of course it is presenting hard evidence that itself contradicts the previous evidence).

I had also (previously) elaborated on my quoted point here:

@Tim

I would note that, even if you reject the radiometric dating of this ancient evidence (although I’ve never seen a substantive argument against it), the burials are clearly Stone Age , and so date back to earlier than the last two millennia, clearly indicating that R1b was already in Europe .

I have also provided evidence of multiple pre-Roman ethnic groups that carry the R1b haplogroup here.

There is therefore an abundance of evidence that R1b was already in Europe two millennia ago. I would also point out that you (and as far as I can tell Jeanson) have presented no evidence that it happened after this date (in the form of a migrant group from Central Asia in the last two millennia that were definitely known to have R1b in reasonably high concentrations). (It is of course possible that R1b entered Europe both before two millennia ago and after that date.)

Because of this, I will not attempt a point-by-point discussion of your reply, but will highlight a few passages that I find potentially problematical:

@thoughtful

In terms of genealogical science, almost everyone in Europe shares a common ancestor within about 600 years.

Citation please. (Also, a tighter definition of “almost everyone” is needed for this statement to be meaningful.)

@thoughtful

In terms of genealogical science, almost everyone in Europe shares a common ancestor within about 600 years. … doesn’t that mean someone ’s male line around that time could have been the ancestor of all European males today because it would take the same number of generations?

It is possible, but very very unlikely. We have a large number of ancestors from 600 years ago, but only one strict-male-line ancestor (father’s father’s … father) from that time. The chance that, out of all our ancestors from that time, our common ancestor is this one is therefore very small.

@thoughtful

I was also thinking discussing Europe and R1b is somewhat like the science of GAE, because at least one of the R1b men that is a universal genealogical ancestor will be the y-chromosome ancestor too. If Adam was a universal ancestor to everyone by 1 A.D., he was also the y-chromosome ancestor at least of Joseph, adoptive father of Jesus. Yes? No?

A problem with this statement is that GAE (at least as far as I understand it) does not state that Adam (assuming he existed) definitely was a universal ancestor of everybody by 1 AD, only that it is possible.

@thoughtful

Anyway, when I look at this and see
Western European sub-variants in the Middle Bronze age, that seems laughably early. Those seem easily A.D. era.

I’m sorry, but your personal incredulity does not make a good argument against the evidence.

Unless you can impeach this evidence – which as I stated, would require you to present hard evidence of your own that directly contradicts it (not merely arguments against the evidence), this evidence remains a fixed point around which we must all build our arguments:

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.