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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3

Recent Edits by JamesOredan and purported African ancestry in "Balkans"

An editor has been recently attempting to change the lead to reflect a belief that there are high levels of SSA admixture in the Balkan area. This is simply not the case. SSA and NA shared ancestry in Europe is largely restricted to south-west Europe as sources from last 12 years all agree on.

There are few African admixture maps of Europe in peer-reviewed articles available online, but here is a recent one already in the article. http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/110/29/11791/F2.large.jpg

Considering MtDNA Haplogroup L frequencies in Greece are close to zero, pushing the point of an African ancestry seems a bit nonsensical.

Thanks 83.41.122.115 (talk) 10:18, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

I have put reliable sources where it is stated that the African mecca in Europe is characteristic of Southern Europe, including areas of Iberia, Italy and Greece.

Stop erasing the sources by the fact that you do not like them. Do not vandalize the page and above all stop disrespecting. JamesOredan (talk) 13:37, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

JamesOredan As per Wikipedia policy, when you want to change a stable version of an article in a way which is contested by other editors you have to discuss in talk page. So far no sources have been erased just your factually incorrect statements in the lead. I have the feeling this is an area you do not know much about. Where does it say Greece has above average levels of African admixture? This is simply incorrect.83.41.122.115 (talk) 13:45, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

OhJamesOredan Eupedia is not a valid source for this article. We need scientific peer reviewed papers. Hence deleted.83.41.122.115 (talk) 13:48, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Agree with 83.41.122.115. Eupedia does not cite sources, is written by an amateur and hence is not WP:RS by a mile, concerning genetics. Kleuske (talk) 13:53, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
For example: A Sources which is valid: Application of f4 Ancestry Estimation suggests that the highest proportion of African ancestry in Europe is in Iberia (Portugal 3.2±0.3% and Spain 2.4±0.3%), consistent with inferences based on mitochondrial DNA [6] and Y chromosomes [7] and the observation by Auton et al. [8] that within Europe, the Southwestern Europeans have the highest haplotype-sharing with Africans.
http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.100137383.41.122.115 (talk) 13:55, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
Ah Eupedia, do not you like it? How about then the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health? It is also amateur?
It is scientifically proven that there is an African mixture in southern Europe, not only in Iberia.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3080861/
"A striking finding from our study is the consistent detection of 3–5% sub-Saharan African ancestry in the 8 diverse Jewish groups we studied, Ashkenazis (from northern Europe), Sephardis (from Italy, Turkey and Greece), and Mizrahis (from Syria, Iran and Iraq)" — Preceding unsigned comment added by JamesOredan (talkcontribs) 14:00, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
JamesOredan, you probably do not know this but Sephardim are Jews of Spanish origin, settled in various countries of Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and the Americas. Mizrahis are Jews of Middle Eastern origin. I suggest you leave this topic.83.41.122.115 (talk) 14:03, 7 August 2018 (UTC)
The Sephardim are of Spanish origin, and? It is evidence that they mixed in Greece and other areas of southern Europe.
We analyze genome-wide polymorphism data from about 40 West Eurasian groups to show that almost all Southern Europeans have inherited 1%–3% African ancestry with an average mixture date of around 55 generations ago"


There are roughly 8,000 jews in Greece. They are no more representative of Greek people than Nigerians are of Spanish or Portuguese people. Please sign your comments.83.41.122.115 (talk) 14:10, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

There will be few modern Jews in Greece, but that does not mean they do not have African blood. There are also very few Jews in Spain and many have Jewish and Arabic blood, especially in the south and west of Andalucia.

JamesOredan you do realize that your arguments so far are nonsensical? I'm leaving your edits for now due to 3RR but you should desist from editing this article. 83.41.122.115 (talk) 14:56, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

You just limit yourself to disrespect and say that I say it is absurd.

I have shown you that the African mixture is expanded by southern Europe. It is not exclusive to the Iberian peninsula. And in the Peninsula it is located in the southwest. Here you can also see it: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_history_of_the_Iberian_Peninsula

Stop telling me to go, Wikipedia is not yours. And do not be rude and do not tell me where I am or if I'm a racist. Stop

Eupedia is not valid as a source but please see this. https://www.eupedia.com/europe/autosomal_maps_dodecad.shtml#African
African admixture is indeed primarily concentrated in the Iberian peninsula although also detected in Sicily (despite surprisingly low levels of Mtdna haplogroup L compared to Spain and Portugal) and nothing in continental Italy or Greece/the Balkans. In the case of Portugal, no doubt slavery played a big part since at one stage 10% of the population of Lisbon were African slaves, although there is a general east-west pattern of increased admixture in the peninsula - with even Galicia showing above average levels. As for the rest of Spain, the latest 2018 study points to two sources - a primary one during the Islamic period and a smaller secondary one also probably related to slavery. Interesting to see minimal admixture in practically the entire north east of the peninsula (Catalonia, Aragon, Navarre, the Basque country and northern Valencia). https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2018/03/12/250191.full.pdf As mentioned above, no studies support presence of genetic inflow from Africa or North Africa anywhere else in the European continent. Oeiras10 (talk) 16:42, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Recent reappearance of disruptive editing

