Jews Have Genetic Closeness According to Recent Surveys by Genome-Wide Scanning Devices : Jewish Origins in the North Levant, the Home of Abraham

The genetic closeness of many Jews has been confirmed in two recent genetic surveys, as reported by Nicholas Wade of the New York Times in Studies Show Jews' Genetic Similarity.

As Wade writes:

"Jewish communities in Europe and the Middle East share many genes inherited from the ancestral Jewish population that lived in the Middle East some 3,000 years ago, even though each community also carries genes from other sources — usually the country in which it lives....

One of the surveys was conducted by Gil Atzmon of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Harry Ostrer of New York University and appears in the current American Journal of Human Genetics. The other, led by Doron M. Behar of the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa and Richard Villems of the University of Tartu in Estonia, is published in Thursday’s edition of Nature."

Read the whole article here.

The abstracts of the two scientific publications in question are given below:

• Abraham's Children in the Genome Era: Major Jewish Diaspora Populations Comprise Distinct Genetic Clusters with Shared Middle Eastern Ancestry, by Gil Atzmon, Li Hao, Itsik Pe'er et al., The American Journal of Human Genetics, Volume 86, Issue 6, 850-859, 03 June 2010, doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2010.04.015
  
  "Abstract
  
  For more than a century, Jews and non-Jews alike have tried to define the relatedness of contemporary Jewish people. Previous genetic studies of blood group and serum markers suggested that Jewish groups had Middle Eastern origin with greater genetic similarity between paired Jewish populations. However, these and successor studies of monoallelic Y chromosomal and mitochondrial genetic markers did not resolve the issues of within and between-group Jewish genetic identity. Here, genome-wide analysis of seven Jewish groups (Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian, Italian, Turkish, Greek, and Ashkenazi) and comparison with non-Jewish groups demonstrated distinctive Jewish population clusters, each with shared Middle Eastern ancestry, proximity to contemporary Middle Eastern populations, and variable degrees of European and North African admixture. Two major groups were identified by principal component, phylogenetic, and identity by descent (IBD) analysis: Middle Eastern Jews and European/Syrian Jews. The IBD segment sharing and the proximity of European Jews to each other and to southern European populations suggested similar origins for European Jewry and refuted large-scale genetic contributions of Central and Eastern European and Slavic populations to the formation of Ashkenazi Jewry. Rapid decay of IBD in Ashkenazi Jewish genomes was consistent with a severe bottleneck followed by large expansion, such as occurred with the so-called demographic miracle of population expansion from 50,000 people at the beginning of the 15^th century to 5,000,000 people at the beginning of the 19^th century. Thus, this study demonstrates that European/Syrian and Middle Eastern Jews represent a series of geographical isolates or clusters woven together by shared IBD genetic threads."

[The full text of the above article is available for free here - BRAVO!]

• The genome-wide structure of the Jewish people, by Doron M. Behar, Bayazit Yunusbayev, Mait Metspalu et al., Nature, 2010, doi:10.1038/nature09103

"Contemporary Jews comprise an aggregate of ethno-religious communities whose worldwide members identify with each other through various shared religious, historical and cultural traditions^{1, 2}. Historical evidence suggests common origins in the Middle East, followed by migrations leading to the establishment of communities of Jews in Europe, Africa and Asia, in what is termed the Jewish Diaspora^{3, 4, 5}. This complex demographic history imposes special challenges in attempting to address the genetic structure of the Jewish people⁶. Although many genetic studies have shed light on Jewish origins and on diseases prevalent among Jewish communities, including studies focusing on uniparentally and biparentally inherited markers^{7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16}, genome-wide patterns of variation across the vast geographic span of Jewish Diaspora communities and their respective neighbours have yet to be addressed. Here we use high-density bead arrays to genotype individuals from 14 Jewish Diaspora communities and compare these patterns of genome-wide diversity with those from 69 Old World non-Jewish populations, of which 25 have not previously been reported. These samples were carefully chosen to provide comprehensive comparisons between Jewish and non-Jewish populations in the Diaspora, as well as with non-Jewish populations from the Middle East and north Africa. Principal component and structure-like analyses identify previously unrecognized genetic substructure within the Middle East. Most Jewish samples form a remarkably tight subcluster that overlies Druze and Cypriot samples but not samples from other Levantine populations or paired Diaspora host populations. In contrast, Ethiopian Jews (Beta Israel) and Indian Jews (Bene Israel and Cochini) cluster with neighbouring autochthonous populations in Ethiopia and western India, respectively, despite a clear paternal link between the Bene Israel and the Levant. These results cast light on the variegated genetic architecture of the Middle East, and trace the origins of most Jewish Diaspora communities to the Levant."

