ANTH Exam 2
the relation of pre-Clovis to Clovis
Pre-Clovis archaeological record does not look like Clovis at all but they are several thousand years apart which may explain the difference. Hard to determine the relationship between pre Clovis and Clovis. More archaeological sites would help resolve this issue.
language isolate
A language that belongs to no known language family i.e. languages that have nothing in common with any other language
masking admixed segments
method goes to European DNA and hides it so can look at the other DNA.
criticisms of Greenberg
1) Method inadequate in demonstrating linguistic linkages since it relies too heavily on word similarities and ignores grammar and sound correspondences 2) language data used by Greenberg are full of errors i.e. many languages are known only for a few words and many compromised by borrowed words 3) method is superficial - many languages are being compared in a limited way. Since similarity criteria are lax, it is easier to find similarities 4) Greenberg says his methods reduces the likelihood of chance similarities but in fact, compounds the problem since they are a finite amount of word possibilities thus increasing the odds of chance resemblances 5) results are internally inconsistent i.e. languages are changing at different rates when they should not be 6) errors in the word lists and problems with his technique were compounded owing to how little attention Greenberg paid to other aspects of language such as grammar, sound, meaning
Pecos Pueblo cranial types, according to Hooton
1) basketmaker (dolichocephilac) 2) pseudo-negroid (dolichocephilac) 3) pseudo-australoid (dolichocephilac) 4) Plains Indian (mesocephalic) 5) Long-faced European (brachycephalic) 6) Pseudo-Alpine (brachycephalic) 7) Large Hybrid (brachycephalic)
traditional historical linguistics - know the basis of the method, the key roles played by cognates, sound correspondences, and language reconstructions, and how far back traditional historical linguists think it possible to detect ancestral languages
1) examine languages 1 & 2 for cognates, sound correspondences, grammatical similarities, etc 2) identify core elements shared by related languages and hypothesize structure of proto-language 3) test proto-language by looking for hypothesized sounds/words in ancient texts (if available) 4) repeat the process with the next language to see if it can be joined with previous languages to create a family they argue that language change occurs so that vestiges of original language will be erased cognates - words alike in meaning and sound are basically evidence that languages are related consistency gives you the best evidence that cognates show descendant words should change immediately
site: Arch Lake (New Mexico)
11,500 calibrated, contains third oldest remains in the USA, a female skeleton
Anzick (Montana) ancient genome: indication of deep branching between Northern Native Americans (NNA) and Southern Native Americans (SNA)
12,782 cal years ago, Anzick is related to all indigenous Native Americans but more so to southern populations than northern ones which is interesting because is in Montana. Had fluted points at the site as well
Samuel Morton and the origins of craniometrics in America
1799-1851: had people send him crania of Native Americans where he amassed 1,000 skulls. He noticed that the crania were different from other species which then prompted him to studied their cranial capacity. However, he gathered unreliable data due to his methods of measuring. Slaveowners used his data to justify their enslavement of Africans.
learning in real time, and its 'increase' across groups and through time via information sharing
200 years to 1000 years for four people to learn a new landscape. Gathering info each generation and building upon previous info. Information decay - human brains cannot carry info for centuries at the level of detail of when you have instrument records i.e. causes people to forget things. Example - Dust Bowl.
Turner's dental prehistory of Americas: how many groups? how many migrations?
3 dental groups, Amerind, Na-Dene, and Eskimo-Aleut, which represent 3 different migrations. He suggests that Na-Dene came last in the migration waves.
similarities of autosomal sequences worldwide
99.9%
advantages / disadvantages of using teeth to derive population histories
Advantages: 1) mostly likely to survive in fossil records, 2) teeth vary in crown structure, # of roots, and have 30 dental traits which evolve over time but slowly 3) inherited trait so teeth from one group could be different from another group Disadvantages: harder to differentiate groups, everyone has some % of shared dental traits, some dental traits are undetermined due to not being attributed to a population
advantages / disadvantages of using skulls to derive population histories
Advantages: could help in determining effects of practices on the body? Disadvantages: hard to determine which ones have common ancestors due to convergence, data inconsistent and unreliable, skeletal variation due to geography, cultural practices, time
consistency of MMD values between dental sample groups
Aleut teeth were more similar to Na-Dene teeth showing groupings were sloppy for Turner.. Turner therefore jammed dental groups/populations into linguistic groups which don't work.
know size and distribution of Greenberg's language families, and how he infers from these parameters their presumed antiquity and order of their migrations to America
Amerind - all 928 languages share cognates, the grammatic similarity which is n&m patter of identifying first-person pronouns Internal differentiation within each language family gives a measure of how long each was isolated i.e. more heterogeneous the family, the longer they have spent apart. This, therefore, assumes diversity equals time. They have similarities to Old World languages. Those that left Siberia the earliest have the least affinities to Siberian languages. Therefore, Old World languages inversely related to time. Geographic distance/extent is proportional to time. He connected Clovis and Amerind in time so he concluded Na-Dene the 2nd oldest. He estimated that Eskimo-Aleut was the least differentiated of the families and 3rd oldest due to its similarity to Siberian populations so 4,000-5,000 years old.
