Talk:Haplogroup R1a/Archive 6

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Archive 1

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Archive 4

Haplogroup

Key point, A haplogroup is a road block, you need to first introduce what R1a is and why it is important. Next you need to drive people around the roadblock, "With this topic this roadblock is means the following". What you are doing is a Sarah Palin, you are not defining the road-block but something related called Patrilineality, which BTW has a relatively well defined page. There are two ways, not and/or ways one can use both.

Create and do a Main#section link into Haplogroup page to a section specific to Y-DNA haplogroups. You could even have a section on abundant surface level haplogroups like R1a.
As the current version does, have a context specific presentation.

The better number 1 is, the less you have to go about wasting bandwidth on number 2. Second Point you need this specialized definition of what a R1a haplogroup to flow graciously into the rest of the lede. That is a style issue, what that means is you don't fuse mumbo-jumbo together. Third point, as why I moved your lede over, when you have something that looks like an improvement. The old phrase I'll know it when I see it. I don't see it.PB666 ^yap 14:11, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, let's discuss it here instead of where you moved it [1]. Trying to take your words seriously, please think about it:---Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:19, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I moved the lede there so that you could work on it without us having the pretense of an edit.PB666 ^yap 14:43, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Didn't work last time you tried it. Blame my misunderstanding if you want. What would the next step be?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:30, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

1. The definition of the practical problem of editing the lead, given the concerns you say you have, is defining a technical term in an article about something else, and in a non technical way. This means there are two types of solutions we can not use:-

We obviously can not write a full sub-article about haplogroups.
We obviously can not move the problem over by defining one jargon word in terms of dozens more, which is what you seem to be proposing.

2. Of course patrilineality is not the same as the definition of a haplogroup. But it is in practice the same when we speak about Y haplogroups, especially if you do ignore the words I really wrote which include:-

one of the major male-lines of humanity [so it is not just any little branch]

Because the Y chromosome is passed from father to son in a relatively unchanged form, another way of saying the same thing is [so the fact that the two concepts are not identical except because of certain special characteristics of this case, is also stated in a clear and no-jargon way]

Constructive comments welcome.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:19, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

First off, this shows you are not a geneticist, Strict patrilineality does not infer branch points and haplogroups are defined by the mutations apriori.

Lets take a clear example, we can add this example to the haplogroup page. Haplogroups are independent of patrilineality or matrilineality, this difference with Y studies is how they are detected and what forms of mutatations are used.

For HLA, for example we have the haplogroup DR11, originally defined as a serotype represents DRB1*11 allelegroup. DR*11 is defined by a number of mutations where are alleles are frequently minor recombinants called gene convertants. In this case gene conversion acts versus mutation to propagate variation.

Which in turn represents 50 or so alleles. At a higher level we have haplotypes, For example A1-B8-DR3_DQ2.5 that haplotype is a member of the DR3-DQ2.5 haplogroup and a member of the B8-DR3 haplogroups.

For MtDNA lets examine the most evolutionarily significant haplogroup. This haplogroup underwent expansion within Africa, effectively ending the population constriction. Here is what defines L3:

Mutations at CRS positions: 769 1018 16311
L3 is also defined by mutations in 7 subclades including M and N.

So therefore, L3 is defined by an single ancestor which bears 3 unique mutations and at least 2 subclades. In terms of matrilineality L3 can be defined as the point where any M lineage and any N lineage merge into a single point within the maximum parsimony tree (Note the precision of the merger improves with more L3 subclades and lineages and parsimony analysis with those lineages).

So to address your POV, yes lineality is part of the equation but the propogation of lineages beyond their point of coalescence is what really defines a haplogroup. Patrilinearity that does not have sibling branches are simply a haplotype.PB666 ^yap

I should add a little disclaimer concerning the above, in an ideal world things do not change, but as we see in this very article things change. We can look at evolution of diversity in non-recombining process as follows

We see:Ancestral Haplogroup mode -------------------protogroup---------------------------------------------->Haplogroup mode-------------------------------->Haplotypes

Chonology:Ancestral Haplotype ---->Protohaplotype₁--[-->Protohaplotype_{2 to N}--]---->Haplogroup defining haplotype --[-->PT--]--> Haplotype

Within the process what defines a haplogroup is what has been type, and what is defining is that which has not been further defined. The case of R1a is a perfect example of what happens with more definition. Haplogroups are defined by what we interpret as coalescence. Coalescence is by it strictist definition a mathematicall/logical and statistical process. In evolution lineages do not coalesce, the diverge. The old saying garbage in garbage out. If you place bad sampling and bad surveying for SNPs into the MPA you will get out poorly defined haplogroups (a/k/a previous discussion about the state of Y chromosome). OK, probably ask why I bring this up, Patrilineality in one sense is irrelevant and in another sense is relevant. Patrilinearity in the molecular anthropology sense becomes relevant when either of the following criteria are met

The number of generations that has past is much larger than the 1/(length * mutation rate/generation)
The number of lineages and numbers of each lineage leading back to the modal haplogroup are great enough to make a statistical sense.

IOW, Patrilineality does not have bearing on molecular anthropology discussions until we can establish that the lineage is with a certain time constraint. We can make the same statement for mtDNA. Studying the HVR region without 1000s of samples for a given haplotype, for example CRS, has a relevant time frame of 1000s to 10000s of years, its more or less useless in the comparsion of CRS to pangolin HVR. Klysovo makes this point that for instance a single difference can mean a common ancestor anywhere between 0 and 1400 years at 95% confidence for a certain assay of STR, but he also points out that STR analysis of Y chromosomes would result in a mess. So that application of patrilineality of Haplogroups means we are talking about accumulations of mutations with time frames well beyond the typical use of the word but finitely large. The serial son-father relationships engage in a backwards in time process to the haplogroup mode which several serial lines merge into one as each lineage provides support of a patrilineality though its SNPs (or in the case of Klysovo, STRs).

