History Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread VII

[Agent327]

I wonder what questions Domen is answering...

 

[Chukchi Husky]

This is something I've been asked to find out.

Why did the Ancient Egyptians despise shepherds?

 

[Phrossack]

This is something I've been asked to find out.

Why did the Ancient Egyptians despise shepherds?

They did? What are some examples of this?

 

[r16]

in a mood of reading on Naval stuff these days .

...so up to almost 1880s that boarding could be a tactic that could have been tried . Corrects my own notion of 1850-60s .

allow me correct myself once again . This action in 1917 once again involves a ship that will later serve in the Chilean Navy , the action once again involves ramming , possibly because the start of action was so close due to mist and other factors and Germans had no recourse but boarding since they were the rammed and would sink in any case .

 

[Cynovolans]

Why did the Ancient Egyptians despise shepherds?

They did not. Some Pharaohs are referred to as the Great Shepherd and the shepherd's crook was used as a symbol of authority.

 

[Domen]

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

From the thread "First ancient genomes from Britain: Celtic and Anglo-Saxon":

http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthr...es-from-Britain-Celtic-and-Anglo-Saxon/page78

This below is based on 5 skeletons, 2 from Celtic period, 3 from Anglo-Saxon period:

http://www.ashg.org/2014meeting/abstracts/fulltext/f140122098.htm

(...) British population history is shaped by a complex series of repeated immigration periods and associated changes in population structure. It is an open question however, to what extent each of these changes is reflected in the genetic ancestry of the current British population. Here we use ancient DNA sequencing to help address that question. We present whole genome sequences generated from five individuals that were found in archaeological excavations at the Wellcome Trust Genome Campus near Cambridge (UK), two of which are dated to around 2,000 years before present (Iron Age), and three to around 1,300 years before present (Anglo-Saxon period). Good preservation status allowed us to generate one high coverage sequence (12x) from an Iron Age individual, and four low coverage sequences (1x-4x) from the other samples. (...)

Best similarity to modern populations (or admixture components) in percentages:

Average for 2 skeletons from pre-Roman Celtic period from Hinxton:

North_Sea 37.83
Atlantic 29.63
Baltic 10.16
Eastern_Euro 9.21
West_Mediterranean 6.55
West_Asian 4.44
East_Mediterranean 0
Red_Sea 0.7
South_Asian 0.95
Southeast_Asian 0.02
Siberian 0.06
Amerindian 0
Oceanian 0
Northeast_African 0.15
Sub-Saharan 0.255

Average for 3 skeletons from the Anglo-Saxon period from Hinxton:

North_Sea 41.37
Atlantic 28.59
Baltic 8.85
Eastern_Euro 9.48
West_Mediterranean 6.16
West_Asian 3.23
East_Mediterranean 0.3
Red_Sea 0.28
South_Asian 0.36
Southeast_Asian 0.23
Siberian 0
Amerindian 0.03
Oceanian 0.13
Northeast_African 0.27
Sub-Saharan 0.68

Modern times, average for a sample of English people from Kent:

North_Sea 35.52
Atlantic 29.86
Baltic 9.89
Eastern_Euro 8.36
West_Mediterranean 8.77
West_Asian 3.35
East_Mediterranean 2.5
Red_Sea 0.33
South_Asian 0.58
Southeast_Asian 0.03
Siberian 0.05
Amerindian 0.35
Oceanian 0.31
Northeast_African 0.06
Sub-Saharan 0.03

Conclusions by one of users:

It's interesting looking at the 5 Hinxton samples as two group averages (using Eurogenes K15), things make a bit more sense then. Overall the two groups are quite similar to each other, the Anglo-Saxons are slightly more north-western European than the Britons but both could easily be part of the same populations i would have thought.

This either means really that they are very similar either because there was not much in the way of replacement, and so the population is only slightly altered - or because the two source populations were very similar. I guess we'd need more samples (and more from Iron Age Scandinavia/Germany) to say which one of these scenarios it is though.

Mixing the Anglo-Saxon and Iron Age population here 50/50 basically gives a score that is very close to Orcadians, and not that dissimilar from the modern population (a bit more northern).

It's interesting comparing them to the modern SE English sample in Eurogenes K15, as the only real difference between the combination of the two groups and the modern samples is an increase in Mediterranean components by several points (2.5% in West Med and 2.5% in East Med) mainly at the expense of the North Sea component (drops by around 4%) and a little bit at the expense of the Eastern Euro component (drops by 1%).
The only significant component that is pretty much new in the modern population is East Med, and it's only there in a very small amount.

So it looks like the modern population is basically a combination of these people, with a bit of gene-flow from the Mediterranean or thereabouts in the last 1300 years or so.

If the Anglo-Saxon samples are not largely of British descent, then something similar has happened in the places they came from, but to a slightly lesser extent (e.g Denmark has more influences from Eastern Europe, and from the East Mediterranean). Although the Icelanders have more of the Eastern European & Baltic components than both groups and they are mostly descended from Norwegian and Irish/northern British individuals.