what ancient genomics can and cannot reveal
Ancient genomics tells us about population history, size, structure, admixture, continuity/discontinuity, adaptations, and ancient disease. Ancient genomics does not answer the broad questions of how and why - why was there a proliferation of groups in NE Asia during LGM, why did groups move across Beringia and how were they able to cope with its harsh environments, why did they diverge in Beringia, why did ancestral Native Americans and not ANcient Beringians move south? How did they successfully traverse the route taken? How did they adapt? What factors were behind the movement?
limits to anthropological versus archaeological evidence for people on new landscapes
Anthropological data - No written records about moving into a previously unoccupied landscape. Archaeological only can look at the artifacts and infer. Archaeological data - we have very little data on how it was for early humans due to scarcity of sites and skeletal remains. The limits are about the same.
Paleoamericans vs. modern Native Americans: what are the differences, suspected regions of origin, reliability of groupings
Brace: they are 2 broad groups - Eurasian and Mongolian. Nieves: Paleoamerican and Mongolian. Jantz and Owley are Type 1 and Type 2 Monogolian. Steele and Powell found Type 1 (South American and North American) and Type 2 (Mongolian). They all agreed there are two separate migrations due to their differences skeletally.
Beringian Standstill Hypothesis - as inferred from haplotypes with haplogroup C (i.e. C1a restricted to Asian populations, C1b-C1 d found in all Native American groups)
C haplotypes diversifed. Had to be somewhere for some time to diversify into C1b, C1c, and C1d. Not everyone went into America after Beringia Standstill. The difference between ancient Beringians and ancestral Native Americans are considerable. Beringians stopped and did not move past Alaska. Indicating a genetic split in Siberia.
Amerind debate of Campbell versus Greenberg
Campbell is a traditional historical linguist where he details out the critique that are listed in powerpoint. They are coming from different standpoint. Heart of this debate is what constitutes a language family in the Americas.
migration versus diffusion, as explanations for the spread of Clovis
Clovis is all over the place in a quick amount of time. How do we explain this? Migration - Clovis migrated really quickly across the Americas Diffusion - Clovis is a descendent of pre-Clovis people so Clovis is a spread/diffusion of a idea. If it was already a diffusion of a technology, there was already a expansive population throughout America. Indicating they are a lot of people we have not found in archaeology
continuity versus discontinuity in the population history of the Americas
Continuity over time in some places and not in other places. Discontinuities occur when 1) a group disappears and 2) when a group simply moves from a place to another.
know basic genetics: autosomes (chromosomes 1-22) and sex chromosomes (chromosome 23); DNA (its function); nucleotides (= base pairs); genome
DNA contained in chromosomes. Its function is the long-term storage of information. DNA also contains the genetic instructions for the development and function of a living thing. Sugar, base, phosphate form a nucleotide. These all form a strand that creates a genome. 3.2 billion nucleotide pairs in the human genome. They are like letters on a page that forms a book. Genes are segments that stretch and are responsible for coding info for your body. They are a smaller part of your genome. 20 different amino acids responsible for replicating, regulating, and ensuring the function of cell. 1-22 chromosomes are autosomes and inherited from both parents.
DNA reference sequences (e.g. rCRS or revised Cambridge Reference Sequence)
DNA reference sequences - NA reference sequences - Compare sequences to that one thing - move letters up sequence until there is a match.
America's Civil War (1861-1865) and Charles Darwin's Origin of Species (1859) - influence on views of types ('races') of people
Darwin identified that species is a changing, continuous process. Types of humans are temporary dimensions and can change, meaning there are no races. However, people took his findings and skewed them. They continue to sort people into groups in pursuit of justifying their racism.
typological thinking versus population thinking
Darwin rejected the idea of typological thinking - groups are distinguished by particular attributes and those attributes are unchanging. He believed in population thinking where populations change across time and space where there is no criteria and a lot of variation.
demic expansion versus leap frogging
Demic expansion - population increases, becomes unstable, not enough resources so it moves down the line i.e. turns into string of pearls model Leap frog model - geographic curiosity, going fairly good distances at one shot or another. More realistic due to distribution of artifacts is very spotty. Early settlement was not broad but not deep.
key northeast Asian and Alaskan sites: Yana and Diuktai (Russia), Swan Point and Upward Sun River (Alaska)
Diuktai - has a stone tool tech that makes its way across the land bridge. Swan Point - microblade tech found here Upward Sun River - has Ancient Beringinian DNA, has microblades but not exactly like Swan Point, closely related to Native Americans throughout North and South America, some genetic connection to Siberia but gradually gets colder. Genome is genetically equidistant to both northern and southern SNA branches of Native Americans implying the latter were a single group while still in Alaska.
cranial plasticity and causes of variation in skulls: environmental adaptations, evolutionary processes, cultural practices, growth & development
Environmental adaptation - Bones in the ground tend to get warped and the weight of the earth distorts the bones. Cranial variation within a group is greater than cranial variation between groups Difficult to determine if crania is different and unique from other populations Crania can be morphologically plastic so can easily be altered by different phenomena such as changing climates and environments, isolation and genetic drift, gene flow, cultural practices such as diet and cooking, and growth and development such as effects of disease
differences in geographic distribution, diversity, etc. of the Eskimo-Aleut vs. Algic language families: what does this reveal of their histories?