As has been discussed extensively, all recent population genetics on the matter over the past 10 years coincide in that African admixture in Europe is concentrated primarily in in the Iberian peninsula. Not in the Balkans, not in Southern Italy. Even in Sicily, overall results reg. African admixture are inconclusive. We have seen that this has been irritating white nationalists from that particular geography but facts are facts and they are sourced. Even Eupedia does not mention Italy when discussing African admixture in Europe and it is updated quite regularly. Disruptive editing should stop. This article had been stable for quite some time since these attacks started over this summer.176.85.222.198 (talk) 17:35, 17 December 2018 (UTC)

A bit of grain of salt is needed

Nice to see that some very pertinent messages for the construction of this wikipedia page, were conveniently deleted and hidden. Sources, etc... Trying to desperately africanize South Europeans is a very undisputed and banal act, anyway, so what´s the big deal? It´s easy right? But everything that I´ll write will be copied so if it´s taken away I´ll repost it again and again and if needed I´ll report this page to wikipedia moderators.Or maybe just ignore it and open my own. I´ll try to start for one very basic concept about genetics, is that just because people have an haplogroup in common it doesn´t mean that it was a recent share or that you know it´s exact origin and even race that had it. So now we can go to the second level. I´m writing this on a hurry, but I´ll post few sources, just because it are more than enough to cast many serious doubts on lots of claims that are made here on this wikipedia page and undermine afrocentrism and ridicule fanboyism: 1- Autosomal data (that tells which admixture populations have along the generations, and not obsolete haplogroups that only tell a very small part of the story, without giving us an idea of time): «Spain and Portugal showing very few common ancestors with other populations over the last 2,500 years.»

http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.1001555

Some researchers even mention that period (2.500 years ago) should be extended to 5.000 or 5.500 years ago. From this extensive study done on Europeans, only Italians got similar results.

2- «High-resolution analysis of human Y-chromosome variation shows a sharp discontinuity and limited gene flow between northwestern Africa and the Iberian Peninsula»

Bosch E, Calafell F, Comas D, Oefner PJ, Underhill PA, Bertranpetit J.

Already expected, but people should already know this. And please, don´t use more haplogroups that could have entered in South Europe, something like 20 or 30.000 years ago as evidence of slave trade and moor fantasies. People need to update on knowledge, otherwise we are like stucked in time here.

3-mtDNA tell us a similar story (why not? The autosomal study already answered us, so why this should be very different?):

«Abstract The Iberians developed a surprisingly sophisticated culture in the Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula from the 6th century BC until their conquest by the Romans in the 2nd century BC. They spoke and wrote a non-Indo-European language that still cannot be understood; their origins and relationships with other non-Indo-European peoples, like the Etruscans, are unclear, since their funerary practices were based on the cremation of bodies, and therefore anthropology has been unable to approach the study of this people. We have retrieved mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from a few of the scarce skeletal remains that have been preserved, some of them belonging to ritualistically executed individuals. The most stringent authentication criteria proposed for ancient DNA, such as independent replication, amino-acid analysis, quantitation of template molecules, multiple extractions and cloning of PCR products, have been followed to obtain reliable sequences from the mtDNA hypervariable region 1 (HVR1), as well as some haplogroup diagnostic SNPs. Phylogeographic analyses show that the haplogroup composition of the ancient Iberians was very similar to that found in modern Iberian Peninsula populations, suggesting a long-term genetic continuity since pre-Roman times. Nonetheless, there is less genetic diversity in the ancient Iberians than is found among modern populations, a fact that could reflect the small population size at the origin of the population sampled, and the heterogenic tribal structure of the Iberian society. Moreover, the Iberians were not especially closely related to the Etruscans, which points to considerable genetic heterogeneity in Pre-Roman Western Europe.»

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16138912

And U6 was found also in some Iberian hunter-gatherer remains. So call it Moor sounds extremely absurd.

It is noticeable that U* (U6) was already important in southern Iberia in pre-Neolithic times, what may contradict Maca-Mayer's rather forced interpretation of the U6 variability and spread. She argues for Iberian U6 to be not older than 10,000 years ago but she fails to provide an archaeological mechanism for that migration (while disregarding as merely accidental the fact that the highest variability of U6 is in Iberia and Western Berbers, and not in her alleged urheimat of the Nile). All that reasoning is founded in two factors:

1. That U6 is almost not found in Europe outside Iberia (though in fact it is occasionally found in France and Italy, with an unnamed distinct subclade unique to Sardinia)

2. That Oranian (Iberomaurusian culture) expanded from East to West (against the C-14 actual datations).

I suspect (and this suspicion grows stronger the more I read on the matter) that Oranian does actually honor its original name of Iberomaurusian and is derived from the Gravetto-Solutrean of southern Iberia, expanding from West to East in North Africa, bringing with it European haplogroups like U6, H and V (and maybe also Y-DNA R1b, rather common in Sudan and Upper Egypt) as well as technlogical and artitistic manifestations. U6 would then be the product of an early UP founder effect in southern Iberia, much like U8a among Basques. The counter-tide would belong to Capsian culture, which would have brought Y-DNA E1b1b (maybe together withmtDNA L, too common in North Africa to be just product of the rather minor trans-Saharan slave trade) as well as Afroasiatic languages.


