Talk:Genetic history of Africa

Possible edit conflict

Hello @Efekadu:, we apparently have a disagreement about the wording, as such I simply used the exact wording of the paper, which is the most reliable way to prevent misunderstandings and misleading information. So I ask what is your problem now? There is no reliable argument to remove and replace it with a personal interpretation, especially when the claims are not explicitly supported by the citation. Regarding the 2018 paper, it was not cited before, and as such there is no reason to remove it. If different papers came to similar conclusions, than all have to be mentioned respectively. This is for WP:Weight. Several papers outdo a single one. We have explicit rules for that. Furthermore, the section is not about autosomal DNA, but simply about geneflow, which includes haplogroups, autosomal DNA, and other alleles.176.97.70.48 (talk) 19:44, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

1. You unnecessarily call out Semitic speakers where the paper does not make this distinction. "This Ethio-Somali IAC is found at its highest frequencies in Cushitic speaking Somali populations and at high frequencies in neighboring Cushitic and Semitic speaking Afar, Amhara, Oromo, and Tygray populations."
2. You added a statement which is not mentioned in Hodgson without sources: "next to the autochthonus "Ethiopic" component, which is associated with proto-Afroasiatic itself"
3. Tedious quote added that does not add relevant details where the information is already summarized accurately and concisely. It goes abruptly from a paraphrase to a quote back to paraphrase without logical reasoning and It does not read well in a section that's already hard to read, plus the quote is already in the citation.
4. Ethio-Somali ("at K = 12 a second new ancestry component that we call Ethio-Somali (dark green) appears with its highest frequencies in the HOA.") is present in all Horn of Africa Afroasiatic-speaking groups tested.[1] Again, the Aari blacksmith is a caste of the Aari ethnic group, but not an ethnic group itself. I never said it was present in "all" Afroasiatic groups but that it was present among them. If you'd like we can change it from: "They also found a distinct West-Eurasian ancestral component among Afroasiatic-speaking groups of the Horn of Africa, most prevalent among the [[Somalis|Somali]]" To: "They also found a distinct West-Eurasian ancestral component among all tested Afroasiatic-speaking groups of the Horn of Africa, most prevalent among the [[Somalis|Somali]]" It is an important piece of context that Ethio-Somali is found among these Afroasiatic groups, as that becomes the basis for the arguments that follow.
5. I'm fine with keeping the 2018 source, but as-is it interrupts the logical flow of the paragraph with two studies addressing ancestral components prevalent in Afroasiatic-speaking populations of Northeast Africa, especially since Dobon et al. sample populations that aren't in Hodgson et al. but are related to populations in the HOA. Also, it makes it even more tedious to read. Instead we could add a blanket caveat statement such as: "Most studies on Horn of Africa populations find that Eurasian admixture dates back to ~3,000 years ago [citations here], however Hodgson et al found..."
6. Why are we adding Haplogroup T here? There are plenty of other haplogroups mentioned in the paper. There's no real context linking that haplogroup to the content in the paragraph and it's not going to make sense to the reader.

Efekadu (talk) 20:30, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

That is not true. I did that in a previous edit, as it is my interpretation of the quote, you similarly included unmentioned personal views. As such I did the best thing we can do: cite and use the original wording and explanation by the authors, the quote. This quote is the most relevant thing. We must not use personal interpretations of graphs and pictures (such as K12)! But we must use what the authors actually write! Refer to WP:OR. If we are not able to determine a solution, we will have to request a third user opinion. The quote and the conclusions by the authors is clear and must be followed. Wikipedia must use existing information and not personal interpretations, not mine and not yours. We obviously did not find a common ground. As solution I simply used the wording of the references, so no one can dispute it. The fact that you keep trying to include your personal interpretation is not helpful.

Additionally, your suggestion at your talk page regarding the 2018 paper is misleading too, as the wording is taking the direct suggestions of the paper:

"The Natufian sample consisted of 61.2% Arabian, 21.2% Northern African, 10.9% Western Asian, and 6.8% Omotic ancestry (Figure ​(Figure1G1G and Table ​Table1).1). The transition in the Levant from the Epipaleolithic to the Neolithic period involved an increase of Arabian ancestry at the expense of Northern African and Omotic ancestries." Northern African and Omotic ancestry was even higher before the increase of Arab like ancestry.

furthermore:

"Ancestry shared by Omotic-speaking peoples is found predominantly in present-day southern Ethiopia and is associated with haplogroup E, thus revealing a plausible source."

Please stay neutral on such topics. I am sure we will find a solution. I also want to add that WP:Weight is quite clear. The 2014 paper gets too much weight, while several others, especially more recent ones disagree or reevaluate the data. Have a nice day anyway.176.97.70.48 (talk) 06:20, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

You haven't replied to some of my concerns so I will reiterate them here, but I hope the proposed paragraph below will alleviate your concerns.