Eskimo-Aleut group are able to understand each other's languages which suggest rapid movement across recently. Algic's geographic extent is high as well as Eskimo-Aleut's. Algic has high amount of diversification while Eskimo-Aleut's is low. The mutual intelligibility for Eskimo-Aleut is high while for Algic it is low. The antiquity for Algic is high while Eskimo-Aleut is recent. These patterns may mean that these two language families are not related.
mutations, especially single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that produce variants (alleles)
Every generation is where mutations occur. SNPs are a replacement of one letter for another letter which creates variations or mutations throughout the generations. Mutations occur about every 1,000. Mutations over time allow for us to evolve.
Native American population history from modern genomic sequences
First genomic study based on present day Native Americans came from USA but was from South American genomes.
Ideal Free Distribution Model - but how are the most suitable habitats found?
For hunter gatherers, people will head to the best place then move once it turns into not the best place for them to inhabit. However, once you get past the ice sheet, you don't know where the ideal habitat is. So this model doesn't work well but it does make us think about how individuals move around.
molecular clocks
Genetic distance and rate = genetic time of when they diverged i.e. molecular clock.
timing, possible geographic locations, and potential causes of ancestral Native American splits from Asian groups, between Ancient Beringians (Upward Sun River, Alaska) and Ancestral Native Americans, and between Northern Native Americans (NNA) and Southern Native Americans (SNA), and within the Southern Native American as they moved south
Genetic splits between ancient Beringians and Paleoamericans occurred during the LGM which may showed difficulty of environment that may have forced them to isolate. AB spit was roughly 21 ka North Native American and South Native American split was 15.7 ka Glacial ice disappeared around 15.1 kya
relationship of mtDNA haplogroups to Greenberg's linguistic families
Geneticists in 1980s thought that haplogroups A through C largely aligned with Greenberg's language groups. This thinking did not persist due to the discovery that all Native Americans have a mixture of 3 different haplogroups.
Joseph Greenberg's language families: Amerind, Na-Dene, Eskimo-Aleut
Greenberg lumped over 1000 languages into 3 families - Amerind, Na-Dene, Eskimo-Aleut
Africa fallacy
Greenberg though he was right due to his supposed success with African languages
haplogroup versus haplotype
Haplogroup = a broad category, lineage of mtDNA and Y chromosome Haplotype = a type within the lineage Haplotypes can disappear within a region while haplogroups cannot. All haplogroups can be traced back to Africa as in can be traced back to one woman and one man. The vast majority of genomes, however, are not inherited from them.
Native American mtDNA founding haplogroups: A-D & X
Haplogroup A, B, and C - discovered in Native American groups in the mtDNA. Haplogroup X came along in 1990s which did not appear in Siberia but in Western Europe. This haplogroup X is found in Native American populations but they found haplogroups X in Siberia. Unfortunately, this meant some archaeologists thought this meant Europeans went into North America. Haplogroup C1 - found in Asia and North America, within it you have distinctive haplotypes (C1b, C1c, C1d). C1 splits where haplotypes show the differences between Asian and North American populations. All Native Americans have these haplotypes before going to the Americas. We know this because these haplotypes are found throughout the Americas.
challenges to replicating Turner's analyses of dental data and groupings
He used newer teeth versus older teeth since we do not have access to a reliable skeletal sample.
Greenberg's 'non-linguistic' defense
His model best fits the dental and cranial genetic data. They are relate in terms of determining that there were three migrations.
risk (playing the odds) versus uncertainty (not being able to estimate the odds)
Hunter gatherers can deal with risk but not uncertainty.
return rates -ranking the cost/benefit of prey types (e.g. bison versus prairie dogs)
Hunter gatherers had a wide range of food - based their adaptive strategy on return rates (cost benefit of going after a certain species, what are the higher rank = most benefit with the less cost)
origins of haplogroup X - Siberia or western Europe
In Siberia and Western Europe Haplogroup X came along in 1990s which did not appear in Siberia but in Western Europe. This haplogroup X is found in Native American populations but they found haplogroups X in Siberia. Unfortunately, this meant some archaeologists thought this meant Europeans went into North America.