Y Haplogroup

The mode of two or more haplotypes related by decent by common ancestry
chronologically-backward convergence of patrilineages that are within a genetically relevant age-distance.
Demonstration by some logica/statistical process of 1 or 2 (Klysovo for instance) given a large number of lineages.

PB666 ^yap 15:53, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Response. Nothing in the above addresses the special case of Y chromsomes. None of it addresses the words I really used, or is any particular conflict with it. You are answering an imaginary version of what I wrote, and you are ignoring the additional explanation which also pointed the words out that makes these concerns irrelevant. You do this way too often. All discussions will remain circular while you think this is how conversation works.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:33, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Reply was broken into two pieces, because I had a situtation that needed dealing with.PB666 ^yap 16:01, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

one could argue the in this context "*one of the major male-lines of humanity" is oxymoronic. The way I read it we are talking about the origin of R1a not what makes it a haplogroup, in fact I find this specific use of word male-lines a bad oversimplification of technical english. To state it as what you meant is R1a is a "divergent group of lineages derived from one of the major male lineages". What delineates a Haplgroup from a haplotype is a "divergent group of lineages derived from". So that hits the nail on the preverbial head.PB666 ^yap 16:01, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I trust now that you can work on the lede in good faith, and objectify yourself from what you previously wrote and come up with less self-contradicting wording. I have a life to lead, I can't spend all day explaining complex human genetics.PB666 ^yap 16:01, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I think I understand everything you are saying but I see no self-contradiction? Adding the word divergent would not change the meaning? Where do you see an oxymoron?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:29, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

"one of the major male-lines" does not define that it also represents a collection of male lines, thats what makes is a haplogroup, in this context you are talking about what defined R1a as a ancestral haplotype while your intent was to define it as a haplogroup, you cannot assume by using the word major that the reader should imply diverse, but that is not the case, haplotypes such as HLA_A1-B8-DR3-DQ2 are carried by 16% of N. Western Europeans and is the most common haplotype in the world fits the same criteria. The R1a1a* paragroup meets the same criteria (at this point in time). Its not about what defines R1a as major that is the oxymoron, its the wording that should define R1a as a haplogroup sensu stricto. Again we are repeatedly running into the problem of your favored wording and WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. Stubborn, intractable (e.g. the issue of using rs tags instead of the Page## tags), concretized thinking, unwilling to think outside of a self-made box, etc. Get a grip, you have to understand the material and you have to convey the material with clarity. Its not clear to me what you are trying to convey or what you have explained.PB666 ^yap 16:57, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

If you cannot grip this issue you should back off an let other editors handle this aspect of the lede. Show at least some sign in your writing that you want to define haplogroup. We are not family tree DNA. "Haplogroup: "Distinct Y chromosomes, defined solely on the basis of unique mutation events (UME) character states, are designated as haplogroups." Each haplogroup consists of a variable number of Y chromosomes that share the same UME character state but vary in Y-STR haplotype.(from Peter de Knijff).[2] More generally, haplogroup can be defined as a cluster of similar haplotypes. See "Lineages" below. If haplogroups are the branches of the tree then the haplotypes represent the leaves of the tree. Haplogroup (HG) - /hap•lo•group/ - A group of similar patterned and related descendant haplotypes which share a common ancestor defined by a unique event polymorphism (a one-time SNP mutation) at a specific locus in their DNA sequence, i.e., a UEP. Haplogroup branches are assigned alphanumeric designators by geneticists. [3]

"Haplogroup R1a is the name given to a major human Y-chromosome haplogroup. Because the Y chromosome is passed from father to son in a relatively unchanged form, another way of saying the same thing is that R1a represents one of the major male-lines of humanity. It is therefore commonly referred to in the fields of population genetics and genetic genealogy." There is no mention of groups, clusters, Y-chromosomes (plural), variable number (more than one) of Y chromosomes that vary either by variable STR states or by variable SNPs. Are you going to be able to explain this or continue the WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT?PB666 ^yap 16:57, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

"one of the major male-lines" does not define that it also represents a collection of male lines, thats what makes is a haplogroup

Maybe not, but R1a can be viewed as a family tree of male lines, with branches. makes it pretty clear

you cannot assume by using the word major that the reader should imply diverse

The major haplogroups in Y DNA do not earn their capital letters by being diverse, it is by being common and widespread. They are often amazingly undiverse compared to other types of DNA haplotype.

Like I said, you are apparently simply not reading what is there.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:09, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Name one haplogroup that does not show SNP or STR diversity. Aside from that your job is to define R1a, which is a true haplogroup, not a haplotype, misnomers on the nomeclature can be dealt with on the pages on which they occur. The task here is a haplogroup.PB666 ^yap 00:19, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I have read what is there now and it is absolutely awful.PB666 ^yap 00:19, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I would appreciate if you revert the lede para on the main until it is clear that you have in your head and can pin that which is going to clarify to the reader the distinction between a haplogroup and multilineality or haplotype.PB666 ^yap 16:57, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Why can't you revert to my version and work on you version at the sandbox?

[unsigned comment by PDeitiker, parts of it have been moved out of my original posting, where they were inappropriately inserted.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:03, 28 November 2009 (UTC)]

Of course all haplogroups have some level of diversity. Your point which I was responding to was not about this. The current version of the lead is by DinDraithou. He apparently thought the parts he did not change were OK. The opinions we've been able to collect about the lead all agree that you are exaggerating your concerns, and say my version is good. Indeed, your remarks are completely hypocritical because you have also tried to argue that because of these good comments I should not work on this section. You sway between WP:DRAMA and arguing that I should not edit because there is no problem. As discussed above, the one negative recent comment by Ettrig was specifically about your version, in response to your question that he should comment on it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:03, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Lame

