continuing on in the quest to find out the connection, if any, between inbreeding/outbreeding and topography (flatlanders vs. mountaineers), here is a map of the coefficients of inbreeding in france between 1926-1945 (based upon roman catholic cousin marriage rates) — the darker the shading, the greater the inbreeding…
…and here is a topographical map of france via wikipedia…
to me, it looks like the higher the elevation/more rugged the area, the greater the amount of inbreeding.
there’s also the history of the franks to take into consideration. as i’ve said previously, the franks in austrasia seem to have been the earliest population in europe to join in The Outbreeding Project of the church/tptb. and the regions of france with the lowest rates of inbreeding appear to be those that were once a part of austrasia — the earliest frankish kingdom — and those in neustria to the southwest, an area conquered by the franks in 486. swabia, too. also from wikipedia:
that is all! (^_^)
previously: this one’s for g.w. and flatlanders vs. mountaineers revisited and meanwhile, in france… and going dutch and the auvergnat pashtuns
(note: comments do not require an email. boing!)
hbd chick 
This does seem like a correlation that can’t just be chance.
It would be good to look at what happened in the Northwest—Brittany, Normandy, and the Western Loire. They’re not that high, but have a high degree of inbreeding per your map.
Brittany, at least, is Celtic, I believe. Maybe the whole region retained Celtic marriage customs?
Brittany certainly isn’t mountainous and although it’s rugged country it isn’t the most rugged country imaginable. Strange place (I lived there for a year long ago), but very interesting. Hey, I’m reading a book you might enjoy: The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography by Graham Robb. All about the regions of France, how distinctive they were, how long it took to rope the country together. It’s pretty long and it’s over-wordy but it’s full of interesting info about languages, lifestyles, mating patterns …
Brittany may not be mountainous but it is kind of isolated on that peninsula. I think it might isolation not elevation per se that makes places more conservative and clannish. Those Bretons are Celts. The Celts were slow out of the inbreeding in the British Isles too (as you’ve mentioned) but the Celts were by definition living in isolated, undesirable places, as the newer invaders took over the best land.
Altitude is certainly not the only factor leading to clannishness. My ancestors were clannish flatlanders who preserved the older Irish nomadic economy as the country became more settled and urbanised.
Do bear in mind that the Bretons, though they speak P-Celtic, are not racially identical with the Welsh or the Cornish. The Britons arrived in Armorica late, and contemporary sources refer to four languages spoken in Brittany during the aftermath of the Migration Age. These are British P-Celtic, Germanic Frankish, the Latin of the Romanised Gauls who retreated there, and a fourth unidentified language inferred to be Alanic, an Iranic lect related directly to contemporary Ossetian. As Carleton Coon phrased it, “Cornish speech has survived in Brittany among a people to whom it is an adopted tongue, while it has died out in southwestern England whence it came” and “the Cornish invaders gave the inhabitants little beside their language.” In other words Brittany is a refugium for waves of migrants.
I think any consideration of Brittany needs to consider its complex, postclassical population history.
@Bones, Indeed, the Alans, mounted lancers, who also appeared along Hadrian’s Wall, are thought to have given rise to at least some of the early Legends of King Arthur and also the Royal Houses of Wales (descendants of Rhodri Mawr). Lots of fishermen in Brittainy. Normandy is definitely part of Greater Brittainy. Duke William’s army was as Breton as it was Norman.
The Cornish gave the Bretons their Saints. Cornwall and even Wales have the same dedications to Saints in their older churches and Saints lives regularly include travel between all three places. For the most part, the sea united, not divided, until the railways arrived. The Roman Road was a largely temporary triumph of technology.
