They didn’t wait till the supposed Ice Free Corridor opened up. New evidence proves that the IFC wasn’t viable until after 13,000-12,500 years, and ancient Native American remains in Oregon at 14,600 bc, and a village site at the tip of South America at the same time frame, puts Native Americans inside the Americas before the IFC opened up, and proves that the Americas were peopled by another way. Probably by boat thru the Pacific Coastline. There are older sites littered through out the Americas, so Native Americans could have been in Americas as early as 40,000 years ago, just by linguistics alone puts them in Americas 40,000 years ago.

also, jewish intermarriage is called ‘genocide’ by jews

It is not my experience in the least that BanglaDeshis are mild mannered. Those I knew in East London were quite rough. They are physically small but went in gangs and are therefore more than a match for blacks.

Lol, my bhuddist friend refinement without force leads to extinction. That’s why we left bhuddism for Sikhism.

but there is a morbid fear of “pollution” in East Asian societies.

Bhuddism ie Hindu culture from few millenia ago reasons could be many, that thought process gave rise to Untouchability of those who work in meat & alcohol

[…] Frost, “A Genetic Marker for Empathy?,” The Unz Review, August 22, […]

We have White Supremacy, Professor, because for 2500 years we, whites, have produced the best minds on the planet, the greatest flourishing of the arts and sciences ever seen, the most complex and organized societies. We have White Supremacy, whatever exactly it may be, because we have been the earth’s most successful race. No other has come close. Deal with it.

Exact. But the irony is that the dumbest Whites are the proudest of White achievement while they would probably, in everyday life, make fun and bully the White geniuses who build this civilisation.

To which I would add that Greece is not part of contiguous continental Europe, never was but its beginnings were co-opted by the greater European affiliation. Look at the Greece alleged ‘cesspool’ vis a vis those who treat it like a their neighbour’s stepchild and the attitudes on which it is judged. Again, Greece forgave German debt only to be jacked up by EU austerity. Nobility is a bitch!

Then look at Egypt! Last time I looked, It is not and never has been part of Europe but it is African, cut it, dice it, slap it and it is still in Africa and there it shall remain. All I gotta say!

I was talking about Eastern Europe as a whole. My definition of Eastern Europe is all the European post-communist states (except East Germany) plus Russia, for a total of 21 nations with a population of roughly 330 million.

In linguistic terms there are:

13 Slavic nations (pop. 285 million)
2 Latin nations (pop. 25 million)
2 Finno-Ugric nations (pop. 10 million)
2 Albanian nations (pop. 5 million)
2 Baltic nations (pop. 5 million)

In religious terms there are:

9 Orthodox nations (pop. 240 million)
7 Catholic nations (pop. 75 million)
3 Muslim nations (pop. 10 million)
2 Protestant nations (pop. 5 million)

By alcoholic preference there are:

10 Vodka nations (pop. 240 million)
5 Beer nations (pop. 65 million)
4 Wine nations (pop. 20 million)
2 nations with no data (pop. 5 million)

So I think it’s fair to say that most (but not all) Eastern Europeans are Slavs; are Orthodox; and prefer vodka.

One more thing:

List of Slavic countries

West Slavic:
Poland, Czech, Slovakia (not a single orthodox, 2 not vodka)
Southern Slavic:

SLovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, BUlgaria (1 Muslim, 3 orthodox, 2 catholic, only 1 Vodka)

Eastern Slavic:
Belarus, Ukraine, RUssia (orthodox, vodka)

So you have 12 Slavic countries (not counting small MOntenegro), of which 6 is orthodox and 5 are VODKA. THis is not “MOST”.

If you are going by the population, then it’s different for one reason: Russia, which alone counts for almost half of Slavic population. Once exlude Russiam, by population again you won’t have “MOST” Slavs.

In summary, you took “Russia” for granted as standing for “Most slavic countries”. This is very annoying for most of us non-Russians.

Sure, it’s German speaking, but genetically it has a lot of Slavic admixture. Meaning you can’t assume it’s all innate.

Culture co-evolution works that way…

Cultural model generally fit with SOME personality types. For example, US(ass) government may introduce a gothic culture among young people as the (advantageous) behavioural standard. Even if most americans are not gothic-like (depression cult) in personality type, some will be. Those who are gothic-like will can increase the number of children in a long term, because cultural (environmental) stress tend to reduce fertility. And conformist people will adapt themselves in these culture, like ”racism’ and ”homophobia’ today. Racism, specially against blacks, was a mainstream in 50′s. Homossexuality, in western, specially, was treated as mental disease (partially correct, specially for excessive promiscuous one) at least in the 70′s.

Cultural change fluctuations mean micro-adaptation. Humans live in societies, we are a social animals. And ordinary humans reflect less about their actions.

Cognitive ordinary people tend to have less responsibility about factual reality or truth.

Biological changes, like, biological-like gothic folks become majority (increase in suicides and depressions) in the United States is more rare, but superficial or cutural changes are trivial.

“Korean respect for the aged is because of its culture – not its genetics – Koreans are Confucians – Confucian philosophy venerates the old and one’s ancestors.”

What’s your concrete proof that it’s not in genetics?

It’s all too easy to claim that is “only culture”. A culture doesn’t grow and maintain itself in empty air, but is mostly, and firmly, supported via the genetics underneath – so called “gene-culture co-evolution”, else why such a Confucius culture only exists within the East Asians, but not randomly in Romania or Morrocco or somewhere, eh?

“When a Korean immigrates to America his successive generations lose his Confucian philosophy. They adapted to Western philosophy”

Again, that’s a very bold claim. They may dress, speak and act like, or even more than, their Western counterparts in the West on the surface, perhaps due to the social pressure of “blending-in”. Panda doubts that they have lost their Confucian philosophy while at their homes.

Absolutely!

I am not an expert on this either, but see Panda’s intuitive response on this “effective empathy” here last year:

http://evoandproud.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/affective-empathy-evolutionary-mistake.html

“Could an anonymous commenter do better?”
No, but I’ll share some thoughts about song lyrics if nobody minds.

Empathy with personal identification i.e. shared preference/experience

If you like pina colada or getting caught in the rain (etc.)

Change in society since the seventies. People’s goals have shifted steadily toward wealth, social status and good looks.

http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21646001-even-religion-america-offers-more-choice-pick-and-mix

The point is made more bluntly by Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, an umbrella body for more than 40,000 Pentecostal and evangelical Latino churches in America and Puerto Rico. The Catholic church in Latin America is “an extension of the bureaucratic state”, he charges, and offers only indirect access to God through the Virgin Mary and the priesthood. Worse, Catholics are told that salvation awaits in another life—and in the meantime, blessed are the poor. In contrast, evangelical churches offer a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, leading to a blessed life here and now. [...] Father Ed Benioff is director of an Office of New Evangelisation for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, founded in 2013 to woo wavering worshippers, especially younger ones. He finds young Latinos steeped in impatient American dreams of individual success. Father Ed is pinning his hopes on the example of Pope Francis, offering the millennials—the age group now in their teens to early 30s—a meaningful life by serving others.

No question – empathetic actions are natural – they are generated by a biological genetic marker (most likely more than one). There are genetic markers for muscles as well. As we mature, activating our muscles is more and more a matter of will – a matter of intellectual intent. Activating empathy is a matter of will also. In most human situations empathy is only one of many emotions that can be activated. Like a muscle, you use it or lose it. If you use it, and how you use it, is mostly a learned cultural phenomena.

Empathy is a type of action. An animal of one species can show empathy for an animal of different species – that is a fact. We don’t use “empathy” when one animal eats another animal. We use the word empathy when kindness is apparent – when we observe caring.

A car has four main elements to it. It is a wagon with wheels and a motor, and it can be steered. If you take away any one of those elements, it is not a car.

Empathy has three elements to it – first there is an observation, then am element of personal identification tempered with kindness. Remove any element and it is not empathy.

Well the traditional groups like nation states, which are the crucial entity, actually exist. The Universalist group is just like the arbitrary group in the experiment in which the subject was shown photos of individuals and told those were fellow members of the same arbitrary group as the subject. The subject’s theory of mind (ie cognitive empathy) brain circuits lit up when looking at the photos of the fellow arbitrary group members. The people pushing the Universalist idea are Liberals, who are not arbitrary, represent a coherent tradition, and are immensely powerful.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3209554/Is-baby-racist-Scientists-discover-way-reverse-racial-bias-young-children.html

Data on charitable contributions as a percentage of income show that people in conservative states (presumably conservatives) are more generous than people in liberal states (presumably liberals)

I’m not surprised by that at all. Conservatives, I bet, care about charity/volunteering in the context of religion. A lot of them compelled to do so because of what their church requires. Even Muslims, the prototype of clannish, non-commonweal oriented people, give tons of money through religious organizations because of the inclusion of “alms” as one the Five Pillars of Islam. But I’m guessing that liberals feel more actual internal reward in giving to the poor, independent of any outside entity telling them to do so. Also, liberals are more likely to live in places where they expect the government to provide for the poor.

“Pro-social behavior is learned and is not at all the same thing as affective empathy.”

So your “affective empathy” is not social behavior. To have empathy one has to observe another being. Don’t human observations of another being influence future actions? Doesn’t the use of the word “affective” imply future and action? Aren’t all actions involving humans – social behavior? Do your words logically add up to valued truth?

It seems to me that you want to take “caring” out of the definition of empathy. “Caring” meaning the motivation behind looking out for our fellow humans. You want to make empathy into an exclusive none thoughtful none intellectual hard coded biological reaction. You want to strip social caring away from the idea of empathy. The problem for you is that we are social beings with emotions that steer behavior and with logical brains that steer behavior – we are hard coded to integrate the two. They work together – our lives are a product of both emotion and intellect. It is impossible to take social behavior out of the human empathy equation.

I fear we are about to lose another long understood idealistic word to intellectual nonsense. Is “empathy” going to be corrupted like the words Liberal, and Marriage, and Investment are? Is human cultural goodness going to take another hit by intellectuals?

I do not quite understand what you meant, Sean. Could you explain again * If you do not bother you!

