History Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread VII

Domen · Apr 10, 2015

Chukchi Husky said:
I keep being told that DNA evidence proves that the Anglo-Saxons did completely replace the native British population.

That's the old study, from like 2 years ago. It claimed that around 50% of English ancestry is from Germanic (mostly Anglo-Saxon) immigrants.

There is a new study, published this year and it says just 10% - 40% of English ancestry, depending on region, is from Germanic immigrants.

The old study was based only on paternal ancestry (Y-DNA) while the new study is based on all of DNA, so includes maternal lineages too.

But the old study very likely overestimated also the percentage of Anglo-Saxon Y-DNA as it was based mostly on assumptions (for example they assumed that certain types of Y-DNA were not present at all in Britain before Anglo-Saxon immigration, and all of such Y-DNA came after 400 AD).

What can help in the future is research of ancient DNA, from bones of people who lived in Britain before Anglo-Saxons. For example if they find some allegedly "Anglo-Saxon" Y-DNA marker in bones which are 2000 years old, then it will be certain that its presence in Britain predates Anglo-Saxons.

So far only 2 male skeletons from Celtic times in England were tested for Y-DNA. Both of the two turned out to be haplogroup R1b-L21.

Of course we cannot draw any conclusions basing on just 2 samples. Maybe when we have 100 samples, but not 2.

And later Roman immigrants could bring new types of Y-DNA - so also human bones from Roman times in Britain are necessary.

Traitorfish said:
As far as I know, the strongest population replacement we know about in the UK is in the Northern Isles, and even then you're looking at only around 25-30% of a population that wasn't likely to exceed ten thousand

Yes, 25% - 30% is correct for the Northern Isles.

But some areas of England apparently got more, according to this new study. It gives for various regions of England between 10% and 40% immigrant input. I don't know which areas are the ones closer to 40% than to 10% because there is a paywall and I checked only materials which were for free.

Domen · Apr 10, 2015

BTW - conquerors are more likely to be overrepresented in paternal lineages than in maternal ones.

And also there was such a thing as "Ius Primae Noctis", though hard to say what impact it had.

Louis XXIV said:
I'm going to go with the Bantu migrations. It was a long time ago, but the pockets of Khoisan peoples lend credence to the idea that they were cut off and isolated. Of course, it could be part of the same debate as well if people cared as much to debate it

But in this Bantu example, there was a huge discrepancy in demographic capabilities.

Bantu were farmers and Khoisan were hunter-gatherers, which means that Bantu had ~10 or more times higher population density.

In this case we have agricultural Romano-Britons and agricultural Anglo-Saxon immigrants.

Louis XXIV said:
so you're left with archaeology and DNA as the two best paths.

Written sources and survival of Celtic place names also confirm the presence of Romano-Briton populations in Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

Anglo-Saxon law codes also had laws applying to ethnically Romano-Briton subjects. There are also Celtic loanwords in Old English, but few in numbers (which, however, indicates rather low social status of Celtic language in Anglo-Saxon kingdoms than low number of people who used it).

Louis XXIV said:
I know there are plenty of skeptics to the value of DNA evidence (I for one find it an intriguing avenue to explore).

DNA evidence will remain incomplete as long as there is no ancient DNA to compare with modern samples. There have been cases of surprising discoveries of ancient genomes so far, which in many cases forced scientists to completely revise their previous assumptions. So let's wait for more ancient bones.

Modern frequencies of various haplogroups are not best indicators of distribution of such haplogroups in the past. For example R1b was long assumed to be "indigenous" in Western Europe based on its high frequency there. This has been proven wrong only thanks to a lot of samples of ancient DNA.

Diversity within a haplogroup is a better indicator of old presence than its frequency. But finding burials with ancient DNA in a given area is still more reliable than both modern frequency and modern diversity.

So far we can say - based on 2 ancient skeletons - that presence of R1b-L21 in Britain predates Anglo-Saxon and Roman conquests:

This marker is also present in Norway today, but most likely it came there with immigrants. And this happened in French Bretagne too.