Overall it makes sense though, as over the last 1000 years England has been directed more towards western, central and southern Europe than it had been during the Iron Age or the Early Medieval Period.

Of course more samples would be interesting as these are all from one small area, and they are only 5 individuals in total.

As averages though the three populations are clearly very similar to each other, especially considering the recent aDNA from Hungary that showed how in a smaller time-frame a population could go from Sardinian-like to French-like and then even more eastern-like.

Would be really interesting to get some even older DNA from Britain and NW Europe in general (Bronze Age and earlier in the Iron Age in particular) to see just when there was an earlier transition into the Iron Age populations there, genetically speaking.

So it could be continuity with only relatively small immigration, or it could be replacement by similar people.

Imagine for example German-Americans invading Germany in 2015, driving all the Germans into Austria, and colonizing the land, replacing previous inhabitants. You would see the change of language (to English), the change of culture (more cheeseburgers, etc.), but - probably - there would be no dramatic differences in DNA of the population.

====================

Even though 5 people is a ridiculously small sample, at least this is based on actual ancient DNA.

The study in the link below, by contrast, is based only on comparing modern populations:

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

And I already wrote that it claims +/- ca. 70:30 proportion of Celtic:Anglo-Saxon ancestry in England.

 

[Plotinus]

So my skeleton's mostly Anglo-Saxon, but what about the rest of me?

 

[gay_Aleks]

I'm not clear on the specifics, but you might be part golem. Iron? Calcium? Sodium?

Have you visited any Jewish priests recently?

 

[Domen]

We also know that those 3 Anglo-Saxons were all inbreds:
(if I recall correctly, both males are from Celtic period - so those from Anglo-Saxon times are 3 women)

http://www.fi.id.au/2014/10/how-hinxtons-are-related-to-each-other.html

Based on Runs of Homozygosity, we know the following.

Hinxton-2 parents are first cousins.
Hinxton-3 parents are first or second cousins.
Hinxton-5 parents are half siblings.

We know that Hinxton-2, Hinxton-3 and Hinxton-5 are all females, while Hinxton-1 and Hinxton-4 are males. Hinxton-2, Hinxton-3 and Hinxton-5 are not related to each other in genealogical timeframe.

Jeez...

On the other hand, if those were women then maybe they even weren't Anglo-Saxon at all.

They (or at least one or two of them) could be locals found in Anglo-Saxon cultural context.

==============

Yes, men were from Celtic period, while inbred (but not related to each other) women from Anglo-Saxon times:

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/anglo-saxons-left-language-maybe-not-genes-modern-britons

Two skeletons were from men who were buried about 2,000 years ago. The other three skeletons were from women who died about 1,300 years ago, not long after the Anglo-Saxons invaded Britain.

So cousin marriages and sibling marriages (!!!) were apparently common during those Pagan "Dark Ages" ???

Or did they just discover 3 inbreds in a sample of 3 people by chance?

==========================

I've read that Christianity, Christian marriage, and manorialism are to be credited with ending inbreeding in Europe.

 

[ParkCungHee]

So my skeleton's mostly Anglo-Saxon, but what about the rest of me?

Marble, I think.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

They did? What are some examples of this?

It's supposed to be a reason why the Ancient Egyptians hated the Hebrews.

 

[Ajidica]

Considering it is doubtful the Exodus occurred, I think that question can be laid to rest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exodus#Historicity

 

[JohannaK]

It sounds ridiculous, to be honest. Hebrews would be mostly shepherds while there would be no Egyptian shepherds or how does that go?

 

[madviking]

what's a good, more-accessible-than-not book on the history of china?

 

[JohannaK]

I had a good experience with The Search For Modern China by Jonathan D. Spence, but that only covers from the Qing onwards.

 

[Agent327]

what's a good, more-accessible-than-not book on the history of china?

When in uni, Fairbank/Reischauer/Craig's East Asia: Tradition and Transformation pretty much covered it. The book has since been split so there should be a China edition now.

 

[sydhe]

Why did Xiang Yu call his state the Western Chu when it was located in eastern Chu?

 

[Ajidica]

He was reading the map upside down?

 

[Absolution]

Does the term "kingdom of two sicilies" for union of Sicily and Naples have any geo-political backround?
I mean - had the southern peninsula ever been referred to as a "second sicily" or part of siciliy, before the union?

 

[Arakhor]

From here:

The name "Two Sicilies" originated from the division of the medieval Kingdom of Sicily. Until 1285, the island of Sicily and the Mezzogiorno each formed part of the Kingdom of Sicily. As a result of the War of the Sicilian Vespers (1282-1302), the King of Sicily lost the island of Sicily (also called Trinacria) to the Crown of Aragon, but remained ruler over the peninsular part of the realm. Although his territory became known as the Kingdom of Naples, he and his successors never gave up the title of "King of Sicily" and they officially referred to their realm as the "Kingdom of Sicily". At the same time, the Aragonese rulers of the island of Sicily called their realm the "Kingdom of Sicily" as well. Thus, formally, there were two kingdoms calling themselves "Sicily": hence, the Two Sicilies.