Most of the independent editors agree that whichever version, the current article is in pretty good shape, much better than it was before. I read it a few months ago, and I could make any sense of what exactly was R1a, but this is not the case now. Disagreements seem to be over the minutest of detail, as a result these disagreements are fast approaching WP:LAME status. Left to his own devices, Pdeitiker would convert this article into Einstein's theory of general relativity as he has done with Mitochondrial Eve. Andrew is fanning the flames quite a bit and Pdeitiker is enjoying every minute of it, I think a little bit of WP:DNFTT should apply, not that anyone is a troll, but similar concept. I have previously commented on the eurocentric self-indulgence that editors have with European haplogroups which results in enormous amounts of energy being expended on just a few haplogroups, which I believe comes at the expense of "less glamourous" articles. It is great for an article to get a GA rating, but I personally don't see any need to rush to such achieve such status. Wouldn't be more worthwhile to ensure that more WP:HGH articles are populated with information and brought up to standard, than incessantly debating the minutiae of prose and semantics. Wapondaponda (talk) 15:27, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I think throwing in the cliché about Eurocentrism in the end is really irrelevant and unhelpful, especially in the case of the two editors involved, and the debates we are having. You don't need to describe every problem the same way? But for the rest I think we agree. I'd be happy to leave the article now, even though people are asking for work on the origins sections and concerning M458 and Poland, but as you say "Left to his own devices, Pdeitiker would convert this article into Einstein's theory of general relativity as he has done with Mitochondrial Eve". As you know, Pdeitiker is openly saying the article needs big changes, not tweaks, and people must do as he says or else he'll start major re-writing, which he has now already done twice. Discussion on this talkpage, from my point of view, is dominated by debating the pros and cons of this approach, and indeed of the next such unilateral launch. I am arguing against. In other words, I am saying the article does not needed panicked massive changes. As you know, Pdeitiker has said this shows ownership issues on my part. My recent editing also, is mainly made up of attempts to find compromises, some very big, trying to avoid it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:41, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I said I have alot of critiques, however none of them are big. Second, Muntawandi is not one who should be throwing out centrism charges or editorial comments since most of the major articles he has created or worked on are shambles. Mt Eve will get to where it needs to be. Third, the opening sentence i the lede is the most important sentence in the entire article. Andrew is having two problems

He critically does not understand how a haplogroup differs from patrlineality or haplotype
given this misunderstanding he cannot divorce his mindset from what he previously wrote which still does not fit the criteria of explaining a haplogroup

so #3 I am forced to revert his writings. This is very important to the article, because a reader coming to this article we do not want to convey a false understaind of what a haplogroup is, neither do we want to leave them at a roadblock. You and I will read past haplogroup in a millisecond, a niave but educated reader will get confused, more often than not click to somewhere else and be gone.PB666 ^yap 16:29, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

No surprise, it appears that the only articles not in shambles are the ones Pdeitiker works on. As for centrism, this is not directed at any specific editors, but is a collective assessment. This centrism is even acknowledged by wikipedia at WP:BIAS and it applies to HGH. It was even noted at AFD for y-DNA haplogroups by ethnic group that the haplogroups listed were those found in Europe and not necessarily the rest of the world. Take a look at Haplogroup C (Y-DNA), it is a deep rooted haplogroup, but only one of its sub-clades has an article. Much of the recent disagreements on this page arose after Underhill, and Mirabal publications were released. Apart from being new, there is nothing in these publications that is spectacularly different from other publications that should warrant the levels of disagreements seen in this page. As for the definition of haplogroup, I don't see any reason for a major dispute here, since the concept is fairly straightforward. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:32, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I completely agree, alot of mental-handling is made regarding Eurasian Y-DNA and the african phylogenetics and pages are neglected, as I have said, when this process is over an we have gotten some guidance on Y-DNA pages, I will work on Hap A, B and BT, but I will go no further than that. As you can see above, the capacity to relay science reaches a limit among people who promote certain understandings but fail to grasp the generally and global concept they are working on. This whole issue plagued the mtDNA until genomic sequencing became popular, and of course with large scale samping in Africa. As for what constitutes shambles, you can take the Lancaster approach and ignore all wikiguidelines, or you can take the WP approach, learn what constitutes a C and B class articles, make the changes, promote yourself, there are so few class C and B and I keep a record of these, so I will find them concur with the review. You are a member of WP:HGH, that's part of what being an active member is about.PB666 ^yap 18:01, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Talk about "handling"(sic). So guys, is the problem with this article something to do with racial bias? Or, perhaps I misunderstand. What in fact are you on about and is there any chance you are actually both in the same discussion? Is this a competition to see who can sound most concerned about bias? Good on the two of you for being so earnest. When you are ready, I'll be waiting.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:12, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

We are discussing global issues, not R1a.PB666 ^yap 03:06, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

If you read WP:BIAS, systemic biases are not necessarily sinister or malicious, rather they are naturally occurring phenomena. They arise because editors are comfortable editing articles with content that they are familiar with. As this is English Wikipedia, we expect a bias towards regions of the world were English is spoken. Likewise Chinese Wikipedia would be expected to be biased towards all things Chinese and etc etc. Neither do I mean to imply that the problems with this article are specifically about bias. However, a lot of attention is being paid to this article, when it appears that there isn't much meat left on this bone to chew, yet it seems that chewing on the bone continues, WP:STICK. R1a is an interesting haplogroup, the new publications have increased the knowledge about these lineages, but there was no major paradigm shift. A lot of what was published seems to have been consistent with what was already known. My concern, is editing such popular articles often results in editors creating mountains out of molehills. Yet they could be other related articles where adding new material is likely to be uncontroversial and go unchallenged. Wapondaponda (talk) 05:43, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Gentlemen, I am not uninterested in "global subjects" like this, but this particular piece of webspace is a working area dedicated to the Wikipedia article R1a. Wikipedia is not a blog. Wikipedia is not a discussion forum WP:NOT. And by the way I was working on this article before the new ones came out.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:44, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

A call by one editor to another editor, about what he should work on

BTW you were told, before you made the change the article was excellent, OK, another editor is focusing on deficiencies in the Bronze age section so why are you trying to improve parts of the article that are OK and neglecting parts of the article that are deficient. Try focusing on immediate problems. Let the reviewer critique the minor issues.PB666 ^yap 12:30, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Putting aside the most obvious question of all of why I should not be allowed to try to improve any part of the article I feel I can help, what are you referring to? Ettrig clearly did not like the lead after your changes. Is he the "reviewer" in this case?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:38, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