There is a large proportion of homosexuals who are leftists. But if the ” socialist ” (pseudo) were not superficially favorable to their cause, most of them would not be leftists.

Liberalism brings together a large number of disparate groups that are opposed to social Darwinism.

The example of basketball (sports in general) is instructive. There are no sports, as well as ideologies, out of the human world. But nothing that man do to entertain or to believe, is based on something totally unnatural.

the torturer uses empathy (the ability to imagine and recognize the feelings of the other)

This does not seem to have a lot emotional content.

I think of sympathy has having a great deal of emotion involved.

I can’t see real connection between the two.

It is comparing an empirical observation with a gut emotion.

There is always a relative outgroup. For Vermont it might be Alabama. This is the problem with theories like HBD chick’s idea that some people see themselves as in a single delimited group with all humanity.

The out-group is composed of the people who refuse to accept the universalism. If you would otherwise be in the universalist group but you reject the rainbow vision by clinging to your white race, regional group, gender identity, religious group, etc., you are the out-group.

Problémy in my ”smart”phone..

to play and not ”Toplay”, a nice bangladeshian guy,

http://mic.com/articles/105702/neuroscientists-may-have-discovered-how-our-brains-can-overcome-racial-prejudice

But even known-to-be arbitrary groups (the coin came up heads so you are in the greens not the blues) invoke social identity processes. Brain scans revealed that people shown photos and told ‘these are the others assigned to your group’ switched on their theory of mind brain areas. This and other test showed that being assigned to a group understood to be completely arbitrary makes us see other members of the group as more human.

There is always a relative outgroup. For Vermont it might be Alabama. This is the problem with theories like HBD chick’s idea that some people see themselves as in a single delimited group with all humanity.

Mad magazine had a joke years ago satirizing the liberal version of empathy:
“The liberal holiday: be kind to your inferiors day.”

Peter,
I know that this label tend to be ephemerous but people tend to aglomerate themselves in groups where happen sharing of similar ideas and attitudes. Leftism is a philosophical meme like traditional religions but some people fit perfectly with one of this memetic way of life, in other words, there are a prototypical leftist and conservative. Is like sports. Basketball is a cultural recreative meme but some people have the perfect biological profile toplay

Data on charitable contributions as a percentage of income show that people in conservative states (presumably conservatives) are more generous than people in liberal states (presumably liberals). For 2014, the states with the highest percentage donation/income were Utah, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia; the states with the lowest percentage donation/income were Rhode Island, New Jersey, Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire. Much of the conservative state giving is to churches, but much of churches’ funds are spent on charity to the needy.

The evolution of white conservative is exactly to be like the average east asian, less religious, more intelligent, more literal but also more apathetic with real empathy, because real empathy is not just or specially long term positive attitudes but very short term, help people (and non-human animals) all the time, when they are in need. Conservatives tend to think a lot a long term, because psychological gratification of capitalistic system, while liberals (in my opinion, a very diverse group) tend to think in short term.

It explain why almost of brazilian leftists believe that ”bolsa família” (money distribution for low classes) is a good way to reduce extreme poverty, despising the grotesque show of corruption of major”socialist” brazilian party.

Brazilian leftist mentality is ”all brazilian parties are corrupted, but ”worker party” at least has achieved reduce extreme poverty” while typical brazilian (conservative) mentality about this specific political context is that ” poor people aren’t hard worker”.

Leftists are naive to perceive that ”Worker party” is not doing it just because by their bleeding hearts but to create a long term dependent and stupid class, the archetypical ”proles”. Dependence is slavery.

“The challenge now is to measure the genetic component of affective empathy not only in different individuals but also in different populations.”

Why – what for —- culture trumps genetics – why not just build a caring empathic culture?

As far as the universe is concerned “genetics” is old tech – new tech is brains and culture.

Are you trying to take us backwards?

There is no shortage of psychometric tests for affective empathy. The challenge now is to measure the genetic component of affective empathy not only in different individuals but also in different populations.

But you haven’t thought of the newsbite affective empathy test. I know – it isn’t your style and I have more respect for you for that – but this is how you get the message across:

“But I Didn’t Inhale: How our Genes Could Explain the Elusive Contact High”

Pop science is all about how you spin it. Sure, it’s easy to look down on it, but you can’t discount how immensely influential it is, even in the hands of mediocrities like Bill Nye.

It should be pointed out, though, that conservative whites do a lot of charity/volunteering through churches and religious organizations.

If we control for ethnic background, I’m not sure whether “conservatives” would show more affective empathy than “liberals.” When I go to Vermont, I’m struck by the degree to which Vermonters help the needy. I’m not talking about the government. I’m talking about a spontaneous desire to help, as seen in a multitude of volunteer groups of all sorts. I’m told the same is true for Minnesota. Yet both states are very “liberal.”

What I’ve noticed when comparing both conservatives whites and East Asians to liberal whites is that the former group (conservative whites and East Asians) tend to be more concerned with politeness, courtesy, and orderliness, while liberal whites tend to be more concerned with more abstract concerns like social justice and community volunteering. I’m sure others have noticed this if they’ve been around these three groups. Hasn’t the psychologist Jonathan Haidt delved into this in his research?

“I think that Koreans are more polite and respectful to the old. I also think foreigners should learn from Koreans about how they treat the aged with courtesy.”

The idea that genetics rules all of human behavior is bogus. God gave us brains that takes in information —- we can use that information in a logical fashion and create knowledge. That knowledge can override our biological instincts. The process leads to philosophical cultures.

Korean respect for the aged is because of its culture – not its genetics – Koreans are Confucians – Confucian philosophy venerates the old and one’s ancestors.

When a Korean immigrates to America his successive generations lose his Confucian philosophy. They adapted to Western philosophy. Hmm – how can this be – two thousand years of genetics are changed in two generations. Of course, it was never genetics in the first place.

Animals have empathy – 98% of everybody has some capacity to be empathic. It is ones culture that determines how it is expressed and to what degree.

“Nonetheless, too much affective empathy may lead to an overload where one ends up helping others to the detriment of oneself and one’s family and kin.”

One could almost put it the other way about: when it doesn’t really matter, people let go of their affective empathy and start extending it to everyone and everything. The average girl nowadays is all upset about animals farmed for meat but nothing like that could have arisen when people were poor farmers. Vermonters nowadays don’t have to deal with Indians on the warpath, but when that was a concern the Vermonters would have been offering big money for scalps of Indians, any Indians (which they in fact did). That said, it is difficult to imagine an Audie Murphy or a Chris Kyle from Vermont; they enjoyed hunting as boys and killing humans as adults. Re Finns, you would never get a Danish Simo Häyhä.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-imprinted-brain/201502/hyper-mentalism-hyper-empathizing-and-supernatural-belief

The results imply that individuals with high self-reported empathy and interest in people, coupled with poor self-reported understanding of physical causality and low interest in technical, motor, abstract, and organizable systems, had more supernatural beliefs than others.

” These concepts seem to correspond to your use of the terms “empathy” and “sympathy.””

Could we say that empathy is a peception, an ability to perceive, whereas sympathy is an expression, a willingness to express?

I don’t quite understand why hbd*chick prefers an approximate line to the detailed line http://demoblography.blogspot.co.uk/2008/01/hajnal-line.html because the differences seem significant :-

- round Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania rather than through the middle of them
- through Slovakia and Hungary rather than through Czech and Austria
- across the top of Croatia (Slovenia inside) rather than across the top of Italy (Slovenia outside)

(that’s if I’ve compared correctly).

My idea about non-kin empathy would that people with less genetic similarity than their parents and relatives, in personality and cognition, specially, will be more predisposed to be more universalistic-goal.

More mutational load, less exclusive kin-”empathy”.

Liberals seems have more mutations than conservatives, tend to look differently than their parents or than ethno-national phenotype. American conservatives tend to be more anglo while liberals tend to be less Wasp (urban liberal versus countryland conservative).

Less endogamy but without excess of mixing race, tend to produce the biological individual, self-sense of individuality.

Liberals tend to born by moderate conservative families and tend to be like ”the black sheep” of family.

http://www.psmag.com/books-and-culture/first-born-children-likely-grow-conservatives-81925

It also explain more creativity ability among liberals than conservatives (although I believe that the most creative tend to be independent thinkers)

I included Austria with the other German-speaking countries because … wait for it … it’s a German-speaking country. That’s the “scientific reason” behind my “petty theory.”

I never said all Eastern European countries are Orthodox or prefer vodka, but most are and do. The drink of choice in the countries you named are:

Poland: beer
Czech: beer
Slovakia: spirits
Slovenia: wine
Croatia: wine

http://chartsbin.com/view/1017

[…] http://www.unz.com/pfrost/a-genetic-marker-for-empathy/ […]

Austria is founded on previous Slavic lands and its “Slavic” character was often commented upon by others; today, also genetically Austria shares a lot with Slavic people. I’d say you are trying to include Austria not because of any scientific reason, but simply because you WANT reality to conform to your petty theory.

Not to mention Poland, Czech, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia are not orthodox countries; historically there were times when they were either beer or wine cultures; and nowadays those countries are again more and more beer-oriented.

Time for personal anecdote: Frankly from my interaction wih English, French, German and Slavic, I always had the best time spent together with other Slavs AND Germans (to my surprise, because in my youth my stereotype of Germans were arrogant, cruel, boring and uncreative). I often couldn’t find common tongue with English and French, but in every conference I went to I had fun time with Germans.

“In both cases, my hunch is that “conservatives” are disproportionately drawn from populations that have, on average, a higher capacity for affective empathy” [...] “The third one had two groups of participants: Israeli Holocaust survivors and a control group of European-born Israelis who had emigrated with their parents to the British Mandate of Palestine. The incidence was 48% in the Holocaust survivors and 63% in the controls (Fridman et al., 2012).”

Interesting, that might explain the difference between wingnut Jewish Israel politicians and moonbat Western Jewish radicals.