I disagree with Philip Owen about the origin of the Arthurian cycle.in Britain under Iranian influence since the presence of the Iazyges was minimal, equivalent to the minor presence of steppe people in Japan where their influence upon the national canon has also been exaggerated. A look at the history of France is enough to show that the presence of Iranians along Hadrian’s Wall is actually superfluous to the Iranian/Caucasian nature of the Arthurian tradition in western Europe Besides, there were also other foreigners such as Nubians(!) stationed in Roman Britain yet no one attributes a significant, long lasting cultural impact to them.
In contrast to the mere stationing of Iazyges in northern Britain, the Alanic hosts were of such influence in Gaul as to establish kingdoms in France, including Armorica where they were subsequently subverted and ousted by the immigrating Cornish Britons – never was there a similar Scytho-Sarmatian state anywhere in Great Britain. In Breton tradition this was an act of genocide, but intermarriage is attested in the historical record, and the superficially Celtic (specifically, British) nature of the Arthurian cycle demonstrates an attempt at dissimulation on behalf of the Alans in an effort to preserve their oral traditions by assimilating the proto-Narts to the heroes of their Brythonic conquerors.
I’m unsure as to what Philip thinks is Alanic about Rhodri Mawr, a welsh monarch who fought the Danes and the Anglo-Saxons.
OT but it might interest you. Maybe the Saudis are getting tired of the birth defects caused by inbreeding. This press release turned up in one of my Google alerts.
@david – “They’re not that high.”
@paleo retiree – “Brittany certainly isn’t mountainous and although it’s rugged country it isn’t the most rugged country imaginable.”
a fellow named westermeyer found in southeast asia that groups that resided above 500m tended to marry/mate closer than populations lower down. i’ve been trying to see if that pattern “holds” elsewhere — certainly seems to for regions like the balkans and the caucasia — and the auvergne.
like you both say, brittany is not very mountainous/rugged, but it does appear to have some central regions that are around 400-500m? maybe? not certain it matters in this case, but i’ll keep it in the back of my mind. (^_^)
the fact that brittany doesn’t seem to have been a part of the frankish kingdom is probably very important. it’s likely that the church’s cousin marriage bans just weren’t introduced very early in that region and that the bretons retained their earlier marriage patterns (which were very likely like those of the early medieval irish or highland scots) — and some of the carolingians thought that the bretons were very barbaric…and incestuous. (~_^)
@david – “It would be good to look at what happened in the Northwest—Brittany, Normandy, and the Western Loire.”
yeah. don’t know what was going on in those areas!
@paleo retiree – “I’m reading a book you might enjoy: The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography by Graham Robb. All about the regions of France, how distinctive they were, how long it took to rope the country together. It’s pretty long and it’s over-wordy but it’s full of interesting info about languages, lifestyles, mating patterns …”
oh, thanks for that! yes, that looks like JUST the book on france that i’ve been looking for! i’ll have to see if i can persuade santa to leave it in my dropbox this christmas…. (^_^)
@frau katze – “Brittany may not be mountainous but it is kind of isolated on that peninsula.”
yes, i think you’re right. isolation does play into it, too (or it’s mostly isolation and not really elevation at all). the frisians on the coast of the netherlands — and the dithmarsians further along the coast in germany — also seem to have inbred until rather late, and, if anything, they were in the lowlands — coastal lowlands.
but because they were in an isolated region with unsuitable soils, they didn’t get this manorial system in the medieval period, and the manorial system gave an extra push towards outbreeding (reinforcing the cousin marriage bans), so closer matings continued for longer in these isolated regions.
@frau katze – “Maybe the Saudis are getting tired of the birth defects caused by inbreeding.”
ah ha! thanks! (^_^)
good for them! i know they have, indeed, been very worried about all the birth defects for some time — a lot of research has gone into the connection between all of the birth defects in that part of the world and the high rates of cousin marriage there — that’s why we have such good info on cousin marriage rates in arab countries for the last 50 years or so. i know they’ve been trying to encourage people to have genetic testing done before getting married — but there’s a lot of fatalism in the arab world (“if allah wills it” sort of thing), so arabs keep right on marrying their cousins. =/
hopefully this genetics research project will help the population out further!
