Kill the Economy

[OKIsItJustMe]

127. Did he say the farmers were healthier?

As for Diamond’s “name…” it appears the label “plagiarist” fits.


It’s hard for me to imagine healthy, happy hunter-gatherers looking at their short, sickly, short-lived, over-worked farmer neighbors and saying, “That’s the life for me!”

It’s hard for me to imagine an army of sickly, short-lived, brittle-boned invaders displacing a healthier, heartier, happier native population…

But, then, failures of my imagination prove nothing.


Perhaps the evidence which is used to “prove” the farmers were sickly (e.g. shorter stature) is misleading. Perhaps the farmers were simply a different (smaller) population?

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2002/october9/archeogentics.html

[font face=Serif]Stanford Report, October 9, 2002

[font size=5]Overlapping genetic and archeological evidence reveals human migration[/font]

[font size=3]By LINLEY ERIN HALL

For the first time, Stanford researchers have compared genetic patterns with archeological findings to discover that genetics can help predict with a high degree of accuracy the presence of certain artifacts. And they say the strength of this link adds credence to theories that prehistoric people migrated from the Middle East to Europe, taking both their ideas and their way of life with them.

…

The researchers’ analysis showed that a pair of mutations on the Y chromosome, called Eu9, predicted the presence of certain figurines from the Neolithic period with 88 percent accuracy and the presence of painted pottery with 80 percent accuracy. The study appeared in the September issue of Antiquity.

…

It is known that agriculture spread from the Middle East to Europe during the Neolithic period about 12,000 years ago, but for many years archeologists have debated how this occurred. Was it due to the movement of people or to the movement of ideas? Previous genetic analysis of people living today suggests a migration — that the people moved — but critics have questioned this view. The latest study reinforces evidence of a migration in which people brought their ideas and lifestyle with them.

…

The researchers found a strong correlation in their study between the Y-chromosome mutations and the presence of certain artifacts. Nonetheless, Underhill remains cautious. "No gene on the Y chromosome is going to program you to make pottery," he said. Instead, the Y-chromosome mutation pairs used in the study are simply population markers that in this case were compared to ceramics. The same mutations could be compared to many different types of artifacts.

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http://www.adelaide.edu.au/news/news42161.html

[font face=Serif][font size=5]DNA reveals origins of first European farmers[/font]
[font size=4]Wednesday, 10 November 2010[/font]

[font size=3]A team of international researchers led by ancient DNA experts from the University of Adelaide has resolved the longstanding issue of the origins of the people who introduced farming to Europe some 8000 years ago.

A detailed genetic study of one of the first farming communities in Europe, from central Germany, reveals marked similarities with populations living in the Ancient Near East (modern-day Turkey, Iraq and other countries) rather than those from Europe.

Project leader Professor Alan Cooper, Director of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD) at the University of Adelaide, says: "This overturns current thinking, which accepts that the first European farming populations were constructed largely from existing populations of hunter-gatherers, who had either rapidly learned to farm or interbred with the invaders."

…

"We have finally resolved the question of who the first farmers in Europe were - invaders with revolutionary new ideas, rather than populations of Stone Age hunter-gatherers who already existed in the area," says lead author Dr Wolfgang Haak, Senior Research Associate with ACAD at the University of Adelaide.

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