Remember that dopamine receptor study “a culture/gene interaction in the carriers, whereas the noncarriers show no difference, regardless of ethnic originn:” The minority with high dopamine variants seems to be responsible for all the peculiarities of a population. The high dopamine increases the effect of reward seeing as it is associated with alcoholism, gambling, sexual infidelity and migration (mixed ancestry). The same adaptation increases the extent to which people internalise their culture. That has to be susceptibility to reward orientation (approbation). The adaptation we know about that is associated with being attuned to others and responsible for major cultural differences works by sensitizing us to others approbation, for good or ill.

Two Paths:

They argued that although a short allele of 5-HTTLPR is linked to anxiety and depression, especially under traumatic life conditions (Caspi et al., 2003), this genetic risk might be mitigated by cultural collectivism, which involves more caring social relations and support networks. Cultural collectivism might therefore “buffer genetically susceptible populations from increased prevalence of affective disorders” (p. 529), which in turn might lead to a relatively high prevalence of the short allele of 5-HTTLPR. (Kitayama et al., 2014)

This post:

For instance, it has been found that people with at least one copy of the short allele of 5-HTTLPR tend to be too sensitive to negative emotional information. This effect seems to be attenuated by the deletion variant of ADRA2b, which either keeps one from dwelling too much on a bad emotional experience or helps one anticipate and prevent repeat experiences (Naudts et al., 2012).

As I read this, the ADRA2 deletion stops people from being depressed by making them susceptible to social support (ie cultural collectivism).

I was thinking along the same two lines as I was reading this, and your experience with the black guy evokes much. Eight years year-round basketball and over three years incarcerated, we’ve had plenty close contact. I was going to say a contact high depends on them more than you entirely, them high you sober, and what I think about blacks is that they have more spirit, defined as something that can be exuded and received, so I’m no wise surprised you got high. (I’m a literary guy, not science, but whats vague is not nothing, and what can’t be measured can still be felt, so forgive my “spirit” and trust my individual empiricism.) IQ Tests are perfectly fair to blacks; I don’t believe for a second these emotional tests can be, though I know not how they are administered at all. But I know a lot of gangster rap, and I know what fisticuffs from Africa feel like, and I’ve known three salt u da earth women well enough, and a bunch of other stuff, and their emotions are just better called spirit. To say that they have precious little affective empathy means nothing. Functionally speaking, their societies reflect the fact that spirit has a spectrum that spans a kind of empathy to raw aggression, I would say. Peter Frost is brilliant, but this paper is perfectly innocent racism qua ignorance. I take the r word back but you know what I mean.

Gotta run but the second thing was I believe its got to be a sex trait too.

It would be very interesting to see if there was any significant correlation between those three groups and the prevalence of any possibly important alleles.

This isn’t my field so I’m only competent to observe but it seems that the marker under study is not strongly sex-linked.

I have spent a lot of time in East Asia and my conclusion is that the women have considerable “cognitive empathy” whereas the males do not. Certainly one would anticipate that cognitive empathy on the part of women (but not of men) in a sexist society would be a survival imperative whereas, perhaps,”affective empathy” would be a waste of time! East Asian women frequently complain that their men lack “sensitivity to their feelings” and are often drawn to Westerners: particularly northwest Europeans – your Hajnal Liners – who, they claim, have more “understanding”. Nevertheless, affective empathy doesn’t appear to be strongly marked in East Asian women.

There is a general tendency among East Asians to bottle up emotions – it’s unseemly to display them: this has given rise, I suppose, to the Western stereotype of oriental inscrutability.

I too have long been irritated by “empathy” taking over from “sympathy” though not entirely confident in my right to pedantry. But sympathy is I think what you have “with” someone as the Greek etymology would suggest. It is about “fellow feeling”.

Empathy I seem to recall being originally encouraged to use only for projecting yourself into someone else’s state of mind.

Maybe it would be better in the current context to start with a question about what reaction(s) to others’ manifestations of emotions would be likely to change people’s relations with others in productive or adverse ways and to contrast this with both the presumed hunter gatherer relations over tens of thousands of years and the patriarchal authoritarian mode that was surely not uncommon amongst Middle Eastern farmers. A related question would be to try and trace a change in behaviour from the time and culture of Abraham to the settled farming days of a few hundred years later.

In both cases, my hunch is that “conservatives” are disproportionately drawn from populations that have, on average, a higher capacity for affective empathy.

Love the fetus, hate the baby..

In both cases, my hunch is that “conservatives” are disproportionately drawn from populations that have, on average, a higher capacity for affective empathy.

My hunch is the opposite – for whatever that’s worth…

Conservatives have higher affective empathy? I would’ve expected the exact opposite: liberals experience more (at least for non-family members).

If the Chinese, Japanese, Siberians and Israelis have a higher average incidence of the “empathy gene” than the Swiss, Dutch, Canadians and Americans, then the Hajnal Line and the Western European Marriage Pattern don’t really tell us much about the evolution of affective empathy.

On the other hand, in the real world Northwest Europeans seem to be far more empathetic on average than East Asians or Jews. The former suffer from a pathological altruism–particularly with regards to outgroup immigration–that seems to be mostly absent from the latter, so maybe the deletion variant of the ADRA2b gene isn’t the most reliable marker of an empathetic mindset.

The Hajnal Line divides Europe into a Roman-German west and a mostly-Slavic east, based on lower and later marriage rates and lower fertility in the west. This pattern probably started in the Frankish heartland between the Rhine and the Seine along with manorialism, then spread to areas conquered by the Carolingians (France, the Low Countries, most of Germany, Northern Italy), and then finally to neighbouring areas under Frankish influence (Northern Iberia, Britain, Scandinavia, the eastern German lands).

The parts of Eastern Europe west of the Hajnal Line (Czech Republic, western and northern Poland, coastal areas of the Baltic States) were heavily Germanized from the Middle Ages right up until 1945. The parts of Western Europe with higher and earlier marriage rates and higher fertility, were generally the ethnic outliers: non-Indo-European Finland, Celtic Ireland, and the areas of Southern Iberia and Southern Italy that were long under Moorish and/or Byzantine rule.

So the Western European Marriage Pattern was essentially an ethnic marker: from a Frankish core it expanded to include all the Latin and Germanic lands, but no further. Did this pattern lead to the traits (individualism, guilt proneness, empathy, trustworthiness) that we find in Northwest Europeans today? Maybe, partially. But I think there are three main problems in using the Hajnal Line to define the boundaries of Northwest Europe:

1) The exclusion of Austria

For some reason the Hajnal Line is shown as beginning well to the south of Trieste, then jogging to the northwest before turning northeast towards St Petersburg. By doing this it excludes the bulk of Austria, including Vienna. Are we to believe that Vienna–for many centuries the largest city as well as the political, economic and cultural hub of Germany–had a completely different pattern of marriage and fertility than all the other German-speaking lands?

That seems very unlikely, to say the least. But even if were true at some point in the Middle Ages, Austria today clearly clusters with the rest of Northwest Europe in every measurement you could possibly name. Austria is just as ‘German’ as Bavaria or Saxony, so if it is excluded from Northwest Europe because it (allegedly) falls to the east of the Hajnal Line, then you might as well exclude Germany, and Switzerland too. And that makes no sense at all.

2) The exclusion of Finland and Ireland

I don’t dispute that these two countries did in fact have historically different patterns of marriage and fertility from the rest of Northwest Europe. But I would argue that both countries have so thoroughly assimilated to Scandinavian and Anglo-American cultural norms respectively, that their falling outside the Hajnal Line is basically irrelevant today, and that both should definitely be considered integral parts of Northwest Europe.

Finland was under Swedish rule for nearly 700 years, and even when it was transferred to Russian control Swedish remained the sole official language of Finland for the next 50 years. Swedish is still a co-official language in Finland, and Swedish-Finns have played a hugely outsized role in all aspects of Finnish life: politics, the military, industry, trade, art, architecture, literature, science, music, and on and on, arguably even more so than Finnish-Finns have. And Finland since independence, especially since 1945, has aligned itself ever more closely with the rest of Scandinavia, so much so that it has at least partially subsumed its sovereignty to the Nordic Council, along with Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland.

Ireland has been partially or wholly under British control from 1169 AD right up to the present day. There has been so much mixing between British and Irish that the British Isles as a whole are generally considered to be a single genetic cluster. When Southern Ireland achieved independence after WWI, they tried to assert their Celticness and Catholicism to differentiate themselves from the Brits. But linguistically this has been a total failure: 100% of the Irish speak English, and Gaelic has been reduced to a folkloric language, almost completely unused in daily life. Religiously, this worked for a while, but this year’s gay marriage referendum (62% said yes) put the final nail in the coffin of Ireland’s once-rigid Catholicism. And since the rise of the ‘Celtic Tiger’ beginning in the 1980s, Ireland has been basically indistinguishable economically, politically and culturally with the rest of the English-speaking world.

3) The inclusion of the Latin nations

France and most of Italy, Spain and Portugal fall within the Hajnal Line. But these four nations don’t really cluster with Northwest Europe in terms of language, religion, culture, politics, economics, or even basic geography. Instead, I believe they form their own distinct Mediterranean-Latin-Catholic sub-civilization in Southwest Europe, as opposed to the Nordic-Germanic-Protestant leitkultur in the Northwest and the Alpine-Slavic-Orthodox one in the East.

The division of Europe into three parts is apparent in something as basic (and culturally important) as each region’s tipple of choice: in the Northwest it’s beer, in the Southwest wine, and in the East vodka. We can see the same pattern in any international measurement of living standards, with the Northwest European nations all clustering near the top, followed by the Southwest and then the East. Some of the East’s lagging is no doubt due to the lingering after effects of communism, but I think the same Northwest-Southwest-East order ranking can be found in the psychological traits listed above (individualism, guilt proneness, empathy and trustworthiness).

So basically what I’m arguing is that the Hajnal Line shouldn’t be used to define Northwest Europe. Instead, a linguistic definition makes a lot more sense. The 18 Germanic nations of Europe and their overseas offshoots, including Austria, Finland and Ireland, but not France, Italy, Spain or Portugal, make up the Northwest European sub-civilization.

