Ancient Celtic Elite DNA

The earliest Celtic rulers in Europe for a period of about 350 year may have been mostly from the same matrilineally inherited royal dynasty.

The early Iron Age (800 to 450 BCE) in France, Germany and Switzerland, known as the ‘West-Hallstattkreis’, stands out as featuring the earliest evidence for supra-regional organization north of the Alps. Often referred to as ‘early Celtic’, suggesting tentative connections to later cultural phenomena, its societal and population structure remain enigmatic. 

Here we present genomic and isotope data from 31 individuals from this context in southern Germany, dating between 616 and 200 BCE. We identify multiple biologically related groups spanning three elite burials as far as 100 km apart, supported by trans-regional individual mobility inferred from isotope data. These include a close biological relationship between two of the richest burial mounds of the Hallstatt culture. Bayesian modelling points to an avuncular relationship between the two individuals, which may suggest a practice of matrilineal dynastic succession in early Celtic elites. We show that their ancestry is shared on a broad geographic scale from Iberia throughout Central-Eastern Europe, undergoing a decline after the late Iron Age (450 BCE to ~50 CE).

Joscha Gretzinger et al., "Evidence for dynastic succession among early Celtic elites in Central Europe" Nature Human Behavior (June 3, 2024) (open access).

The paper is explored further at Bernard's Blog who notes that (per Google translate into English from French): "the results of this study suggest an avuncular society among the early Celts of the fifth or fourth century BCE era, in agreement with the historical writings of the Romans."

The Google translate in English of the French Wikipedia link to avuncular society (with minor grammatical and spelling edits) states:

The term avuncular is a technical term used, in the anthropology of kinship, to designate a privileged relationship between Ego, reference person, and his “maternal uncle” or, conversely, between Ego and his uterine nephew or niece.

The term avuncular itself derives from the Latin avunculus, a kinship term used to designate, in this language, the mother's brother (MB) as opposed to the father's brother patruus (FB). In certain societies with marked matrilineal filiation, the role which is assigned to the father in other societies can be assumed by the maternal uncle who becomes the “social father” of his sister's children. The notion of avuncular is, however, not reserved for the designation of this formula of descent (which is, moreover, rather rare) and it can also describe a formula of matrimonial alliance. The marriage of a man with his sister's daughter is thus called avuncular marriage. If the term avuncular applies to the links which unite the mother's brother and the sister's son or daughter, it can however also, in a more loose way, be used to designate the relationship between a paternal uncle and a child of his brother.

This marks a distinct shift from Bronze Age Indo-Europeans in Europe, including among the Bell Beaker people who are likely ancestral to the Celtic people, who exhibit a strict patriarchal, patrilocal clan structure.

Razib Khan also notes that the paper "makes it clear that Proto-Celtic Hallstatt southern Germany saw significant genetic change with the spread of Germanic languages from the north."

Adult Life Expectancy Gains Came Surprisingly Early In Europe

The real breakthroughs in life expectancy came very late, starting in earnest after 1800 CE with major breakthroughs that reduced maternal, infant, and child deaths mostly due to breakthroughs related to the germ theory of disease, antibiotics, vaccines, and sanitation in medical work including labor and delivery. 

But the lives of nobles who managed to live to adulthood started to get significantly longer, starting around 1000 CE in Northwest Europe.

I analyze the adult age at death of 115,650 European nobles from 800 to 1800. Longevity began increasing long before 1800 and the Industrial Revolution, with marked increases around 1400 and again around 1650. Declines in violent deaths from battle contributed to some of this increase, but the majority must reflect other changes in individual behavior. There are historic spatial contours to European elite mortality; Northwest Europe achieved greater adult lifespans than the rest of Europe even by 1000 AD.

Neil Cummins, "Lifespans of the European Elite, 800–1800" 77(2) Journal of Economic History 406-439 (June 12, 2017) (open access).

The introductory body text of the article notes that:

Although individual level demographic data before 1538 is sparse we have abundant evidence of the lives of the European nobility. This analysis exploits recent mass digitization of family trees to examine trends in elite adult lifespan over the millennium between 800 and 1800. The majority of the sample are from Northwest Europe, but there is substantial representation from all across Europe. Understanding that the sample is heavily skewed, and that this skew changes over time, I have four principle findings.

First, plague, which afflicted Europe 1348–1700, killed nobles at a much lower rate than it did the general population. 

Second there were significant declines in the proportion of male deaths from battle violence, mostly before 1550. I am able to estimate, from the timing of deaths within the year, the fraction of males who died violently in each epoch. Before 1550, 30 percent of noble men died in battle. After 1550, it was less than 5 percent.

Third finding there was a common upwards trend in the adult lifespan of nobles even before 1800. But this improvement was concentrated in two periods. Around 1400, and then again around 1650, there were relatively sudden upwards movements in longevity. In England and Wales, for example, the average age at death of noble adults increased from 48 for those born 800–1400, to 54 for 1400–1650, and then 56 for 1650–1800. This rise is independent of the fall in violent battle deaths. 