MtDNA H lineages from Tunisia are less diverse and within the variability found in Iberia. Therefore they are most probably a derivate. This fits terribly well with what I have been pondering in the last months or even years about the early origins of North Africans and specifically of Oranian culture (also known as Iberomaurusian) , so I'm quite excited about it. Let's reconsider all elements:

Genetics:

· North African mtDNA H derived from Iberian H (also notice the relatively high concentration haplogroup V in Tunisia and nearby areas, that must be of European origin as well)

· North African mtDNA U6 less diverse than Iberian one. The lack of U6 elswhere in Europe and the greater diversity of its derived subclade U6a in NE Africa, has led some scholars to think it arrived from West Asia. But overall Iberia has by large the highest diversity of this clade, followed by Morocco, including haplogroups U6b and U6c, that are not found in NE Africa. See my earlier post on U6 and the Maca-Meyer paper on the matter.

· Odd rather common R1b ill-studied clades in NE Africa (Sudan, Upper Egypt) and also in Northern Cameroon, where it's dominant among some groups. While in this case the diversity argument is not so clear (most Iberian and European R1b belongs to a single subclade - but not all), we can't forget that Y-DNA is potentially much more susceptible to drift and that, in Western Europe, was affected by the LGM bottleneck and the Epipaleolithic demographic movements after it may have spread into Africa. R1b is not dominant but it's still a somewhat important haplogroup in NW Africa (I understand that the Capsian/Afroasiatic countertide replaced it largely by E1b1). Most North African R1b haplotypes connect much better with European than with West Asian clades in fact (there is one exception though).

Archaeology:

· The curious synchretic SE Iberian Gravetto-Solutrean culture dates from c. 22,000 BP (late 20th century calibrations, today it'd be probably somewhat older, like 25,000 BP maybe). The Solutrean of Mallaetes and Parpalló is among the oldest ones (only surpassed by that of Dordogne) but, unlike what happened in the Franco-Cantabrian region, where it became dominant soon after, in SE Iberia, it suffered a Gravettizing reaction that created a unique techno-cultural complex. Some of their artifacts fit extremely well with the back-tipped style found in North Africa, that also follow the all-covering Solutrean style of retouch.

· The Oranian culture of North Africa, concentrated along the coasts, was early on called Iberomaurusian because the affinities with Iberian techno-complex appeared evident. Later, as doubts about its origin mounted up, it was renamed Oranian. In the last times it has been common to claim that Oranian arrived from Sudan or Egypt but that is not the least clear in fact. What does appear to have migrated from that area is the Epipaleolithic, maybe even Mesolithic (grain-gathering) Capsian culture, that has a more interior distributon and that was probably the one spreading Afroasiatic (Berber) language in the area. Oranian earliest dates are of c. 20,000 BP and its human remains are considered Crô-Magnon type, a type that was most common in Europe with the Gravettian culture (though in Mediterranean Iberia also within the "Solutrean").

· The Qurta rock art of Upper Egypt (right in the crossroads where later Capsian may have originated) is incredibly similar to European rock art, specially to that of Côa valley in Portugal (see previous post on this matter). This artwork is dated to c. 16,000 BP.

All these archaeological elements fit in a chronological sequence Iberia-NW Africa-NE Africa that would be partly reversed later on with the Capsian (which did not arrive to Iberia though). The rather good match with genetic identifiers also seems to support this scheme. Maybe some corners need to be polished but I am every day much more persuaded that the ultimate origin of North Africans is in Europe, specifically in Iberia, rather that West Asia - even if later waves from the Nile and West Asia itself may have obscured this correlation.»

4- Moors weren´t black so please stop stating bullshit on the lines that slaves came with Moors or vice-versa, or simply that Moors were black themselves:

Moors were Mediterranean or Mediterranean-Cromagnon, Arabs were Mediterraneans: Quote:

In one sense the word 'Moor' means Mohammedan Berbers and Arabs of North-western Africa, with some Syrians, who conquered most of Spain in the eighth century and dominated the country for hundreds of years, leaving behind some magnificent examples of their architecture as a lasting memorial of their presence. These so-called 'Moors' were far in advance of any of the peoples of northern Europe at that time, not only in architecture but also in literature, science, technology, industry, agriculture; and their civilization had a permanent influence on Spain. They were Europids, unhybridized with members of any other race. The Berbers were(and are) Mediterranids, probably with some admixture from the Cromagnid subrace of ancient times. The Arabs were Orientalids, the Syrians probably of mixed Orientalid and Armenid stock. The skin of Orientalids and some of Berbers darkens readily under the influence of sunlight, and many of them become quite dark in the exposed parts of the body.