1. You unnecessarily call out Semitic speakers where the paper does not make this distinction. "This Ethio-Somali IAC is found at its highest frequencies in Cushitic speaking Somali populations and at high frequencies in neighboring Cushitic and Semitic speaking Afar, Amhara, Oromo, and Tygray populations."
2. Ethio-Somali ("at K = 12 a second new ancestry component that we call Ethio-Somali (dark green) appears with its highest frequencies in the HOA.") is present in all Horn of Africa Afroasiatic-speaking groups tested.[1] Again, the Aari blacksmith is a caste of the Aari ethnic group, but not an ethnic group itself. I never said it was present in "all" Afroasiatic groups but that it was present among them. Here's a table if the chart is not to your liking (Not Original Research anyways as it is clearly delineated in the footnotes).2
3. Hodgson is one of the few genetic studies that actually postulates on the origins of Afroasiatic, so summarizing it here isn't undue weight. If anything the long quote that you added gives it undue weight in the paragraph.
4. Why are we adding Haplogroup T here? There are plenty of other haplogroups mentioned in the paper. There's no real context linking that haplogroup to the content in the paragraph and it's not going to make sense to the reader.
5. I see your point about Haplogroup E now, and I think we can improve the article, but we have to work together and stick to the sources to do so. The quote that you provided: "Ancestry shared by Omotic-speaking peoples is found predominantly in present-day southern Ethiopia and is associated with haplogroup E, thus revealing a plausible source." He's talking about a plausible source for the haplogroup. The author does not mention Afro-Asiatic at all in the paper. However, there are other sources that we can use to do so, which I have complied in the proposed paragraph below with new content in bold. They're just links here for accessibility but they've all been published.
6. I'm not pushing a POV at all but just trying to stick to the sources in an accurate, concise, and contextualized manner. I really hope we don't have to go to dispute resolution for petty differences. Proposed paragraph starting at the point of contention:
   
   Although most studies on Horn of Africa populations have indicated a West-Eurasian admixture date ~3,000 years ago, [re-use citations here including 2018 paper you added] a 2014 genome study by Hodgson et al. found a distinct West-Eurasian ancestral component among the Horn of Africa Afroasiatic-speaking groups studied (and to a lesser extent in North Africa and West Asia), most prevalent among the Somali.(talk page only2) This ancestral component – dubbed "Ethio-Somali" – would have diverged from other non-African ancestries around 23,000 years ago and migrated back to Africa prior to developing agriculture , merging with the local indigenous lineages of the Horn of Africa. The authors propose that "Ethio-Somali" may have been one substantial ancestral component (for talk page only: "We hypothesize that a population with substantial Ethio-Somali ancestry could be the proto-Afro-Asiatic speakers"). of the Proto-Afroasiatic-speaking population. a subset of which later migrated back to the Levant and originated the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic family. The study also found an autochthonous African ancestral lineage – dubbed "Ethiopic" – among populations of the Horn of Africa, most prevalent among Omotic-speakers in southwestern Ethiopia. Notably, Roger Blench proposes southwestern Ethiopia as the most likely Afro-Asiatic homeland, due in part to the high internal diversification of the Omotic languages spoken in that region.[https://books.google.com/books/about/Archaeology_Language_and_the_African_Pas.html?id=esFy3Po57A8C(Pages150-163)] Additionally, Y-chromosome haplogroups E-M215 and E-M35, are quite common among Afroasiatic speakers, and southwestern Ethiopia is a plausible source of these haplogroups. [Daniel Shriner] The linguistic group and carriers of this lineage have a high probability to have arisen and dispersed together from Northeast Africa in the Mesolithic, plausibly having developed subsistence patterns of pastoralism and/or pre-agricultural intensive food collection.[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1046/j.1469-1809.2001.6510043.x][https://academic.oup.com/hmg/article/30/R1/R37/6204791?login=false][https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2022/21062/OriginsAfroasiatic.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y][https://www.jstor.org/stable/181512] Furthermore, a 2018 re-analysis of autosomal DNA using modern populations as a reference, found that the ancient Natufian samples of the Levant harbored 6.8% Omotic-related ancestry, further strengthening this argument.[Re-use Shriner]. A 2015 study by Dobon et al. identified an ancestral autosomal component that is commonly found among modern Afroasiatic-speaking populations (as well as Nubians) in Northeast Africa. This component, which peaks among Copts in Sudan but is not found in Egyptians or Qataris, appears alongside a component that defines Nilo-Saharan speakers of southwestern Sudan and South Sudan. A 2017 paper by Aurana et al. about previous genetic data of Northern African populations, such as Berbers, described them as a mosaic of Middle Eastern, European, and Sub-Saharan African-related ancestries.[Aurana et al.]
   