Finally, I find that there were regional differences in elite adult lifespan favoring Northwest Europe, that emerged around 1000 A.D. While average lifespan in England in 1400 was 54, in Southern Europe, as well as in Central and Eastern Europe, it was only 50. The cause of this geographic “effect” is unknown.

The total sample from 800-1800 CE was as follows:

The most elite title was Emperor (rank 1) of which there are 94 in the final adult lifespan subsample analyzed in this article.

There are 843 Kings (rank 2) and 422 Grand/Archdukes (rank 3); 1,598 dukes, 683 prince/prince-electors, 4,787 Earls and Counts, 2,262 Marquesses and Margraves, 986 Viscounts, 6,444 Barons and Lords, 5,968 Baronets and 3,321 Knights constitute ranks 4–11.

Esquires and Gentlemen along with other lesser noble titles, 1,795 persons, were assigned to group 12.

A “Geographic’” title (rank 13) was one of the 699 cases where a person was listed as “of” a certain specific location.

There were 69 military titles such as Captain and Colonel (rank 14) and 692 religious titles (rank 15, including 12 popes and 533 nuns).

Occupational titles accounted for 1,343 (rank 16) and 83,644 had no suffix (rank 17). Those with no suffix represented the non-titled family members of the elite family trees.

The Vikings Kept Slaves

Slavery was a significant institution in Viking society:

The Norse system of thralldom was not always complete chattel slavery, but most of the enslaved had little agency. As two prominent Viking scholars observed 50 years ago, “The slave could own nothing, inherit nothing, leave nothing.” They were not paid, of course, but in some circumstances, they were allowed to retain a small portion of the proceeds they obtained at market when selling goods for their owners. As a result, it was technically possible, though rare, for a thrall to purchase his or her freedom. They could also be manumitted, or released from slavery, at any time. Based on these parameters, some scholars have argued that the number of actual enslaved people in Viking Age society was relatively low. But as researchers conduct additional analysis of detailed European records of Viking slave-taking raids, the scale of this trade has been revised sharply upward. . . . 

Some thralls were born into slavery because both of their parents were enslaved, or a freeborn man who had impregnated their enslaved mother declined to acknowledge the child. Others were taken captive, either in raids undertaken specifically for that purpose or as prisoners of war. Though an enslaved individual might pass through many hands in a journey lasting months or years, the experience almost always began with a violent kidnapping. Behind every Viking raid, usually visualized today as an arrow or name on a map, was the appalling trauma visited upon all people at the moment of enslavement, the disbelieving experience of passing from person to property in seconds. 

Not all enslaved people—indeed, perhaps only a small minority—were retained personally by their captors and put to work. The majority entered the wider network of trafficking and were transported to markets and points of sale in settlements across the Viking world and beyond, even reaching the emporia of western Europe. Over time, slaving become arguably the main element of the trade that developed during the Viking Age along the eastern rivers of European Russia and what is now Ukraine. No solid infrastructure of purpose-built slave markets, with auction blocks and the like, existed. Instead, transactions were small-scale but frequent, with one or two individuals sold at a time in any circumstances that seemed viable.

The Copper Age Prince With The Crystal Dagger

A 2018 account of a Copper Age man buried with a crystal dagger and twenty young women in what is now Spain has to have been one of the most intriguing in the past year.

India's Caste Endogamy Was Very Extreme

The interracial intermarriage rate in Jim Crow America was about 1%. At that rate, if introgression of non-white individuals into whites continued for 50 years, the average person with white ancestry would be 40% non-white. (I suspect this exaggerated figure is due to improper use of a 1% introgression rate per year rather than per generation, but even a few generations of modest introgression does have a notable effect over a very long time period)

.

In India, caste cemented itself, not just at the Varna level, but at the Jati level about 1500 years ago. This implied an endogamy rate on the order of 99.8% (with 10% introgression over that time period) to 99.9% (with 5% introgression over that time period) to 99.98% (with 1% introgression over that time period).

I think the source is Razib or someone he quoted, but I could be mistaken. I accidentally failed to hit the publish button on this post back on April 17, 2018.

How Extreme Were Caste Founder Events In South Asia

Endogamy, estimated to have lasted about 2,000 years, has produced genetically distinguishable differences between varna in the Indian caste system which is the main several layers of the caste system (with broad regional and linguistic divides as well) and distinctive levels in recessive gene disease risk associated with endogamy in a population with a small founding population (not true inbreeding) in a significant number of jati which are far more specific sub-castes with more specific occupational and ethnic associations within a varna.