Kennewick (Washington) genome - relationship to present day Indigenous groups
Jelderko 2000 and Gould et al 2004 were court cases. Due to Kennewick's unusual crania which was unlike current Native American skulls, scientists were allowed to study it and take DNA samples. This allowed them to determine that Kennewick was related to current Native Americans in the area through ancient dna in the metacarpal.
genes versus noncoding DNA
Junk DNA aka noncoding DNA are not affected by natural selection and change over time. If you change this type of DNA you affect other parts of the DNA. These changes happen regularly and normally over time. Genes - a gene encodes a message (RNA) to build a protein to enable form & function that regulates. Genes are segments that stretch and are responsible for coding info for your body. They are a smaller part of your genome. 20 different amino acids responsible for replicating, regulating, and ensuring the function of cell.
genomic affinities of Paleoamericans to present day Indigenous groups
Kennewick has genetic relation to Native Americans living in his area today. All genomic sequences that have been done on Paleoamericans align with the fact are that they all were Native Americans and not from other origins. Genomic affinities are in Americas but some close relations to Siberia and East Asia
sites: Lagoa Santa region and Luzia (Brazil); Spirit Cave (Nevada), Kennewick (Washington)
Lagoa Santa, Brazil - yielded dozens of human crania, found a 12,000 yr woman skull, Walter though she was more closely related to Africans and not Native Americans. nothing northern of this has a Austro-Asian signal Spirit Cave, Nevada - dated to be more than 10,000 years old, it was similar to those in Japan Kennewick Man (the Ancient One) - WA, shape of skull is thought to be European, one of the most complete skeletons, projectile point in the rear end, radiocarbon date was 8400 years old
Indo-European language family
Largest language family that includes English and most other languages in the Western Hemisphere. Also used in South and Southwest Asia. All languages in Eurasia show traces back to Indo European
radical historical linguistics - know the basis of the method (multilateral or mass comparison), and how far back radical historical linguists think it possible to detect ancestral languages
Method: 1) examine as many languages as possible simultaneously to see how they are similar they are on a list of roughly 300 words and grammatical markers 2) assume similar languages are related and a part of the same language family Some radical linguists reconstruct deep history of language going back 100 kya
number of groups coming in to the Americas as part of the original population movement
Multiple populations in Beringia so one or more people could have come to America
colonization failure - how likely?
On a diverse and unfamiliar landscape, the risk of extinction is greatest especially when your #s and growth rates are low. Once you settle in a landscape, you will be more successful. On a landscape for survival, you have to do a # of things simultaneously i.e. compromise since this is a zero-sum game.
recombination in autosomal DNA
Parents' autosomal DNA creates yours where you have 50% of both. At reproduction, the genetic code gets passed down through the generations. The chopping up of chromosomes every generation provides a clock for dating mixture events
timing of the peopling of Americas, as determined by archaeological and genetic evidence, and what this indicates of available routes to Alaska, then south of the continental ice sheets
People are coming here around 24,000 years ago but we do not know exactly what route they took. Charlie Lake Cave - 10,550 BP is the oldest site up there but does not indicate a trail to North America Scenario A: divergence in northeast Asia fits the archaeological evidence as the earliest well-dated sites in Beringia are no older than 15-14 kya, and the LGM period is unlikely to be associated with northward expanding populations Scenario B: divergence in eastern Beringia is genetically most parsimonious, given evidence of post 20 kya gene flow between Ancient Beringians and NNA & SNA suggesting geographical proximity and that all form a clade isolated from Old World groups after 24kya. Initial entry is 15 kya but the earliest possible site is Monte Verde. The threshold for archaeological visibility is Clovis. earliest PCR was open was 17 ky but biologically viable around 16 ky.
relationship between resource rank and body size
Resource rank correlated with size i.e. meat per pound effort. Resource rating has a limit due to dangerous animals but a small animal may be a higher resource rating due to easier access, nutritional value, and so on like grasshoppers
spatial scale of learning (begins at large [megapatch] and goes to small [individual patches]) versus temporal scale (begins with short-term [weather] and goes to longer periods [climate])
Scales - goes from daily foraging activities & specialized task group activities & learning about the weather to annual/seasonal climate change and annual foraging round then to aggregation & exchange and continental colonization with global climate change. For staying - involves if current tech can be used for new resources or if average return rates are low enough to favor long patch residents' times
dental evidence versus cranial evidence
Scholars that study crania conflict with dental scholars in terms of migration. Area of origin for teeth is Northeast Asia while for Crania it is in Southeast Asia Earliest peoples by region of origin for teeth is NE Asians and for Crania it is Paleoamericans/SE Asians in the Pleistocene followed in the Holocene by East Asians Population continuity in teeth - Yes Population continuity in crania - No
what do colonizers need to survive on a new landscape, short term and long term
Short term: food/water, shelter, fuel for fire, cooking, stone and other materials, and medicinal supplies Long term: maps of landscape (where do you move), knowledge of permanent and impermanent weather and climate
the challenge to pin-pointing where in northeast Asia the first Americans originated
Siberia has not been fully explored so more sites need to be found in order to gain progress on this issue of origins. USSR/Communism inhibited scientists from researching extensively in this region.