   Specific East Asian ancestry...

Efekadu (talk) 07:54, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Well, at first thank you for your summary and arguments! I will try to reply to all of them:

1. - 3. I already explained. I have added my interpretation, while you added yours. I did not want to call out Semitic, but the paper said Cushitic Somalis and Semitic speakers of the Horn of Africa. We did not agree on it obviously, thus I replaced my wording and your wording with the quote from the study. It should be a try to make it more reliable and find a solution in between our both arguments. But I agree that it may not be the best way. Generally, we should not use graphics such as K12. We have multiple studies about genetics for many articles, and most refrain from using graphs, but instead use the same or similar wording/content written by the authors, as the inclusion of data from graphics rely highly on interpretation. As such I am rather critical to such graphs, but you may use them in an appropriate way. Hodgson et al. is a good paper, but we generally should rely on secondary and review articles, which reanalyze the existing data. As most studies suggest admixture event 3,000 years ago. Hodgson et al. suggests that this modeled component split from other West-Eurasians ~23,000 years ago. He suggested that it arrived pre-agricultural. This does not mean it arrived already 23,000 years ago. So this may be all very well and true.

In fact, I found another good paper from 2016[2], which reanalyzed the existing data (stand 2016), and concluded that most Eurasian ancestry arrived through (multiple) female mediated migrations (based on maternal DNA), and probably mixed into the HOA population ~7,000 to ~5,000 years ago. Here some interesting quotes:

"R0a1a began its dramatic expansions ~12 ka and is now seen mainly in the southern part of the Arabian Peninsula, such as Yemen and the island of Socotra, where it displays a more recent frequency peak approaching 40%. ... Furthermore, R0a2 lineages expanded much further afield, across the Red Sea and into the Horn of Africa, in the immediate postglacial warming period, so that the present-day R0a frequency in parts of the Horn approaches 20%. This supports the pre-agricultural gene flow recently inferred from genome-wide data10 and may be linked to the establishment of obsidian exchange networks across the Red Sea in the early Holocene. ... In fact, the mtDNA evidence clearly indicates that Eurasian admixture in the Horn indeed occurred several times and from several distinct sources. In addition to R0a, there are four other potentially Eurasian ancient mtDNA clades in Eastern Africa: M1a, U6a, HV1 and N1a1a, which together with R0a make up 30% of Ethiopian lineages in our control-region database (n = 169). ... However, aside from R0a, only one other haplogroup is likely to indicate a Pleistocene dispersal from Arabia: N1a1a3. N1a1a3 dates to ~15.2 ka and N1a1a4 to only 850 years, but both diverge directly from the N1a1a root, which dates to ~25 ka, with the only closely related lineages seen in Arabia – a clearly similar pattern to R0a. HV1b1 in the Horn also has a Yemen source and dates to ~8.2 ka, leading to the suggestion of an early Holocene movement. ... A very approximate founder age estimate suggests an arrival ~5 ka. ... Another North African/Mediterranean lineage, haplogroup U6a, again has a likely source in Egypt/Near East44,66, but U6a2a1 in the Horn dates to ~4.0 ka."

4. Well, haplogroup T is the only paternal haplogroup candidate for Eurasian migration into Africa prior to Arabs (which mostly have haplogroup J). The time frame and modern distribution, with a peak among Somali clans is another indicator for this. But if you disagree, I do not reject the removal of the link to haplogroup T.

5. - 6. I see and understand your points. You have already made good points in your version here. We may make some further adjustments and include the 2016 paper, but overall, I think we are getting close to concensus. Thank you for your comments.176.97.70.48 (talk) 16:44, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

@176.97.70.48:I'm glad we are close to consensus and I respect your viewpoints. However, a cursory review of the table (not the chart I sent the first time) I included above and here again leaves no room for reasonable doubt as to the factual accuracy of the "the Afroasiatic HOA populations studied" statement in the above paragraph. If it alleviates your concerns, we can include (except the Aari blacksmith caste) in parentheses. As you can see in the table of Horn of Africa populations, it is clear that all groups represented in the Cushitic, Semitic, and Omotic-speaking branches have a significant proportion of "Ethio-Somali" ancestry.
Secondly, I sincerely hope you do not have a problem with the statement "most prevalent among the Somali." Again, it makes no sense to call out Semitic speakers here when Ethio-Somali ancestry is highest in the Cushitic groups Afar (43%) and Somali (57%). Assuming that you wouldn't have an issue with the first sentence now given the data I've shared here, what other qualms might you have with replacing the current revision with the proposed paragraph above? I propose starting a new paragraph break after the Natufian sentence with the citations. Respect. Efekadu (talk) 21:09, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