Razib emphasizes the fact that this is inconsistent with the notion that caste only becomes significant around the time of the British colonial period as one leading account suggests. My own priors, based on what I was taught in the relevant classes in college, meanwhile, are for endogamy to have arisen not long after the Bronze Age, so 2,000 years seems young to me.

The more than 1.5 billion people who live in South Asia are correctly viewed not as a single large population, but as many small endogamous groups. We assembled genome-wide data from over 2,800 individuals from over 260 distinct South Asian groups. We identify 81 unique groups, of which 14 have estimated census sizes of more than a million, that descend from founder events more extreme than those in Ashkenazi Jews and Finns, both of which have high rates of recessive disease due to founder events. We identify multiple examples of recessive diseases in South Asia that are the result of such founder events. This study highlights an under-appreciated opportunity for reducing disease burden among South Asians through the discovery of and testing for recessive disease genes.

Nathan Joel Nakasuka, et al., "The promise of disease gene discovery in South Asia" ((June 6, 2017) doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/047035

There paper estimates that there are 4,600 populations in South Asia which are defined by endogamy and comparable to the 260 groups examined in this study.

I have also rarely seen a paper with so little body text. In relegates almost all of its detailed conclusions to supplementary materials. There is almost no discussion the populations studied from an interdisciplinary perspective, and there is almost no effort to see a larger context and the root these findings in a meaningful narrative that can be fit to historical reality as a cross-check to confirm that the findings are robust.

Another recent paper takes on South Asian population structure as its primary focus:

India represents an intricate tapestry of population substructure shaped by geography, language, culture and social stratification operating in concert. To date, no study has attempted to model and evaluate how these evolutionary forces have interacted to shape the patterns of genetic diversity within India. Geography has been shown to closely correlate with genetic structure in other parts of the world. However, the strict endogamy imposed by the Indian caste system, and the large number of spoken languages add further levels of complexity. 

We merged all publicly available data from the Indian subcontinent into a data set of 835 individuals across 48,373 SNPs from 84 well-defined groups. Bringing together geography, sociolinguistics and genetics, we developed COGG (Correlation Optimization of Genetics and Geodemographics) in order to build a model that optimally explains the observed population genetic sub-structure. 

We find that shared language rather than geography or social structure has been the most powerful force in creating paths of gene flow within India. Further investigating the origins of Indian substructure, we create population genetic networks across Eurasia. We observe two major corridors towards mainland India; one through the Northwestern and another through the Northeastern frontier with the Uygur population acting as a bridge across the two routes. Importantly, network, ADMIXTURE analysis and f3 statistics support a far northern path connecting Europe to Siberia and gene flow from Siberia and Mongolia towards Central Asia and India.

Aritra Bose, et al., "Dissecting Population Substructure in India via Correlation Optimization of Genetics and Geodemographics" bioRxiv (July 17, 2017) doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/164640

Human Sacrifice Of Outsiders In Late Neolithic France

In a late Neolithic culture of Northeastern France (ca. 4100 BCE to 3500 BCE), ancient DNA analysis of remains and consideration of their burial nature and placement reveals that there were fairly frequent human sacrifices of people with a different DNA profile than the local population which was buried in a respectful and traditional way. Some sacrifice victims showed visible indications of violent deaths and of dismemberment with body parts buried in locations other than their natural location relative to the rest of the body in the grave. 

The location and character of graves in the cemetery also suggest that these were "pure" human sacrifices as opposed to "accompaniment" burials (e.g. of a spouse or subordinate in association with a principal person's death to accompany the principal decedent in the afterlife) or a disposition of the bodies as mere waste. As the authors explain this possibility:

According to the sacrifice hypothesis, i.e., the ritual murder of individuals outside of any funerary framework, the human victim is the subject and the vehicle of a supernatural transaction that establishes a direct link between men and some deities or spirits (as regularly encountered in different past civilizations such as the Aztecs, Mayas, Ibos, and Dayaks).

This hypothesis was previously explored in the paper:

Lefranc P, Denaire A, Jeunesse C. Dismembering bodies and atypical human deposits of the 4th millennium in the Upper-Rhine valley: part of sacrificial practices?. In: Sibbesson E, Bickle P, editors. Neolithic bodies, Neolithic Studies Group annual conference, British Museum, London, 3rd November 2014: Neolithic Studies Group Seminar papers, Oxbow books; in press.

This new culture integrated more women from a Western European hunter-gather background than earlier Neolithic groups in the same region.