@b&b – “Altitude is certainly not the only factor leading to clannishness. My ancestors were clannish flatlanders who preserved the older Irish nomadic economy as the country became more settled and urbanised.”
yeah, the elevation thing certainly doesn’t apply fully to ireland (although it does, maybe, to highland scotland and wales and northern england).
dunno if you’ve seen them, but i wrote a bunch of posts on mating patterns in medieval ireland — you can find them below in the left-hand column under the “mating patterns in europe series.” the irish missed out on two things in the medieval period that affected their mating patterns: 1) for a time they were not a part of the mainstream church, and the “celtic church” seems to have ignored a lot of the marriage proscriptions coming out of rome; and 2) ireland didn’t get manorialism (see this post).
(^_^)
“a lot of research has gone into the connection between all of the birth defects in that part of the world”
I have some dim memory/impression of all kinds of “freaks” — not just the halt and the lame (but plenty of those too) on third world streets when I was hitch-hiking through those regions in my youth: cleft pallets (sp?), club feet, blindness, etc..And of course some of the worst defects are invisible when you don’t speak the language — idiocy for instance.
Ever wanted to understand where the name came Austrasia , starting from the fact that the prefix ”aus” refers to the south. Very likely that the people living in this region have their geographical origins and further north , so the appointment of the new address as a southern land .
I like to think what led them to start Scandinavian design outbreeding earlier than anywhere else in Europe ? Only for environmental reasons ?
Any environmental action must be preceded by a biological reason . There must be some genetic framework among Scandinavians that make them susceptible to avoid mating within the family . Taking into account that they have survived in a very cold environment with limited resources , it may be that many dramatic events may have conspired to they finished performing universally forbidden matings , as marriage between siblings for example. Experience the birth of children with problems caused by this type of mating may have provoked widespread disgust among them . (Extremely distant hypothesis)
Taking into account that the Norses, pre viking era, could be similar in behavior precisely with the Vikings themselves, the meeting of some traits such as openness to experience or questioning the rules and aggression (perhaps a part of the population) can have produced the ideal environment for social experimentation as well as the beginning of change in behavior for the time, like marriage within clans.
It was exactly what I did, it seems to me that the process of the Christianization of Scandinavia could not by itself have brought about this sudden change as the Nordic population. We’re talking about a time when the communication methods or ways were scarce, countries with low and sparse population density and predominantly rural. Some previous selection process may have created the ground for the Scandinavians may have preferred to avoid cousin marriage or in clans.
If the Nordic regions with significant population outside Scandinavia were the first to start outbreeding project, so it may be that this population has a genetic signature already predisposed to this type of pattern. Looking for french map and seeing its topography, could compare with the Nordic nations and noted that especially Sweden and Denmark, has virtually no mountainous areas, while Norway is the only predominantly mountainous terrain. It would be interesting to compare them. I think you’ve done it.
In other words , it may be that , at least in Scandinavia , a process of mating outside the clans may have started before the arrival of the mission of evangelization . I wonder why a part of the Nordic population , mainly made up of men ( mostly ) , decided abruptly leave their comfortable nations to invade , vandalize and conquer distant regions such as England , France and even coastal regions of the Mediterranean Sea ? What are the reasons that led them to do this ?
Does Scandinavia had an excess of men compared to women ? If this really happened , what were the reasons for this? Infanticide of female babies for cultural reasons ? But the Norse mythological culture seems to look positively for women , much more than the Greco-Roman .
The reduction process of consanguineous mating seems to coincide with the expansion of Nordic subrace. Note the Transilvania nineteenth century, with a German minority belonging to the local elite and a majority of Romanian peasants.
The selection for light skin color or blue eyes, two dashes, primarily known as neutral or aesthetic recreation, which seems to denote some relaxation of selection took place in Scandinavia, ie a society where people choose their spouses according with your own personal taste and less by subjective-cultural reasons.