English: UK, Ireland, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand
German: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein
Scandinavian: Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland
Dutch: Netherlands, Belgium

Almost all the most virtuous psychological traits, are idealized by psychology and applied in a politically skewed cultural context. Empathy is an extremely idealized feature. The vast majority of people, and most hbd’ers, as it should not be otherwise, are only partially empathic. That is, most tend to project on the other, putting in its place. But they tend to do it mirrored way, and if it was me **

Most do not try to understand what the other is feeling, why this feeling, the causes and circumstances. Clinical psychology is based on this error, psychologists stand in the place of his patients, but mirrored way, and if it were me ** He never tries to see the side of the patient, because it is always self-projecting and imagining in context social. I’m like that, and that’s fine, if I try, he may also be, like me.

Family problems are also based on self-projection. The father wants his son to be like him. Often this will be a reality when there is similarity in personality and (+) cognition (intelligence). But when there is no similarity, it will be a torment for the child because the father will make the partially empathic approach.

East Asians do not seem more empathetic than Europeans, but differently. Empathy (or partial empathy) Asian, it tends to give based on their greater collective civility, although to be very emotionally apathetic, they can also be modulated for the cold behavior, as has happened in China.

A fascinating early step perhaps. Without retracting agreement from Ron’s points I would be keen to learn of a lot of follow up studies, including other genes and their prevalence, distribution and sometimes multiple effects, but especially wrt just-so stories as hypotheses to be tested. Leaping out to be assessed is some reason why Africans wouldn’t have evolved the same variants as Asian hunter gatherers or the NW European people if the latter are found by testing ancient DNA to have had the variant for more than the last 8000 years or so. Come to think of it the time frame for selection for the variant is going to be critical for following up PF’s line of speculation.

I was trying to add this as a separate comment. I may be missing something through lack of the attention I would give to something I know a lot about but do I correctly infer that the old kinship emphasis to the SE – but weren’t they farmers anyway? – is consistent with families not really caring much what other members feel as long as they do as they are told or otherwise conform?

Ron Unz, here’s how Chakrabarti and Baron-Cohen have psychometricized empathy:

https://psychology-tools.com/empathy-quotient/

http://personality-testing.info/tests/EQSQ.php

http://isik.zrc-sazu.si/doc2009/kpms/Baron-Cohen_empathy_quotient_2004.pdf

You’re right that it’s fuzzy, ultimately it’s a self-report thing.

Peter, I recently thought of a good way to test for for affective empathy. I wrote something on Steve’s blog about an incident when a black ex-con tried to have his way with me, and described how weird I felt after he took a hit of crack in front of me. I felt physically very unsettled, despite the fact that I couldn’t have inhaled more than an inconsequential fraction of the cocaine he did.

So I described it as a “contact high,” which is a well-known, if ambiguous, phenomenon. One reader mistook this as suggesting that I was smoking crack, too, but I surmised that he simply didn’t understand the concept of a contact high. In fact, I’ve had contact highs on several occasions, not all of which involved fight or flight type scenarios with dangerous people.

It occurred to me that the elusive contact high is actually affective empathy in action. People who feel psychologically different around those who are under the influence of drugs probably have affective empathy. It makes perfect sense.

So if you want to test for affective empathy, it seems to me that testing those around psychotropically altered individuals for a similar response would clue you in to who has it and who doesn’t.

Perhaps this could put to rest the notion that affective empathy is a “fuzzy” trait. Personally, I think it might be a sexual trait. If, for example, you can “feel” when a woman’s in the mood, it gives you a much better idea of when you’ve got a shot. Maybe it evolved as a mutual arousal mechanism, which puts Nordic women’s “open” behavior in perspective (i.e. they expect you to know when they’re in the mood and when they aren’t without relying on traditional cues like clothing).

I know I’m fighting against the tide here, but the word “empathy” is being misused in this article, as it very often is in general.

The article defines empathy thus: “the involuntary desire not only to understand another person’s emotional state but also to make it one’s own—in short, to feel the pain and joy of other people.”

The correct English word for this is “sympathy”.

Empathy, if it is to be a useful and not entirely redundant word, is the cognizance of the feelings of others, as distinct from the sharing of those feelings.

The word was introduced to the English language in the early 20th century by Titchener (who invented it), but its current popularity owes to the work of the post-Freudian psychotherapist, Heinz Kohut.

Heinz Kohut explained the distinction with reference to torture and punishment: the torturer uses empathy (the ability to imagine and recognize the feelings of the other) to know how to maximize the victim’s pain, but the torturer feels little or no sympathy for the victim. Sympathy would stand in the way of the torturer’s goals.

Empathy and sympathy don’t always go together. Besides the example of the torturer, there’s also the case of the person who feels misplaced sympathy, because they incorrectly conceive how another person feels.

So empathy can exist without sympathy, and sympathy without real empathy.

East Asians tend to regard themselves as being more empathic than Westerners, including Northwest Europeans, the Westerners they most often encounter, in much the same way that Westerners tend to regard themselves as being more empathic than East Asians.

https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2015/06/162_180778.html

My church friend, Rachel, who has lived in Korea for almost six years told me that Koreans don’t express their thoughts clearly sometimes. Consequently, she doesn’t know evidently what they want. For instance, her husband, Jonathan, asked me to go out for dinner with church members several days ago.

Although I had my own schedule that day, I had to accept his proposal because I didn’t want to disappoint and hurt him. Hence, I can say that Koreans are emotional and considerate. We tend to sacrifice our time to help our friends. However, my observations tell me that westerners are individualistic. They prefer keeping their own space and never do what they don’t want to do.

https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2015/07/162_183210.html

In Korea, seniors generally pay the money for juniors when they go out together for dinner and go to the bar to hang out. I definitely say that Koreans have an immaculate virtue, which foreigners cannot think of. A senior feels the responsibility for taking care of juniors by treating them to some food using his money. The juniors meanwhile feel happier to know that their seniors are willing to care them. Later, they will show more sincerity to their seniors. I think the unilateral trade from the seniors is the steppingstone to progressing favorable friendship with the juniors.

In a nutshell, Koreans are so generous and benevolent. I wonder if this character originates from a “collective society,” in which people prefer “we” to “I.”

I think that Koreans are more polite and respectful to the old. I also think foreigners should learn from Koreans about how they treat the aged with courtesy. A British friend of mine alleged that he could punch an elderly person if he is lazy and an alcoholic, while I said that we should embrace them whatever they do.

Westerners are even reluctant to give special favor for an old lady. For instance, when I was in Brisbane, Australia, I saw a vacant seat on the bus stop. As I was a conventional Korean man, I was supposed to yield it to the old lady who stood right next to me. At the moment I found a young lady staring at me so unkindly and sharply. She seemed to be extremely upset with me. She wanted to take the seat for herself. She never cared about the person who was at least 70.

I think that Westerners hardly regard the elderly as important and trustworthy. Worse, they make light of them, because they are physically weak. What I am saying is that ”All men are equal” does not make sense in this regard. We should be more attentive to the old who have devoted their life to the community. They are worthy of being loved and revered whatever they are.

On the other hand, I saw a Canadian friend in a bus who has lived in Gwangju for over 10 years. He was willing to give his seat to the old lady after finding that she was standing right behind his seat. I thought that Korean society has taught him how to respect the old and that a desirable tradition in Korea has affected him in a more positive way.

[…] color. Those character and personality traits impact culture, which in turn has impacted biology. This article by Peter Frost is a great explanation of how biology, culture and environment work on one another simultaneously. […]

Lower light levels! I give up.

http://dienekes.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/prehistoric-farmers-from-northern.html

“Prehistoric farmers from northern Greece had lactose intolerance, brown eyes, dark skin”

Somewhat coincidentally I have just stumbled onto this article: http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150805-neanderthals-strange-large-eyes, which states that there is a correlation between latitude and eyeball size in modern humans. They reference this study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21795263/, which states it is an adaptation to the lower light levels in higher latitudes. It seems that light eyes also confer this trait of enhanced light sensitivity – see https://www.dukemedicine.org/blog/myth-or-fact-people-light-eyes-are-more-sensitive-sunlight and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22527312 for instance.

I think these data suggest that an environment-related selection for blue eyes in northern latitudes is more than plausible, and this might explain the north (>80%) to south (<20%) cline that we see in Europe today a lot better than sexual selection does (unless blue eyes only sexier in the snow?).

I expect the extent Yamnaya conquest varies according to the region

… and so a theory whereby Yamanya killed all the men and only mated with the whitest women doesn’t really hold when considering a phenotype found all over Europe, does it?

You are doing that thing again where you chain a whole bunch of unsubstantiated speculations to make a claim that is at odds with the data. Looking at the hundreds of Neolithic to Bronze Age samples we have there is clear evidence of selection across the board, not just in female-heavy populations, not just in Yamnaya-related populations – but in pretty much all populations, regardless of culture or ancestry, over an extended period of time. This is not very suggestive of sexual selection, which requires specific cultural practices and population structure, and which works much better in small populations than large expanding ones. Yes, it’s possible to weave a series of imaginary conditions by which sexual selection is still technically possible in post-Neolithic Europe, but the only reason for doing this is a pre-held belief, it’s not a rational or logical interpretation of the data at hand. You’ll have to excuse me if I stick with the explanation suggested by the evidence.

The man can take two wives or twenty if the women are providing for themselves and their children, as in traditional African agriculture . He doesn’t close off his choice by taking another wife and the only problem is keeping them all satisfied! It is where the woman has to get a man to make a final choice of her over others that you get selection. White skin is about monogamous marriage, which is why the darkest skin in the world is found in west Africa, which has the most polygyny.

From what I have read the Yamnaya would have taken most of the conquered women but few would have been given a position that would let their children survive. The Yamnaya appear to have sometimes sacrificed women, like dogs. The founding myth of Rome (gang of young men associated with wolves capture women) is quite consistent with Yamnaya type conquest being at the origin of nobility in European societies.

The analysis of the Yamnaya root language discloses many words for ‘patron’, ‘guest’ and ‘feast’. So after the Yamnaya conquest of parts of Europe, it was a hierarchical society with chiefs who controlled surplus resources. A woman who got married to a chief would have hit the jackpot in on-going reproductive fitness terms.