Taken together, our data highlighted a major genetic break between Middle Neolithic LBK-derived groups in Alsace and the subsequent Late Neolithic Michelsberg groups. This genetic discontinuity appeared to be linked to new affinities with Middle Neolithic farmers from the Paris Basin, correlated to a new and important H-G legacy. All of the evidence gathered is in favor of a close genetic connection of the Michelsberg group with farmer communities from the Paris Basin region. When chronologically and geographically replaced, the data gathered suggest that the diffusion of the Michelsberg culture was linked to a movement of human groups from West (Paris Basin) to East (Rhine region). Since an admixture between H-G and farmers maternal components has been demonstrated in the Middle Neolithic groups of the Paris Basin (Gurgy "les Noisats", 5,000 to 4,000 cal. BC), we can propose that the important frequencies of H-G haplogroups measured in the MICH group may have been indirectly inherited from the MNF group in the Paris Basin (see below). The occidental origin (in the Paris Basin) of the Michelsberg culture has been proposed for a long time, based on archaeological data. This hypothesis considered that the Michelsberg culture did not appear in the Rhine region as alternatively supposed, but emerged in the Paris Basin from the interactions between the Chasséen culture, itself originating from southern France, and the Noyen culture, itself deriving from the interaction between Cerny (Paris Basin) and Chasséen. The major changes observed in pottery traditions between the Michelsberg culture and anterior cultures in Alsace and Germany, combined with the diffusion of specific ceramic features from southwestern traditions in the Paris Basin, led the author to consider that migrations may have been involved in such important transformations. Consistently, the paleogenetic data provided by our study supported the involvement of farmer group migration to explain such a global cultural rupture. The groups involved in the Michelsberg diffusion originated in the Paris Basin and carried in Alsace few LBK-derived maternal lineages but a significant number of Paris Basin farmers and H-G maternal legacy.

The exact provenance of the outsiders is not entirely clear. They came from nearby, but could either have been members of a slave caste or people kidnapped from neighboring communities with a different culture. Hunter-gatherer mtDNA, for example, is much more frequent in the sacrifice victims than in those conventionally buried.

Both the CV and NCV groups showed lineages originating from the (south)western regions as described above. Whereas all "H-G lineages" (of potential western origin) were found concentrated in the NCV group, the CV group contained a strong proportion of haplogroups H (H, H1 and H3) and X, which were more common in southern European and Paris Basin farmers. A similar phylogeographic signature could then be observed in both the CV and NCV groups, indicating a unique cultural and biological group at the local level but differently treated in death. Interestingly, isotope analyses demonstrated diet homogeneity between both groups and, as such, supported a shared geographical origin.

If we highlighted that the Gougenheim group represented a phylogeographically consistent biological group, we note differences in maternal gene pools of sub-groups CV and NCV. Although the small number of individuals in each group (and the very important mitochondrial diversity measured in each group, see below) did not allow any satisfactory statistical testing of differentiation, we could see that haplogroups W and X were specific to group CV, whereas haplogroups N1a, U5 and T were specific to group NCV. Only two HVR-I haplotypes were found to be shared by both the CV and NCV groups: haplotypes J1_16069–16126 and H_CRS. Nevertheless, these haplotypes are very frequent in Neolithic populations (found respectively at 6.7% and 14.3% in the compiled database) and thus represent a poor indicator of group affinities or maternal kinship. We consider that the distinct maternal gene pools characterized for both the CV and NCV groups, submitted to distinct mortuary treatment, points to a relative genetic isolation of the two groups from each other. This genetic isolation may have been related to the social stratification of the community, with combined endogamy in each social group and the genetic isolation of distinct social stratum and/or to some geographic distance between separate communities. These assumptions nicely echo the hypothesis of sacrifices retained for the Gougenheim site. Ethnological and archaeological examples indeed show that the victims of human sacrifice are often slaves, sometimes specifically bought for the occasion, but more regularly abducted during ambushes or razzia in some enemy villages of the neighborhood or taken into captivity during warlike events. In such circumstances, a genetic differentiation between distinct social groups corresponding to master vs. slave groups or between adversarial neighbor groups (allied communities are characterized by the exchange of women and genes) can be expected. In consequence, the obtained paleogenetic data fit well with the sacrifice hypothesis, even if they cannot be conclusive. However, the “peripheral accompaniment” assumption—archaeologically unlikely in Gougenheim—involving the same social stratum of subjugated people, is theoretically possible when considering only DNA data. 

Both sub-groups CV and NCV presented an important maternal diversity (0.83 +/- 0.13 and 0.92 +/- 0.09, respectively), in total accordance with mitochondrial diversities generally measured for the Neolithic period in Europe. As already proposed for other Neolithic farmer groups, this maternal diversity could be an indicator of a patrilocal social system (although Y chromosome data are necessary to directly test this hypothesis). Interestingly, each multiple structure also showed a striking maternal diversity. For instance, the structures 1076 and 1077, grouping 4 NCV individuals each, presented a total of 6 distinct mitochondrial sequences over the 7 individuals genotyped. Moreover, when considering all of the structures with aDNA data, no grouping or spatial structure could be highlighted according to maternal lineages. Finally, concerning the individuals found in multiple “non-conventional” deposits, no shared haplotype could be detected. Only two individuals found in the multiple “non-conventional” structure 1077 shared the haplotype K_16224–16311, but once again, this very common haplotype in Neolithic groups (2.02%) may not be indicative of a maternal kinship. Considered together, the mtDNA data compiled for the Gougenheim site project the image of the random sampling of individuals inside both sub-groups CV and NCV. The biologically and socially differentiated sub-groups, submitted to very different mortuary treatments, must have been large enough to present such maternal diversities. Even if the presented arguments cannot be conclusive, the picture depicted at the genetic level is in total accordance with the idea of the random kidnapping of the individuals submitted to sacrifice. Whether these individuals were neighbors randomly abducted for religious needs or were slaves remains an open question.

