User talk:Middayexpress/Archive 31

HLA antigens

I just read your edit on HLA antigens in the Somali peoples' page. The author of that study mentions Somalis being closer to Arabs than to 'other Africans' on that particular tiny segment of the genome. But this heavily depends on what type of 'other Africans' are used here, with Bantus, West Africans, Pygmies and whatnot that statement makes sense, but I highly doubt this is the case with Ethiopians and certain indigenous Kenyans (non-Bantu). So my question is, do you know who those 'other Africans' are? Wadaad (talk) 06:11, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

The authors of that HLA paper [1] do not describe Somalis as being closer to Arabs than to "other Africans", but that "the Somali population appear more similar to Arab or Caucasoid than to African populations". The "African populations" obviously refers to Sub-Saharan Africans since North Africans are Caucasoid and it goes without saying that Ethiopians are related to Somalis. It is also hardly the only study that points out these affinities (e.g. Risch et al. [2]: "east African groups, such as Ethiopians and Somalis, have great genetic resemblance to Caucasians and are clearly intermediate between sub-Saharan Africans and Caucasians"). Most Kenyans, incidentally, are not indigenous to the region (see Bantu expansion). Middayexpress (talk) 00:39, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

I was merely interested in knowing where the African samples were from (besides Somalis) as this is pivotal information. 'Sub-Saharan Africans' is an extremely broad term and uninformative. Do they mention any specifics?

The genetic affinities Somalis have with 'Caucasoid' populations is unsurprising, as the Out of Africa migration occurred in this part of Africa (hence the shared ancestry). Also, I said certain Kenyans are likely more similar to Somalis than Arabs are, not all. Even the Maasai show this so called 'Eurasian' affinity (see the PCA plot on page 11 of this recent study [3]). They seem to have similar levels of 'Eurasian' affinity as African-Americans (who are known to have significant European influence). All this does not point to recent Arabian admixture at all, but ancient shared ancestry with Eurasians.Wadaad (talk) 02:17, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

The paper just alludes to "African populations", which, for the reasons enumerated earlier, obviously refers to Sub-Saharan Africans. Note that it is also not the only HLA study that documents shared affinities between Somalis and Eurasian populations. Here's another [4] that indicates that the studied Somali sample possessed significant frequencies of the HLA-B27 marker, which is apparently most common and found at its highest frequencies in Eurasian populations. At any rate, the Maasai evince some Eurasian affinities almost certainly because of their Cushitic admixture (since this is something we do not see in Nilotic populations without Cushitic influence), admixture which Tishkoff among others have written about: "Many Nilo-Saharan–speaking populations in East Africa, such as the Maasai, show multiple cluster assignments from the Nilo-Saharan (red) and Cushitic (dark purple) AACs, in accord with linguistic evidence of repeated Nilotic assimilation of Cushites over the past 3000 years and with the high frequency of a shared East African–specific mutation associated with lactose tolerance." The Eurasian affinities in Somalis and other Horn populations is probably indeed explained by common ancestral descent with Eurasian populations, as well as later periods of admixture introduced through trade and other contacts; Tishkoff's graphic covers both possibilities [5]. Middayexpress (talk) 01:41, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

By the way, I also had a very long discussion with the user Medicineman84 on the Somali peoples' talk page. He's very stubborn and doesn't seem to be willing to accept certain flaws in his sources. I hope you could help out here.Wadaad (talk) 23:24, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I just noticed that discussion. It's like talking to a brick wall. Middayexpress (talk) 01:41, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

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