Quote:

The few available long bones suggest that the stature was rather low. The skulls of this type are obviously Europid. Buxton and Rice sat that many ways they resemble Mediterranids; Sewell and Guha say more definitely, This type of skull we considered to represent true Mediterranean race'(i.e. the Mediterranid subrace). Vallois assigns it to the type proto-mediterraneen on the grounds that the structure is coarser than in modern Mediterranids, the ridges more marked, and the cranial index slighly lower. It is permissible to describe the skulls of this type as in a broad sense Mediterranid, with the reservation that Orientalids and Nordindids have very similar skulls, so that certainty on this point is not easily reached when no other part of the body is available for comparison.

Baker

5- The great majority of L mtDNA found in Iberia, very likely, arrived with hunter-gatherer or hunter-gatherer admixed people (with european specific subclades):

http://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.pt/search?q=l1b

And L mtDNA isn´t common anywhere in Europe and not even very locally is a majority. And don´t use african immigrant genetic data, like it´s the case for Alcacer do Sal... Next time use local native ethnics data, like it´s done for any other European countries. If not, then you would have to use all the other african immigrants that exist in other countries too, which are much more numerous than in Portugal: France, Uk, Italy, Greece, Germany, etc... Plus african immigrants are decreasing in number in Portugal, unlike the case for many other European countries. 96-99% of the portuguese have European ancestry and not African or Asian. People have been (mis)using genetic studies that weren´t done to study the locals, but to confirm that those people from Alcacer/Coruche were african immigrants that the portuguese government used to work on rice fields. This people nowadays are known to meet each other and to practise endogamy. They know perfectly that they are africans. And all the true locals know that these people (Alcacer do Sal/Coruche) came from Africa as well. So only fools still use that data.

6-Non Caucasoid ancestry in Europe:

http://s1.zetaboards.com/anthroscape/topic/5354640/1/


7- Physical anthropology confirms the notions given above:

Roland Dixon:

«Thus that Proto-Negroid type designates a form of skull which is Dolicocephalic, Hypsicephalic, and Platyrrhine, and carries with it no necessary implication whatever that any features which we may be accustomed to think of as occurring in Negro crania are also present; and the statement that among a given people the Proto-Negroid type is strongly represented does not imply that they have or had black skin or woolly hair.»

«He noted no African Negro admixture or characteristics anywhere in Europe. According to Dixon's (then in use) terminology that Portuguese plate wouldve been a mix of Proto-Negroid(Neanderthal) and Proto-Australoid(Cromagnon) type. In otherwords, Coon's Coarse-Mediterranean.»

Zilhão:

«Denise Ferembach (1974) could only inventory 136 "more or less complete" individuals from Cabeço da Arruda and Moita do Sebastião: 25 percent were under fifteen years of age (two-thirds of those were under five), and among the adults of all ages, from eighteen to over fifty, that could be sexed, men (sixteen) predominated over women (nine). Ferembach's study's main concern was still the establishment of a "racial diagnosis." It was concluded that the "protomediterranean" type predominated and that there were also small and gracile "cromagnoids," as well as a few "alpine" and "mixed protomediterranean-cromagnoid" people. Since this mix still exists in modern-day Portugal, a large degree of population continuity until the present was inferred.» This would imply, a large phenotype continuity since the Mesolithic.


Coon:

«Non-Mediterranean elements in the Portuguese population are rare and of little importance. A few Nordics are scattered throughout but are particularly concentrated in the north. Traces of Dinaric blood, as we have already seen, may likewise be found on the northern coast.... On the whole, there has been no absorption of non-Europoids by the Portuguese. Portugal remains, as it has been since the days of the Muge shell-fish eaters, classic Mediterranean territory.» - Carletoon S. Coon Muge-Mesolithic

Joseph Deniker:

« It is among the Portuguese, perhaps, that we find the greatest unity of type; the majority of them belong to the Ibero-insular race, except in the north of the country, where we find intermixtures with the Western race, as among the Galicians of Spain.»


«As to origins of the long-headed types in Europe, most of the Upper Palaeolithic skulls are dolichocephalic, and in that early period there were streams of people, with long heads, from north Africa, as well as, probably at a later stage, from the south Russian steppe. Here and there, as in Tras os Montes (Portugal), Sardinia, La Dordogne (France), Plinlymon (Wales), inland Norway and mid-north-Sweden, there are groups of people with the very long, very high and narrow heads, strong brows, big cheek bones and rather broad noses of certain Upper Palaeolithic skulls. It is, therefore, likely that survivals from the Upper Palaeolithic age are one element in the composition of the European peoples. Ripley was inclined to think, and many agree, that in the cool, cloudy north-west, the type became taller through post ponement of maturity, and fairer ; the warmth of the south, on the other hand, encouraging the maintenance of pigment and of relatively early maturity. The localized distribution of survivals of ancient types suggests that they are not merely the extreme cases in a large group of variants, their likeness to early skulls (especially Combe Capelle and Predmost skulls) supports the view that they are survivals. It has also been claimed, with less strength, that there are survivals of other Upper Palaeolithic types such as that of Grimaldi (lower layers) and that of Cromagnon. »

http://gluedideas.com/Encyclopedia-Britannica-Volume-8-Part-2-Edward-Extract/Central-Europe.html

8- Black slaves may have mixed with some South Europeans or even Northern Europeans, but that lacks relevance and encompasses only very small minority of the population. So basically that means close to nothing. It´s like finding Chinese with European ancestry, in China, or Belgian ancestry in Congo. What´s the relevance of that for studying the locals? Mongoloid race influence in ETHNIC/NATIVE Europeans is not that rare in comparison and has been conveniently neglected for ages.