Obviously altitude is a proxy variable. The real causal variable you are looking for is something like the mean radius of sexual partner search. That would tend to be smaller in the mountains but other factors might also be applicable. I can imagine a map with areas delineated by mean sexual search radius.
When I was an Urban Planning grad student we had a professor who had a contract with some government agency to develop some sort of plan to help Appalachia. His solution was a series of super highways.
When earlier when I was stationed at Fort Knox I saw the effects of hillbilly consanguinity every day in the smiles of the Kentucky natives. All real hillbillies have only rotten stumps for teeth. I wonder if people instinctually avoid prospective mates with bad teeth as a sign of a high load of homozygous recessive genes?
When I was an urbanization student one of theories of why some areas developed cities and civilization whereas other didn’t was the presence of littorals. A littoral geography was said to promote commerce. I wonder now while reading you blog if it was not simple out breeding that littorals aided. A Greek lad could search for a nice unrelated girl on lots of distant but reachable islands. No need for a government sponsored super highway.
Is that the secret of Greek accomplishment?
“Brittany certainly isn’t mountainous and although it’s rugged country it isn’t the most rugged country imaginable”
The critical factor imo is marginal land (for crop growing) rather than simply mountainous land – mountainous is a subset of marginal. Marginal terrain leads to lower population densities so will lead to greater levels of inbreeding *on top* of whatever cultural effects are in play.
.
“@frau katze – “Maybe the Saudis are getting tired of the birth defects caused by inbreeding.”
It probably worked okay back when couples had 12 kids each with 2 healthy ones surviving. I imagine they could fix it with screening.
@gottlieb – “Ever wanted to understand where the name came Austrasia, starting from the fact that the prefix ‘aus’ refers to the south.”
austrasia actually means “eastern land” — the “aust” is a bad latin translation of the german “ost” or east.
@gottlieb – “If the Nordic regions with significant population outside Scandinavia were the first to start outbreeding project, so it may be that this population has a genetic signature already predisposed to this type of pattern.”
no, they weren’t. if anything, the pre-christian scandinavians probably inbred more than the pre-christian continental germanics. not 100% sure about that, but that’s my informed guess after all the reading i’ve done. need to post more about the scandinavians — will do in the new year!
@patrick – “Obviously altitude is a proxy variable. The real causal variable you are looking for is something like the mean radius of sexual partner search.”
@grey – “The critical factor imo is marginal land (for crop growing) rather than simply mountainous land – mountainous is a subset of marginal. Marginal terrain leads to lower population densities so will lead to greater levels of inbreeding *on top* of whatever cultural effects are in play.”
yes! to both of you. (^_^)
i think it must be some combination of the two of these — marginal lands + population densities (mean radius of sexual partner search) — which prolly go hand-in-hand anyway. plus sometimes weird — oftentimes imported — cultural practices come into play, like the christian outbreeding thing which was imposed on some mountain dwellers like some of the northern italians and the swiss (and, eventually, the highland scots and norwegians, etc.) — or the father’s brother’s daughter marriage introduced to pakistan/afghanistan.
As a side note: possibly adding to the idea of Protestantism as being partly a side-effect of this out-breeding process that was occurring in Europe but at different speeds.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguenot
“Huguenot numbers grew rapidly between 1555 and 1561, chiefly amongst nobles and city dwellers.”
and also the correlation of the lowlands along the west coast south of Brittany and centered on Bordeaux with this.
“The Huguenot population of France dropped to 856,000 by the mid-1660s, of which a plurality lived in rural areas. The greatest concentrations of Huguenots at this time resided in the regions of Guienne, Saintonge-Aunis-Angoumois and Poitou.[34]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guienne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saintonge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angoumois
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poitou
although this idea is contradicted by this so any correlation isn’t 100%.
“Huguenots remained in large numbers in only one region in France: the rugged Cévennes region in the south. In the early 18th century, a regional group known as the Camisards revolted against the French crown.”
