Estimating the date of composition of the Homeric epics

Estimating the date of composition of the Homeric epics

This might be an interesting way of dating literary works for which there are no/conflicting traditions about their date of composition.

Bioessays DOI: 10.1002/bies.201200165

Linguistic evidence supports date for Homeric epics

Eric Lewin Altschuler et al.

The Homeric epics are among the greatest masterpieces of literature, but when they were produced is not known with certainty. Here we apply evolutionary-linguistic phylogenetic statistical methods to differences in Homeric, Modern Greek and ancient Hittite vocabulary items to estimate a date of approximately 710–760 BCE for these great works. Our analysis compared a common set of vocabulary items among the three pairs of languages, recording for each item whether the words in the two languages were cognate – derived from a shared ancestral word – or not. We then used a likelihood-based Markov chain Monte Carlo procedure to estimate the most probable times in years separating these languages given the percentage of words they shared, combined with knowledge of the rates at which different words change. Our date for the epics is in close agreement with historians' and classicists' beliefs derived from historical and archaeological sources.

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Automated reconstruction of proto-languages

Automated reconstruction of proto-languages

PNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1204678110

Automated reconstruction of ancient languages using probabilistic models of sound change

Alexandre Bouchard-Côté et al.

One of the oldest problems in linguistics is reconstructing the words that appeared in the protolanguages from which modern languages evolved. Identifying the forms of these ancient languages makes it possible to evaluate proposals about the nature of language change and to draw inferences about human history. Protolanguages are typically reconstructed using a painstaking manual process known as the comparative method. We present a family of probabilistic models of sound change as well as algorithms for performing inference in these models. The resulting system automatically and accurately reconstructs protolanguages from modern languages. We apply this system to 637 Austronesian languages, providing an accurate, large-scale automatic reconstruction of a set of protolanguages. Over 85% of the system’s reconstructions are within one character of the manual reconstruction provided by a linguist specializing in Austronesian languages. Being able to automatically reconstruct large numbers of languages provides a useful way to quantitatively explore hypotheses about the factors determining which sounds in a language are likely to change over time. We demonstrate this by showing that the reconstructed Austronesian protolanguages provide compelling support for a hypothesis about the relationship between the function of a sound and its probability of changing that was first proposed in 1955.

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Clustering folk tales

Clustering folk tales

Proc. R. Soc. B 7 April 2013 vol. 280 no. 1756
doi: 10.1098/rspb.2012.3065

Population structure and cultural geography of a folktale in Europe 

Robert M. Ross et al.

Despite a burgeoning science of cultural evolution, relatively little work has focused on the population structure of human cultural variation. By contrast, studies in human population genetics use a suite of tools to quantify and analyse spatial and temporal patterns of genetic variation within and between populations. Human genetic diversity can be explained largely as a result of migration and drift giving rise to gradual genetic clines, together with some discontinuities arising from geographical and cultural barriers to gene flow. Here, we adapt theory and methods from population genetics to quantify the influence of geography and ethnolinguistic boundaries on the distribution of 700 variants of a folktale in 31 European ethnolinguistic populations. We find that geographical distance and ethnolinguistic affiliation exert significant independent effects on folktale diversity and that variation between populations supports a clustering concordant with European geography. This pattern of geographical clines and clusters parallels the pattern of human genetic diversity in Europe, although the effects of geographical distance and ethnolinguistic boundaries are stronger for folktales than genes. Our findings highlight the importance of geography and population boundaries in models of human cultural variation and point to key similarities and differences between evolutionary processes operating on human genes and culture.

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Population Genetics of Estonians

Population Genetics of Estonians

A genetic study on Estonians agrees with a multivariate craniometric study (Homo. 2002;52(3):240-53.) in proposing that the Finno-Ugrians were originally a separate race from both Caucasoids and Mongoloids.

Anthropol Anz. 2000 Jun;58(2):137-54.

A population genetic characterization of Estonians.
Heapost L.

This paper discusses the genetic characterization of Estonians on the basis of eight blood group systems, and the traits of PTC tasting and colour blindness in 40 Estonian population samples from various parts of the country. The allele frequencies for the total Estonian population and for the four most different regions are presented. The survey shows genetic heterogeneity within the Estonians; the greatest genetic differences were observed in West-East direction. The West-Islands, West, and North Estonia differ from the other regions (East, South-East, also South-West and Central Estonia--which form a compact cluster). The mean allele frequencies of the Estonians are comparable to those typical for populations from North and East Europe, but the allele frequencies of Estonians are characterized by tendencies in two opposite (western and eastern) directions, like in other Finno-Ugric populations and concerning other anthropological traits. Estonians reveal closest similarities to the nearest neighbouring populations, regardless of their language group. The genetic heterogeneity and antagonistic traits in Estonians seem to be traces of the original genetic structure of Finno-Ugric ancestor populations which were neither Mongoloid nor Caucasoid.
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The Finno-Ugrian Suicide Hypothesis

The Finno-Ugrian Suicide Hypothesis

This study discovers that suicide rates in Europe are strongly correlated with geography. Countries with high suicide rates form a belt from Finland to Austria which corresponds with the genetic zone of cold adaptation and ancient Uralic language dispersion. The authors suggest that genetic risk factors in this region are responsible for high suicide rates.