You are interpreting more into that critique than what was there.PB666 ^yap 14:17, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, it is you who keeps referring to clear instructions from "reviewers". I was responding to one of those comments. I am forced to go looking at the very few vague snippets of outside comment we have that you must be referring to. If you can see they are vague when I read something into them how come you find so much in them which agrees with you and disagree with me? It would all be much simpler if you simply wrote your own case for your own writing in your own name.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:25, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

PD can you please answer me on some of the key concrete practical questions I have asked you:

While you leave such obvious elements of your own key repeated argument open, misunderstanding and lack of tendency towards better consensus will stay in the air?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:36, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Andrew you are gobbling a significant amount of time with pedestrian misunderstanding and continued unwarranted reversions of the lede.

The editor who posted the tag needs to work with you, and you two need to work together on this issue to fix the problem. As I have stated, drawing about the opinions of obsolete studies and treating obsolete and opinionated points of view as equal to objective genetic and coalescence analysis will only cause future problems. If you must deal with the Kurgan hypothesis, I strongly recommend just a mention, and a quick debunking with references, and move on. Whatever direction you go with fleshing Kurgan out will invite future criticisms because different clichs will disagree with each other.PB666 ^yap 17:02, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Simple reply: There is large uncertainty about TMRCA and times of spread, there is large uncertainty about the initiation and breath of spread (as genetic) of the Kurgan hypothesized migration. The whens, wheres, and whys brought by authors who misunderstand the complexity of other fields (genetic versus anthopological) will necessarily result in disagreement and misunderstanding. Avoid that by minimizing on the page that which otherwise be contentious, or alternatively move into a popular science section.PB666 ^yap 17:42, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I am gobbling? Look at the talk page. The three diffs to questions I posted were all questions trying to understand points you ALREADY INSISTED on spending a LOT of words on. I think you OWE answers. Otherwise we must conclude that you have been wasting a lot of people's time. I would be happy to work with the editor interested to improve the Kurgan references, as I have already indicated. You could help by disappearing from this talkpage.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:53, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Here are the three unanswered questions, simple questions about the justifications of PB666 for some enormous postings and disruptions. I think the implications need to be summarized in a clear short way, so people can see what is really at stake.:-

[7]. Most of PB666's longest postings are basically about one thing: arguing based on his personal unpublished ideas (some quite reasonable, some quite eccentric) that we should remove mention (not just reduce mention, or qualify, or contextualize, which is what we did a lot of already) of some theories, arguments and articles which are well-known to people who study genetic genealogy and population genetics. This is against Wikipedia's neutrality policy, and against its OR policy. If theories are notable they need to be here. People come to this argument looking for mention of these theories to see how they fit in the biggest scheme.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:23, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
[8]. Concerning bullet points, PB666 has absolutely no source in MOS or anywhere else to say that bullet points might sometimes be the best way to resolve a problem. I am not saying that they are the best way. I am pointing out that discussion should not be in terms of breaking rules, but in terms of what works. Saying that there can be no discussion because Wikipedia simply demands this, is simply a way to avoid discussion. What Wikipedia certainly does demand is improving the article. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:23, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
[9]. Why does PB666 insist that we need to see aiming at GA review as different from aiming at improving the article? The record shows how this artifical distinction has been raised every time for the same reason, exactly like the MOS is raised: when someone tries to discuss what would be best for the article, PB666 tries to stop discussion by saying there is no discussion possible because there is a higher authority. Fact of the matter is that on Wikipedia insists that discussions aimed at better articles are the highest authority and basic reference point. WP:Ignore all rules GA review is relatively less important, and certainly subservient. It is about polishing up an article that editors have already basically agreed upon. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:23, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Kurgan hypothesis conflicts with main page statements

Again I am trying to be objective about this. I have read parts of the page, parts are clear and parts are very difficult, when this page is finished its process I recommend someone fix the R1a1 section on that page. I did find conflicts between what was written here and what was on the page. There were statements among sources that a predecessor culture was in place 6500 to 5500 years ago (Sredny Stog culture) and some rough statements indicating ends of post-Kurgan culture at about 4800 to 4300 years ago. There are lots arguments over the extent of contribution. Even within core areas there are arguments about how influential the kurgan culture was. There seems to be a concensus that it spread Westward, but there are questions of whether this was linguistic, cultural or whatever. There is some agreement of its influence on greek culture, although not explicitly stated as protoDoric. The connection with later Urnfield culture can be made. The evidence of influence around the western flanks of the black sea seem strong, but it is already known that there were Hittite like peoples who descended from the caucasus regions, and yet in some models the Caucasus are excluded. The evidence for an Indo-Aryan connection is weak and cultural shifts in N.India indicate a hybrid culture. PB666 ^yap

"Proposals of Bronze Age R1a migrations have the attraction to some authors that they would seem to link R1a1a (M17/M198) to well-known language dispersals which resulted in the development of the modern Indo-Aryan language family in India, Central Asia, and the Middle East. This popular scenario has been linked to the "Kurgan hypothesis" concerning the origin of these languages. Making this link therefore involves assuming that Asian R1a, or at least a large segment of it, dispersed from Europe, or at least from the Eurasian Steppe which protrudes into the southeastern edge of Europe.[40]PB666 ^yap "

Copper Bronze age

Chalcolithic period (Copper Age) begins about 6300 years ago to <6000 years ago it remains the copper age through the bronze age is not apparent until 5500 years ago well to the south of NE Ukraine-Ural region. The copper and bronze ages in these two regions are much younger than 4800 years ago. PB666 ^yap

Kurgan stages

Kurgan 1 was very early, indicating some expansion to Stredny Stog, this period is considered controversial. Kurgan II culture but should be contemporary with the Sredny Stog culture where use of horses appears to have occurred first horses a culture that spread to the SW and NE. About the time of the end of the many outlying cultures remained in the neolithic, these are hybrid culture with some copper and no bronze. Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, Globular Amphora culture. PB666 ^yap