The Orkney Isles suffered a similar conquest with the place names all being Norse, they are 60% Norwegian Y chromosomes but 25 % Norwegian overall . I expect the extent Yamnaya conquest varies according to the region. Serbia would be a good bet for high Yamnaya ancestry.

A rolling one off conquest event over Europe is unlikely. Elite dominance, confirmed by them imposing their language, would mean selection over many generation. Even today a beautiful young woman can reasonably expect to marry a millionaire. It is true that white skinned women (the type that go nightclubbing) get a tan to look sexually attractive, but being taken as a wife by a Yamnaya and having their children acknowledged as nobles would require more than looking sexy enough to impregnated. White skin may be related to eliciting care and provisioning. It’s not clear that tanned skin is being selected for or does more than advertises sexual availability, it only appeared in the modern permissive environment, where birth-rates are not high by the way.

http://evoandproud.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/are-women-changing-color.html

Tibet has pale skin yet the elevation there means UV there is as strong as the equatorial African. Tibet has polyandry.

I think you accept selection for the modern Europe phenotype in the Neolithic could well have been the Yamnaya conquerors killing the men and ignoring the excess women without the modern Europe phenotype.

I believe I said “it’s certainly a possibility” – I don’t accept it as a fact. There a number of issues I have with it, firstly the scenario is probably overexaggerated- if all the Neolithic European men really were killed then all modern Europeans would have >50% Yamnaya ancestry and they don’t, indeed there is a cline of Yamanaya ancestry falling to <10% in the extremes and the DNA data suggest a strong resurgence of Hunter-Gatherer DNA into modern Europeans sometime after the Yamnaya incursion. "They killed the men and took only the white women" seems too simplistic to explain the evidence on hand.

Furthermore selection takes a much longer time than such a theory accounts for. Studies have stated that selection for SLC24A5 was one of the strongest selections ever seen in modern humans with the sweep taking maybe as little as 100 generations – that's about 2,500 years, minimum… for sexual selection this means a consistently monogomous, male-scarce population in a host of widespread cultures from the Yamnaya incursion to well into the Bronze Age, and I find this very hard to believe.

The essential point is it’s not speculation that Loschbour’s eyes can only be sexual selection

Well “only” is a strong word – it’s possible it’s just random drift and it’s also possible there’s a yet undiscovered functional benefit (there’s a fishwife theory that blue eyed people make better marksmen for instance). On the balance of probability though, I’m happy to accept it was primarily driven by sexual selection. Note also that Loschbour and the other WHG’s don’t have all the blue eye alleles, Hirisplex gives them about a 60% chance of having blue eyes, and about 75% of non-brown.

I personally think the vitamin D synthesis/ diet explaination is no longer tenable, and the only selection left is male choice.

Again, “only” is a strong word. There is a degree of correlation between skin colour and latitude and we find the extremes of depigmentation not only in modern Europe, but in Mesolithic Europe and modern East Asia. Explaining this by sexual selection means “male choice” was identical in 3 very different times and places, yet at the same time not in related South Asian populations. I can understand how the theory might work in Mesolithic hunger-gatherers, with small populations and extreme conditions providing unstable gene pools, but in the post-Neolithic world there’s simply too much variation and too much cultural change to allow the necessary prerequisites for sexual selection to last long enough to drive an allele to fixation (and I note neither eye nor hair colour has been similarly driven). An environmental cause is much more likely. Ultimately though it’s probably a moot point – while we can detect *if* a selective sweep occurred, it’s always going to theoretical as to *why* it occurred, and we could argue about it forever.

Women can always get a man, unless the women are in excess and men have a choice

In which case the man usually just takes two.

It’s a situation analogous to a woman trying to make a living in showbiz. (” Choose me!”).

… and yet over 30 million Americans have deliberately darkened their skin in order to get laid: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/01/29/indoor-tanning-increase/5028431/… go figure.

I think you accept selection for the modern Europe phenotype in the Neolithic could well have been the Yamnaya conquerors killing the men and ignoring the excess women without the modern Europe phenotype.

About the pre Neolithic I have a series of speculations; yes, but those were byways. The essential point is it’s not speculation that Loschbour’s eyes can only be sexual selection. There is no other explanation for a dark skinned people with light eyes in the Mesolithic. Motala had 75% modern Europe phenotype in pre-Neolithic northern Europe and hence, whatever the selection was in the Neolithic, it wasn’t the first time the modern Europe phenotype was selected for. Call me parsimonious, but I think there needs to be a good reason to think the selection pressure was not the same both times.

I personally think the vitamin D synthesis/ diet explaination is no longer tenable, and the only selection left is male choice. Women can always get a man, unless the women are in excess and men have a choice, because then innate algorithms are paramount (ie the men become very picky in a non idiosyncratic way). It’s a situation analogous to a woman trying to make a living in showbiz. (” Choose me!”).

http://atlantablackstar.com/2013/08/19/15-black-celebs-caught-whitening-their-skin/6/

I’m really not sure how to respond to this Sean, you seem to be connecting a series of speculations and treating them as fact while dismissing genuine empirical facts as if they were just speculation.

Rather than attempt to correct each of your unfounded assumptions, I’ll just point out that this kind of chained circumstantial reasoning becomes less likely with each assumption. For instance, your “White Doggerland” theory requires 4 separate contested assumptions:

1. That Motala were beheaded (when they could from be a funerary or ancestry ritual)
2. That there were a large number of Doggerland refugees at the time of Motala (when Doggerland was probably depopulated by then)
3. That Doggerland refugees evacuated over the sea to Sweden (when they could easily have evacuated over land bridges to England, France and Germany)
4. That Doggerlanders were white-skinned like Motala (when just as likely they were dark-skinned like Loschbour)

There is simply not enough evidence to state any of these 4 assumptions as fact, they are just possibilities – but your theory requires ALL of them to be true. While it’s impossible to realistically assign probabilities to these points, even if we assign them all a bipartisan a priori probability of 50% (and I’d argue that points 2 and 3 should really be way below this), that only gives a probability of your theory being correct of around 7% – there’s a roughly 93% chance that one of these assumptions, and hence your whole idea, is incorrect.

I’m not going to tell you that you should stop believing it, but I feel the need to point out that the only reason for believing it over any other alternative is a preconceived belief of what the outcome should be – and it’s unreasonable to expect an objective and rational person to accept all of these assumptions just because they are possible. How would you react for instance, if a “Black Doggerland” believer told you that the Motala skulls are from a targeted minority, similar to albinos in African populations, and so only represent a tiny fraction of the Motala population – the rest of which where dark-skinned? There’s no factual evidence to suggest they were murdered by invading Doggerlanders as opposed to murdered by an internal ethnic cleansing… it’s only a preconceived idea of a “White” or “Black” Europe that would lead to an automatic assumption of either.

What is really important are the facts, which you casually denigrate to speculation with “Then we are told…” as if somebody has just made it up. Regardless of any speculation about what happened earlier, selection for the modern Europe phenotype in post-Neolithic populations is a fact, there’s no avoiding that.

“[T]he Mesolithic samples with the “full suite” don’t have genetic continuity with modern Europeans.” and “The younger and younger examples being found of European ancestors *without* the full suite confirm Razib’s hypothesis”

The person(Magdalenian woman) found with the earliest impacted tooth from jaw reduction for delicate (ie feminine) features is at least 13,000 years old. So the total modern appearance of north Europeans, which includes delicate features, goes back to the late glacial maximum from what we know so far. Delicate feature correlate with light eye colour, and we know from Loschbour that even as late as the Mesolithic some people only had the light eye part of the weak features plus hair/eye skin suite, thus making a connection between light eye colour and anything to do with vitamin D most unlikely.

It seems that your main argument is the Motala skulls are not an ancestral population of modern north Europeans. Be that as it may, we know from Motala that all the elements of the full suite existed in a single north European population long before the Neolithic.

The Razib Khan hypothesis requires the eye and maybe hair colors to be selected in separate contemporaneous Mesolithic populations (within Europe) for them to be common as they seem to have been. Then we are told the separate populations each having one component of the modern north European appearance (delicate features, light diverse hair /eyes and skin colour) came together in such a way that the non-modern, and non Motala, north European aspects of appearance disappeared in the mix. If that did happen to any extent in shows humans see non suite features as undesirable, although the preference only shows up when men can choose between a selection of surplus women. The Yamnaya being relatively few but having their choice of conquered women, which you seem to accept as a possible source of selection for some or all full suite alleles did not happen among the Yamnaya when they took women from their own society (SLC45A2 did not go to fixation in Yamnaya) would indicate that this full suite acts on an algorithm in men, and that is what why full suite women originally appeared.

Motola-type populations (for we only know about Motalo from a fluke) such as the Doggerlanders were maybe untypical of European hunter gatherers outside northern Europe. Anyway it is known hunter gathers in that region had technical devices such as traps and there appear to have been dogs that pulled sleds in Mesolithic Denmark 8ooo years ago, so we could call them more advanced and likely to expand at the expense of other peoples such as the Loschbour types.

The original Cro-Magnons found in France were massive. That is selection for what can be called sexual selection (ie male-male competition) -violence according to Wrangham. The Magdalenian era saw a marked reduction in size and selection for delicate features as in Magdalenian woman .

Selection for height among the Yamnaya explains why SLC45A2 did not go to fixation in Yamnaya; sexual selection can only work in one direction at a time, and the Yamnaya were selected for male-male competition. Once the Yamnaya had conquered large areas of Europe and, as they appear to have done, killed the indigenous men, they wouldn’t have had to fight each other for women. Then there may have been some of this Neolithic selection of (women for the aspects of the full suite that they lacked such as fully) white skin, but that certainly doesn’t mean the origin of the full suite was in the Neolithic.

We’ve been over this before, the Mesolithic samples with the “full suite” don’t have genetic continuity with modern Europeans. The younger and younger examples being found of European ancestors *without* the full suite confirm Razib’s hypothesis, and the two statements of mine that you quote, that this pehonotype was selected for in modern European *after* the Neolithic and post-Neolithic admixture events.

“I believe current theory is that both the farmers and Motala (and Karelia/Samara) got it from the population where it originally appeared, which as Canfield says is most likely in the “the Middle East, broadly defined””.