Domen · Apr 10, 2015

ParkCungHee said:
Well, apparently the population of Manchuria increased from 1 million to 14 million in the span of 150 years, primarily because of Chinese Immigration.

However, that was a period of 150 years of very high natural growth as well.

My guess is without any immigration they could still increase from 1 to 5 million.

Louis XXIV said:
Everyone says they are Arab, but whether they came from the Arabian peninsula or descended from local populations is difficult to determine.

Anthropological and genetic studies on Egyptians proved mostly ancient-modern continuity, not replacement.

Not sure about Arabic-speakers in the Middle East, though.

But I imagine that uniting so large areas in one Caliphate facilitated long-distance peaceful migrations.

Louis XXIV · Apr 11, 2015

Thanks for the concrete DNA information, Domen.

Domen said:
But in this Bantu example, there was a huge discrepancy in demographic capabilities.

Bantu were farmers and Khoisan were hunter-gatherers, which means that Bantu had ~10 or more times higher population density.

In this case we have agricultural Romano-Britons and agricultural Anglo-Saxon immigrants.

Yeah, exactly my point. I feel like it takes extreme examples like that to completely replace a population. Obviously, North America is another example and the loss of 90% of a population due to disease was a big factor.

Written sources and survival of Celtic place names also confirm the presence of Romano-Briton populations in Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.

Anglo-Saxon law codes also had laws applying to ethnically Romano-Briton subjects. There are also Celtic loanwords in Old English, but few in numbers (which, however, indicates rather low social status of Celtic language in Anglo-Saxon kingdoms than low number of people who used it).

I think the idea is framed this way: Italy, France, and Spain all kept Latin as their language in spite of population movements (although I'm not in the mood to open up the Peter Heather/Guy Halsall debate). England did not. Other trends are similar (Salic law had different rules for Romans and Goths, for example), but the language thing is noticeably different.

This marker is also present in Norway today, but most likely it came there with immigrants. And this happened in French Bretagne too.

I was also going to suggest another complication is that Nordic migrations to England could also be a factor. I'd also love to know how Norse the Normans were (vs. French).

Another random question not worth its own thread (but inspired by this discussion):
My understanding is the Byzantine Empire switched, at some point, to Greek as its official language and Greek was much more commonly spoken in that area anyway. Why is it that Romanian is a Romance language instead?

Flying Pig · Apr 11, 2015

Romania is north of the line (I forget the name) in which Greek was native - it's Roman Dacia, which was Celtic (ish) before Rome came along.

Domen · Apr 11, 2015

Louis XXIV said:
I was also going to suggest another complication is that Nordic migrations to England could also be a factor.

But in case of R1b-L21 those were most likely movements of people from Britain to Norway and Iceland which brought it there.

In Iceland 3/4 of paternal lineages are of Scandinavian origin while 1/4 of British-Irish origin. Maternal lineages are mostly British-Irish.

This genetic study has a nice map (as you can see even the population of Iceland is only 50% Scandinavian in origin):

http://www.nature.com/hdy/journal/v95/n2/full/6800661a.html

This map also shows that Scandinavian immigration to the Northern Isles was family-based, while in Iceland mostly males.

Louis XXIV said:
I think the idea is framed this way: Italy, France, and Spain all kept Latin as their language in spite of population movements (although I'm not in the mood to open up the Peter Heather/Guy Halsall debate). England did not. Other trends are similar (Salic law had different rules for Romans and Goths, for example), but the language thing is noticeably different.

Yes, I agree. But it is important to note that while French language remained essentially Romance, Germanic dialects also had considerable influence on it. French is essentially Romance, but with Germanic influences. And English is mostly Germanic, but with strong Latin / French influences.

Probably the main reason why in West Francia Germanic did not replace Romance, is because Germanic was not used in writing there. The only official language of the Frankish Empire (both its Romance part and its Germanic part) was Latin. All texts were written in Latin language.

In Charlemagne's Empire courts, administration, acts of written law and schools used exclusively Latin.

By contrast Anglo-Saxon kingdoms wrote their texts in Old English. That surely facilitated the replacement of Celtic dialects.