Sundadonty versus Sinodonty; Asian Sinodonty versus American Sinodonty
Sinodont emerges first then Sindonty diverges from it. But no Sundadonts made it into the Americas. Christy named everyone in the Americas as Sinodonts. Turner identified different patterns in American Sinodonts: higher frequencies of Carabelli's cusp, double shoveling, and protostylid. general Sinodonty pattern: shoveling, winging, 3 rooted 1st lower molars, lower frequency of Carabelli's cusp, y-groove pattern hypocone, and 4-cusp lower 2nd molars American Sinodonty: general Sinodont pattern but different from all Sinodonts in higher frequencies of Carabelli's cusp, double shoveling, protostylid, lower frequencies of 3 rooted lower 1st molars and y grooves
craniometric patterns in ancient and modern skulls in the Americas
Skeletal patterns vary across time and within populations therefore it is difficult to discern the ancestry or connection of certain populations
skeletal evidence from ancient North America: the few, the fragmentary, the unrepresentative - how reliable a sample do we have?
Skeleton material from North Americas is a tinier sample. A couple dozen sites are older than 8,000 BP. Skeletons are hard to find due to mobile groups. Native Americans did not practice cemeteries until they settled down so they just put bodies wherever. Only has 2 dozen bones from Americas
relationship of Australasians to Paleoamericans
Skoglund and others thought that odd paleoamerican skulls could have been the result of austro-asian group. However, that was wrong since Meltzer posted a paper that found no indication of Austro-Asian in Paleoamericans
Population Y or Australasian genetic signal
Skoglund found a faint signal of Austro-Asians in a current group in South America where they said it may be a ghost population or structured population (ancestry from different elements). The signal is still lurking out there since it was found at Lagoa Santa and Karitiana.
presumed Asia source area for mtDNA and Y chromosome haplogroups - valid or not?
Some geneticists thought that Altai region is where Native Americans have come from. However, wrong notion since this is based on current populations that live there. This may have changed due to human migration.
Kennewick as Caucasoid
Some scientists have thought that Kennewick is descended from Europeans which would justify the theory that Europeans came to America first. James Chalters believed he was a Caucasoid.
relationship between group size, age and sex composition, and survivorship
Survival chances good - group size relatively large, high birth rate, low death rate, balanced sex ratio, age groups are many in early prime reproductive age Survival chances poor - relative small group size, low birth rate, high death rate, unbalanced sex ratio, age groups wise - few in early prime reproductive age
effect of natural selection on teeth
Teeth will be slower to react to an environment than crania, not change due to environmental change
conditions of preservation and challenges of contamination of ancient DNA
The environment the skeleton is found in dictates how the ancient DNA will be preserved. Preservation is not time dependent. DNA best preserves in teeth and the inner ear bone. Ancient DNA will fragment into tiny chucks and change chemically. This can be used to understand contamination.
most recent common ancestor (MRCA)
The most recent individual from which a set of organisms are descended. MRCAs are estimated from genetic data and are different for different loci
microblades and microcores - how does their spread into Alaska relate to the original peopling of the Americas, pre-Clovis and Clovis, and to groups identified in ancient DNA
The movement of microblades and microcores may represent the move of ancient Beringians to Alaska suggesting that ancient Beringians came late and after ancient Paleoamericans came to America. This indicates that they must have left after the tech arrived.
Ascertainment bias
The situation in which individuals or families in a genetic study are not representative of the general population because of the way in which they are identified. This occurs with fishing with SNP chips.
consistency of dentochronological estimates for split times between dental sample groups
The split between Sundonty and Sindonty is made later than Sinodonty and Amerind. Therefore, Turner's results do not affirm Greenberg.
Siberian and Asian ancestry of Native Americans from ancient genomes - relationship to individuals sequenced from sites of Tianyuan (China), Yana (Russia), and Mal'ta (Russia)
Tianyuan - 40 kya, East Asian, diverges into Ancient North Siberians which includes Yana stemmed from them. Malta is also related because of later branches off into Ancient Eurasians. From Yang et al, depicts from Tianyuan a split into present-day East Asians and present-day Native Americans Yana - affinities are with European populations and Native Americans. mtDNA is group U where found in Europe. Y Chromosome is P1 which is the ancestor of Q that eventually goes to North America. Autosomal DNA goes both ways. Found tools which could mean potentially connection to Clovis We do not have a Y Chromosome Native American descent but we do get a signal from Malta. MtDNA for Malta is closely related to Europe, Northern Africa, and some parts of Asia while the Y chromosome is Western Europe and various parts of Asia. On the heat map, it is extremely closely related to Native Americans. 40% of the Native American population is coming from what Malta represents. The rest of the population is from East Asians. Up in East Asia, gene split into Paleosiberians and Paleoamericans which they will both receive genetic info from Malta. Native Americans are Asian in origin. all evidence points to this conclusion.
variants and groups within American Sinodonty
Turner estimated that Amerind were most distinctive. He had 3 separate dental groups like Greenberg called Amerind, Na-Dene, and Eskimo-Aleut. He says they represent 3 different migrations. Turner believed that Na-Dene is a hybrid of Eskimo-Aleut and Amerind.
dentochronology (split times of dental sample groups, using globally-averaged rate of dental change x MMD [where global averaged rate = MMD between known groups/time since those known groups split])
Turner took Asian and Native American teeth and puts it x over time which turns into the global rate of divergence. This allowed him to determine absolute dates and calculate mutation rates.