The new open access paper is:

Beau A, Rivollat M, Réveillas H, Pemonge M-H, Mendisco F, Thomas Y, et al., "Multi-scale ancient DNA analyses confirm the western origin of Michelsberg farmers and document probable practices of human sacrifice" 12(7) PLoS ONE e0179742 (2017).

Hat tip to Bell Beaker Blogger.

Caste Beyond India

While searching for the legal definition of "gentry" in English law, membership in which was a prerequisite to serving as a Justice of the Peace there, I came across an interesting hypothesis about caste in Indo-European societies, which I quote below at length from Wikipedia:

The Indo-Europeans who settled Europe, Western Asia and the Indian subcontinent conceived their societies to be ordered (not divided) in a tripartite fashion, the three parts being castes.[8] Castes came to be further divided, perhaps as a result of greater specialisation. 

The "classic" formulation of the caste system as largely described by Georges Dumézil was that of a priestly or religiously occupied caste, a warrior caste, and a worker caste. Dumézil divided the Proto-Indo-Europeans into three categories: sovereignty, military, and productivity (see Trifunctional hypothesis). He further subdivided sovereignty into two distinct and complementary sub-parts. One part was formal, juridical, and priestly, but rooted in this world. The other was powerful, unpredictable, and also priestly, but rooted in the "other", the supernatural and spiritual world. The second main division was connected with the use of force, the military, and war. Finally, there was a third group, ruled by the other two, whose role was productivity: herding, farming, and crafts. 

This system of caste roles can be seen in the castes which flourished on the Indian subcontinent and amongst the Italic peoples. 

Examples of the Indo-European castes: 

Indo-Iranian – Brahmin/Athravan, Kshatriyas/Rathaestar, Vaishyas

Roman – Flamines, Milites, Quirites

Celtic – Druids, Equites, Plebes (according to Julius Caesar)

Anglo-Saxon – Gebedmen (prayer-men), Fyrdmen (army-men), Weorcmen (workmen) (according to Alfred the Great)

Slavic – Volkhvs, Voin, Krestyanin/Smerd

Nordic – Earl, Churl, Thrall (according to the Lay of Rig)

Greece (Attica) – Eupatridae, Geomori, Demiurgi

Greece (Sparta) – Homoioi, Perioeci, Helots 

Kings were born out of the warrior or noble class.

[8] Mallory, J.P. In search of the Indo-Europeans Thames & Hudson (1991) p. 131.

The entry on the Trifunctional Hypothesis further explains that:

The trifunctional hypothesis of prehistoric Proto-Indo-European society postulates a tripartite ideology ("idéologie tripartite") reflected in the existence of three classes or castes—priests, warriors, and commoners (farmers or tradesmen)—corresponding to the three functions of the sacral, the martial and the economic, respectively. The trifunctional thesis is primarily associated with the French mythographer Georges Dumézil[1] who proposed it in 1929 in the book Flamen-Brahman,[2] and later in Mitra-Varuna.[3]

Three-way division 

According to Dumézil (1898-1986), Proto-Indo-European society comprised three main groups corresponding to three distinct functions:[2][3] 

* Sovereignty, which fell into two distinct and complementary sub-parts:

* one formal, juridical and priestly but worldly;

* the other powerful, unpredictable, and also priestly but rooted in the supernatural world.

* military , connected with force, the military and war. 

* productivity, herding, farming and crafts; ruled by the other two. 

In the Proto-Indo-European mythology each social group had its own god or family of gods to represent it and the function of the god or gods matched the function of the group. Many such divisions occur in the history of Indo-European societies: 

* Southern Russia: Bernard Sergent associates the Indo-European language family with certain archaeological cultures in Southern Russia and reconstructs an Indo-European religion based upon the tripartite functions.[4] 

* Early Germanic society: The supposed division between the king, nobility and regular freemen in early Germanic society.[5] 

* Norse mythology: Odin (sovereignty), Týr (law and justice), the Vanir (fertility).[6][7][note 1] Odin has been interpreted as a death-god[9] and connected to cremations,[10] and has also been associated with ecstatic practices.[11][10] 

* Classic Greece: The three divisions of the ideal society as described by Socrates in Plato's The Republic. Bernard Sergent examined the trifunctional hypothesis in Greek epic, lyric and dramatic poetry.[12] 