Comparison bronze and Kurgan

I would say that it is a very poor choice to mesh Bronze age and Kurgan together. The two of three hypothesis, Sredny Stog origin, the Kurgan I hypothesis all three predate the Bronze age. Evidence for expansion into India is weak. The third hypothesis is the ""Indo-Hittite" model, separating Anatolian from all other branches around 6500 BC, more than a millennium before the next split at 5000 BC. The Balkans qualifies as a "secondary Urheimat" (6500-3000 BC), from which he derives the Satem groups and Greek, at a time (3000 BC) compatible with the Kurgan time frame, qualifying the suggestion further as a Graeco-Aryan (and Graeco-Armenian) model."PB666 ^yap

Again, as molecular anthropology _we have no place engaging this complex discussion_, it really belongs on another page. The so-called PIE or IE expansions appear that culture radiates from one place, and language radiates from the other copper bronze culture radiates with Anatolian bronze age, lending support to the Indo-hittite model. PB666 ^yap

" The question of further Indo-Europeanization of Central and Western Europe, Central Asia and Northern India during the Bronze Age is beyond its scope, and far more uncertain than the events of the Neolithic and the Copper Age. The specifics of the Indo-Europeanization of Central and Western Europe during the 3rd to 2nd millennia (Corded Ware horizon) and Central Asia (Andronovo culture) are nevertheless subject to some controversy. "-Kurgan hypothesis

"Such a Bronze Age European origin for R1a1a in at least parts of Asia has also been argued on the basis of a 2009 study of DNA results from Andronovo culture remains in South Siberia. The Y DNA was almost exclusively R1a of some type.[41] This archaeological culture, has also been genetically studied in Kazakhstan, and is thought to have been a carrier of an Indo-Aryan language (the same family of languages as is commonly associated with R1a in modern India) from the direction of Europe. (In particular it has been noted that their mitochondrial DNA is almost entirely of types associated with Europe, and that this Asian population appears to have had a relatively high level of red and blonde hair and blue eyes.)[42] "

Andronovo was not European, however it might have had an origin of Kurgan IV as the source of R1a1a, beyond that any connection with contemporary European groups is speculative and not with the scope ofthe page. In addition it was temporo-spatially separated from the Kurgan period by at least 600 years." So this is where the core of the problem is. The Andronovo culture should be considered completely different from Kurgan culture.PB666 ^yap 02:56, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

"Evidence that during and before the Bronze Age R1a existed in Europe to the west of its modern core range, and even west of the Balkans, has come from ancient samples, which appear to show that R1a was common in this region well before Slavic languages are thought to have arrived.[43][28][44] This was probably R1a1a* (M17/M198 positive, M458 negative) according to Underhill et al. (2009)."

"According to Klyosov (2009) however, there was a movement of R1a1a from Europe to India during this period, and it was associated with Indoeuropean language and culture. The author believes this flow originated on the edge of Europe, near the Urals. It should be noted that according to this scenario Indian R1a1a is made up of two components, one which came from the direction of Europe and one which arrived much earlier."

IMHO, there are too many factual inconsistencies either by the primary authors (unmarked) or page editors to include this material. There is no cohesive transport of culture into central Europe, for example where R1a1a7 is found, and there is no confident path of Kurgan migration, there is a disjoined path from Kurgan I to IV expansion, followed by a 600 year gap, followed by the Andronovo expansion which only reached Northern India. I caste warnings about using this kind of popular science material from publications that is insubstantial, and time an time again this cautious approach has shown its value. Beware of studies that sample partially and that rely on unproven methods.PB666 ^yap 02:56, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Lancaster's comments

[Ad hominim style header replaced, Andrew's POV attack noted]

Heading up some remarks as being addressed to a person's comments is not a personal attack. This is not the first time you have posted comments apparently for discussion and then reacted aggressively when anyone actually tries to comment. Your replacing of the section header certainly seems to have no possible good faith interpretation? By the way, could you sign talk page postings?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:30, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

PD, is there anything at all in the above which you can turn into a concrete remark which is relevant to the job of editing R1a? For example:---Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:36, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Everything above pertains to the article, most of it comments on material quoted from the article, and most everything written in the article is wrong, and is still wrong, basically you are either quoting fiction or the synthesis you have created is fiction.PB666 ^yap

So you are saying that we should try to decide what is wrong in the literature and remove all reference to it in this article. That is clearly in violation of wikipedia's notability and neutrality policies.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:27, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Are you saying we should not mention that many geneticists have associated R1a, Indoeuropean and the Kurgan hypothesis? If so, this would be against Wikipedia's neutrality and notability policies. We need to at least mention it.---Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:36, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

If they wrote fiction, why do we need to mention it. If they misunderstand the nature of Kurgan culture (i.e. Neolithic age pastoral societies with specialization in horse culture) you will only confuse readers familiar with Kurgan culture. If the authors of the paper made the connection as anything other than pastoral tribes, its an error and it should be either pointed out as faulty or deleted, you have no other choice. PB666 ^yap 11:09, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

We need to mention it because of wikipedia's notability and neutrality policies. Also, inserting a comment that the literature contains errors would be in violation of wikipedia's OR and synthesis policies.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:27, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Are you saying we should write criticisms of these geneticists, and put those in the article? But this would be against Wikipedia's OR and SYNTH policies.---Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:36, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

It is not fiction to point out an obvious error. For example if the author says 1 + 1 = 6 and therefore for 1 * 4 = 12, I suspect this is not the case however, obvious errors that the simplist of reader could point out are not WP:OR. When in doubt chop it out.PB666 ^yap 11:09, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