9-The influence of local hunter-gatherers in the portuguese population (on this case only few regions and skeletons were compared for a certain time period, but matches were found for all regions and time periods compared, though some got more than others) is also supported by dental and adult left femora comparisons:

http://i60.tinypic.com/2cp976f.png

http://i57.tinypic.com/9a8dh0.png


This is just a little a bit of data (more than enough though), I have much more that I could share. But I would like to spend my time doing other more useful things, because I have a gut feeling that this will be deleted or conveniently denied. But it´s not a big problem, because wikipedia is not always that reliable and this wikipedia has a lot of presumptions and self made theories with hardly any realistic reasoning behind it at all. And if I want I could open another wikipedia page, exposing the truth. I have posted this data before on foruns, and everyone accepted really well.

"4- Moors weren´t black so please stop stating bullshit on the lines that slaves came with Moors or vice-versa, or simply that Moors were black themselves". Well the Almoravid dynasty was literally from Senegal. The Senegalese are Black. In fact Moor, moorish, Morse, Moreaux, etc. means Black. I understand there is some resistance to admitting that the Moors, as well as the people of the Nile Valley were Black, however nowadays we have their DNA and don't have to rely on phenotypes, like in the days of Carleton Coon. 83.84.100.133 (talk) 05:31, 15 March 2019 (UTC)

14.8% admixture

The source used doesnt metion the spanish population has a 14.8% admixture. EricTMA (talk) 16:51, 22 December 2018 (UTC)

It does, in Table S12.2 on page 88 of the supplemental materials: [1]. I have restored the material and citation. --IamNotU (talk) 15:42, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

Trying to make a point separating Portuguese from Spaniards in first para

As per all sources, African admixture is largely concentrated in the South and West of the Iberian peninsula although it is above average for Europe everywhere except in the North East of the peninsula (Catalonia, Aragon and the Basque region). I am reverting childish attempts to distinguish ethnic Portuguese from Spaniards, which seem motivated by an attempt to defend the "racial hygiene" of the latter. Variability within the peninsula does not coincide with modern-day borders.83.52.197.57 (talk) 12:10, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

There is no kind of "racial hygiene" attempt. The article deals with the African admixture in Europe.

One of the regions with the most significant African level in Europe is the Iberian Peninsula, however, the incidence is not distributed homogeneously, but there are areas with more african genetic impact and other areas with very little african genetic impact, mainly due to the policies of each region.

Specifically in Iberia the presence of African admixture is concentrated mainly in the South and the Southwest of the Peninsula, making in general lines the territory of Portugal where African genetic impact is greater than in Spain. The sources used suggest this. Its only a comparison between Spain and Portugal in terms of African genetic impact. In this article there are comparisons from the genetic point of view between Italy, Spain and Portugal, and there is no problem with this nor is it a racist or childish attempt of any kind. The Portuguese and Spanish and the rest of Western Europe are very similar gebetically, but there are small and significant variations and differences.

A greeting. Blade and the rest (talk) 11:31, 20 March 2019 (UTC) struck comments by block-evading user per WP:SOCKSTRIKE --IamNotU (talk) 11:29, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

It is childish, I'm sorry. You have gone from pushing non-existent African admixture in Greeks, to non-existent admixture in Italians and now as a final move when that didn't work trying to highlight that African admixture is limited to the Portuguese and Spaniards have nothing to do with it. It is higher in the south and the west of the Iberian Peninsula. It doesn't suddenly drop or increase at any political borders. South and West of the Iberian peninsula is enough and its what the sources say. This disruptive editing has been going on for a year now. It has to stop.Filologo2 (talk) 22:30, 20 March 2019 (UTC)
Blade and the rest Ok we leave it as it is. Its an adequate compromise. Please no more edit warring.Filologo2 (talk) 22:44, 20 March 2019 (UTC)

I apologize to both, if I have hurt any sensitivity. I promise you that I have no problem with Africa or the Africans. I have only pointed out that according to the sources used, the distribution of the African impact is concentrated more in Portugal than in Spain. I'm not saying that Spain does not have African genes.

With respect to the South of Italy I have put it because Sicily is in fact Southern Italy. Nothing else. Sorry for what happened.Thanks. Blade and the rest (talk) 22:49, 20 March 2019 (UTC) struck comments by block-evading user per WP:SOCKSTRIKE IamNotU (talk) 11:30, 21 March 2019 (UTC)

So why are Europeans so more closely related to Africans (especially those from the Horn of Africa) than other groups?

A simple explanation applies: that as late as the Lower Dryas, a partial reversion to glacial conditions in Europe, Europe had a small population because of either glaciation or poor environments for hunter-gatherers. Most of Europe was cold and dry, and not amenable to plant growth. Game was obviously scarce. There just were not the resources for the populations even of the era of Greek and Roman civilization.