So the main difference lies not necessarily so much in proportions of immigrants to native populations.

There was also Germanic settlement in parts of Gaul - they could probably be 10% there, like Anglo-Saxons in most of England.

Domen · Apr 11, 2015

My question: Is there any example of a state having its dominant ethnicity changed purely by migration?

Ever heard of the "Ostsiedlung"? But Germans from Silesia, Pomerania and East Prussia were apparently mostly of Slavic and Baltic descent.

A sample of 139 Germans from these regions born between 1500 and 1936 (Y-DNA was tested on their modern direct paternal descendants):

R1a haplogroup - 78 (56,1%)
R1b haplogroup - 18 (13,0%)
I1 & I2 haplogroups - 15 (10,8%)
N haplogroup - 16 (11,5%)
J haplogroup - 5 (3,6%)
G haplogroup - 3 (2,2%)
T haplogroup - 2 (1,4%)
E haplogroup - 1 (0,7%)
Q haplogroup - 1 (0,7%)

More details:

Spoiler :

Germans as a whole are over 40% of R1b haplogroup while Poles as a whole are over 50% of R1a haplogroup. This is even more visible when we compare certain regions - for example Germans indigenous to Freiburg (south-western Germany) are 55% of R1b haplogroup while Poles indigenous to Cracow and Lublin (southern Poland) are over 60% of R1a haplogroup.

Germans indigenous to Muenster and Mainz (south-western and north-western Germany, respectively) have only 7,8% and 8,4% of R1a haplogroup. By contrast among Germans indigenous to Rostock (north-eastern Germany) 31,3% have R1a haplogroup and among German-speaking Austrians from the city of Graz (south-eastern Austria) 42,9% have R1a haplogroup.

German Austrians from Graz have 43% R1a, which is a bit more than Czechs and Slovenes (35% - 40%) and about as much as Slovaks.

This sample of 139 Germans from Silesia, Pomerania and Prussia shows that they were over 50% R1a and about 15% R1b. Among Germans from southern region - Silesia - percent of R1a was even higher, like among Poles from southern regions - Cracow and Lublin. Germans from former German regions which are now in Poland were genetically like Poles, and not like West Germans. When it comes to R1b - Poles as a whole are also about 15% R1b (some studies show a bit lower numbers like 12%, some a bit higher like 18% from N. Myres 2010).

Also 24% in that sample of 46 from East Prussia had N haplogroup, which is common among Lithuanians, Latvians and northern Belarusians. This indicates descent either from Baltic Old Prussians or from Lithuanians who settled in Prussia in the 1500s. By contrast in Silesian sample not even 5% had N haplogroup and in Pomeranian sample only 6% had N haplogroup.

Future PM · Apr 11, 2015

Yeah, for some reason I find the Polish nationalist's claims about Germans displacing Poles in Polish lands unbelievable. There's also the simple fact that Haplogroups can't differentiate between people that closely related anyway, no matter how much ethnic nationalists are trying to use pseudoscience to support their pre-determined conclusions. Not to mention that using a sample size of 139 over a population of 100 million is ludicrous.

sophie · Apr 11, 2015

Future PM said:
Yeah, for some reason I find the Polish nationalist's claims about Germans displacing Poles in Polish lands unbelievable. There's also the simple fact that Haplogroups can't differentiate between people that closely related anyway, no matter how much ethnic nationalists are trying to use pseudoscience to support their pre-determined conclusions. Not to mention that using a sample size of 139 over a population of 100 million is ludicrous.

Don't bother; not worth the effort. Trust me. You'll be much happier leaving it well enough alone.

Future PM · Apr 11, 2015

Owen Glyndwr said:
Don't bother; not worth the effort. Trust me. You'll be much happier leaving it well enough alone.

Simply making a point. I have no intention of engaging with it. It's only taken two days of reading the History sub-forum to see what it is, and its goals.

Domen · Apr 12, 2015

I did not understand anything from your post #468, Future PM.

I mean, I'm not sure if you are serious and with mental problems, or just trolling and healthy?

Haplogroups can't differentiate between people that closely related anyway

Who do you mean by "people that closely related" - surely not Germans and Poles?