[Access to the full text of the above article is by payment only.]

We have posted previously about the genetic origin of the Jews at Semites and Jews : Phoenician Gene : Judaism of Hebrews is a Religion : Jews are not a Separate Race of People but are Ethnic - LexiLine Journal 521.

The newly published studies confirm what was essentially already known from a general analysis of Y-DNA Haplogroup J2, confirming an origin of the Jews in the Levant (see the map at the beginning of this posting), more precisely, in the north of the Levant (see Ellen Levy-Coffman, A Mosaic of People: The Jewish Story and a Reassessment of the DNA Evidence, Journal of Genetic Genealogy, 2005).

This location in the north Levant meshes with Hebrew and Turkish Muslim oral history, both of which trace their ancestry back to Abraham, whose legendary birthplace is in a cave just to the south of the city of Ur (= Urfa viz. today Sanliurfa, meaning "Urfa the Glorious"). Urfa is a neighbor to the city of Harran, Abraham's place of residence prior to his sojourn to Canaan and Egypt.

Not far from Urfa and Harran is the recently discovered archaeological site of Gobekli Tepe (15 km NE of Urfa), which has turned mainstream theories of human cultural origins on their heads:

"Göbekli Tepe (Turkish for "Hill with a potbelly"; Kurdish: Girê Navokê) is a hilltop sanctuary erected on the highest point of an elongated mountain ridge some 15 km northeast of the town of Şanlıurfa (formerly Urfa / Edessa) in southeastern Turkey.

The site, currently undergoing excavation by German and Turkish archaeologists, was erected by hunter-gatherers in the 10th millennium BC (ca. 11,500 years ago), before the advent of sedentism. Together with Nevalı Çori, it has revolutionized understanding of the Eurasian Neolithic."

There is no doubt -- according to our research -- that Gobekli Tepe was erected by the ancestors of the Jews as a religious sanctuary oriented by astronomy, although we do not share the overly ancient dates given to the site by the oft erring mainstream archaeologists.

We date Gobekli Tepe by astronomy to ca. 3800 B.C. and are fairly certain that this is where the astronomical calculations were made to start the Hebrew calendar, currently dated to 1 Tishri in the year 1, which is comparable to September 7, 3760 B.C. (Gregorian Calendar) or October 7, 3761 B.C. (Julian Calendar), or Julian Day 347997.5 (see the FourmiLab.ch Calendar Converter).

Native Americans Migrated to the New World in Three Waves According to New Study

Dan Vergano has the story at USA Today in Study: Native Americans came to the New World in three waves.

Human Migration, Cultural Change and the Origins of Farming in Europe

Origins of farming in Europe result of human migration and cultural change, study suggests

The above is an interesting post to read especially in combination with the posting at

Dienekes' Anthropology Blog
and the comments thereto, which show the great variety of opinion as to how to interpret the underlying data correctly.

The citation to the original study is:

Noreen von Cramon-Taubadel and Ron Pinhasi
Craniometric data support a mosaic model of demic and cultural Neolithic diffusion to outlying regions of Europe Proc. R. Soc. B October 7, 2011 278 (1720) 2874-2880; published ahead of print February 23, 2011, doi:10.1098/rspb.2010.2678

The Genetic Structure of Swedish Population in the North Varies from the South and Dalarna is a Special Case of Remote Finnish or Norwegian Ancestry

See Dienekes' Anthropology Blog on Keith Humphreys et al., The Genetic Structure of the Swedish Population.

Guardian: Men from Britain and Ireland are Descended Mostly from Ancient Farmers and the R1b Haplogroup is shared with Continental Europe & Chad

Most British men are descended from ancient farmers. Ian Sample, science correspondent for The Guardian. Sample writes:

"The first farmers to arrive in Britain outbred the native hunter-gatherer men and have left their mark in modern males' Y chromosome....

... more than 60% of British men, and nearly all of those in Ireland, can trace their Y chromosome back to the agricultural revolution....

The farmers' Y chromosome becomes more common in the west of England and reaches a national peak of 78% in Cornwall, scientists found.....

Men with surnames including Titchmarsh and Haythornthwaite are among the most likely to carry the farmers' Y chromosome, known as R1b1b2. The Y chromosome is passed down the male line only, from father to son.

Researchers led by Jobling collected DNA samples from more than 2,500 men across Europe. Around 80% of the men had the R1b1b2 type of Y chromosome, making it the most common lineage on the continent."