@Patrick Boyle
“The real causal variable you are looking for is something like the mean radius of sexual partner search.”
Yes, that is what i am getting at when talking about population density. Cultural practices then magnify (if explicitly endogamous) or dilute (if explicitly exogamous) the effect of the terrain (or vice versa the terrain magnifies or dilutes the effect of the cultural practice).
@hbdchick
“i think it must be some combination of the two of these — marginal lands + population densities (mean radius of sexual partner search) — which prolly go hand-in-hand anyway. plus sometimes weird — oftentimes imported — cultural practices”
Yes, that must be the case as that’s effectively what the cultural practices are doing – artificially modifying (in either direction) what would other wise be the natural mean radius of partner search
The sequence should go – in terms of most to least inbreeding
1. marginal terrain and explicitly endogamous culture
2. fertile terrain and explicitly endogamous culture *or* marginal terrain and explicitly exogamous culture
3. fertile terrain and explicitly exogamous culture
where fertile and marginal ~ population density ~ *potential* partner search
#
or the same but worded the other way round to depending on which has the biggest effect:
1. explicitly endogamous culture and marginal terrain
2. explicitly endogamous culture and fertile terrain *or* explicitly exogamous culture and marginal terrain
3. explicitly exogamous culture and fertile terrain
I’d guess the cultural would in the long run as it has no limit whereas i’d imagine the terrain factor would settle at a “natural” balance for the terrain?
Briefly back on the Huguenot theme – also La Rochelle, the setting for the siege in the Three Musketeers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Charente-Maritime-Position.svg
So, maybe the rapid pace of urbanization in recent decades will just solve these problems automatically (if you think inbreeding is a problem and outbreeding a good thing).
It might be interesting to look at populations that maintain close endogamy in an urban context. Has any group managed to do this for long? (Some small minorities may… but what about majority urban populations?)
Speculating wildly, I wonder whether the world-wide rise of fundamentalism might be an unconscious reaction to the threat of exogamy. Whatever the notional ideology of fundamentalisms, the main principle in practice is forcing female sexuality to conform to “traditional values,” which probably means endogamy in many/most cases.
The South-Asian caste system might be an example. My reaction on visiting was that the main thing the region needs is a marriage lottery.
I fear this may be politically incorrect.
@david – “It might be interesting to look at populations that maintain close endogamy in an urban context. Has any group managed to do this for long?”
everyone in the middle east. they’ve been urban since the days of the sumerians (possible exaggeration (~_^) ), and they seem to have kept up their inbreeding practices the whole time. in fact, they probably invented the closest form of cousin marriage — father’s brother’s daughter (fbd) marriage.
the southern chinese, too — long stretches of their history in which cousin marriage was very common.
@grey – “As a side note: possibly adding to the idea of Protestantism as being partly a side-effect of this out-breeding process that was occurring in Europe but at different speeds.”
yeah, i tried to figure out the huguenots when i looked at the radical reformation and my in-betweeners. i think i gave up when i didn’t manage to shoehorn them in in any way. (~_^)
have a look at this map and see what you think.
definitely something to revist. thanks for the links! (^_^)
Hbd Chick@ ”austrasia actually means “eastern land” — the “aust” is a bad latin translation of the german “ost” or east.”
But they (may) have some more northern region where they settled. Well, I know very little about this part of European history.
Hbd Chick@ ”no, they weren’t. if anything, the pre-christian scandinavians probably inbred more than the pre-christian continental germanics. not 100% sure about that, but that’s my informed guess after all the reading i’ve done. need to post more about the scandinavians — will do in the new year!”
You said that Muslims hardly be able to implement the project outbreeding, and reap satisfactory results in the short to medium term. I remember there was also told that they should not even try because it would take too long.
