• Migration model: Anthropologists like Carleton Coon believed, based on pottery and skulls, that Europeans are primarily the descendents of Neolithic and post-Neolithic colonizers from the East and South, and that Paleolithic people are "survivors" who've contributed minimally to the present-day population.
  
  
• Acculturation model: Later researchers who rejected typology believed that farming was adopted and spread by Paleolithic hunter-gatherers without any gene flow from Neolithic people, and that observed changes in physical type were adaptations to the new technologies.
  
  
• Demic Diffusion model: A similar, less extreme school of thought argued for a slow wave of advance of Neolithic people, who were gradually absorbed by the native hunter-gatherers as farming was adopted and spread, with their genes becoming increasingly diluted as they moved northwestward.
  
  
• Geneticists agreed to varying extents with these second two models, saying that the data supported a predominantly Paleolithic origin for modern Europeans, with the Neolithic and post-Neolithic contributions being minimal and following a Southeast to Northwest gradient.
  
  
• Recently however, craniometric and archaeological data showed that Paleolithic and Neolithic people avoided each other for a long time, the former not adopting farming from, nor mixing with, the latter. The evidence also showed that farmers spread across Europe at a much faster rate than formerly thought.
  
  
• Additionally, mtDNA testing on Paleolithic remains found that they carried none of the markers previously called "Paleolithic" that make up the modern European gene pool, but Neolithic remains did carry some. The two groups also had very distinct gene pools, confirming that they hadn't mixed.
  
  
• Thus, the migration model from traditional anthropology is making a comeback in a big way, as it now appears that Neolithic and post-Neolithic people colonized Europe and essentially replaced the Paleolithic population, except for a few "survivors".

Racial Reality

Oct 31 2009, 02:25 PM

[*]Thus, the migration model from traditional anthropology is making a comeback in a big way, as it now appears that Neolithic and post-Neolithic people colonized Europe and essentially replaced the Paleolithic population, except for a few "survivors".