It might or might not be fiction, but it is against Wikipedia's OR and synthesis policies. BTW we are clearly not dealing with anything as obvious as 1 + 1 = 6. You've clearly had a lot of problems understanding the literature yourself despite your background.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:27, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Are you saying that the current article text mis-undertands or mis-represents some of the genetics authors? If so how? One point I think I see is that maybe you object to the term Bronze Age, because it does not cover the necessary time period to reflect the times being talked about. This could well be something to be fixed.---Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:36, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Kurgan is not bronze age, kurgan is not copper age. 1 + 1 ≠ 4.PB666 ^yap

Here is something we can certainly adjust without drama. A few small words changes could cover this?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:27, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

You mention inconsistencies, but you do not name them.---Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:36, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I name the inconsistencies specifically, you are talking about bronze age migrations but referring to a pre-bronze age cultural context, referring to a culture that is completely separated from the bronze age by several hundred years, in addition the term cacolythic is only used in the middle east, the copper age culture that is found on the Southwest boundaries toward the end of the period is more than likely a derivative near eastern culture and not a true -Kurgan culture.

would appear only to be influential on the migration to the SE or the origins of the early Celtic culture.
Is well away from the mode of European R1a, either by R1a1a7 or R1a1a.
well after the evidence for R1a in Europe (Eular).

Therefore it is trivially associated with R1a and WP is not a place to present Trivia. (WP:TRIVIA)PB666 ^yap

Ditto. I may have been too hasty to use the term Bronze age. I take no position on it. No drama. It just needs a word change or two. Can you make any constructive suggestions?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:27, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

You imply that there are major alternative theories which conflict with the core part of the Kurgan hypothesis with way geneticists refer to it, which is that India's languages arrived in the area from the direction of the Eurasian steppe and the edge of Europe. I think this is incorrect. All mainstream theories pretty much accept this particular idea?

I hop DinDraithou will chip in.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:36, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Geneticist are not authorities on cultural evolution or language-type evolution, they are no more authorities on these issues than say the saturday evening post. In WP we rely on reliable sources. If the author is not a linguist and none of his coauthors are linguist or arcaheologist, and he is making controversial claims about culture then it is not a reliable source. One could even go so far as to question his genetics given bias.

The theory of the origin and spread of IE languages is not trivia, the language study is one of the more respected hypothesis regarding IE languages at it meshes with many aspects of European culture. For example from the proximal region we know that LKB cultural packages were first found, we know that certain cultovars (rye and wheat) spread from these regions. The near east is where bronze age culture spread from. So it is hardly controversial. There is no really good evidence of proto-indoeuropean language in western Europe, the only other indigeonous languages are the Basque Ergo they are advocating the western spread of PIE into europe but there is no language evidence for PIE spread into or admixture with IE languages in central or western Europe.

The kurgan is one of many hypothesis on its spread Proto-Indo-European_language#Historical_and_geographical_setting and not apparently the best hypothesis either.

the two lowest branches of the tree split between anatolia and greece

The key to IE origins lies within the anatolian and the only evident language node exists along the Iranian/Afghani border region which appears to be a close branch of and anatolian/indo-iranian ancestor. From WP the only support for the hypothesis that associates PIE with Andronovo spread of IE in to Iran is that the scythians (late bronze age) spoke an indoaryan language and that Andronovo is connected with IE languages. The evidence is weak and the direction of spread of IE into Andronovo is unknown, it could have very well occurred from south to north, not vice versus. In addition, here is the best site on II origins [10], the evidence for the direction of spread and origin of this wave, the iranian influences and scythian origins is better than the origin of the first wave, which cannot be directly tied to any source, and can only be referenced to a relic language spoken in eastern Afganistan.

Here is the major point, Wikipedia genetics articles should not be a platform for the spread of speculation in other feilds of research, our task here is to explain R1a, not what the National Enquirer says. Unless the foundations for the assertions are firm it does not belong here. If the authors who made these assertions are not clear on the cultural science or they are producing handwaving arguments, we are not obligated to place these style of arguments here. We only have to produce Major theories and major minor theories. That is the extent of the obligation. The major theory on hand right now is that R1a spread from south Asia, the minor theory is that it spread from Western Asia or Central Asia (bending over backwards and allowing a minor/minor theory).

That is the extent of the obligation. We are not obligated to propogate hypothesis of origins with very little genetic support and a very confused and confusing cultural association. If you want to discuss this modern age myth, it is best placed in the 'in popular culture' section. Cut the crap out of the article or I will.

PB666 ^yap 11:09, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I am aware of the fact that there are lots of theories about Indoeuropean and Kurgans and all the rest, but the present R1a article, which is what we are discussing, does not attempt to discuss any of them and all of what you are writing seems to be written without actually reading it. As I mentioned, the basic core of what the geneticists are talking about is that Northern India's main languages arrived in the area from the direction of the Eurasian steppe and the edge of Europe. I have tried not to imply anything else in the article. Can you look at the real R1a article and mention what is wrong there? The term Bronze Age is one thing which is easily fixed. Is there anything else justifying this enormous use of the talkpage?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:27, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

By the way, you apparently do not realize that the Indo-Hittite hypothesis has no impact on this discussion at all. Indo Aryan is only one branch of Indo European. It is not in the Anatolian branch according to any theory I have ever heard.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:32, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

PB666, you appear to be raising questions about this article based on debates and details related to the finer points of the Kurgan hypothesis itself and archaeological interpretations and classifications. However, the article accurately discusses what the overall theory of the Kurgan hypotheei involves; and the Andronovo culture is generally considered a part of the Kurgan horizon.Hxseek (talk) 14:33, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

This Kurgan hypotheses is about PIE/IE spread and therefore the discussion of where IE radiated is of utmost concern, the bronze age spread may be a factor in IE spread, but the point of spread is not Ukraine, its Anatolia. As pointed to many times in many articles the spread of cultural artifacts may have nothing to do with language, but the Kurgan hypothesis has everything to do with language. What worthy evidence do we have that PIE spread, as hypothesized by the Kurgan hypotheses actually existed. Second what good evidence do we have the PIE as hypothesized by the kurgan hypotheses spread as per the Kurgan hypotheses (I find this aspect the most speculative since there is no evidence that PIE entered any of the regions claimed by the hypothesis, the evidence we have is that IE evolved in Anatolia near the caucasus region. If we look at the IE family tree the balto-slavic languages are found as a highly peripheral branch on the family tree. So that is problem #1.