* India: The three Hindu castes, the Brahmans or priests; the Kshatriya, the warriors and military; and the Vaishya, the agriculturalists, cattle rearers and traders.[13] The Shudra, a fourth Indian caste, is an "outer" or serf caste serving the other three. A 2001 study found that the genetic affinity of Indians to Europeans is proportionate to caste rank, the upper castes being most similar to Europeans whereas lower castes are more like Asians. The researchers believe that the Indo-European speakers entered India from the Northwest, mixing with or displacing proto-Dravidian speakers, and may have established a caste system with themselves primarily in higher castes.[14] 

Reception

The hypothesis was embraced outside the field of Indo-European studies by some mythographers, anthropologists, and historians such as Mircea Eliade, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Marshall Sahlins, Rodney Needham, Jean-Pierre Vernant and Georges Duby.[16] Supporters of the hypothesis include scholars such as Émile Benveniste, Bernard Sergent and Iaroslav Lebedynsky, who concludes that "the basic idea seems proven in a convincing way".[15] 

On the other hand, Allen[17] concludes that the tripartite division may be an artefact, a selection effect rather than an organizing principle used in the societies themselves. Benjamin W. Fortson reports[18] a sense that Dumézil blurred the lines between the three functions and the examples that he gave often had contradictory characteristics, causing detractors[19] to reject his categories as non-existent. John Brough surmises that societal divisions are common outside of Indo-European societies as well, and consequently the hypothesis has only limited utility in illuminating prehistoric Indo-European society.[20] Cristiano Grottanelli states that while Dumézilian trifunctionalism may be seen in modern and medieval contexts, its projection onto earlier cultures is mistaken.[21] Belier is strongly critical.[22] 

The hypothesis has been criticised by historians Carlo Ginzburg, Arnaldo Momigliano[23] and Bruce Lincoln[24] as being based on Dumézil's sympathies with the political right. Guy G. Stroumsa sees these criticisms as unfounded.[25]

To the extent that this is an accurate characterization of Indo-European society is sheds a powerful light on what it would have been like to live at the time, although some of the applications given to the concept do seem muddy.

 

Evidence Of Class Stratification From Early Bell Beaker Period Burials

Bell Beaker blogger has an interesting post summarizing new evidence regarding the burial practices of Europeans in areas where the Bell Beaker culture appeared.

In a nutshell, immediately before the Beaker era, children were buried (as was everyone) in undistinguished collective graves.

In the early Beaker period, there was a sharp divide between non-Beaker child burials which omitted all children under six months of age, involved collective child graves, and had no grave goods, and contemporaneous child burials of Beaker people, in which all children were buried with adults who seemed to be their parents or relatives and grave goods were present.  The Beaker children were better fed with lots of milk and meat, and people buried in Beaker graves had longer lives, on average, than those buried in non-Beaker graves.

Later in the Beaker period, all graves followed a Bell Beaker-like pattern, and individuals and adults were each buried in separate graves.

This tends to show that there was a Beaker superstrate which was culturally distinct from the substrate people in the same time and place, and that life was better for Beaker people, not in small part due to their ability to include meat and milk in their diets which the autochronous people lacked.

Oliver Heaviside

Lubos has a wonderful biography of Oliver Heaviside, a self-taught man from a humble condition who was the source of many of the words and much of the modern notation we use to describe classical electromagnetism (e.g. the standard form of Maxwell's equations), in addition to inventing many electromagnetic devices.

He was born on May 18, 1850, succeeding again and again despite the circumstances arrayed against him.

Issues Worth Examining

Usually I discuss new findings in science. Today, I'll identify a number of issues that science has, nearly has, and may have the tools to answer, but have not yet been resolved.

1. Is there any archaeological evidence of Sumerian or Egyptian cultural influence to the north of the Aegean and Anatolia and the Mediterranean Coast?

We know that the area north of the Aegean and Anatolia, particularly the Balkans, was a stopping off point for the further Neolithic settlement of Europe by farmers and herders the earliest of which is the Linear Pottery Culture (LBK). There is a "fan" of population genetic influence (e.g. Y-DNA haplogroup E) that appears to be North African in origin that extends well into the Balkans. There are multiple eras when this could have arrived: early Neolithic, during the Greek silver and golden ages, during the Roman era, during the Byzantine era, as part of Slavic expansion, or under the Ottoman Empire. But, population movements in the region after the LBK and prior to any potential Greek influence are obscure.

The Egyptian and Sumerian empires are not known to have ever extended beyond Southern Anatolia and perhaps a few fringe Aegean islands in recorded history.

There are some suggestive cave paintings in the Caspian Sea that would seem to show Egyptian style boats at a time when the Egyptians would have had that kind of boat. There is some evidence of fairly sophisticated canal system connecting the Black and Caspian Seas at some point in history. There have also been some suggestions of a Sumerian linguistic influence on some or all Uralic languages.