Europe today has mostly mild climates, with rather few dry areas (parts of Spain and Greece, maybe southern Ukraine). Farming is reasonably good even north of the 60th parallel of latitude in Scandinavia. Europe was practically uninhabitable north of the 50th parallel of latitude during the last glacial maximum and of about the 55th parallel of latitude during the Lower Dryas due to either cold or extreme drought.

It is easy to see Europe as a place of early civilization and antiquity -- but such reflects that conditions were good enough to foster the economic basis of Hittite, Greek, and Roman civilization. The Mediterranean climate of warm summers and cool, rainy winters made possible the growing of grains, the harvesting of nuts and fruits, and the raising of livestock -- but only after the cold snaps and drought that made places as far south as Rome and Madrid infertile were over. Europe was mostly populated rather late, and the people who settled it came heavily from eastern Africa (Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Somalia). The route of this population of Europe was either through the Nile Valley or along the Red Sea (which offers much fishing) into the Mediterranean basin and onward. West Africans had little chance to follow the Atlantic coastline or take advantage of the 'moist Sahara' to go north to North Africa and beyond. Even Morocco is settled largely from East Africa.

Some anthropological evidence suggests that people of southern Europe were still black as late as 7000 BC, indicating that people who have ancestry in eastern Africa had yet to 'go white' so soon after arriving in Europe. The natural selection for pale skin and light hair had yet to happen. This may contradict the idea that people whose light skins are the antithesis of the black skins of sub-Saharan Africans are more distant from Africans than others; Europeans are closer in time to being Africans than any other population groups not in Africa.Pbrower2a (talk) 16:34, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Problem with a particular source (2009 Moorjani)

The 2009 study by Moorjani et al is merely a pre print for his 2011 study. It never passed peer review I don't believe. So it's figures are not credible. The link to the source is also defunct.

"Characterizing the history of sub-Saharan African gene flow into southern Europe, Moorjani et al. 2009, Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School"

I think it should be completely removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Arch Hades (talkcontribs) 02:43, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

African-Americans in Europe?

A section of the article gives the below chart, and I'm guessing that it's a study that researched genetics in both Europe and North America, but the wording as of right now is confusing. African-descended Europeans would probably have a higher than 77% Sub-Saharan African ancestry, which leads me to think that the African-Americans mentioned here are truly Americans, not people in Europe. Should this chart specify that the study did not solely focus on people located in Europe?

From the same study, estimates of Sub-Saharan African admixture proportions in Europe:

Population Sub-Saharan African (>0.1%°)
African American 77.2%
Portugal 2.1%
Spain 1.1%
S. Italy 1.7%
N. Italy 0.2%
Sardinia 0.2%
Sephardic Jews 4.3%
Ashkenazi Jews 2.6%

AnandaBliss (talk) 16:03, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Delete all studies prior to 2010?

Population genetics is a fast evolving science and studied earlier than 2010 are all but worthless. A good step to begin updating this article would be deleting everything published before 2010. If anyone disagrees let me know here. Otherwise I will proceed. Sickle cell anaemia is also totally outdated. Php2000 (talk) 12:08, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

If there are newer studies of the same subject, the outdated ones can probably be replaced. I'm not convinced though, that just making an arbitrary cutoff point of 2010 and deleting everything before then is legitimate. Sources should be assessed on a case-by-case basis. If it's still the latest information and no more current source can be found, it should probably not be removed, though you could qualify it by noting the year, etc. --IamNotU (talk) 14:04, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
I would say that any study which attempts to estimate admixture from haplogroup frequencies is now outdated. We should perhaps remove those studies from the 2000s which followed this (now rather prehistoric) methodology.Php2000 (talk) 11:20, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
A temporal cutoff is too arbitrary. A methodological cutoff makes more sense, but should be well-supported by secondary sources which explicity evaluate exisiting methods. Primary sources which promote new methods and say that older methods are unreliable are easy to find, but this is not helpful in the context of modernizing the article with due weight. –Austronesier (talk) 11:36, 7 October 2020 (UTC)
Yes you are right, but maybe another approach would be best: Find all studies on the topic from the past 8 years, post them in the talk page and from there we will know how best to proceed in terms of restructuring the article. It seems to me even its structure is outdated not just the content. --Php2000 (talk) 20:58, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Edits to the introductory section

User:Php2000 keeps reverting my edits, which are only what is said in the Bycroft, et al. study. I intend to address his concerns point by point:

"Bycroft states that only a minority of basques belong to the cluster with 0% Moroccan admixture"

This is inaccurate. The Basque cluster with 0% North African admixture in Fig. 5 and Fig. 6 from the study represents a large portion of the Basque country, and especially the areas which are the densest concentrations of native Basque speakers.