Haplogroup R1b (Y-DNA) has been described as follows in the Wikipedia:

"In human genetics, Haplogroup R1b is the most frequently occurring Y-chromosome haplogroup in Western Europe. R1b is also present at lower frequencies throughout Eastern Europe, Western Asia, Central Asia, and parts of North Africa. R1b is also very common amongst speakers of Chadic languages in Sub-Saharan Africa. [emphasis added]

Within Europe, which has been much studied, R1b's frequency is highest in the populations of Atlantic Europe and, due to European emigration, in North America, South America, and Australia. In Ireland and the Basque Country its frequency exceeds 90% and approaches 100% in Western Ireland. The incidence of R1b is 70% or more in parts of northern and western England, northern Spain, northern Portugal, western France, Wales, Scotland. R1b's incidence declines gradually with distance from these areas but it is still common across the central areas of Europe. For example, R1b is the most frequent haplogroup in Germany, but not in neighboring Poland."

The Chadic connection is intriguing and suggests to this author the possibility of an influx of European blood into this region through ancient seafarers - for the oldest boats found in Africa are in the Chad region.

It is hard to explain the high incidence of R1b among Chadic speakers by presuming a land route, along which there is no evidence of R1b migration.

We give little credence to the land route solution proposed recently in Viktor Černý et al., Migration of Chadic speaking pastoralists within Africa based on population structure of Chad Basin and phylogeography of mitochondrial L3f haplogroup, BMC Evolutionary Biology, 2009, 9:63 doi:10.1186/1471-2148-9-63, who write in their conclusion, based only on mitochondrial (mtDNA, female) rather than Y-haploptype (male) evidence, that:

"We provide genetic support for an Early Holocene migration within Africa. A high-resolution phylogeny of haplogroup L3f based on whole mitochondrial genome sequences shows several clades that are unevenly distributed throughout Africa and Near East. Specifically, clade L3f3 is geographically limited to the Chad Basin where it reaches high frequencies especially in Chadic-speaking groups while almost absent in Niger-Congo and Nilo- Saharan people. Within the Afro-Asiatic language phylum, the Chadic branch is linguistically close to the East African Cushitic branch although they are separated by ~2,000 km of territory in which different Semitic and Nilo-Saharan peoples live today. We show that only northern Cushitic groups from Ethiopia and Somalia are genetically close to Chadic populations. Thus, the archaeologically
and linguistically supported route of proto-Chadic pastoralists via Wadi Howar to the Chad Basin may have genetic support. Moreover, our molecular genetic date for the Chadic-specific L3f3 clade is consistent with the suggested Holocene dispersal."

A similar conclusion is found via Nature.com in the Europpean Journal of Human Genetics, which abstracts the idea as follows:

"European Journal of Human Genetics (6 January 2010) | doi:10.1038/ejhg.2009.231

Human Y chromosome haplogroup R-V88: a paternal genetic record of early mid Holocene trans-Saharan connections and the spread of Chadic languages

by Fulvio Cruciani , Beniamino Trombetta , Daniele Sellitto , Andrea Massaia , Giovanni Destro-Bisol , Elizabeth Watson , Eliane Beraud Colomb , Jean-Michel Dugoujon , Pedro Moral & Rosaria Scozzari

Abstract

Although human Y chromosomes belonging to haplogroup R1b are quite rare in Africa, being found mainly in Asia and Europe, a group of chromosomes within the paragroup R-P25|[ast]| are found concentrated in the central-western part of the African continent, where they can be detected at frequencies as high as 95|[percnt]|. Phylogenetic evidence and coalescence time estimates suggest that R-P25|[ast]| chromosomes (or their phylogenetic ancestor) may have been carried to Africa by an Asia-to-Africa back migration in prehistoric times. Here, we describe six new mutations that define the relationships among the African R-P25|[ast]| Y chromosomes and between these African chromosomes and earlier reported R-P25 Eurasian sub-lineages. The incorporation of these new mutations into a phylogeny of the R1b haplogroup led to the identification of a new clade (R1b1a or R-V88) encompassing all the African R-P25|[ast]| and about half of the few European|[sol]|west Asian R-P25|[ast]| chromosomes. A worldwide phylogeographic analysis of the R1b haplogroup provided strong support to the Asia-to-Africa back-migration hypothesis. The analysis of the distribution of the R-V88 haplogroup in >1800 males from 69 African populations revealed a striking genetic contiguity between the Chadic-speaking peoples from the central Sahel and several other Afroasiatic-speaking groups from North Africa. The R-V88 coalescence time was estimated at 9200–5600|[thinsp]|kya, in the early mid Holocene. We suggest that R-V88 is a paternal genetic record of the proposed mid-Holocene migration of proto-Chadic Afroasiatic speakers through the Central Sahara into the Lake Chad Basin, and geomorphological evidence is consistent with this view. European Journal of Human Genetics advance online publication, 6 January 2010; doi:10.1038/ejhg.2009.231."