As one of the earliest loci of Indo-European language speakers, these traces would have to be quite early. Also, Egyptian record keeping and Sumerian records, to my knowledge, do not document these kinds of expeditions, but these records were hardly comprehensive, particularly in the earlier eras.

Finding such a link, or definitively ruling it out, would be helpful either way in piecing together chains of causation in prehistory.

2. The sporadic v. familial model in evaluating the etiology of IQ.

Considerable research has been devoted to the causes of mental retardation, particularly where it arises without a family history of it, and considerable research has been devoted to establishing that IQ, in general, has a strong hereditary component that can be discerned from familial similarities in IQ at different degrees of relatedness.

One area that probably deserves more research is to examine "sporadic" instances of high IQ. In other words, what can we learn about the nature of IQ from looking genetically and from a nurture perspective at very high IQ people with much lower IQ parents. Are these mostly cases of parents who had good genes that were suppressed by bad environments that were not shared by the child? Are these cases of new mutations in the child that were not present in the parent? Are these cases of recessive genes that did not express in either parent? Are these casees of exceptionally good parenting choices? Are these cases of inaccurately assigned paternity? Or what?

3. Where does South Asian Y-DNA haplogroup T come from?

Areas more or less similar to the proto-Dravidian area of South Asia, and also certain tribal groups in Eastern South Asia, have high concentrations of Y-DNA haplogroup T. What kind detailed subtyping of these haplogroups tell us about where they fit in the phylogeny of Y-DNA haplogroup T and whether these Y-DNA types are autochronous or have some specific geographic origin elsewhere? What can study of these haplogroups tell us about time that this haplogroup emerged in that location?

It does not appear to have origins in Pakistan and is centered on the Eastern side of South Asia with a stark discontinuity between it and the Northwest. If it is part of either an Ancesteral North Indian or Ancestral South Indian genetic package at all, it is a part of the Ancestral South Indian genetic package that is not associated with Harappan or Indo-Aryan influence. Yet, ASI is often seen as indigeneous to the subcontinent, while Y-DNA haplogroup T has clear affinities to the European/West Asian/Northern and Eastern African region (i.e. "Western influence.") It could be that autosomal analysis is conflating Western influence via Harappan and Indo-Aryan populations and Western influence associated with Y-DNA haplogroup T associated with a separate, distinct and earlier migration, since the two Western influences may be closer genetically to each other than they ANI and ASI are to each other.

My intuition is that detailed study will show origins of the South Asian subtypes in phylogenies rooted in Southern Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somolia, and that an appropriately chosen mutation rate aging methodology will be consistent with the South Asian Neolithic and proto-Dravidian language, suggesting that migrants from South Asia were instrumental in this historical events. But, population genetics can shed much better light on the question. Detailed phylogenies of Y-DNA haplogroup T have been done, but they did not extend to South Asian samples, so study of those samples is a final step necessary to prove or disprove the hypothesis that Y-DNA haplogroup T men were instrumental in the formative period of Dravidan culture.

4. What distinguishes socioeconomically successful people who are similar in IQ, have only a high school education and have similar socioeconomic status to begin with?

A junior high school or high school teacher in a low income neighborhood has a great many students of the same socioeconomic status, and whatever environmental influences out there impact IQ have already transpired for the most part. These teachers have the hand that they have been dealt and so do their students at that point.

Lots of studies show education and IQ as pivotal for success in low socioeconomic status kids. But, what about the kids for whom earning a college degree is not a realistic option given their mediocre academic performance to date, even if they are able to stick it out and graduate from high school?

What choices and factors distinguish the winners and losers in life, in terms of socioeconomic success, once these parameters are set?

Insufficient good research looks at this issue which is a practical concern to a very large numbers of teachers, mentors, and kids. Good research on this point could provide an empirical basis to enhance middle school and high school curriculums for a group of students who often simply receive a watered down version of a college preparatory curriculum directed towards an educational trajectory that they are very unlikely to follow with success.

A great deal of effort has been devoted to researching how to improve academic performance, but despite study after study that shows that very little consistently improves academic performance in a consistent way once variables like socioeconomic class and past academic performance and IQ are controlled for, despite herculean efforts to find approaches that do, perhaps at least a little more research should be devoted not to improving the academic performance of these academically mediocre kids, but to accept for a moment that some kids, indeed a great many kids, are going to be academically mediocre, and to figure out in a way that accepts this as a given, what their best options in life are and what choices are most important to their lifetime prosperity.

Also, to the extent that there are inborn personality traits that have an impact on this result (something shown in high IQ individuals already by the Termain study, for example), what can we say about optimal approaches for kids with different personalities profiles?

Perhaps some of these lessons can be replicated.