"and that there has been significant admixture with other Iberians over the past century"

I've read the study, in detail, multiple times. It doesn't say this anywhere. It says that the Basque region has strong regional isolation and is genetically distinct, with very low levels of North African admixture. Its presence at all is stated to be possibly due to interactions in the past 1300 years, not the past century. It is still the smallest amount in the peninsula:

"Within Spain, north African ancestry occurs in all groups, although levels are low in the Basque region and in a region corresponding closely to the 14th-century Crown of Aragon (compare Figs 1c, ​c,5c).5c). Therefore, although genetically distinct, north African-like ancestry in the Basque region could be explained through genetic interactions between the Basque groups and other parts of Spain within the past 1300 years." [2]

"Also the Basque region does not belong to the North East cluster."

This is also inaccurate. By "North East cluster", Php2000 likely means here the Aragonese and Catalan cluster (Aragon-Catalonia). The Basque cluster is distinct from this one, but the Basque region is still geographically in the northeast of the peninsula. The Aragon-Catalonia cluster has very low North African admixture, but not as low as the Basque cluster, which reaches as low as 0% in several parts. AnthroVeritas (talk) 02:40, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

AnthroVeritas, the Basque be slightly shifted to the east from a central axis of Spain but under no definition is it considered "North East Spain" - its just northern Spain, together with Asturias and Cantabria. Galicia is North West Spain and the North East would be only the regions of Aragon and Catalonia, as you surely know. But look on a map again if you are unsure. This has a feel of disruptive editing to me.Php2000 (talk) 17:37, 16 October 2020 (UTC)
There is nothing "disruptive" at all here. I merely wish to reflect verbatim what the studies say themselves to avoid misinterpretation. Like I already said, the Basque region might not be in the far north-east like Catalonia or Aragon, but it is still technically in the north east (for example, most of the Basque region is just south of Aquitaine and includes the western end of the Pyrenees). More importantly, the studies themselves all say that the cline of North African admixture in Iberia is from being high in the west or southwest towards the northeast, including the Basque country and Navarre. The Basque region as a whole (both Pais Vasco and Navarre) is in the north east. Asturias and Cantabria are in the centre.AnthroVeritas (talk) 05:16, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Inclusion of admixture plot with '5 components' actually hides Basal Eurasian admixture

Php2000 has included a strange admixture plot taken from an image in a source that incorrectly reduces admixture sources to 5 groups. This gives an inaccurate representation of source ancestries, as both the study cited and others (e.g. Lazaridis et al., 2018) clearly show that much of this "African" signal is actually Basal Eurasian ancestry of ancient, early to middle Upper Paleolithic origin. All of these 5 components actually are broken down further into very distinct ancestries (Western Hunter-Gatherer, Early European Farmer, Western Steppe Herders, Caucasus Hunter-Gatherer, Basal Eurasian, North African, Arabian, Iranian-farmer, etc., in addition to actual/recent sub-Saharan African). I don't think it should be included as the image is not indicative of recent (historical) African admixture into Europe. AnthroVeritas (talk) 05:23, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Not really. We know the origin of this African admixture and it is dated to the Medieval period in Iberia and the Roman period in Italy. Some of it, particularly in the Canary Islands is actually dated to an admixture event in the 16th century.--Php2000 (talk) 14:43, 21 October 2020 (UTC)
The Canary Islands definitely have a specifically recent sub-Saharan African gene flow. But the admixture in Iberia and Sicily is extremely small. I have not read any study attributing it conclusively to either the Medieval or Roman periods. In any case, the admixture is tiny, and does not correspond with the admixture plot in the intro. Bycroft, again, shows how small it is in Figure 6. The Bycroft study is the most extensive, thorough and fine-scale to date on the genetics of Iberian peoples. And Sub-Saharan admixture (Kenya.LWK) never goes above 0.3%, and is confined to the Portugal-Andalusia cluster.
But regardless of these points is that the admixture plot used is at a very coarse scale of '5 components' (kmeans = 5). This hides several very distinct ancestries within these large, coarse clusters, as I already pointed out. Iosif Lazaridis has already shown that nearly all of this 'East African-like' (Mbuti-like) ancestry in Europe, including in southern Europe, is actually Basal Eurasian ancestry of Upper Paleolithic origin. Actual sub-Saharan African ancestry is extremely tiny, and absent in nearly all of Europe outside of southern Iberia and Sicily. Read his study here: [Paleolithic DNA from the Caucasus reveals core of West Eurasian ancestry]. AnthroVeritas (talk) 12:53, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
AnthroVeritas We are talking North African not Sub-Saharan admixture. Sub-Saharan admixture in the Iberian peninsula is indeed small and limited to the South - likely derived from the Almoravid conquest and the slave trade in the early modern period. North African admixture is dated to the Roman period in Italy and to three distinct pulses in the Medieval period in Iberia. We are talking three different studies over the last 24 months coming to the same conclusions. I will share the studies as soon as I have a minute. Php2000 (talk) 17:16, 22 October 2020 (UTC)
Php2000,AnthroVeritas You should understand how admixture analysis works. The study does not say Iberians have 0.7% Sub-Saharan type admixture no more than it says they have 0% Dutch or German type admixture. You may have noticed that all central and Northern European donor groups are completely masked by the French donor group (except the Irish one). They all give even lower results than Kenya, which is unlikely considering Iberia has seen influx of Germanic peoples. It is true there are no Middle Eastern donor groups but they too would have been partly masked by the Italian group just as African donor groups will be largely masked by the Moroccan group. However, it is likely that the combination of Western Saharan and Kenyan is a good estimate for the absolute minimum amount of Sub-Saharan admixture in these populations. Overall, not a good source for specifically Sub-Saharan admixture yet a good source for total African admixture.Montecarmelo0 (talk) 16:08, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Unsourced statements, blanking and POV pushing on African admixture in Iberia vs Italy