Indigenous languages of the Amer icas - estimated original number, current number, families, isolates (have general sense - you don't need to memorize exact numbers)
We do not know number of original languages in the Americas before 1492. By 2013, 130 Native American languags are spoken
population bottleneck effect
When for some reason a huge portion of the population die. The remaining population may not possess the same allele frequencies as the original population. The consequences of such a population bottle neck would be evolution through genetic drift.
uniparental inheritance / single-locus markers
When offspring inherit their genotype from only one parent, this is known as uniparental inheritance.
Patch Choice Model and the Marginal Value Theorem: time in patch and distance to next patch
When patches of equal return are nearby (travel time shorter) forager spends less time in the initial patch before moving. When patches of equal return are distant (travel time longer), forager spends more time in the initial patch before moving. Patch Choice Model: assumes you know something about the region Marginal Value Theorem: 2 takeaways 1) return rate of a environment 2) have to make decisions based on how far you have to go and what is the cost
resource depression and mobility as a hunter-gatherer 'insurance' policy
adaptive insurance: insurance is knowing where you go next when things go badly, it is not knowing what you right in front of you right now. Resource depression - when preferred prey decline, then you have resource depression where you cannot find your higher rating resources
Population History
archaeology has never been good at population history. Disciplines we went over to answer questions about population history. They will all tell us about detailness of colonization of Americas Umbrella term for understanding continuity, admixture, movement of Native Americans.
autosomal DNA as indicator of time elapsed since MRCA and of population size
as we look back in time, we can see that your individual genome is nonetheless derived from an ever increasing number of ancestral segments - far more than your one Y MRCA and one mtDNA MRCA.
Diet Breadth Model: relative measures of search time and processing time; specialized diet (narrow diet breadth) versus generalized diet
as you add to the diet, more processing time. The ultimate diet is where processing time and search time overlap/hit each other. The model assumes hunter gatherers know the geography , the resources, and so on
autosomal DNA (= genomic sequences): mutations, recombination, inheritance over time
autosomal DNA is the noncoding part of the genome. From chromosomes 1 - 22. Size of molecule = 3.2 billion base pairs, segment analyzed is whole genomes and known polymorphisms (SNPs), types of mutations are SNPS, insertion/deletions, mutation rate varies, mode of inheritance is from both parents via recombination. Potential ancestors are 100s-1000s though declines with time. It is too soon to tell the founding lineages in America
differences between mtDNA, Y chromosome D NA and autosomal DNA, and what each reveals about human population history (Mal'ta and Neanderthal examples)
autosomal info yields a larger, more holistic info about relationship of populations i.e. heat maps versus uniparental markers. As soon as the Neanderthal genome was mapped, we realized we share autosomal DNA with them.
Native American Y chromosome founding haplogroups: C & Q - movement of Y chromosomes between Asia and America
both are major founding haplotypes. They have different divergence times so it is hard to say when they diverged with a molecular clock.
Ernst Hooton's pseudo-science scale of anatomical traits for sorting primates from 'Ultra-anthropoids' to 'Ultra-humans'
developed measures to describe skulls and put them into groups. Groups: ultra-anthropoid, typically anthropoid, sub-human, inferior human, typically human, and ultra-human. Applied to Pecos Pueblo where he sorted skeletons, put them into groups/types. He tried to put them into groups since they seemed like on their way to civilization so must have been connected to Europeans. Established groups that were from one pueblo. He described these Indians as Paleoamericans
evolutionary convergence versus evolutionary divergence
divergence - change over time that is historically related convergence - changes due to similar adaptation challenges
modern versus ancient DNA
easier to figure out modern DNA genome than it was to figure out the ancient DNA genome. easier to get ancient DNA from skeletal remains.
consensus view on who the first Americans were; the contrarian view (the Solutrean hypothesis)
first Americans were Paleo-indians. These people came from East Siberia.
acquiring ancient DNA segments: 'fishing' with SNP chips versus shotgun sequencing
fishing - DNA has the likelihood to glob together where the matching DNA on a chip will immediately attract to a matching DNA. You are only going to find what you are looking for. shotgun sequencing - grab all the DNA in a sample which is really useful when you don't know what is out there, expensive to use
consequences of inbreeding/incest
genetic consequences - mental illnesses, disease. Early humans saw evidence of inbreeding and incest so they stayed away.
