Genetic Change in Early Europe
http://news.yahoo.com/ancient-europeans-mysteriously-vanished-4-500-years-ago-151646349.html
Most interesting. Apparently, the overall culture didn't change. They remained early level farmers. There was no major change of species, such as that which took place earlier from Neanderthal to Homo Sapiens. It's just that the antecedents of the people changed, indicating people from a different area. Several questions remain unanswered. Did the new group intermarry or was there an extermination? Why was the change successful? Why did the migration (there obviously was a migration) take place? Were the immigrants driven out of their home territory by other people or was there another reason for them to move? If so, what was it? Was there something that happened to the global climate that happened at about this time, which would cause them to move, or did they just want to be elsewhere? Until more research is done, the sky's the limit on speculation in this one. Ought to be fun. I'd love to hear your theories.
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Speculative Archeology can be very interesting. I don't think that any of us are Archeologists or DNA specialists, but we are people who have lots of ideas, some of which may actually be backed up by known historical events of the time. We may not have the answers, but we can ask some very interesting questions.
Very interesting, indeed. I love this stuff. DNA studies are becoming the norm and goodness only knows where it will take us and many questions are being answered. Great find, TTGA.
Those Celts were (are) something, weren't they?
I would not deign to speculate, TTGA, about the reasons for these findings, but migration of large populations in those times was most likely to be more of a necessity than a want. Looking at the larger picture of changes in species, migration, climate over thousands upon thousands of years suggests one thing without doubt. We haven't stopped evolving. And we never will. That, to me, remains the fascinating fact of human existence. We make a deal about such small things in life, about boundaries, about religion, about immigration, about possessions - in the larger scheme, how does any of this really matter?
Great post - thanks for sharing!
Good stuff TTGA. DNA studies are turning up new and important finds andquestions, some real mysteries.
Actually Neetu, it would be more correct to say that we haven't stopped adapting, and never will. Adaptation is simply a change in behavior due to changes in external conditions. This is something that humans are very good at. That is not, however, evolution. Evolution means a change in the genotype (genetic makeup) that is passed from generation to generation, and, eventually, results in an entirely different species. In that sense, we have stopped evolving. The reason is that evolution requires two things in order to happen. First, there must be a genetic mutation (these happen all the time, largely due to exposure to sunlight). Second, however, the mutation must be fixed in the population through isolation and inbreeding. This no longer happens. Due to our travel possibilities, there are no longer groups of humans that are isolated from the larger group and outbreeding is generally practiced. That means that any permanent changes to the genotype are buried within recessive genes and lost.