"there are lots of theories about Indoeuropean and Kurgans and all the rest, but the present R1a article" true, but what business do we have trying to interpret that. If we are talking about bronze age movements, the Kurgan hypothesis has to go. If we are talking about migrations from the Ukraine to India or whatever else, and the bulk of the data we have at the moment contradicts that, that the R1a found in the proximity of the Andonovo culture is lower than both India and the Ukraine, with the highest diversity in poland then it presentally cannot connect with R1a.

The Kurgan hypothesis describes the initial spread of Proto-Indo-European during the 5th and 4th millennia BC.[15] [6000 to 4000 years ago] The question of further Indo-Europeanization of Central and Western Europe, Central Asia and Northern India during the Bronze Age is beyond its scope, and far more uncertain than the events of the Neolithic and the Copper Age. The specifics of the Indo-Europeanization of Central and Western Europe during the 3rd to 2nd millennia (Corded Ware horizon) and Central Asia (Andronovo culture) are nevertheless subject to some controversies".

In addition Kurgan is not even mentioned on the Andronovo page, more even, on the Kurgan page it suggests termination around 4800 BC with some residual elements lasting to 2300 BC which is still older than Andronovo culture from 2300 BC. As I repeat its not our business to go about interpreting what is good cultural paleoanthropological theories or not, the business here is R1a.

PB666 ^yap 16:40, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

PB666 might not be aware that I already changed the term Bronze Age on the article, long before he posted his tag. The remaining problems that he is referring to vaguely probably have to do with the fact that geneticists write in a vague way in order to cover all bases. That Indo Aryan came from the NW towards the corner of Europe is not controversial, and that is all they are really pointing at. I have not seen any genealogist take a position about the period in which this occurred. So the text should be adapted to reflect this. No drama. I think we should not forget that this subject was raised by a person (Dindraithou) coming to look at the article. PB666 never raised it before then and indeed he held up all editing for several weeks by being disruptive about dozens of dead horse questions to do with the first sentence, the second sentence, etc. We are basically talking about a section which is in first draft form, after all the working I was doing stopped because of PB666, quite some time back. I am happy to admit, indeed request, that this should be improved. I believe PB666's contribution to improving it absolutely negative.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:21, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Hkseek can you point to references which use Kurgan in any form to describe Andronovo culture from the Copper age or Bronze age horizons or higher?PB666 ^yap 17:20, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Question for Andrew: you said, "As I mentioned, the basic core of what the geneticists are talking about is that Northern India's main languages arrived in the area from the direction of the Eurasian steppe and the edge of Europe." how can the geneticists be talking about languages? they can be talking about genes, and the people carrying them; language family is not biologically coded, so associating the languages should not be done in the article about the genotype. I'm sure you know this , so probably you meant something different. ?? DGG ( talk ) 19:44, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

DGG, actually if you put aside the showmanship the answer to your questions is clear and there is no good faith disagreement about that. amongst any editors on this article, at least as far as I know. The geneticists tend to have a section in their survey articles where they comment upon what the genetic patterns they have found might correspond to in terms of theories about languages and archaeological material cultures. When it comes to R1a, like it or not, almost every well-known paper on the subject has mentioned that R1a (or perhaps just a branch) has some sort of connection with the movement of Indo Aryan languages into India, whatever period that happened in. Some of them have additionally gone out of their way to connect both concepts (R1a, Indo Aryan) with Kurgan cultures. That is the raw material which the real world has given us to work with. There is no real source we can cite which destroys this type of theory, and to be honest, in its simplest version it is not all that unreasonable. In linguistics there is indeed such a theory of Indo Aryan coming from the NW, and in archaeology and linguistics the Kurgan connection proposed for the vector of these languages is quite common and mainstream what problems there might be in the details. Apart from his one point about the term Bronze Age, the concrete points PB666 are either about details irrelevant to what the geneticists are talking about.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:21, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Speculation tag placed, removed and replaced

In accordance with the following critique "Actually there are much bigger problems. The list should not be under "Eastern European migration hypothesis" and it looks like the section was put together by people unfamiliar with the Journal of Indo-European Studies, which I spent my junior and senior years on the sixth floor of the university library reading. There were Neolithic cultures which may or may not have been ancestral to the Kurgan culture and they were not in Eastern Europe (and neither was it). DinDraithou (talk) 14:57, 26 November 2009 (UTC)" I asked the person who edited that section of the page to investigate and clarify his writings. He did not.PB666 ^yap

Well I sort of did, just not terribly clearly. Plus I was angry with Andrew at the time. Elsewhere I tried to say that the JIES is basically synonymous with the Kurgan hypothesis school. It's their journal. DinDraithou (talk) 21:26, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I was talking about Andrew, I warned him almost a month ago that this section was unusually speculative.PB666 ^yap 21:34, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Since Andrew is using reversions is a process to WP:OWN the page and since he chose not to investigate this claim, instead he screwed up the lead of the page, I finally investigated this issue.

I found that the writings of Andrew were merely speculation, either on his account or the accounts of authors writing on the subject.