Manfred Kayser, "Significant genetic differentiation between Poland and Germany as revealed by Y-chromosome analysis", 2005, wrote:

"(...) The observed genetic differentiation was mainly, but not exclusively, due to the frequency distribution of two Y-SNP haplogroups and their associated Y-STR haplotypes: R1a, most frequent in Poland, and R1b, most frequent in Germany. (...)"

Krzysztof Rębała, "Contemporary paternal genetic landscape of Polish and German populations", 2013, only confirmed what Kayser wrote.

But in this sample of 139 Germans from former German territories which are now in Poland, haplogroup R1a was most frequent.

Not to mention that using a sample size of 139 over a population of 100 million is ludicrous.

What ???

I used a sample size of 139 over a population of some 9 million people (I don't know where did you get 100 million from).

A perfectly valid sample size given that for example Natalie Myres in her 2010 study used a sample of 321 for entire Germany (80,5 million people).

Also Dr Peter A. Underhill used a sample of 109 for entire Poland (38,5 million people) in his 2014 study on R1a haplogroup.

I find the Polish nationalist's claims about Germans displacing Poles in Polish lands unbelievable.

And once again I don't understand your point - which claims, what displacing, in which lands, when exactly ??? How can I guess if you mean displacing Poles in WW2, in the 1800s (rugi pruskie), or displacing Slavs in the Middle Ages (given that I mentioned German Medieval eastward expansion).

Be more precise next time.

If you mean WW2, then - if you don't believe - read Piotr Eberhardt, "Political Migrations On Polish Territories (1939-1950)":

http://rcin.org.pl/Content/15652/WA51_13607_r2011-nr12_Monografie.pdf

Not to mention forced labour in Germany, when millions of people were displaced from their homes to Nazi Germany:

http://www.heimatverein-haltern.de/page4_1933_UNRRA.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_labour_under_German_rule_during_World_War_II

Moderator Action: Please do not attack other posters.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

Flying Pig · Apr 12, 2015

That just makes all of them stupid.

Domen · Apr 12, 2015

That just makes all of them stupid.

Their results - based on such seemingly small samples - were still very similar to results of Manfred Kayser from 2005, which were based on much larger and geographically diverse samples - 1215 from Germany from 11 cities (103 from Berlin, 144 from Leipzig, 100 from Magdeburg, 96 from Rostock, 104 from Greifswald, 161 from Hamburg, 102 from Muenster, 102 from Freiburg, 96 from Cologne, 95 from Mainz, 112 from Munich) and 913 from Poland from 8 cities (101 from Wroclaw, 121 from Warsaw, 112 from Lublin, 150 from Gdansk, 100 from Cracow, 105 from Szczecin, 82 from Suwalki, 142 from Bydgoszcz).

Though Kayser's sample is actually not fully representative of entire Germany as a whole, because, relative to population size of each region, he had more samples from East Germany than from West Germany. He also did not take samples from cities in Poland such as Poznan, Lodz, etc.

In general, among his 913 Polish samples, Kayser did not have any samples from this region (Wielkopolska):

Flying Pig · Apr 12, 2015

Even those are still rather small by scientific standards. Not to mention that results can be close entirely by accident (a stopped clock is right twice a day) so that just assumes the perfection of that latter experiment - at which point we end up in bad intellectual places.

Domen · Apr 12, 2015

Even those are still rather small by scientific standards.

Why so? It's not as much about sample size but rather about how representative is a sample.

Of course there is such a thing as "statistical error" or "confidence interval", and the better the sample, the smaller the error, but even a small sample can be reasonably accurate, with a relatively small statistical error.

If you were right then it would mean that most of scientific studies are not up to scientific standards.

For example the most recent genetic study on the British population is based on a sample of 2039 from all of the UK (but of course samples from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are much smaller than ones from England):

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7543/full/nature14230.html

dutchfire · Apr 12, 2015

Honestly, the sample size would be the least of my problems. I'm too lazy to do math on a sunday morning but a sample in the 100s could tell you something. (I don't have the impression that the typical published social science study has a significantly larger sample.)