The R1b haplogroup contradicts the above analysis, because the R1b haplogroup is otherwise strongest in Europe, and not in Africa.

Quite the contrary, the high presence of the R1b haplogroup in Chadic language speakers helps to draw attention to the megaliths of the Central African Republic and raises again the question of who put them there and when. We allege that these were European seafarers in ancient days. See Das Tanum System – ein alteuropäisch-afrikanisches Vermessungssystem? pp.34 et seq.

At the John Hawks Blog in the posting The worm in the fruit of the mitochondrial DNA tree
he writes:

"François Balloux (2009) has a polemic in the online access area of Heredity presenting references about mtDNA selection, and arguing that the use of this single genetic marker is no longer warranted without support from other loci.
Yay! I've been saying that both here, and in peer-reviewed articles, for several years. I think serious workers know that one gene is not enough; two genes (mtDNA and Y chromosome, for example) aren't enough -- we have to integrate information across every possible source, genetic, skeletal, and anthropological, to really test hypotheses about the past."

At Dieneke's Anthropology Blog, Aaron - in our view correctly - wrote in the comments:

"From what I remember the study found trace amounts of U5 and U6 in North Cameroon, and the rest the female lines were L1, L2..etc Linguistics is a whole other can of worms, but the data supports northern origins of this ethnic group."

Haplogroup U (mtDNA) is described as follows:

"U5 had a common ancestor with its sister group, U6. What's interesting is that U5 and U6 are "sister mtDNA groups" with a common ancestor in N. Africa. Each mtDNA group has a sister group. A large proportion of Canary Islander are U6. The medieval Guanches of the Canary Islands also had U6. There was a lot of interbreeding in paleolithic times between U5 and U6. The Berbers are high in U6 mtDNA today.

Haplogroup U6 is a group of people who descend from a woman in the Haplogroup R branch of the Genographic tree. It is common (around 10% of the people) [1] in North Africa and the Canary Islands. It is also found in the Iberian peninsula and British islands due to ancient gene flow from North Africa."

The Peopling of the World via the Journey of Mankind : A Virtual Global Journey at the Bradshaw Foundation via an Animated Map

John Hawks Weblog has it right:

"It is really not worth looking at, but I couldn't stop laughing, so I have to point it out....

This is what we get when there is not enough critical science of human dispersals. We're not seeing history here, we're making it up."

Many conceivable maps of human migrations can be made based on the genetic and climatological evidence currently available. The map-animated virtual global journey at the Bradshaw Foundation Journey of Mankind : The Peopling of the World is one admirable attempt - at least from the graphics side - to provide such a map.

However, the graphics are where the fun ends - and the erroneous content begins, especially because of all the overstretched and unsupported climatological - and other - hypotheses....

Especially disturbing in terms of the available evidence is the idea that mankind first moved up the Nile Valley out of Africa - and then allegedly became extinct. A new subsequent group of humans - luckily kept in reserve in Africa in the interim - then allegedly reached Asia and Europe via the Arabian peninsula in a topographically navigational miracle and from there spread throughout the globe. A very unlikely scenario.

For a much more likely version of human migrations, see the National Geographic Genographic Project. And even there, great caution is advised. Too many details still need to be unraveled.

Y Chromosome Evolving Rapidly -- Gibbons 2010 (113): 3 -- ScienceNOW

Y Chromosome Evolving Rapidly -- Gibbons 2010 (113): 3 -- ScienceNOW:
by Ann Gibbons, ScienceNOW Daily News, 13 January 2010

"The Y chromosome has long been thought of as a stagnant part of the genome, where genes are slowly decaying in males of all species. But the first comprehensive comparison of the Y chromosome in two species--specifically, humans and chimpanzees--shows that in fact, it is a hot spot of evolution. 'It's really exciting; it's totally well-documented; it's really dramatic,' says population geneticist Andrew Clark of Cornell University.

As is well-known, humans and chimps share 98% of their DNA. But more than 30% of the DNA differs between chimps and humans in the region of the Y chromosome that determines sex. This suggests that the Y chromosome has undergone 'extraordinary' remodeling in both species in the 6 million years or so since they split from a common ancestor, says geneticist David Page, director of the Whitehead Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge."

Read the rest of the article here.