three main elements of landscape learning:
geography (having maps of adjacent and more distant landscapes in order to know where to move), weather/climate (know when to move), and resources (knowledge of permanent and impermanent resources they are going to use to know how to move)
learning geography or wayfinding: spatial scale (learn general features initially, then 'zoom in')
humans bring the ability to talk to each other thus they are able to learn about spatial scales and acquire information humans come with a sense of direction, the ability to store info, integrating time, motion & position, genetic navigation knowledge Learning goes from general to specific. Also, the pattern of scale is individual learning to landscape learning & information acquisition to groups i.e. collective memory Wayfinding - humans use the cognitive base and initial conditions such as a sense of direction, ability to store information, ability to integrate time, motion and position while moving, generic navigation knowledge When humans come into a new landscape climate may seem unpredictable and variable
dialect versus language versus language family
language changes when coming into contact with other group dialect - two forms of speaking that is still comprehensible dialect could ultimately become a new language if there is isolation and time. If this lasts, there could be a new language family. However, there should be vestiges of the old language in the new language Not all the languages can be paired or put into a language group
number of Native American languages and language families, per traditional historical linguists
language families are 171 language families and 1005 languages
learning resources - relative difficulty of learning relatively predictable and permanent resources (e.g. stone, water) versus relatively unpredictable and impermanent resources (e.g. animals, plants); role of observation and experimentation; possible gender correlates
learning vary with degree of difficulty due to their relative fixity of resources, relate permanence/impermanence over time, predicability in terms of abundance & behavior (specific to animals) and distribution (related to plants). Easiest to learn about - permanent things, animals of the same size class, plants of same type. Water can be easy but depends on environment. Impermanent resource i.e. some plants & animals are ephemeral and less predictable. Game rich areas lack edible plants. Plants may not be always edible. Animals move. Some resources require more study such as observation and experimentation to figure out their usefulness. Tracking vs gathering for gender correlates - division of labor because hunting is dangerous with high fatalities so women are risk averse due to pregnancy/children. Evolutionary differences correlate with wayfinding skills.
likely (and unlikely) motivations of colonization: push and pull forces
likely push: environmental/climatic stress, decline in opportunities unlikely push: overpopulation, exile/strife likely pull: search for prestige, resources, following herd, curiosity, adaptive measures unlikely pull: not any unlikely pulls
non-archaeological evidence (and disciplines) bearing on the peopling of the Americas: language (linguistics), skeletal anatomy (physical anthropology), DNA (genetics) - be sure to understand how these apply, specifically whether these provide modern patterns from which we infer past processes, or whether these are direct indicators of the past
linguistics - study of language, working with modern data and inferring about past physical anthropology - look at the physical remains to show human evolution, can tell similarities in bone then infer relationships between groups genetics - looking at molecular level in populations through patterns of data and establishing relationships between groups
Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and the Kennewick saga
local natives angered by assertation that Kennewick man was a Caucasoid and demanded that the bones return to them via NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act). Bones under NAGPRA meant the bones go to those of lineal descents. Hard to determine if skeleton came from local Native population.
fluted points in Alaska - role in the the original peopling of the Americas
look like Southern tools so it suggests that people are coming from the South meaning significant movement into Alaska from the South but there are not a lot of sites in Alaska
Christy Turner's method of sorting teeth in to groups; role of single diagnostic traits versus statistical trends
looked at 200,000 teeth from wide variety of humans across the world, argued that dental patterns corresponded with populations, compared 28 different dental traits, used data to group people into dental groups. However, did not take into account that everyone has some % of traits. He came up with Sinodont and Sundadont grouping due to shoveling, 3 rooted molars. When identifying 3 rooted molars, the differences are not as clear cut. Statistical behavior for Sinodonty pattern: high frequency of shoveling, winging, and 3 rooted lower 1st molars
colonization compromises
maintaining resource returns (especially as preferred or high-ranked resources decline due to hunting pressure); maximizing mobility (to learn as much as possible, as quickly as possible, about the widest possible area and its resources); maximizing residence time (to observe resource structure, abundance and distribution, and regional weather, climate, and climate change); minimizing group size (to buffer environmental uncertainty and risk and maximize dispersal); maintaining contact between dispersed populations (to sustain info flow, social relations, and demographic viability)
the "modern" application of craniometry
many thought that with computers, it would allow for sorting people into groups. 60 to 75 measurements are used to measure the crania. Rarely able to get all measurements. After collecting, you see how they cluster and whether they represent different groups.
mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and non-recombining portion of Y chromosome: know how each is inherited; how they differ; aspects of population history on which they inform
mtDNA is inherited from your mother. It can get lost if a mother does not have any daughters i.e. results in lineage lost. mtDNA is tracking is the relationship to the original mother who had given the mtDNA. Fathers give their sons their non-recombining Y chromosome. Thus mtDNA and Y chromosomes are passed down based on someone's sex.
times to MRCA of mtDNA and Y chromosome haplogroups and haplotypes as evidence for population bottlenecks; duration of Beringian standstill (difference between split time of C1a and C1b-d, and time to MRCA of haplotypes within C1b-d); timing of dispersal into the Americas (time of MRCA of haplotypes within C1b- d); population size increase in the Americas
mtDNA mutation rate 1.8-3.2 x 10-8 subs/site/year Y chromosome mutation rate 0.7-0.9 x 10-9 subs/site/year. Evidence from the Y chromosome indicates that some haplogroups that emerged during the Beringian standstill were ancestral to both the early genetic pool of the Americas and some Siberian (Kets) and Eurasian populationsNative American population who came here was pretty small such as couple thousand. Around 16,000 this population. Around 16,000 - this population went up fast, increasing 60 fold after showing up to the Americas.
