orbis quintus

I’m still trying to wrap my mind around this story about how the early farmers of Europe made little genetic impact on modern populations of humans in Europe. There’s an AP article as well, that i mirrored here. So 6 of 24 skeletons had genetic material marking them as part of the N1a lineage. Based on this, it’s estimated that anywhere from 8 to 42% of the population carried this haplogroup. It’s supposed to be extremely rare in Western Europeans in modern times.

So who does carry the N1a haplogroup? The quickest reference i found was from this Wikipedia Talk entry:

The N1a haplogroup was not observed among the native American, east Asian, Siberian, Central Asian, and western European populations. The geographic distribution of haplogroup N1a is restricted to regions neighboring the Eurasian steppe zone. Its frequency is very low, less than 1.5% (Table 6), in the populations located in the western and southwestern areas of the Eurasian steppe. Haplogroup N1a is, however, more frequent in the populations of the southeastern region of the Eurasian steppe, as in Iran (but only 12 individuals were studied) and southeastern India (Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh territories). More precisely, in India haplogroup N1a is absent from the Dravidic-speaking population and is present in only five Indo-Aryan-speaking individuals, four of whom belonged to the Havik group, an upper Brahman caste (Mountain et al. 1995).

I’ve tried to track down the original paper, but all i find are citations of it. Curiously, one of the papers that cites it is Genetic Analysis of a Scytho-Siberian Skeleton and Its Implications for Ancient Central Asian Migrations. The skeletons of the European genetics study are 7,500 years old. The Scytho-Siberian skeleton is only 2,500 years old. There’s no connection there. I’m just trying to imagine who the people that carry the N1a were connected to.

Mr. H treats us to a spectacular post on Remedios Varo on his blog Giornale Nuovo, which is (and I am quite serious) one of the most tasteful and interesting blogs on the internet.

Varo is one of my favorite artists. She is certainly my favorite female expatriate surrealist painter who lived in Mexico during the 20th century (which is a fancy way of saying that I like her work more than I like Leonora Carrington’s). Her work is quirky, rich, moody, often subtly symmetrical, and vaguely alchemical. But enough of this!

Go see the post at Giornale Nuovo. Mr. H has compiled enough Varo links to last you a few afternoons at least! Why are you still here?

Hitch has certainly been hitting some good damned liquor, as he is currently insisting that the U.S. intelligence that Chalabi had in his possession (and passed to Iran) may have been cracked by Chalabi himself, not out of malice, but as a puzzle to keep his enormous brain occupied, just to while away the hours in contemplative mathematical bliss.

Oh, for fucks’ sake… cryptography is not suduko.

The story comes from Talking Points Memo, and it is anecdotal. I only hope that it’s accurate, as it would be an outrageously funny assertion by Hitchens. It comes from this post on a blogger attending a Chalabi performance, and if Hitchens hadn’t already stated some outrageously implausible statements, it would be easy to believe that he’s just trying to wind people up.

In one scrolls about halfway down this page, there’s some details about what is known of the Lower Xiajiadian Culture.

CHANGCHUN, Nov. 10 (Xinhuanet) — Chinese archaeologists have discovered an ancient pottery kiln, dating back about 3,500 years,in Chifeng, a city in north China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

“This is the first time a pottery kiln belonging to the Lower Xiajiadian Culture has been found in China,” said Prof. Zhu Hong, director of the Research Center for Chinese Frontier Archaeology of Jilin University in northeast China’s Jilin Province.

The kiln, located in a stone city site of the Lower Xiajiadian Culture, is 1.37 meters in diameter and 0.56 meters high. The firepit is 2.32 meters long, 0.5 meters wide, and 0.38 meters high.

Archaeologists have found a lot of clods, ashes and pottery chips inside the fire pit, said Prof. Chen Guoqing, head of the excavation project at the Research Center.

The discovery of the kiln shows that the Lower Xiajiadian Culture in north China had been influenced by the culture from the central plain area in China. Canister-shaped pots, the most representative containers which had been used in the region before,were replaced by three-legged containers such as Ding and Li tripods, which were traditional containers in the central plain, Chen said.

The Lower Xiajiadian Culture, a branch of the northern bronze culture during the Xia and Shang dynasties, dates back to 3,500-4,000 years ago, between the late Neolithic Age and Bronze Age.

The discovery is of great significance in researching the formation and development of pottery kilns in Liaoxi district (which includes the western Liaoning Province and Chifeng in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region) in the pre-historical times, Zhu said.

The earliest pottery kiln spotted in China belongs to the Hongshan Culture, dating back 5,000 years. Two pottery kilns of the Hongshan Culture have been unearthed at the same site where the one belonging to the Lower Xiajiadian Culture was discovered. Both kilns were about 1,000 years older than the one belonging to the Xiajiadian Culture.