The Jewish Priesthood Cohanim and the Y Chromosome Cohen Modal Haplotype (CMH)

Extended Y chromosome haplotypes resolve multiple and unique lineages of the Jewish priesthood, by
Hammer MF, Behar DM, Karafet TM, Mendez FL, Hallmark B, Erez T, Zhivotovsky LA, Rosset S, Skorecki K

"[Abstract (excerpt)]

The most frequent Cohanim lineage (46.1%) is marked by the recently reported P58 T->C mutation, which is prevalent in the Near East. Based on genotypes at 12 Y-STRs, we identify an extended CMH on the J-P58* background that predominates in both Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi Cohanim and is remarkably absent in non-Jews. The estimated divergence time of this lineage based on 17 STRs is 3,190 +/- 1,090 years. Notably, the second most frequent Cohanim lineage (J-M410*, 14.4%) contains an extended modal haplotype that is also limited to Ashkenazi and non-Ashkenazi Cohanim and is estimated to be 4.2 +/- 1.3 ky old. These results support the hypothesis of a common origin of the CMH in the Near East well before the dispersion of the Jewish people into separate communities, and indicate that the majority of contemporary Jewish priests descend from a limited number of paternal lineages."

DNA, mtDNA, Haplogroups and Chronlology

Researchers Develop Method for Distinguishing Ancient Human DNA from Modern Day Contaminants | GenomeWeb Daily News | Sequencing | GenomeWeb

"NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and the Russian Academy of Sciences have come up with a way to overcome modern human DNA contamination — a major obstacle in past ancient human DNA sequencing efforts....

Based on the DNA patterns present in mitochondria, the researchers concluded that the Russian remains are roughly 30,000 years old — in the same range as previous estimates that put the skeleton's age at between 30,000 and 33,000 years old....

The team is currently trying to collect more samples from early modern human populations. And the new method may have applications for studies of historical population patterns throughout Europe and elsewhere, Krause explained, such as the effects of an ice age occurring in Europe around 20,000 years ago."

DNA analysed from an early European

Paul Rincon, Science Reporter at BBC News, reports that DNA was recently analysed from an early European at the ancient site of Kostenki. As published in Current Biology, the DNA analyzed was mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) - passed down from a mother to her offspring - and discovered to be mtDNA of the haplogroup U2.

Johannes Krause, Adrian W. Briggs, Martin Kircher, Tomislav Maricic, Nicolas Zwyns, Anatoli Derevianko, and Svante Pääbo, A Complete mtDNA Genome of an Early Modern Human from Kostenki, Russia.

"Summary

The recovery of DNA sequences from early modern humans (EMHs) could shed light on their interactions with archaic groups such as Neandertals and their relationships to current human populations. However, such experiments are highly problematic because present-day human DNA frequently contaminates bones [1] and [2]. For example, in a recent study of mitochondrial (mt) DNA from Neolithic European skeletons, sequence variants were only taken as authentic if they were absent or rare in the present population, whereas others had to be discounted as possible contamination [3] and [4]. This limits analysis to EMH individuals carrying rare sequences and thus yields a biased view of the ancient gene pool. Other approaches of identifying contaminating DNA, such as genotyping all individuals who have come into contact with a sample, restrict analyses to specimens where this is possible [5] and [6] and do not exclude all possible sources of contamination. By studying mtDNA in Neandertal remains, where contamination and endogenous DNA can be distinguished by sequence, we show that fragmentation patterns and nucleotide misincorporations can be used to gauge authenticity of ancient DNA sequences. We use these features to determine a complete mtDNA sequence from a not, vert, similar30,000-year-old EMH from the Kostenki 14 site in Russia."

You have to pay to read the full article.

Human Migrations and Principles of Historical Language Reconstruction : Adapting Linguistics to the Facts Rather than the Other Way Around

Principles of Historical Language Reconstruction
(P-Hi-Lang-Recon, to be cited as "PHILANGRECON in the meaning of phil-lang-recon")
by Andis Kaulins
(Copyright © 2008 by Andis Kaulins, fair use permissible, copyrighted materials of others are used here pursuant to the "fair use" copyright exception.)

Principle Number One:
Human Language is Genetic and Arose Suddenly with the Dawn of Modern Humans
This contradicts the theory of some modern linguists that human language arose gradually and not from one specific place.

Science Daily reports about a Letter in Nature (19 July 2007) about which Dr. Andrea Manica of the University of Cambridge has stated:

"We have combined our genetic data with new measurements of a large sample of skulls to show definitively that modern humans originated from a single area in Sub-saharan Africa."

Juan Uriagereka writes at Seed Magazine in The Evolution of Language as follows:

"What we are beginning to see is that a set of disparate cognitive traits lends credence to the fact that language is genetic, and arose suddenly... we have specific linguistic behaviors that seem to have appeared only within the past 200,000 years—an eye-blink of evolution."

That point ca 200,000 years ago was in Africa, and from that point mankind ultimately spread.