noncoding ('junk') DNA - use in studies of population history
mutations occur randomly, regularly, accumulate over time, accumulate in a clock-like manner. Within each lineage, new mutations will occur but they will still have the ancestral DNA mutation which indicates shared ancestry. These inherited ancestral traits can be found unless they are erased. The number of shared traits is a measure of the time that has elapsed since they were a part of the same population. Can accumulate over time
knowledge base of colonizers
naïve about the new place and resources, smart about how to move
mitigating costs of leap frogging
periodic aggregations, extensive mating networks, high settlement mobility, open social networks
factors influencing linguistic diversity (the num ber of languages spoken in a region):
population size, climate and environment (in so far as it influences population size), political and societal structures (e.g. Empires) such as empire/colonial contact, time (depending on above factors)
forces that have reduced the number of Indigenous languages:
post-1492 introduction of infectious diseases and the acculturation and loss of native speakers. What hurt the counting of languages is that Native American population had 75% died due to the New World imperialism and acculturation (forced to disregard native languages). Typically unwritten
uniformitarian principle: the present is the key to the past (but in what way?)
present is key to the past, tells you how they move, adapt, create their toolkit. It does mean that we can use what we know of present principles of human behavior, how modern foragers move across the landscape, organize their tech and material culture, target their prey, and etc. Therefore, it informs our ideas and explanations about the past
cephalic index -
ratio of skull width to length, expressed as a percentage, about head shape and size, sought heads from across the world. Divided people into brachycephalic (round-headed), mesocephalic (medium headed), and dolichocephalic (long-headed). Medium heads largely in Europe while broad heads concentrated in Asia and Americas and long heads concentrated in Africa and Australia
proposed ideas to account for the differences in early versus later period crania
sampling phenomenon occurring where too little sample is making it harder to create patterns or groupings. Hard to determine meaningful difference. Entirely possible that the groups may be a part of the same population especially if the population is moving rapidly. Data we have is also not reliable or consistent
components of language and language change/evolution:
semantic changes (mechanisms = innovation, borrowing, loss, mutation), syntactic changes (grammar, sentence structure), and sound shifts (pronunciation, e.g. the Great Vowel Shift)
differentiating teeth; attributes examined (shovel-shaped incisors, winging, etc.)
shoveling, winging, hypocone, carabelli, y groove, 3 rooted molars
consistency between Turner's dental sample groups and Greenberg's language families
showed independent support for Greenberg. However, Turner used Greenberg's linguistic affiliation. He did this by associating them to a language group due to location.
somatic cells versus stem cells versus germ (sex) cells - last is conduit of inheritance
somatic cells - play no role in reproduction stem cells - serve multiple roles, can serve a particular function and stay in that function sex/germ cells - the genetic info passed down from one generation to the next
Franz Boas' critique of the cephalic index - Boas' Ellis Island (NY) immigrants study
tested the validity of this index and found it was wrong due to head shape changing across time and in populations Had an experiment on immigrant children where he found that their head shape changed size with better nutrition
Norman Conquest - its impact on English language
the French take over the English through William the Conqueror thus causing French to heavily influence English
carrying capacity
the ability of an environment to support X # of people i.e. too many people results not enough food
the role of big-game hunting in the dispersal of the first Americans continent-wide
the first evidence of Pleistocene was kill sites so scientists initially hypothesized that we moved due to hunting
numbers of ancestors represented in autosomal DNA
there are a fewer # of ancestors that are represented in your genome. Chunks of some of their DNA show up in your DNA. Inherited DNA is much more than your mtDNA and Y chromosomes. Each of the 23 chromosomes is being chopped up and spliced every generation. If you go back 8 or more generations, it is almost certain you will have some ancestors whose DNA did not get passed down to you. At 15 generations back, the probability any one ancestor contributed directly to your DNA is exceedingly small. Still, you will have DNA from ~1000 of them (~3%), providing a much broader picture than from single locus markers like mtDNA or NRY.
role of scouting and exploration to acquire information
uses prominent landmarks, geographic features, spatial patterning, may use artificial signage, begins on landscapes easiest to traverse and navigate
degree of difficulty of travel versus wayfinding (relative to terrain and environment)
wayfinding easy and travel easy - along rivers, coastlines, and open areas with visible landmarks wayfinding easy and travel difficult - mountainous terrain wayfinding difficult and travel easy - flat, featureless plains wayfinding difficult and travel difficult - featureless tundra, deep forest, dunefields
learning climate - weather versus climate (scales of each in time and space)
weather is what is outside today, yesterday, tomorrow, next week as in it is pattern over a few weeks' time i.e. short term. Climate is long term trends in weather, composite, longer periods of time i.e. years, decades, centuries or millennia. Hunter-gatherers begin with specific features of local weather then become more general and cumulative over time (climate). Predictability increases with residence time. Learning may have upper limits depending on detectability, resident time, and capture capacity.
lineage loss
when a mother or father does not have any daughter or son thus resulting in the lack of transferring of the mtDNA and Y chromosome
attributes of DNA useful in tracing population history
with autosomal DNA, we can see ghost populations where it is unrelated to any known population.