The basic structure of the ‘current theory’ (actually a hypothesis) that is being knocked from pillar to post by older and older examples of full suites of modern north European appearance alleles in individual found in north Eeurope seems to be first expounded in Razib Khan’s Phenotypic Whiteness as an Outcome of Neolithic Admixture. Neolithic. We are now arguing about the Mesolithic. So the aforementioned hypothesis is being forced to give ground, which shows there is something wrong with it.

(Re my questioning why did SLC45A2 not go to fixation in Yamnaya?) “I don’t think we really know the answer, but my guess would be “time” – they’d only acquired the allele relatively recently and the samples we see are midway through a selection sweep. We know that it went to fixation in their descendants over the next few thousand years”.
Compare:
<“For a selection pressure to have an effect there needs to be an allele work on. [...] The evidence that selection pressure (UV or otherwise) *was* in effect in the Mesolithic is how quickly the depigmentation alleles rose once they were introduced into the various populations. “

You appear to think you can interpret studies better than the IOM

When I see something that sounds implausible I like to look into it myself – 9 times out of ten it’s been sensationalised or overstated in the reporting and the original research is less dramatic or less certain than is represented. In this case I have read the original paper they cite as well as a number of more recent papers on a similar topic I found with google. I couldn’t (and still can’t) see how they arrived at the conclusion they did from the data in the paper they cite, and I didn’t find any other source that independently verified the claim. Given that it’s published by a reputable source, I haven’t thrown it out the window but would like to understand how they arrived at the conclusion they did to see how applicable it is to the argument you are making – I have emailed the authors and will let you know if I get a reply.

But if farmers contributed SLC24A5 why did Motala, have SLC24A5

I believe current theory is that both the farmers and Motala (and Karelia/Samara) got it from the population where it originally appeared, which as Canfield says is most likely in the “the Middle East, broadly defined”.

One final thought: why did SLC45A2 not go to fixation in Yamnaya?

That’s a good question, and I note that early farmers also had it at a lower frequency (~20%). I don’t think we really know the answer, but my guess would be “time” – they’d only acquired the allele relatively recently and the samples we see are midway through a selection sweep. We know that it went to fixation in their descendants over the next few thousand years.

Report on vitamin D commissioned by the US and Canadian governments from the National Academies Institute of Medicine – Page 104. “Kimlin et al. (2007), using computer modeling, concluded that it may no longer be correct to assume that vitamin D levels in populations follow latitude gradients. Indeed, the relationship between UVB penetration and latitude is complex, as a result of differences in, for example, the height of the atmosphere (50 percent less at the poles), cloud cover (more intense at the equator than at the poles), and ozone cover. The duration of sunlight in summer versus winter is another factor contributing to the complexity of the relationship. Geophysical surveys have shown that UVB penetration over 24 hours, during the summer months at Canadian north latitudes when there are many hours of sunlight, equals or exceeds UVB penetration at the equator (Lubin et al., 1998).”

You appear to think you can interpret studies better than the IOM. Ozone holes over the Arctic are not the reason Canadians don’t need extra vitamin D, The reference was about factors common to all northern latitudes. This fog thing is a clever marketing gimick From glam macs to Mission: Impossible, America loves London fog. There is normally no UVb capable of skin synthesising vit D in the Arctic circle.

The Institute of Medicine of the National Academies (ie a panel of world authorities) 2011 report on vitamin D was requested by the Canadian government and it concluded there was no evidence that Canadians (who get little synthesis because they go about clothed) needed extra vitamin D. In fact the amount of vitamin D that you can get from twenty minutes in the sun in Europe is more than 10X the RDA for dietary vitamin D. Europeans like everyone else have a mechanism for switching off vitamin D synthesis after 20 minutes, or sooner as the exposed skin is heated. Yes, natural selection has provided Europeans with a very efficient mechanism for switching off vitamin D synthesis, yet the reason for the UV hitting the surface of northern Europe in summer being comparable to sea level Equatorial Africa is the length of the days .

Loschbour-like DNA still exists in modern European populations, in some cases up to around 50%. The first farmers in Europe definitely didn’t replace the indigenous population, they merged with them.

But if farmers contributed SLC24A5 why did Motala, have SLC24A5, and if Yamnaya contributed SLC45A2 why was Motala closer to fixation for SLC45A2 than any Yamnaya population we know about? The answer is perfectly obvious: Motala was largely descended from the time of the full white skin suite of alleles, the farmers or Yamnaya were not. One final thought: why did SLC45A2 not go to fixation in Yamnaya?

This is natural selection in action, is it ?

Well it’s hardly the work of an intelligent designer, is it?

Seriously though, skin cancer doesn’t usually impair the individual until after breeding age, so it’s not necessarily a functional constraint from an evolutionary point of view.

“Canadian north latitudes” – yes Canada is in Europe for latitude https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/54th_parallel_north

Canada ranges from lattitudes 41 to 83, meaning the 54th parallel is in *southern* Canada. The midpoint is the 62nd parallel, north of both Stockholm and Motala, and “Canadian north latitudes” are higher again than this. If you read the original Lubin paper (here) and more recent studies (like this one) you can see that factors like cloud and ozone cover are quite different between Canada and Europe, and it’s really only at extreme Arctic areas that there’s a significant increase in UV due to there environmental factors.

Moreover, there doesn’t appear to be anywhere in either of these two papers where it says this Arctic increase brings UV up to equatorial levels (indeed the second one states “Mean UV index values in summer range from 1.5 in the Arctic to 11.5 over southern Texas” which is quite the opposite!). Perhaps you can see something that I’m missing, but I suspect the National Acadamies book has misinterpreted the Lubin 1998 data – there’s no statement or graph in it I can see that shows Arctic UV being higher than at the equator… perhaps they thought the graphs in Fig 11 were UVR measurements, not a comparison of 2 UVR measuring methods?

Or the Loschbour population got killed off.

Loschbour-like DNA still exists in modern European populations, in some cases up to around 50%. The first farmers in Europe definitely didn’t replace the indigenous population, they merged with them.

Anyway, Loschbour’s skin colour was ideal from the point of view of natural selection.

As “ideal” as could be using the alleles found in that population – but as soon as a better alternative became available, natural selection jumped on it. This indicates to me that the pressure was already there, it just needed something to work with.

The Interplay between Natural Selection and Susceptibility to Melanoma on Allele 374F of SLC45A2 Gene in a South European Population: “Interestingly, the homozygous genotype for the 374L allele was absent in all the melanoma samples. We found the L374F SNP to be significantly associated with melanoma, with the 374F (the “light” pigmentation allele) constituting a risk factor for melanoma (Cochran-Armitage Trend Test assuming an additive model, p-value: 4.36E-06).

This is natural selection in action, is it ? You don’t have to be in Spain to get cancer from those alleles “Canadian north latitudes” – yes Canada is in Europe for latitude https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/54th_parallel_north and in the summer it gets as much UV as the equator.

“The evidence that selection pressure (UV or otherwise) *was* in effect in the Mesolithic is how quickly the depigmentation alleles rose once they were introduced into the various populations. When Loschbour mixed into Stuttgart’s ancestors, Loschbour’s skin colour virtually disappeared “ Or the Loschbour population got killed off. Anyway, Loschbour’s skin colour was ideal from the point of view of natural selection.

Luxembourg is not isolated the Spain ones also got by with none of the light skin alleles though. Humans had been in north Europe for 20,000 years by this time. There cannot possibly have been any UV related pressure for lighter skin on much of the population of Europe as represented by the Luxembourg and Spain types

For a selection pressure to have an effect there needs to be an allele work on. If a functional depigmentation allele is a rare event (and by “functional” I mean that doesn’t have a side effect of reducing lifespan, as say albinism does), and I suspect it is rare as the obvious on/off melanin genes like MC1R and OCA2 are not the ones selected for (and given that skin cancer is some 20x more likely in SLC24A5/SLC45A2 carriers it seems evolution had to settle for a less than perfect solution anyway), then it’s possible that it took a while for a suitable mutation to arise, and when it did it would only be in one population and would take time to circulate. The evidence that selection pressure (UV or otherwise) *was* in effect in the Mesolithic is how quickly the depigmentation alleles rose once they were introduced into the various populations. When Loschbour mixed into Stuttgart’s ancestors, Loschbour’s skin colour virtually disappeared – in the absence of selective pressures we’d expect a frequency more in line with the admixture ratios, not a nearly instant rise of one allele to virtual fixation. Populations like Motala and Samara that already had the alleles had them in high frequencies, so we know there were selection pressures operating over a range of times and cultures.

Luxembourg and Motala were both major surprises for the conventional wisdom that you are espousing.

I think you’ve read too much into what I’m saying – I’m not espousing any particular theory, I’m pointing out that Peter’s theory is inconsistent with the data. Neolithic allele frequencies mean that the skin colour of modern Europeans cannot be the result of sexual selection in a Mesolithic population from Scandinavia.

I don’t rule out sexual selection per se but I think an environment based pressure (like, but not necessarily, UV) is a better fit as there are multiple sweeps in multiple locations across multiple cultures – including a sweep for lighter skin in different alleles on the other side of Eurasia entirely. It *could* be due to multiple independent pressures and the correlation with latitude is just a happy coincidence, but I don’t think this can be the default position in the absence of any solid data.

Right at the beginning I linked to a review by the US National Academies showing that northern Europe is not a low UV area

Funny, I read it as “Canadian north latitudes” – is Canada in Europe now?

In particular, allele 374F was significantly more frequent among the individuals with lighter skin. [...]

Funny, that “[...]” that you snipped says: “Further genotyping an independent set of 558 individuals of a geographically wider population with known ancestry in the Spanish population also revealed that the frequency of L374F was significantly correlated with the incident UV radiation intensity” (emphasis mine). You didn’t like that bit so you ignored it?

Seriously though, whatever time and for whatever reason these alleles came about, the genome sequences we have show that they accumulated in the immediate ancestors of modern Europeans from the start of the Neolithic onwards, and were subject to selection in the last 7,000 years or so – not in the LGM, nor in the Mesolithic.