(Download high resolution map at National Geographic)
Principle Number Two:
Human Language arose in Africa and - in the Case of Europe and Indo-European Languages - that Original "Out of Africa" Language Followed Human Migration Northward, via Central Europe and the Baltic Sea, from where it spread East and West



As can be seen from the above map from the National Geographic Genographic Project, the "genetic path" of migration into Europe (the yellow arrows) - a path otherwise blocked by mountains - proceeded on a path out of Africa across the Western Middle East, then between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea (the Black Sea may have been much smaller then) and via Central Asia to the what is now the Baltic Sea. This path of migration, in our opinion, explains why Latvian and Lithuanian are the most archaic still-spoken Indo-European tongues, as they are near the northernmost point of the migration at that time, stopped by the Baltic Sea, and thus reflect an early stage of human language spoken by mankind at this time of the migration out of Africa. One thus finds great lexical similarity between Latvian and Lithuanian languages and the ancient languages of the Middle East as well as the Bantu languages in Africa.

The genetic path of migration contradicts the practice of linguists in favoring, for example, Latin and Greek etymological roots for Indo-European and Proto-Indo-European terms. The genetically estimated "Out of Africa" date is about 55000-50000 BP. The oldest tool artifacts from that period (45,000 BP) in Europe have been found at Kostenki, in Russia, (see the Venus Figurine with braids) somewhat North of the passage between the Black and Caspian Seas, i.e. right where we would expect them. Kostenki (SW of Voronezh) is right at the center of the area from which the Indo-European language is proposed to have emanated by the Kurgan hypothesis. This is surely no coincidence but indicates that this is in fact the area from which the human migration may have spread.

The Kurgan hypothesis of Indo-European language migration errs in its dating because it mistakes technology transfer with language spread. The Urheimat (Original Homeland) is much older than later technology transfers, utilizing similar routes. A Wikipedia map of the Kurgan hypothesis of the spread of Indo-European language is shown below and it closely matches the "Out of Africa" routes of migration, which occurred much earlier.


Other archaeological and anthropological evidence suggest a somewhat later date of "Out of Africa" migration and the Kostenki date could be more like 40,000 BP- supported by the Hofmeyr Skull 36,000 BP in South Africa, by the Cioclovina 1 neurocranium from ca. 33,000 BP found in Romania, which might be a Neanderthal hybrid, by the Oase 2 skull from Romania (35,000 BP), and by the ochred skeleton of a child at Lagar Velho, Portugal (24,500 BP). Very few human skulls or skeletons have been found in Europe for the period prior to 28,000 BP.)

Principle Number Three:
Not Only Modern DNA Genetic Studies but also Blood-Group Studies as far back as 50 Years Ago Show a Similar Pattern of Human Migration and Language Spread
(This contradicts the idea of some linguists that modern DNA genetics is still a young science and still has no directly applicable relevance to historical linguistics. As the graphic shows, genetic mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) evidence is supported by blood-group studies. Compare the 1957 world blood-group dendrite below with the 2007 mtDNA map above. It is a match.)

(Above is a mathematically produced dendrite of the world distribution of blood groups, adapted from A. Kelus and J. Lukaszewicz (authors of Taksonomia wroclawska w zastosowaniu do zagadnien seroantropologii, Archiwum Immunol. terap. Doswiadizalnej, 1, 245-254 , 1953), as presented in Ludwig Hirszfeld (also Hirschfeld or Hirsfeld), Probleme der Blutgruppenforschung (book review here)).

Principle Number Four:
Along the Early Migration Route, A Lexical Comparison of Indo-European Languages - especially on the evidence of Latvian, which we speak as a native and thus use for accurate comparison - Shows Unmistakable Common Roots With Ancient Languages of the Middle East as well with Bantu Languages in Africa
The current division of languages into various allegedly separate groups in terms of language origins is false. All languages have a common origin. The expanded Nostratic theory is correct but does not go far enough, since it incorrectly excludes some groups of human languages from its ambit.). Here is a map of world languages after Joseph Greenberg, retired Stanford linguist:

(View this map in high resolution at The Tower of Babel (ToB), which "is an international, Web-based project on historical and comparative linguistics - so far, the biggest and most comprehensive of its kind to be found on the Internet", that began life in 1998 as the personal homepage of Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (1953-2005), who, until his untimely demise on 09.30.2005, had been Russia's leading specialist in diachronical studies and unofficial head of the so-called "Moscow school of comparative linguistics".)

Principle Number Five:
The isolated comparison of single words picked out of various language dictionaries is undesirable for etymological study. To obtain valid etymologies, words must be examined in the broader context of the place of a word in the entire language as a whole and only then can valid conclusions be made.

We take here the example of the word "hand" in English, for which various false etymologies have been developed over the years, with the result that no known etymology is accepted, especially since "hand" only exists in Germanic languages - English, German, Swedish. How can that be?