Every now and then this page comes under attack by an individual upset by the fact that African admixture in Europe is concentrated in the Iberian peninsula. This is a fact and perhaps one of the most important facts about this topic. The statement is the product of overwhelming consensus in the scientific community and is confirmed by all studies on the matter published over the past 10 years. Please: do not remove reference to this fact from the lead. Do not try to delete visuals from this article because the upset you. Do not try to argue that "X country also has as much/more African admixture without a source clearly stating so.

Facts presented on wikipedia should not be censored or distorted to protect your feelings. Emotional edits based on personal complexes which do not add value to the article are considered vandalism.

Thank you. --Guran223 (talk) 17:35, 12 February 2023 (UTC)

Hmmm. A large number of other edits have been made besides to those in the lead. These edits were not mass deletion. Quite to the contrary, I have added material. Therefore I am restoring my edits. Thank you. Boghog (talk) 19:16, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
@Guran223: There should be nothing in the lead that is not already discussed in the body of the article. I would suggest that we proceed stepwise. First, please add the material that you want added to the body of the article. Then we can discuss whether a short summary of this material should also be added to the lead. Boghog (talk) 19:29, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
Before my edits, there was a mix of citation styles including parenthetical (Harvard) and Vancouver system referencing. Harvard referencing make the most sense when the same source is cited multiple times, but differ in the page number within the source. In the Harvard references used in this article, the page number were never included. Hence there is no advantage to using Harvard references, and in fact there is a disadvantage in that one has to click through the intermediate citation to get to the full citation. In addition, the Vancouver system was becoming predominant in this article over time. Hence for consistency, I converted all the Harvard reference to Vancouver system. In addition, there were several ciations that included only the author and date. To many of these, I have added full citaiton details.
In addition to citation formatting, there was excessive hyping of authors and journals. There is normally no reason to mention authors within the body of the text. The citation lists the authors. Hence I have removed all in-line mention of authors in the body of the article Boghog (talk) 19:45, 12 February 2023 (UTC)


User:Venezia Friulano Boghog, please. Firstly: Use one single account. Using two is considered sockpuppetry and both accounts will get blocked. You are using one account to make controversial edits and another to make uncontroversial edits immediately after that to make reverting your edits more cumbersome. Secondly, you are trying to push the idea that Sicily and Southern Italy has more African admixture than the Iberian Peninsula. Something which is patently false and contradicted by all available sources. Edit warriors have been permanently blocked for pushing this exact same view on this article vandalizing this article. It happens periodically every few months, and it has been going on for years now. I don't know if you are or not the same person but please stop. If you have something to add or change in the article, discuss it here and seek consensus. If you have new sources. Bring them into the discussion. Do not remove images from the article. Do not change the content of the lead according to your personal desires of what you want the article should or should not say. 2.138.200.92 (talk) 19:49, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
2.138.200.92 Thank you for restoring edits. However I wanted to make one thing absolutely clear. I have no connection what so ever with User:Venezia Friulano. We are both editors in good standing with no evidence sockpuppetry. Furthermore there is very little overlap in the types of articles that we have edited. Venezia Friulano has tended to edit latin related articles (Spain, Italy, etc.), where as I have mainly edited biomedical science artices. This particular article is to the best of my knowledge the only one where we have both edited. Boghog (talk) 20:06, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
2.138.200.92, based on your edits to this aricle, you would appear to have some connection to User:Guran223. Furthermore Guran223 is a confirmed sockpuppet. This would seem to be a case of calling the kettle black. Boghog (talk) 20:27, 12 February 2023 (UTC)
Boghog, Guran223: I'm editing from an IP address in case there are suspicions of sockpuppetry. Regardless of what is going on here in the talk page, I agree with OP that there has POV editing and blanking of sources over the past few days. The Bycroft study has been removed completely, not just from the lead but the article itself. Removal of the admixture map and inclusion of false unsourced statements: "Sicily/Southern Italy has the highest amount of admixture" - no academic publication supports this. From what I see recent edits to this article by user Venezia Friulano are not improving this article and just seek to remove any reference to African admixture in Iberia. And it is a fact that African admixture in Europe is concentrated in the Iberian peninsula according available sources. Incidentally, I very much doubt this user is Italian as he claims on his user page since he seems to largely edit articles related to Spain often from a nationalistic standpoint. I will wait some time hoping for a response before beginning to work on this article - mainly sourcing. For now I have restored the admixture map. Its removal is unacceptable. I'll change the title of this thread since it seems a bit off point. 192.167.16.3 (talk) 10:19, 16 February 2023 (UTC)