I do not have a problem to include the proposed paragraphs. We however should include the 2016 paper I cited above. I want to mention that the K12 should also be compared to K11, which shows significantly more "Ethiopic" ancestry, which suggests to me that the "Ethio-Somali" component is not a single component, but a model for distinct ancestry. Like later studies mention, this component is not clearly defined, neither its arrival date. The 2016 study suggests it was mostly female mediated (possibly in multiple waves, but most pre-agricultural). Overall I agree to replace the paragraphs with the proposal from the talk page. If their arise further questions or issues, I am sure we will solve them. Thank you!176.97.70.48 (talk) 09:11, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Another important paper for this topic is this paper of the 4,500 year old Ethiopian Mota sample, which did not have any/significant Eurasian (or Bantu/Nilotic) admixture, and is close to modern Ethiopian groups.[3]* (*The paper has an update which resulted in lower West-Eurasian admixture among Africans than previously anticipated:[4]). The Mota sample ancestry is nearly identical to the Omotic ancestry (Ari). The authors concluded that the 4,500 year old Mota sample predated Eurasian geneflow, and has the highest affinity to modern Ethiopians:

"We compared Mota to contemporary human populations (6). Both principal component analysis (PCA) (Fig. 1A) and outgroup f3 analysis using Ju|’hoansi (Khoisan) from Southern Africa as the outgroup (Fig. 1, B and C) place this ancient individual close to contemporary Ethiopian populations, and more specifically to the Ari, a group of Omotic speakers from southern Ethiopia, to the west of the highland region where Mota lived. Our ancient genome confirms the view that the divergence of this language family results from the relative isolation of its speakers (8), and indicates population continuity over the last ~4500 years in this region of Eastern Africa."

This should be added as well.176.97.70.48 (talk) 09:52, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

@176.97.70.48 Agreed on both points. I'll go ahead and incorporate these topics into the above and publish. Efekadu (talk) 12:07, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Great job! I have only edited some wording in accordance with the citations here at the talk page. If I find further papers about this topic, I will inform you, so that we can discuss and work out an inclusion of these.176.97.70.48 (talk) 15:14, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Genetic history of Central Africa, Genetic history of Eastern Africa, Genetic history of West Africa, Genetic history of Southern Africa into Genetic history of Africa

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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A formal request has been received to merge Genetic history of Central Africa, Genetic history of Eastern Africa, Genetic history of West Africa, Genetic history of Southern Africa into Genetic history of Africa on 20 October 2023. Discuss here. GenQuest ^"scribble"

It seems counter-intuitive to have multiple articles on this topic, potentially a 4 way POV Fork. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 16:11, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

I would tend to agree, but I will say the content of this article, and of each of the proposed merges would make this seem very, very long. @Timtrent: how would you say your proposal deals with WP:TLDR concerns? microbiologyMarcus ^{(petri dish)} 20:07, 20 October 2023 (UTC) Merge, per below microbiologyMarcus ^{(petri dish)} 20:36, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

@MicrobiologyMarcus length is fine if properly indexed through the TOC. The internet nowadays and the devices nowadays are sufficiently fast to make length a non issue.

However, any merge should have care to précis overlong material.

Had these come in front of me at AFC I would have declined each in favour of the current proposed merge. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 20:35, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

That's fair, I appreciate the comment. Thanks! microbiologyMarcus ^{(petri dish)} 20:35, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

@MicrobiologyMarcus I have just listed this at Wikipedia:Proposed article mergers, something I intended to do when I set this up, but was interrupted by life. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 20:47, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

Oppose, per WP:TOOLONG, at 168k for the current target even before any merges; interested parties should feel free to refine the existing articles. So, I suggest not merging and others can decide whether they think that shortening each is warranted. A proposal to merge, if the articles were shortened, would then be reasonable. Klbrain (talk) 14:59, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

@Klbrain Merging is including wisely. It is not shoving the whole other articles in wholesale. It presupposes the shortening that you suggest. 🇺🇦 Fiddle^Timtrent Faddle^Talk to me 🇺🇦 17:02, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

I re-iterate: fix the articles first, then propose a merge. Otherwise, the action of editing for concision is confused with the action of merging. The main article is alreayd too long, so even merging a small amount of selected content in would be problematic. I hence maintain oppose. Klbrain (talk) 17:22, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

I agree with a merge, but the articles need to as you said, firstly be organized and fixed so they can be joined in a coherent manner. We need a general Overview section, then the Regional Overviews, which can include the studies on the contemporary populations from those areas, as well as studies on archaeogenetics (Ancient DNA) from the given regions. I think that is simple enough, and anything not discussing specifically genetics should be removed, as it will just bloat the sections even more. Having short summaries of references (unless they need further clarifications for POV issues), will also help with the length issue. Keyboard Editor (talk) 08:11, 16 November 2023 (UTC) (Blocked sockpuppet)

Oppose, per size rule. Daniel Power of God (talk) 09:07, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.