5. What distinguishes misdemeanor recidivists?

Felony recidivism is heavily studied.

Misdemeanor recidivision (and misdemeanor sentencing in general) is not. We need more basic information about who misdemeanor recividists are, how differential treatment of them in the criminal justice system can impact crime rates and criminal justice system resources, how authorized sentences differ from imposed sentences by offense type, offender type, and aggravating circumstances, and how discretion in the criminal justice system is exercised both in bond matters and plea bargaining and sentencing in misdemeanor criminal matters.

You Get More From Your Parents Than Parenting

Lots of people are raised for substantial parts of their lives by people whom they are not genetically related to, and a new study of Korean adoptees from the 1950s and 1960s has revealed once again that a rather surprisingly large share of the way that kids turn out is congenital rather than a product of the way that they were raised.

Having a college educated mother increases an adoptee’s probability of graduating from college by 7 percentage points, but raises a biological child’s probability of graduating from college by 26 percentage points. In contrast, transmission of drinking and smoking behavior from parents to children is as strong for adoptees as for non-adoptees. For height, obesity, and income, transmission coefficients are significantly higher for non-adoptees than for adoptees. In this sample, sibling gender composition does not appear to affect adoptee outcomes nor does the mix of adoptee siblings versus biological siblings.

Factors like religious affiliation and linguistic accent are also very strongly cultural. Nobody is born Christian or Buddhist, or speaking Spanish or English. Genetics may influence you attitude towards religion, or your likelihood of having a learning disability related to reading, but it won't determine the content of your religious beliefs or the language that you will learn.

But, parental income at the time of adoption has virtually no effect on adopted child income. Parental education does have a modest effect on adopted child educational level (parents who went to graduate school have adopted kids with half a year more of education than those who merely graduated from high school), but the effect is really strong only for parents who don't have at least a high school diploma (those kids get dragged down). In contrast, parental income and education have a rather pronounced effect on the the incomes and educational levels of biological children suggesting that these outcomes are mediated by factors like hereditary IQ and personality effects.

This doesn't necessarily mean that your parents alone are your destiny. Quite extensive studies have shown that there is a fairly wide range of stable differences in all sorts of traits between even full blooded siblings on factors from IQ to personality and that those differences impact life outcomes. Almost no intelligence or personality or mental health traits are 100% hereditary or even much more than 85% hereditary, and most hover at the 50% level or less.

There is also a fair amount of evidence to show that really bad parenting and early childhood deprivations or physical traumas can screw anyone up no matter how much potential that person may have had at birth. Genuine poverty, malnutrition, lead poisoning, prolonged isolation, and abuse are all bad for kids no matter how promising they are (although there are even genes that govern how well kids can cope with some of these adversities, a trait sometimes described as resilience).

But, given the intense amount of effort the parents put into deciding precisely how to raise our children, parenting choices make less of a difference than one would intuitively expect. Princes raised by peasants really do generally grow up to be princes, royal bastard are going to tend to outperform their ordinary siblings, and kids raised in circumstances far more favorable than those they were born in because they are adopted generally underachieve relative to the biological children of their adoptive parents and have less in common with their siblings than you would expect from a shared upbringing. It may have a ring to the monarchist propaganda that Disney likes to produce, but there is truth to it. The myth of Achilles, who was a prince raised by farmer parents as their own who rises to prominence, is closer to real life than the Prince and the Pauper.

Indeed, there are at least one or two studies out there that show that decent parenting from just about anyone is fine. A good step-parent or adoptive parent or extended family member in lieu of a parent can raise you well enough to reach essentially the same potential you could have if raised by a biological parent - or better if a biological parent's exceptionally bad parenting was factor that could have dragged you down.

It is hardly surprising that assortive mating should strength social class divides. If people who have what society rewards have kids with other people who have the same traits, and people who lack that have kids with other people who lack that, we expect that there kids are more likely to reproduce their status than in a society where couples form at random or are deliberately unequal in traits that society rewards, which will tend to produce more variability between siblings and more averaging out.

More paradoxically, each generation that society is meritocratic should strength class divideds in future generations. Some people from modest beginnings will always be more talented than their parents, and some people with talented parents will always have less of what made their talents successful. Regression towards the mean is to be expected, and the less talent matters the less talent will be associated with social class and the more vulnerable the social class system will be to being upset by talented people born in a lower socio-economic class usurping less talented people born to privilege.

By all accounts, American marriages are more assortive than they used to be, and we have had roughly two full successive generations of a relatively meritocratic society. The longer this continues, the more stark social class divisions can be expected to become, with really no obvious limits. A few centuries of carefully preserved meritocracy and assortive mating should paradoxically greatly reduce social class mobility and make the gradations within social classes more fine, to the extent that social class divisions are a product of individual personal traits rather than the nature of the slots the arise from our current technology and economic system. A hunter-gather society, for example, can support only so much social class stratification.