The Online Etymological Dictionary repeats the mainstream linguistic etymology:
"O.E. hond, from P.Gmc. *khanduz (cf. O.S., O.Fris., Du., Ger. hand, O.N. hönd, Goth. handus)." Linguists have not been able to follow this etymology any further because "hand" as a word only exists in the German languages.

The Eatonhand.com page correctly not only lists "hand" in its etymology, but also wisely refers to the broader conceptual context including finger, thumb, nail, palm, hand, wrist and elbow.

But the "broader conceptual context" of etymology for "hand" should also include the concept of "arm", because, as every modern linguist should know - and almost none do - in the Latvian language, together with Lithuanian the most archaic still-spoken Indo-European tongues, the word for "hand" and "arm" is the SAME word, namely:

Latvian roka "arm, hand"
Lithuanian ranka "arm, hand"
but also Finnish ranka "long, straight branch"

Given that knowledge, a "scientifically"-oriented world of linguists should immediately have concluded that if Latvian had only one term for both "arm" and "hand", that this might in fact reflect the Urzustand (original state) of the Indo-European language. But none, except us, have done so, because mainstream linguistics and their etymologies are faulty to the core, thinking that Latvian roka applies only to the hand and showing that they have not done their homework.

Since the mainstream linguists have little clue as to how language developed CONCEPTUALLY, they have of course not sought to find the etymology of English, German and Scandinavian "hand" in ancient words for "arm", because had they done so, they would have found the correct etymology, an etymology reaching clear back to Africa. Here are the Bantu words for "arm" as taken from the Bantu Language Database at the University of Auckland in New Zealand:

01758.	Asu G.22	m̀	kónò	N	3
01354.	Basaa A.43a	hì-/dì-	kéŋéé	N	19, 13
00941.	Bemba M.42	úkù	ßókó	N
00478.	Bukusu E.31c	kú- mù-	xònò	N	3, 4
00006.	Kinyamwezi F22	m̀ / mà	kɔ̀nɔ́	N	5, 6		arm = hand
02252.	Koyo C.24	ɛ̀	bɔ́gɔ̀	N	7-6
03072.	Lega D.25	kʊ̀-	bókò	N	15, 6
02638.	Rumanyo (Gciriku) K.38	lì	ßɔ̂kɔ̀	N	5, 6
03443.	Tswana S.30	lɩ̀-	bɔ́χɔ́	N	5
03863.	Yao P.21	ŋ̀-	kónó	N	3

Those words correspond to the Latvian sāni "side (of the body)" in diminutive form as sānīte, found in German as kante "edge" and Dutch kant "side", and that constellation of three words sānīte (side) : kante, kant (edge, side) : hand show us the true etymology of hand quite clearly in a well-known s>k>h consonantal shift similar to Grimm's law. At some point the weak "n" in Indo-European sānīte was lost or otherwise n//t was dentalized, giving the following words for side (as the left or right half):

Latvian sānīte "side" (diminutive form)
German Seite "side"
English side
French côté
Norwegian side
Swedish sida
Finnish sanka ("side of an object")
Chinese shǒubi (shǒu-bì)

But the arm is also an element with the shoulder, which modern medicine recognizes when it talks about "shoulder arm syndrome". Hence, when we combine the concepts of arm and shoulder in our etymology, we get that "eureka" effect that only comes with good science, because the methodology we are using is the correct methodology, contrary to current methods:
Widely disparate terms in various languages suddenly then show similar origin:

Thai แขน (kăen) "arm"
Vietnamese cánh tay "arm"
Syriac: ܟܬܦܐ (kathpā, kathpo) "shoulder"
Hebrew: כתפא (kathpā, kathpo) "shoulder"

IN Chinese, Japanese and Korean the Han character 肩 "shoulder"
(radical 130 肉+4, 8 strokes, cangjie input 竹尸月 (HSB), 戈尸月 (ISB), four-corner 3022₇)
is read as follows

Cantonese
Hanzi 肩 (Yale gin1) "shoulder"

Japanese
肩 (hiragana かた, romaji kata) "shoulder"
Kanji 肩 (common kanji) "shoulder"
Readings On: けん (ken) Kun: かた (kata)

Korean
Hanja 肩 (hangeul 견, revised gyeon, McCune-Reischauer kyŏn, Yale kyen) "shoulder"

Mandarin
Hanzi 肩 (pinyin jiān (jian1), Wade-Giles chien¹) "shoulder"

As can clearly be seen, the languages of the world relate back etymologically to a hand-arm-shoulder concept at inception, which then became dissimilated in the various human groupings as humanity migrated to different part of the globe.