I'd be more worried about (in no particular order):
* Some people are more likely to be willing to participate in (pseudo-)scientific research with nationalistic undertones than others. Sample bias.
* As I understand it, these studies take people who's family has been living in the same area for several generations and can be traced back. Farmers might be more likely to stay put than city folk or travelling salesmen. Sample bias.
* Percentages in the current population can not be linked to percentages in the old population, since not all families grow at the same size. In particular, most of the offspring of the Jews that were living there was either killed in the Holocaust or emigrated so far away as to be untraceable now. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation_(cosmology)#Few_inhomogeneities_remain

just to name a few

Domen · Apr 12, 2015

* Some people are more likely to be willing to participate in (pseudo-)scientific research with nationalistic undertones than others. Sample bias.

Even if this is true, then why should there be a statistically significant difference in Y-DNA haplogroup frequencies between people more willing to participate and people less willing to participate? Are you claiming that attitudes to such research are genetically determined by Y-DNA?

* As I understand it, these studies take people who's family has been living in the same area for several generations and can be traced back.

Nope. These studies research your genealogical tree and check where did your ancestors from several generations ago live. You are not required to live in the same area where your great-grandfather. It is enough if you know where did your great-grandfather live - and tell them this info.

* Percentages in the current population can not be linked to percentages in the old population, since not all families grow at the same size.

There is no way that there can be any significant differences in frequencies over just few generations in a population which has millions of people. There can be such dramatic differences either in very small populations, or in medium-sized populations but over many dozens of generations.

dutchfire · Apr 12, 2015

Domen said:
Even if this is true, then why should there be a statistically significant difference in Y-DNA haplogroup frequencies between people more willing to participate and people less willing to participate? Are you claiming that attitudes to such research are genetically determined by Y-DNA?

Your are claiming that Y-DNA is correlated with nationality/ethnicity/whatever it is you are trying to argue. I would not be surprised if willingness to participate in (pseudo-)scientific studies with a nationalistic undertone was correlated with nationality/ethnicity/whatever.
If this was my study, I'd worry about this.

And of course, I was pointing out correlation, not causation.

Nope. These studies research your genealogical tree and check where did your ancestors from several generations ago live. You are not required to live in the same area where your great-grandfather. It is enough if you know where did your great-grandfather live - and tell them this info.

How far back you can trace your family history probably correlates with social class and other social aspects. Especially in areas with large and not so well organized population movements, such as 1900-1950 Central and Eastern Europe.

There is no way that there can be any significant differences in frequencies over just few generations in a population which has millions of people. There can be such dramatic differences either in very small populations, or in medium-sized populations but over many dozens of generations.

Fertility rates can be vastly different in population groups. E.g. recent immigrants from Turkey/Morocco have more children than native Dutch, Palestinians have more children than Israelis, Catholics in the Netherlands had way more children than Protestants in the period 1900-1960 [see e.g. www.dbnl.org/tekst/heek001gebo01_01/heek001gebo01_01.pdf, English summary at the end.].

Future PM · Apr 13, 2015

dutchfire said:
Your are claiming that Y-DNA is correlated with nationality/ethnicity/whatever it is you are trying to argue. I would not be surprised if willingness to participate in (pseudo-)scientific studies with a nationalistic undertone was correlated with nationality/ethnicity/whatever.

You're spot on. Australian politician, talking head, and racist scumbag Pauline Hanson agreed to have her DNA tested to prove her blood was pure, a.k.a., white. Imagine her shock to discover that two of her recent ancestors were Turks. People who agree to these studies fall into two categories; the disinterested, and the interested. Since the interested will seek these studies out, they tend to be more represented in them. So, as you stated, sample bias.

Aleksey_aka_al · Apr 13, 2015

dutchfire said:
Your are claiming that Y-DNA is correlated with nationality/ethnicity/whatever it is you are trying to argue. I would not be surprised if willingness to participate in (pseudo-)scientific studies with a nationalistic undertone was correlated with nationality/ethnicity/whatever.