The Interplay between Natural Selection and Susceptibility to Melanoma on Allele 374F of SLC45A2 Gene in a South European Population In particular, allele 374F was significantly more frequent among the individuals with lighter skin. [...] To assess the meaning of 374F within the evolutionary history of Europeans we decided to estimate the selection coefficient and the age of expansion of this allele. [...] The age of the expansion of the allele in this case was estimated to be of 16,480 years (95% CI, 10,680–36,070).

None of the alleles are coming up as from the Mesolithic. Putting SLC24A5 to one side for the moment, finding people with the full suite in north most Europe and others with the light diverse eyes in the south west Europe 8000 years ago indicates a Late Glacial Maximum origin between the aforementioned regions.

Eleven thousand years ago which you are pegging SLC24A5 at is fine with me because that puts it in the Late Glacial Maximum along with the first known impacted WISDOM TOOTH in Magdalenian woman, with her reduced-feminine jaws (delicate features are linked to light eye colour by the way) and when Sweden was under half a kilometre of ice.

Moverover, Beleza says the selective sweeps for the European-specific alleles at SLC24A5, and SLC45A2 and TYRP1 started much later, within the last 11,000…”

Right at the beginning I linked to a review by the US National Academies showing that northern Europe is not a low UV area. It really will not do to say SLC24A5 was selected for a reason (UVb-) that does not exist, and another one that nobody knows.

“That’s simply not true. All Mesolithic and early Neolithic populations with SLC24A5 have it at very high (75-100%) frequencies, so it’s very clear that was strong selection for it before the Neolithic.” But there are others of the same time that haven’t it at all. Luxembourg is not isolated the Spain ones also got by with none of the light skin alleles though Humans had been in north Europe for 20,000 years by this time. There cannot possibly have been any UV related pressure for lighter skin on much of the population of Europe as represented by the Luxembourg and Spain types). Yet fully white Mesolithic hunter gatherers with all the alleles existed not so far away to the north in a population that had only been living there a few thousand years.

I think it is obvious that there were multiple populations in Europe with very different appearances. Luxembourg and Motala were both major surprises for the conventional wisdom that you are espousing. We know one appearance (Motala) took over.

Doggerlanders had the motive (nowhere else to go)

… except England, France, Germany and Denmark – all still connected by land bridges till right near the end.

and means (because they would be in concentrations at the point of contact)

… except they had gradually deserted Doggerland over the previous 10,000 years, so if anybody was still living there at all, it was probably in very low numbers by Motala’s time.

There is no doubt that the Motala population disappeared completely and are not our ancestors, so something happened to them and it probably wasn’t the Yamnaya.

It probably wasn’t Doggerlander’s either. The Motala culture appears to have lasted until around 3000 BC, when Neolithic Funnel-Beakers arrived from Germany…. too late for Doggerlanders to have wiped them out.

The dark skinned light eyed Luxembourg man shows light diverse eye colours are not a side effect of anything to do with vitamin D.

No, it shows that eye and hair colour were under different selection pressures to skin colour – it doesn’t confirm or reject any particular pressure.

It is contrary to common sense to argue that selection operated on appearance and not on something as important to appearance as skin.

… and yet you just proved that it did (dark skinned light eyed Luxembourg man remember!), so perhaps your idea of what makes “common sense” might just be wrong?

So there was no selection for the full suite or even just parts of it like SLC24A5 and/or SLC45A2 during the Mesolithic

That’s simply not true. All Mesolithic and early Neolithic populations with SLC24A5 have it at very high (75-100%) frequencies, so it’s very clear that was strong selection for it before the Neolithic. That the Spanish/Luxembourg samples don’t have it indicates that they are a separate population group that hadn’t been exposed to it yet, not that it wasn’t under selection in the populations that did already have it. As we see from the Neolithic and Bronze Age samples, both alleles rose to high frequencies very rapidly once introduced into the wider European population. So lighter skin was being selected for from the Mesolithic through to the Bronze Age, presumably (but not necessarily) by the same selective pressure.

with the multiple studies dating SLC24A5 o SLC45A2 to long before the ice age

I think you mean “long before the end of the ice age” (and I see you’ve corrected it to “Mesolithic”), but this isn’t really true either.

The 11-19k time frame given in Beleza is a summary of the midpoints using an additive model (11k) and a dominant model (19k). We now know that the pigmentation effects of SLC24A5 are additive, so the 11k is the better estimate. Note that the standard error here is huge, with the 95% confidence level for the 11k being 1k to 58k…. this certainly allows for a post-ice age sweep.

The Canfield paper reports the MCRA (ie 1st person with the allele – not the selective sweep which must have happened later), to 12kya with a 95% confidence of 7-19k. They explicitly state that this is “consistent with an A111T origin before or after post-glacial population expansions” (emphasis mine).

So please remove from your thinking the idea that light skin *has* to be an ice age/Paleolithic adaptation, the data indicate it may well be a Holocene/Mesolithic phenomenon… and while you’re at it, remove the idea that is *has* to be a European phenomenon – we know it was introduced to modern Europeans from the outside from the start of the Neolithic, and using haplotype data Canfield puts the mostly likely origin of SLC24A5 “in the Middle East, broadly defined”.

why did they feel that way about white skin if not because that is what white skin is for

I don’t know (if that’s even what really happened!), but I’ll guess it’s different to what South Asians felt.

Correction: ‘ The obvious explanation is the constituent alleles of the full suite date from before the Mesolithic, which is consistent with the multiple studies dating SLC24A5 and SLC45A2 to long before the Mesolithic. Moreover, feminine features are linked with light eyes , and reduction of the jaws dates to the ice age too’.

Re first three points The recent discovery of the previously unsuspected Motala population is suggests the facts are likely incomplete as to the population movements.

The point about the Yamnaya is they killed the men and took the women. Doggerlanders had the motive (nowhere else to go) and means (because they would be in concentrations at the point of contact) . So at around the time the Motola people got beheaded the Doggerlanders would be arriving with the numbers to conquer, and their own women. There is no doubt that the Motala population disappeared completely and are not our ancestors, so something happened to them and it probably wasn’t the Yamnaya.

Skin colour around the world correlates with polygyny much more than UV, Tibetans would be as dark as Senegalese if it was UV.

The dark skinned light eyed Luxembourg man shows light diverse eye colours are not a side effect of anything to do with vitamin D. There is no other explanation left but sexual selection for eyes and hair with light/diverse colours now. It is contrary to common sense to argue that selection operated on appearance and not on something as important to appearance as skin. Motala had the full suite in the Mesolithic, but others at the same time had only parts of it, being missing SLC24A5 and SLC45A2. So there was no selection for the full suite oreven just parts of it like SLC24A5 and/or SLC45A2 during the Mesolithic. (because the Spanish and Luxembourg had light eyes but neither SLC24A5 or SLC45A2). the obvious explanation is the constituent alleles of the full suite date from before the Mesolithic, which is consistent with the multiple studies dating SLC24A5 o SLC45A2 to long before the ice age. Moreover, feminine features are linked with light eyes , and reduction of the jaws dates to the ice age too.

[Certainly one possibility}:"The appearance of selection in the post Neolithic may be related to the Yamnaya and their descendants choosing women from conquered populations who had particularly white skin as wives"

Right and why did they feel that way about white skin if not because that is what white skin is for?

Your own argument is predicated on the full suite coming together in a mix of differently selected populations.

There is no other explanation – the data shows that modern Europeans come from a mix of ancestral populations, and we know each of these populations had a distinct phenotype. The alternate possibilities – that Europeans only come from one ancestral population, or that all their ancestral populations had an identical phenotypes – are both in direct contradiction of the data and can be rejected.

These populations may have been surprisingly small and are easy to miss

There’s not a lot of time or space between the Loschbour and Stuttgart samples, nor between the HungaryGamba HG and EN samples. You are appealing to non-existent evidence when we have solid evidence ranging from Spain to Russia and from the Mesolithic to the present. If and when your imaginary evidence becomes real, come make your argument then.

The Doggerlanders may have done that in the north.

.. and may *not* have with equal (if not greater) probability! When it comes to imagination vs facts, I’ll follow the facts every time.

We know the Yamnaya replaced farmers (especially the men in central) Europe.

Incorrect. Estimations of Yamnaya input into modern Europeans ranges from 0% (Sardinians) to about 60% (Armenians) – “replaced” is the wrong verb.

Absolutely none of the white skin alleles (SLC24A5 and SLC45A2) have been found in hunter gatherers living in Mesolithic Europe

Incorrect, both alleles are also found in the Karelia and Samara samples from Western Russia, southeast of Motala, and overlapping with the later Yamnaya territory.

So there was no vitamin D related (or other) selection pressure operating on people in any latitude of Europe in Mesolithic or afterwards for white skin

There most certainly was some form selection pressure operating, otherwise Europe would look like South America in terms of skin colour. It may not have been vitamin D, but it was probably something universal to both Mesolithic and Neolithic populations, as the alleles seem to have been selected for very quickly once introduced into the various populations.

The appearance of selection in the post Neolithic may be related to the Yamnaya and their descendants choosing women from conquered populations who had particularly white skin as wives

Indeed, that is certainly one possibility.

“It seems unlikely to me that selection for light skin in Motala/EHG and again in modern Europeans would have different causes, so I’d be looking for a pressure that is applicable to both of them (and despite their inadequacies, latitude/UV/vitamin D etc. are common factors). On the other had it is possible that there were different selective pressures at work, so Peter’s theory could be correct for Motala while the cause of the more recent sweep in modern Europeans was due to some unrelated factor.”

Absolutely none of the white skin alleles (SLC24A5 and SLC45A2) have been found in hunter gatherers living in Mesolithic Europe, apart from the Motala skulls in the Scandinavian peninsula. It is significant that even among the Motala population there were about a quarter dark skinned people. So there was no vitamin D related (or other) selection pressure operating on people in any latitude of Europe in the Mesolithic or afterwards for white skin. The appearance of selection in the post Neolithic may be related to the Yamnaya and their descendants choosing women from conquered populations who had particularly white skin as wives.