However I read some time ago that in Denmark, for example, differences in social class were so low in the middle ages as those that exist in the country today. The idea of social differences relate or should relate to sharing of genes to make the call Extended community, where instead of the emergence of clans and therefore fractional and inter-competitive community, you create a society that would like a great clan rather than several.
I am of the opinion that even though I understand the ability of culture as a transformative element of the epigenetic landscape, still it is necessary that similar key elements that may provide a basis for the successive processes. An example will try to impose modern Muslim population precepts of Christian culture. What could happen?
Nothing, or nothing very near spectacular. Within a population you have various types of epigenetic phenotypes with different behavioral predispositions. The culture of all human societies have worked as a centralizing force and reconciling these differences, seeking collective transcendence.
The idea of how epigenetic individuality can be managed by selection occurs precisely through the mating type. If the phenotype reflects the genotype so that a person develop self-perception of difference from the others, she should according to this logic, present a greater genetic individual uniqueness. It would be interesting to analyze the genetic similarities between populations. If my theory is correct, European Caucasians exhibit the highest variability. Of course this has behavioral and philosophical implications because from the moment that you feel the odd man out, you shall make neuroses of type” the world” against me and this results in a personal wish to express their emotions, almost as a conflict of your inner world against hegemonic culture.
Sorry for the verbose comments, is that I’m trying to see a way to help her in her theory, this is my way, if you want, I’ll stop commenting.
What I can suggest now is that according to the evidence of European history and extra-European Caucasoid, it may be that there are fixed genes, selected long ago, that tend to predispose these populations and at present especially the euro descendants for individualism . Recently read about the advantages that the extra males may have in relation to diversity and survival of the species among fish. When you select or maintain a mutant population within the group, the maintenance of these different genes can cause the combination of different phenotypes and creating this self-centered, egocentric and therefore more individualistic people.
Some aggravating components, both genetical-typical and social implications as may be the presence of a large diversity of eye color and hair among European Caucasians. We know that the difference causes different reactions and interpersonal perceptions, both short to long term.
Summarizing, you destroy the system of collective clans to foster the development of individuals-clans or simple, individuals.
PAris is a black dot. For real?
@gottlieb – “You said that Muslims hardly be able to implement the project outbreeding, and reap satisfactory results in the short to medium term. I remember there was also told that they should not even try because it would take too long.”
hmmmm. i don’t think i would’ve said that, but if i did, i retract it. of course they should give outbreeding a shot — if they want (and only if they want) — but, yes, it would take a very long time to go from the very inbred state that the arab muslims are at today to get to the outbred state that nw europeans are at. plus, you’d also have to have the right sort of subsequent selection pressures to get them to “be like europeans” (again, if that’s what they wanted — not my recommendation one way or the other).
again, all of this is just a theory. i could be wrong.
@gottlieb – “Summarizing, you destroy the system of collective clans to foster the development of individuals-clans or simple, individuals.”
yes. i think so.
@philip – “Paris is a black dot. For real?”
i think that paris is a black dot just in order to indicate where it is. the range of inbreeding coefficients should be the third one from the bottom on the scale — the most speckled of the speckled levels.
Well , I decided to question this thought because according to Cochran ‘s blog , eugenics was not only possible but much more quickly and efficiently than we can imagine . In a few generations can modify the populations from one profile to another. Then do not know if personality traits are easier to be handled than the polymorphic traits of intelligence . Also do not know what the exact interaction of the two . Seems to me that the nations with the highest average intelligence are predominantly introverted and conscientious .
Yes , I believe there may have been some other factor prior to the northern European population has complied with the Christian faith so quickly. I mean, we’re talking about the period of the High Middle Ages , the Viking era , the subsequent process of catechesis and not know exactly where this phenomenon is noticed, but a strongly egalitarian society with weak hierarchy , especially in comparison to other European kingdoms . ( I think it was something like this , there is no certainty , I am no expert in Norse history, only cling probable systems that can be interconnected ) .
