Nick Redfern - the "anomalist" folklore author writes on "bloodlines of the gods"
2015. I used to try to keep up on Nick Redfern's books - 20 years ago! But he seemed to rely more and more on folklore testimony - stories like "the monster that lives under my bed that no one can see but nevertheless is completely real since I can see it" type of anonymous testimonials....
So in 2018 we find a Basque blood group study on RH-negative (the focus of Nick Redfern's book)
recent studies point to gene flow between hunter-gatherers and early farmers from Chalcolithic and Bronze Age in the region [6]. In the general framework created by ancient DNA studies, Basque distinctiveness seems to arise from their reduced steppe ancestry as compared to other European populations, indicating limited contacts with Bronze Age migrants [7].
Why Nick Redfern wants to argue the Basque are from outerspace behooves me. Except that such a concept is trendy...cia Freemason propaganda....
In particular, the frequency of the RHD deletion in Basques is just slightly higher than that found in Catalans (41.7%, p-value = 0.625)....RHD deletion is the result of a major single mutational event [15]. There are other minor cases in the network that could be explained by artifacts in the haplotype reconstruction, mistyping, or recurrent events. The RhD negative section is mainly represented by Basques and is less diverse than the RhD positive section (Table 1).
The RhD negative frequency in our Basque samples (47.2%), despite being the highest among the analyzed populations, is not as extreme as usually suggested, but within the range reported in previous immunological studies around the Franco-Cantabrian region (45–54%) [1, 11,12,13, 22]. In fact, the frequency of the RhD negative allele is found at a 41.7% in our Catalan sample, and other studies also reported relative similar frequencies in other North Iberian surrounding populations [44]. The small differences we find in the frequency of RhD negative in Basques, as compared to previous analyses, could be due to a sampling bias or the differential accuracy in serological methods and DNA data. Thus, rather than isolated extreme values, high RhD negative frequencies in Basques seem to be the end-point of a cline encompassing also neighboring populations.
Even though the origins of the higher frequency of RhD negative variant in Europe, principally in Basques, are still controversial, our results suggest that it is led by a major deletion event. Thus, a different origin or repeated, independent mutations cannot be invoked to explain the higher frequency of the RhD negative allele in Basques.
Hence, reduced effective population size in a historically isolated population may have decreased the efficiency of the purifying selection associated with HDN, and some events may have generated specific selective pressures and set a different equilibrium state for the RHD deletion allele [23, 45, 46, 49].
OK let's go for a follow-up study.
Our results show a clear differentiation of Basques from the surrounding populations, with the non-Euskara-speaking Franco-Cantabrians located in an intermediate position. Moreover, a sharp genetic heterogeneity within Basques is observed with significant correlation with geography. Finally, the detected Basque differentiation cannot be attributed to an external origin compared to other Iberian and surrounding populations. Instead, we show that such differentiation results from genetic continuity since the Iron Age, characterized by periods of isolation and lack of recent gene flow that might have been reinforced by the language barrier.
These Roman-related proportions increase the farther the target populations are from the Franco-Cantabrian region.... these results suggest that Basques might have received limited gene flow during recent historical events in the Iberian Peninsula...........
Before the arrival of the Romans to the Iberian Peninsula, the Euskara coexisted with other pre-Indo-European languages, such as Iberian.... The genetic results presented here give support to the anthropological and chronological connections with the ancient remains, as well as the historical and linguistic relationships around the Euskara and its dialects.
These characteristics are to be discussed in the light of evolutive forces acting in population genetics i.e. drift, peopling history and natural selection. The Basque population is of very ancient descent, has remained relatively unmixed through the ages and demonstrates some degree of heterogeneity.
The elevated expression of RH:-1 could represent an ancestral character of European populations prior to the advent of the Neolithic incomers from Middle-East [1,9]. There is actually a negative RH:-1 gradient from Basque Country to the zone of agriculture
emergence [1]. This pattern persisted through the ages because of
endogamy and drift. The deletion of RH:1 allele is the molecular
event at the origin of the RH:-1 phenotype in Europeans [13]. No
evidence of positive selection around this allele has been shown
so far [22]. This absence of selective pressure is especially seen in
populations expressing a deletion frequency around 0.5 [22], which
is the case of Basques.
No comments:
Post a Comment