While light /diverse hair colour is obviously not due to exactly the same selective pressure as white skin, because skin colour is not diverse, I think the default assumption must be that the full suite evolved in a single environment. Your own argument is predicated on the full suite coming together in a mix of differently selected populations. While that seemed tenable when it was hypothesises to have happened once, in the post Yamnaya Neolithic, Motala means it would have happened twice. Two such events is far less likely than a single environment producing the full suite

“We have varied phenotypes in the direct ancestors of Europeans *after* the selection is supposed to have happened – it just doesn’t fit.”

We know these were diverse populations because Luxembourg man (very odd with his robust skull and his dark skin and blue eyes and a type that no longer exist anywhere), is very different to the Motala population of about the same time. These populations may have been surprisingly small and are easy to miss, as evidenced by the Motola populations being a recent revelation.

“Well no, it just proves that
a) eye and hair colours are probably not a side effect of light skin, and
b) there was a selective sweep for light skin in some Mesolithic populations”

A population and their mix of alleles can change by an internal process of a selective sweep. But a population can also get swept away by another population’s success. Population replacement in other words. One population can expanding on the periphery and then move to the centre and replace the previous occupants. The Doggerlanders may have done that in the north. We know the Yamnaya replaced farmers (especially the men in central) Europe.

But that would involve different selection pressures

Exactly. That’s why I find Peter’s explanation too simplistic for the data we have on hand. We have varied phenotypes in the direct ancestors of Europeans *after* the selection is supposed to have happened – it just doesn’t fit.

Eye and hair colours were supposed to be a side effect of light skin for agriculture. then a Mesolithic dark skinned light eyed man is found. Then the full suite in a Mesolithic man. All this disproves any the vitamin D- farming/latitude hypothesis.

Well no, it just proves that
a) eye and hair colours are probably not a side effect of light skin, and
b) there was a selective sweep for light skin in some Mesolithic populations.

If you expand your dataset to include “then a bunch of varied allele frequencies where found in the Neolithic”, we can add
c) there was another selective sweep for light skin in Neolithic Europe.

It seems unlikely to me that selection for light skin in Motala/EHG and again in modern Europeans would have different causes, so I’d be looking for a pressure that is applicable to both of them (and despite their inadequacies, latitude/UV/vitamin D etc. are common factors). On the other had it is possible that there were different selective pressures at work, so Peter’s theory could be correct for Motala while the cause of the more recent sweep in modern Europeans was due to some unrelated factor.

You are very confident seeing as the last couple of years have produced such surprising finds

That’s because I’m essentially just repeating what was discovered in these finds, with very little extrapolation from my own imagination.

“From the distribution of allele frequencies in samples from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age we know that modern Europeans received the necessary alleles for their current appearance from different populations at different times “–

But that would involve different selection pressures, because blue eyes without white skin cannot be selected for the same reason that white skin without light eyes is. I don’t think you have taken on board how surprised everyone (well almost ) was by Luxembourg man having dark skin and light eyes. Eye and hair colours were supposed to be a side effect of light skin for agriculture. then a Mesolithic dark skinned light eyed man is found. Then the full suite in a Mesolithic man. All this disproves any the vitamin D- farming/latitude hypothesis.

“So arguing where and when the earliest example of this “full suite” originated is irrelevant to the discussion, it’s how and when modern Europeans obtained it that is the issue I have with Peter’s post – DNA shows they got it gradually since the Neolithic, not as a “full suite” in the Mesolithic.” You are very confident seeing as the last couple of years have produced such surprising finds .

It’s only human to see blue-eyed white Motala and blue-eyed white Europeans and simply join the dots over 8,000 years, but we have a raft of samples in between these points both temporally and genetically that show such an interpretation is way too simple.

By proposing a hunter-gatherer selection for the “full suite”, Peter’s post assumes that it developed in a pre-Neolithic population and was passed down intact into modern Europeans, which is undoubtedly false. From the distribution of allele frequencies in samples from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age we know that modern Europeans received the necessary alleles for their current appearance from different populations at different times – if any Mesolithic population *did* have an identical phenotype to modern Europeans, they *did not* pass it on to modern Europeans directly. So arguing where and when the earliest example of this “full suite” originated is irrelevant to the discussion, it’s how and when modern Europeans obtained it that is the issue I have with Peter’s post – DNA shows they got it gradually since the Neolithic, not as a “full suite” in the Mesolithic.

We only know the “full suite” of light /diverse hair and eyes plus white skin was around in part of north Europe in a population of hunter-gatherers (who left no descendants) because of one site where several of their skulls were mounted on stakes. To say we know this particular population were the population with the highest frequency of the light/diverse hair and eye plus white skin alleles is an excessively confident statement.

Unless the full suite came together only as the Motala people entered Sweden, the Motala people were particularly not high frequency for all the full suite light/diverse hair and eyes and skin plus white skin alleles. Quite possibly they has less prevalence of the full suite as they had been in contact with people of different origins.

Unless you are assuming the full suite came from simply going north as in the simple latitude theory proposed by Nina Jablonski, there is no reason to think people who colonised the south of Sweden did not have the full suite. In fact, Luxembourg man had only blue eyes which shows Jablonski’s theory about light /(diverse) hair and eyes being a side effect of whiter skin for increased UVb absorption and vitamin D synthesis is wrong.

And all the alleles of the current European suite have been found in the Mesolithic which shows the agriculture variant of the UVb absorption and vitamin D synthesis hypothesis is wrong too. There is no evidence the full suite was found anywhere before it was but in a north Europe hunter-gatherer group in the Mesolithic. The alleles can’t be for anything to do with vitamin D, and since Peter proposed his explanation for the full suite the alleles have been dated to the period he said. Now we know the full suite was together in individuals a lot longer ago than the doubters who cited Luxembourg man thought possible.

You’re not really making any sense Sean. One fact we know for sure is that skin depigmentation alleles rose in frequency in European between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age. There is no way this could have happened if the “full suite” of European phenotypes was inherited in toto from a Mesolithic hunter-gatherer group.

“The remains show signs deliberately placed like they were part of a funerary or ancestor worship ritual”.

I did not fabricate that anthropologists appear to think the known parallels are colonial conflicts, when invading people stuck the skulls of conquered native on pikes. Yes ancestor worship ritual is is an alternative interpretation anthropologists have given, which in my opinion is weakened by the skulls including some from children.

“How on earth does any of this impact on the observable increase of skin depigmentation alleles in Europe from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age anyway?” There has been an much larger observable decrease in European natives having their heads cut off and displayed on sticks, this being the only case we know about. I think such an unusual occurrence might be related to massive population movements that explain why these skull were not from the ancestors of modern Europeans. There was a massive population (Doggerlanders) on the move in this time frame.

I think you need to remember that the only reason we know about the Motala people is that they (including females) had their heads cut off and stuck on poles by the Doggerlanders.

I think you need to remember that you just made that up – there is no physical evidence that Doggerlanders overran Sweden and the Motala samples weren’t beheaded, the stakes were inserted months, if not years, after the individuals had died. The remains show signs deliberately placed like they were part of a funerary or ancestor worship ritual.

How on earth does any of this impact on the observable increase of skin depigmentation alleles in Europe from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age anyway?

Since the start of the Neolithic Europe has been a melting pot of various migrations from variously pigmented people – …Since we see instead that Europeans today look more Motala-like than Motala, selection for this phenotype must have taken place

I think you need to remember that the only reason we know about the Motala people is that they (including females) had their heads cut off and stuck on poles by the Doggerlanders.

As older DNA is tested Peter’s theory is looking better.

Well I have to disagree, aDNA shows there’s simply no genetic pathway for modern Europeans to have inherited the “whole package” of their phenotype from any single population, regardless of how similar it might be. Since the start of the Neolithic Europe has been a melting pot of various migrations from variously pigmented people – if selection for “white” skin in today’s Europeans happened in a single ancestor *before* this Neolithic admixture, Europe should resemble South America in terms of skin colour variation… “white” would only be one of many contributing phenotypes. Since we see instead that Europeans today look more Motala-like than Motala, selection for this phenotype must have taken place *after* the Neolithic. And indeed, that’s exactly what we see in the ancient DNA with light skin allele frequencies rising through to the Bronze Age.

If you say, I cant argue because don’t have knowledge of DNA, but this kind of stuff is not clear cut even for experts (the grey wolf is a different species to domestic dogs but no one realised that until they tested ancient enough grey wolves) . As older DNA is tested Peter’s theory is looking better.

After a long period of sinking slowly, what was left of Doggerland’s population waved goodbye when it was devastated by the the Storegga Slide tsunami of 6225–6170 BCE. Some people think most inhabitants had left by then for higher ground in Scandinavia and North England. Judging by the finds of fortifications in north England there was a lot of fighting in that region and time frame. Probably the Doggerlanders.

From an evolutionary point of view it would pay off for women find out if a suitor is serious about them. What about women being able to tell from the kiss if the man has the biological signature of being in love? Gordon Gallup and others say the the characteristics of semen change depending on the man’s state of arousal, and salivary hormone levels might be detectable. Or, maybe kissing (which is supposed to raise oxytocin levels) is a way for women to make men feel more loving.

What do ritual mutilation and murder have to do with people seeking novel sexual sensations

If it’s magic for sexual purposes it sort of counts. If someone drinks potion they believe magically increases their sexual abilities it’s sort of similar.

a woman who had gone to a sangoma for help to fall pregnant

I don’t know how it’s used, but say, putting a magic talisman of human body parts under the pillow to increase your sex mojo might be considered kinky, or at least wierd.

Motala has ancient north Eurasian ancestry, which could be contact with north Eurasians coming into the Scandinavian peninsula from the north. That would explain the dark people among them

aDNA tells us Motala got their ancient North Eurasian (ANE) from the eastern hunter-gatherer populations like the Karelia and Samara samples, who had light skin. Their western HG relatives are the ones who had dark skin.

Doggerland was flooded gradually, over some 10,000 years, with the last land connections being to England, France and Germany, not Sweden. I doubt there was a sudden mass migration out of the area, and I doubt that if there were that it went across water to Scandinavia rather than across land to mainland Europe. Perhaps one day we will get some DNA from the region and we’ll know what really happened.