I find it interesting you also address the role of large European rivers in the process of de – clanisation the continent , especially in Central Europe. There is a tendency to consider urban areas as more liberal than rural regions , mainly caused by the selection of the smartest people to the cities. But there are obviously intelligent people tribalists . The cosmopolitan , liberal, secular and open to new experiences and cultures , behavior may already exist in some population subgroups coming from rural areas , who migrate to the cities , but it is noteworthy that not only the smartest who migrated to the cities during the periods of high urbanization in the Old West ( Europe) . So the idea of selecting the most intelligent as the factor responsible for the more liberal and secular cities, behavior does not stand alone because people of all strains migrated to the cities. Maybe the elites from the time when the media began to grow and become more sophisticated , have been responsible for the dissemination of the behavior of high class and it had been built by the bourgeois middle classes emerging as an indicator of social status .
To summarize again the central point I would suggest to you, the rivers have always played a key role in civilization and is the largest of all known civilizations until today was Western civilization, then we can expect similar factors may have happened in all other civilizations of success. Ie, the presence of nascent urban centers cut by large rivers (replacement of cities bathed by oceans) causes a migration of people from different strains began to marry, reducing the genes for tribalism.
It would also be interesting to analyze the climate in the region at that time.
@gottlieb – “In a few generations can modify the populations from one profile to another.”
no, not in a few. you need a good 1000 years — ca. 40 generations — to get anything done. unless you’re breeding (and culling) really hard — like one does with dogs. no one really does that with humans, so it’s more like 1000 years in humans (modern human societies post-agricultural revolution).
@gottlieb – “I believe there may have been some other factor prior to the northern European population has complied with the Christian faith so quickly.”
the interesting feature with the pre-christian germanics (and i’m not sure if this applies to the scandinavians or not) is that they had bilateral kindreds. so 1) wrt to the bilateralism – kinship was reckoned on both the mother’s and the father’s sides, not just on the father’s side (paternally) like many clan-based societies, and 2) wrt the kindreds – they had looser extended family structures than other more clan-based societies. kindreds are based around an individual — your kindred is (typically) all of your relatives out to your second cousins. so it is an extended family structure that varies with each individual AND it is not fixed — it “dies” whenever an individual dies.
so the germanics seem to have started off with a looser extended family system than other europeans (like, for instance, the irish or the highland scots who had paternally based clans … but who did have bilateral kinship, if i’m not mistaken).
@gottlieb – “…causes a migration of people from different strains began to marry….”
no. it doesn’t matter, i don’t think, if different people intermarry. if, say, chechens and albanians intermarry, they will just be swapping “genes for clannishness”! what you must have is a long-term, sustained avoidance of cousin (or other close family member) marriage. i think. (^_^)
Hbd Chick@ ”no, not in a few. you need a good 1000 years — ca. 40 generations — to get anything done. unless you’re breeding (and culling) really hard — like one does with dogs. no one really does that with humans, so it’s more like 1000 years in humans (modern human societies post-agricultural revolution).”
Well, it’s interesting how non-human animals have become pawns in our hands. It seems that the selection and creation of breeds among dogs has produced some bizarre and cruel effects with these poor creatures.
But what you’re saying then is that Eugenia is something really hard to do in the short term, this would certainly be a discouraging news by the current situation regarding the cognitive profile and fertility. In my country or at least in my city, it is quite clear where people of low intelligence and character are dominating territorially. This country is ending, unless a draconian dictatorship-genetic, take possession of this inheritance of political psychopathy and degenerate human creation.
(:/)!!!
Hbd Chick@ ”the interesting feature with the pre-christian germanics (and i’m not sure if this applies to the scandinavians or not) is that they had bilateral kindreds. so 1) wrt to the bilateralism – kinship was reckoned on both the mother’s and the father’s sides, not just on the father’s side (paternally) like many clan-based societies, and 2) wrt the kindreds – they had looser extended family structures than other more clan-based societies. kindreds are based around an individual — your kindred is (typically) all of your relatives out to your second cousins. so it is an extended family structure that varies with each individual AND it is not fixed — it “dies” whenever an individual dies.
so the germanics seem to have started off with a looser extended family system than other europeans (like, for instance, the irish or the highland scots who had paternally based clans … but who did have bilateral kinship, if i’m not mistaken).”