Percept Mot Skills. 2003 Oct;97(2):401-6.

The Finno-Ugrian suicide hypothesis: variation in European suicide rates by latitude and longitude.
Voracek M et al.

The marked variation regarding the suicide rate in 34 European countries is well described by regressing the national suicide rate on the capital cities' latitudes and on an interaction term of squared latitude multiplied with longitude. The interaction term explains 40.8% and 29.1% of men's and women's suicide rate, respectively, and latitude explains a further significant increment of 10.9% and 10.6% variance of men's and women's suicide rate, respectively. This regression model quantifies the Finno-Ugrian suicide hypothesis of Kondrichin and of Marusic and Farmer. The European countries highest in suicide rate constitute a contiguous, J-shaped belt, spanning from Finland to Austria. This area maps onto the second principal component identified for European gene distribution, representing ancestral adaptation to cold climates and the Uralic language dispersion. Thus, population differences in genetic risk factors may account for the spatial pattern in European suicide rates.

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mtDNA of ancient central Asians

mtDNA of ancient central Asians

An interesting new paper confirms the anthropological and archaeological picture of a westward spread of Caucasoids in Central Asia in early prehistoric times, followed by the spread of Mongoloids in the opposite direction during the 1st millennium BC. The Caucasoid-Mongoloid hybrid population resulting from these interactions is similar in terms of mtDNA with present-day Central Asians with some noted differences (e.g., presence of additional West Eurasian haplogroups). In the ancient samples, West Eurasian haplogroups H, HV, I, T*, T1, U*, U1, U5, U5a1 and W were represented:

• HV sequences have matches in the Central Mediterranean region
• H sequences are split between the common Cambridge Reference Sequence (CRS) found in many populations, and two other sequences found in the Central Mediterranean and the Caucasus
• The I sequence is present in a modern Central Asian and also in individuals from the Caucasus
• The W sequence is widespread in West Eurasia
• T* sequences are widespread in Europe, the Near East and the Central Mediterranean region
• T1 is widespread in West Eurasia, but also found sporadically in East Eurasia
• The U1a sequences are found in Turks, Armenians and Caucasians
• The U5a sequence has been found in an Egyptian
• The U5a1 sequence is frequent in the Caucasus and present in Europe, while a different U5a1 was reported previously in Mongolia

The East Eurasian haplogroups belong to A*, M*, M4 and G2:

• The M* sequence was observed in an Indian individual
• The M4 sequence has not been previously reported
• The G2 sequence is found in present-day China and Central Asia
• One A sequence is found in present-day Central Asians and Indians, while the other two have a motif found in a modern Chukchi

Most (78%) of the sequences are of West Eurasian (Caucasoid) origin, but before the 7th c. BC, East Eurasian (Mongoloid) sequences are absent, although they could be present up to 20.6% (p<0.05).
Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2004 May 7;271(1542):941-7. 

Unravelling migrations in the steppe: mitochondrial DNA sequences from ancient central Asians.
Lalueza-Fox C et al.

This study helps to clarify the debate on the Western and Eastern genetic influences in Central Asia. Thirty-six skeletal remains from Kazakhstan (Central Asia), excavated from different sites dating between the fifteenth century BC to the fifth century AD, have been analysed for the hypervariable control region (HVR-I) and haplogroup diagnostic single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the mitochondrial DNA genome. Standard authentication criteria for ancient DNA studies, including multiple extractions, cloning of PCR products and independent replication, have been followed. The distribution of east and west Eurasian lineages through time in the region is concordant with the available archaeological information: prior to the thirteenth-seventh century BC, all Kazakh samples belong to European lineages; while later an arrival of east Eurasian sequences that coexisted with the previous west Eurasian genetic substratum can be detected. The presence of an ancient genetic substratum of European origin in West Asia may be related to the discovery of ancient mummies with European features in Xinjiang and to the existence of an extinct Indo-European language, Tocharian. This study demonstrates the usefulness of the ancient DNA in unravelling complex patterns of past human migrations so as to help decipher the origin of present-day admixed populations.

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