Indeed, this knowledge provides us with a new tool to determine the date as to when languages separated from each other.

An average mainstream linguist trying to understand the relationships which exist between all the languages of the world is hopelessly lost - as mainstream linguistics is - if words are not understood conceptually to include broader original concepts in the early stages of language which later become more differentiated among various language groups.

This posting is the first in a series of postings establishing new principles for the comparative reconstruction of languages in historical linguistics. These principles are important because modern views of ancient history and language, often erroneous, greatly influence current events.

In the light of modern genetic findings concerning the direction of human migration out of Africa - and we refer here to the National Geographic Genographic Project and the map above from that website dating to ca. 55000-50000 BC - it becomes crystal clear that the methodology currently used by mainstream linguists to reconstruct ancient languages, especially the proto-Indo-European language of interest to Western civilization, is in need of a total overhaul.

In fact, based on modern genetic evidence of human migration out of Africa, many of the past "peer-reviewed" writings of Western linguists (the blind leading the blind) can probably be thrown straight into the wastebasket as reflecting a bygone age of a totally false focus by gullible classical scholars on what are essentially colonialist remnants of Latin and Greek sources. Then as now - the classical scholars foolishly thought and generally still think that European language was based on those two ancient tongues, an assumption taken simply because those languages were the most ancient written languages known in Europe at that time.

Of course, whether a language is put into writing or not has absolutely nothing do with how archaic that language is nor what stage of language development such a language represents.

Indeed, Latin and Greek have been used to reconstruct the proto-Indo-European language, even for areas of Europe where no Greek or Roman ever set foot, and European languages are treated historically as if there had been no language at all in those regions, prior to the advent of the Greeks and Romans. It is an amazingly absurd and closed-minded approach to science and one reason that we hold little of modern linguistics, a pedantic language study which has resulted in the establishment of far-fetched etymologies (origins) for European words and which has greatly skewed the accurate reconstruction of true proto-Indo-European.

Modern comparative historical linguistics started late in the 18th century when Sir William Jones, an Englishman who studied law and who was at that time living India, observed as follows the year 1782:

"The Sanskrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more copious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philologer could examine them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists. There is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothick and the Celtick, though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanskrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family.” (Jones 1786, quoted in Lehman 1967 and Szemerényi 1996:4)."

As written at the Wikipedia:

"Although as early as the mid-17th century Dutchman Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn (1612–1653) and others had been aware that Ancient Persian belonged to the same language group as the European languages, and, publishing in 1787, American colonist Jonathan Edwards Jr. demonstrated, with supporting data (which Jones lacked), that Algonquian and Iroquoian language families (families, not merely languages) were related, it was Jones' discovery that caught the imagination of later scholars and became the semi-mythical origin of modern historical comparative linguistics."

Since then, modern linguistics has become a playground for scholars who abide by the principle voiced by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his first series of essays on Self-Reliance, where he stated that: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.". Linguistics has in fact developed into a pseudo-science where the scholars spend their time trying to devise artificial and highly subjective abstruse rules for the development of language, rather than looking at the available evidence to actually discover how language developed. Most scholarly publications on language no longer have anything to do with language at all but revolve around the application of obscure symbols which are their own self-serving end, and which are the focal point of discussion, with erroneous conclusions derived from erroneous etymologies, so that the allegedly discovered rules are next to worthless in language reconstruction.

Modern linguistics suffers from a peer group pressure syndrome discussed at Conformity, Compliance and Obedience, which is marked by the following characteristics:

* conformity occurs in response to social norms
* social norms are pervasive and powerful
* compliance occurs in response to a direct request
* obedience occurs in response to an authority figure

Major weapons of peer group pressure are:

1. Reciprocity
2. The demand for commitment and consistency, which "taps our strong desire to be consistent over time"

That describes perfectly how modern linguistics works. The fact of scholarly publication is a matter of reciprocity to theories published by other peers - not a matter of the truth or falsity of what is being published. That is combined in scholary writings by the demand for foolish consistency under the motto that some rule, however erroneous, is better than no rule at all.

This "linguistic method", and it is the major linguistic method in vogue in that science today, has led to a house of cards which is being swept away by modern genetics, and rightly so.

In light of modern knowledge and the above maps, any linguist seriously preferring linguistic explanations giving preference to Western etymological explanations rather than to Eastern ones, is simply deluding himself and others. We have long claimed that Latvian language is much more archaic than Western tongues and we are right, without question, based on genetic evidence. Any linguist who defends old outdated Western-centric Indo-European etymologies and theories with a straight face does not belong in the true scientific field, by which we mean that group of persons, whose theories will withstand the march of time. That demand excludes much of mainstream linguistics.