Yes, but if you believe that culture is produced by the genetic of the majority, or the socio-cultural influence of the elite, then probably I believe there must be some very old genetic predisposition, which was selected during European prehistory, by neanderthals ( ?).
All non-subsaharian populations inherited some trace of neanderthals who became fixed (when you have a small population, the trait spreads more easily, make the fixed such gene would spread it to the entire population), perhaps the Caucasoid and currently the Europeans, the last remnants of Caucasians in its purest state, inherited some related to individualism, which can only be expressed when the purity of the race occurs, ie, the full manifestation of the original gene expression.
Yes, if Albanians and Chechens were married tend to reproduce the multiform genes for clanishness, however, this should be the initial process for producing a non-clanishness population.
hubchik
“have a look at this map and see what you think.”
Yes, i think this question is complicated by a second factor which is religious divisions can follow ethnic divisions purely as a group identity thing which in France’s case might be the langue d’oc vs langue d’oil division
so it might be a bit of both (as both are basically different versions of the same thing i.e. a reason why people might be more rebellious towards a central authority i.e. possibly the same reason the south of France became Cathars.)
dunno, bit of a side issue to the main point for now at least.
[…] outbreeding?: – flatlanders vs. mountaineers revisited – consanguineous marriage in afghanistan – mating patterns in france and topography (and history) – the turkana: mating patterns, family types, and social structures – guess the […]
@David Chapman “It might be interesting to look at populations that maintain close endogamy in an urban context. ” I can only applaud The Chick’s remark that the Mideast has been urbanized and inbreeding for a very long time; kind of makes you think that’s where selection is sending us, since we see the same inbreeding in very ancient and anything but urbanized southern African cultures. On the other hand if you want more modern experience (And boy am I getting out of my comfort zone here, so don’t take this as any more than an idle question) at the time of the Second American War of Independence, there was a Reformed Jewish community in Charleston S. C. They have all died out. (I sure they didn’t move out; they were southerners after all and bolting when things got tough would not have been in character. Also their traditional role as merchants and bankers must have been invaluable in the South, where the respectable careers were planting, military, medicine and clergy.) Meanwhile in New York there are conservative Jews, who are having a whole lot of babies. As I said I’m just pulling cobwebs our of the air; don’t take my word for any of this, but it might be a good place to look.
and then @hbd chick “it would take a very long time to go from the very inbred state that the arab muslims are at today to get to the outbred state that nw europeans are at. ” You have seen the data and I do admire your judgment, but a couple of things come to mind. First: If the Arab Muslims are truly inbred then their low fertility (yes, low. I have a dear friend who works in Qatar; she mentioned that the birth rate was very high, four to six children per woman or so. I googled it and found the number to be 2.03 children per woman – not enough for long term survival. So I doubt everything) means they their numbers are depressed by inbreeding. Once they start to breed out, they should undergo the usual population boom the accompanies it and have birth rates per woman in the double digits for a generation or two. Boy, won’t that make for some interesting times?
On the other hand when I look at Gapminder.com and graph fertility against age at first mariieage for women and scan over time the Muslim countries are acting just like the west, just a little bit behind. If there are 150 million now then that could drop like maybe a half in two generations (whereupon things start getting really bad) assuming the Arabs are acting like everybody else in the world or rise to whatever 25 times 150 million is (whereupon I daresay things start getting really bad in the other direction and that’s not including the billion or so non Arab Muslims.) I don’t mean to challenge your opinion, just to point out that your opinion concerns a very important issue upon which nobody else I know has an opinion at all.