No, I think that Domen was claiming that genetic data from this sample of 139 males shows that majority of people of German nationality/ethnicity/whatever (who identified as Germans) in Silesia, Pomerania and Prussia were apparently descendants of Slavic and Baltic populations who became Germanized (that is, adopted German language and culture). He also showed that there are differences in frequencies of various Y-DNA haplogroups between people of the same nationality from various regions, due to distinct proportions of ancestries - so he did not insist that Y-DNA is strictly correlated with national identity. Quite the contrary.

dutchfire said:
How far back you can trace your family history probably correlates with social class and other social aspects. Especially in areas with large and not so well organized population movements, such as 1900-1950 Central and Eastern Europe.

Everyone can trace back their great-grandparents (i.e. pre-1945 generation). Just ask your parents or grandparents.

There might be problems when you get to the 1800s or to the 1700s, but not in the early 1900s.

dutchfire said:
In particular, most of the offspring of the Jews that were living there was either killed in the Holocaust or emigrated so far away as to be untraceable now.

The study was on Germans, not on Jews (even though there are maybe 2 or 3 German Jews among those 139 people).

Besides, those areas did not have even nearly as many Jews as areas located farther east, where Germans did not live.

dutchfire said:
I would not be surprised if willingness to participate in (pseudo-)scientific studies with a nationalistic undertone

You might be offending scientists such as Manfred Kayser, Peter Underhill or others in this statement.

dutchfire said:
Catholics in the Netherlands had way more children than Protestants in the period 1900-1960

In areas in question (Pommern, East Prussia, Lower Silesia) almost everyone was Protestant. Catholics were not even 10% of the total population in those territories in year 1900. Also please note that Domen's sample contains people born between years 1500 and 1936, and most of them were born before 1900, so what's the point?

Fertility rates can be vastly different in population groups. E.g. recent immigrants from Turkey/Morocco have more children than native Dutch

And these immigrants are not very rich, at least not first generation ones.

But these differences are a very recent phenomenon of the 20th - 21st centuries.

In England of the 16th - 17th centuries richer people had more children surviving to adulthood:

(...) From a study of wills made between 1585 and 1638, he finds that will makers with £9 or less to leave their heirs had, on average, just under two children. The number of heirs rose steadily with assets, such that men with more than £1,000 in their gift, who formed the wealthiest asset class, left just over four children. The English population was fairly stable in size from 1200 to 1760. In this context, the fact that the rich were having more children than the poor led to the interesting phenomenon of unremitting social descent. Most children of the rich had to sink in the social scale, given that there were too many of them to remain in the upper class (...)

Future PM said:
You're spot on. Australian politician, talking head, and racist scumbag Pauline Hanson agreed to have her DNA tested to prove her blood was pure, a.k.a., white.

Domen is not an Australian politician, though.

Future PM said:
Imagine her shock to discover that two of her recent ancestors were Turks.

Since when are Turks considered "not white"? Scientists count them as Caucasoid.

In terms of skin colour Turks look like Greeks, who are usually (always?) counted as "white". Genetically, Turks from Turkey are almost identical with Greeks, mainly due to being their descendants who converted to Islam and adopted Turkish language and culture (that was part of the Byzantine Empire and remaining Greeks from Asia Minor were deported to Greece only during the 20th century; also Turks from the Balkans were deported to Asia Minor).

Maybe in popular perceptions about race (which are wrong) Turks are viewed as distinct.

Watch "Muhteşem Yüzyıl" TV series - surely there is an English version.

So, as you stated, sample bias.

What sample bias? Descendants of those 139 people from Domen's sample are all Germans.

History Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread VII

Misico dux Vandalorum

Misico dux Vandalorum

Misico dux Vandalorum

Le Roi Soleil

Utrinque Paratus

Misico dux Vandalorum

Misico dux Vandalorum

Chieftain

Break My Heart

Chieftain

Misico dux Vandalorum

Utrinque Paratus

Misico dux Vandalorum

Utrinque Paratus

Misico dux Vandalorum

Deity

Misico dux Vandalorum

Deity

Chieftain

Smiley

Similar threads