I placed the tag, and Andrew removed it without demostrating it wasn't speculation, even admitting that there was a problem with the Kurgan - Bronze Age/IE migration

I have replaced the tag and will continue to replace the tag until the speculative material is removed from the page. The authors from the papers Andrew is quoting appear not to be authority on the Kurgan and neither is Andrew, I am fairly well read on the Neolithic of Europe and the Neolithic/Mesolithic boundary, ergo I am relatively aware of cultural flow from the East into Europe across many horizons that preceded both the Neolithic and also follow the neolithic, any one of these, according to Underhill could fit the genetic evidence for R1a in Europe. Ergo what is presented is speculation unless direct and supportable (not inconsistent with generally agreed upon horizons for Kurgan culture) evidence can be presented here. IMHO the material should be deleted. For consistencies sake any evidence that deals with Neolithic culture belongs in the Neolithic section (i.e. Klysovo for example migrations are epipaleolithic and mesolithic and speculative itself). If the authors of the R1a publications do not understand the archaeology we have no duty to pass on their speculation, if the editors of the page do not understand the archaeology they are editing and creating WP:SYNTH it does not belong on the page, the tag should remain.PB666 ^yap 19:36, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

please do not edit war over tags it is never constructive.-- at the moment the tag is off, so please do not replace it. Incidentally, claims to personal expertise do not usually go very far here. If you are right, you can show it by making an argument that will convince any intelligent person unfamiliar with the subject. (fwiw, I am familiar with several different aspects of the subject a little--some from professional background, some from avocation, but have no fixed opinion on the various hypotheses.) To the extent it is relevant in this article, and I am not convinced anything besides gene flow is relevant, except as a link to related subjects--which seems to be all that is actually in the present version of the article [11] - the normal Wikipedia practice is to present all non-Fringe hypotheses and the arguments for them, if necessary in separate sections, as is being done here in the current version, in my opinion, correctly. ) DGG ( talk ) 19:52, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I removed the tag because the tag claimed that the section was speculative in the sense of NOT being based on what articles wrote. PB666 is clearly claiming no such thing. He says that it might reflect what the literature says, but the literature is wrong. At least find another tag. Maybe call it a fringe theory or an out-of-date theory? I am happy to leave the whole problem to others as long as I know the article is not being taken over for conversion into PB666's style. But I have pointed out that it is strictly against Wikipedia neutrality policy to simply censor out a notable and well known theory. My approach concerning this question, when editing on the talk page was not yet the main job, was to make the geneticists claim very simply, put them in context, make sure alternatives are mentioned, etc. I think there is no other option????--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:26, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you in general. But if the tag should be replaced, it is better to work on the article than to try to remove the tag again. DGG ( talk ) 20:53, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I have no intention of playing the tagging game. Of course it is just wikidrama: the section now has two tags, but no one ever argued about the text there needing work. One editor mentioned the section needing work, and PB666 has jumped up to say this was exactly what he was talking about. For so long I have been asking PB666 to allow normal editing to re-commence on this article and now suddenly it is "his priority". But if he allows normal editing and talk to recommence I'll be happy. (That would mean, for example, ceasing to demand non neutral editing based on his OR "or else").--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:00, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

That is the problem. If an author makes an error in speculation, and we simply carry forward that speculation with no critique, then WP becomes the source of speculation. The original author may have changed his mind or corrected the error years ago.PB666 ^yap 21:34, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Fair comment. But wouldn't you then say the problem was "out of date" material, and wouldn't you then need to explain the case for thinking that opinions had changed? That would be an approach I could understand. Of course the article by Klyosov was just published a few days ago, so it is kind of hard to believe that this is what you really had in mind? Indeed, in the comments you posted just above, you have very different reasoning. Anyway, I am happy if it was a misunderstanding. Pardon me for not always being able to follow your thoughts.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:57, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

[To DGG:-]

The tag is on, I do not need to replace it. I strongly disagree with you on this, the core argument of Kurgan culture is neolithic and only ever so lightly touches the 'copper age' which on the page is improperly named, it states quite clearly on the Kurgan hypothesis page that Bronze age migrations are out of its scope, whereas they might be able to tie the Bronze age migration to IE speakers, the bigger problem is the IE shows a anatolian not Ural/Ukranian origin. This wouldn't be so bad except for that the genetics and diversity measures of the most recent papers that have a wide coverage disagree that the Ural-Ukranian region is an area of great R-M17 diversity. So pretty much on all accounts this hypothesis is undermined and contradicted by what is currently written on the page. I warned Andrew from the get-go that this stuff was speculation, it reeks of speculation, until another editor-DinDraithou came along and pointed out that the whole scheme was in disorder.

"I think you two mavericks have gotten to the right place now with changing the section titles. The Kurgan hypothesis takes us back into the Neolithic. See also the very popular Samara culture and related Dnieper-Donets culture. Eventually we should have DNA from them, if we don't already, and from the Sredny Stog culture, also popular with many. And I am very interested to see about the unrelated but dense Bug-Dniester culture and its possible descendants millennia later (Slavs?). The Kurgan hypothesis has its immediate descendants overrun by Indo-Europeans so I don't understand why it's listed on top. DinDraithou (talk) 20:15, 28 November 2009 (UTC) --- User_talk:DinDraithou#R1a_comments"

IOW, it looks like there is a concensus among critics that minimally the wording and section heads much be changed, if not some rearrangement.PB666 ^yap 21:34, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Secondarily I also think you are wrong with regard to the analysis placed in the article that makes is speculation: (This popular scenario has in to been linked to the "Kurgan hypothesis" concerning the origin of these languages.) DinDraithou has improved the page by changing the titles removing some of the controversy. PIE-Kurgan may be the source of IE, which is beyond the scope of this article, but IE appears to be sourced in Anatolia, However there is no reason what-so-ever to consider the Kurgan hypothesis as to reasoning on how R1a/IE/Bronze age can be tied together in a migration from Andronovo paleocultural regions into South Asia. Still someone familiar with the Kurgan-PIE hypothesis would be confused by this placement in the article.PB666 ^yap 21:34, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

PD, first of all the Anatolian part of your above posting is very irrelevant. No one claims that Indo Aryan arrived directly from Anatolia to India in any mainstream theory. Indo Aryan is a later branch of IE. Geneticists proposing an R1a route from the Steppe corner of Europe are not wrong to say that Indo Aryan is often thought to have come via the same path - which is pretty much all they really say, and pretty much all we need to say. Please do not start blogging about fringe theories which have nothing to do with this article. There is enough to be done.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:10, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Secondly, your continued comments about the wording for periods are just empty drama. No one is arguing with you. I made the improvement Din mentions above. It was not made in opposition to me. My proposal is to let DinDraithou play with this. I simply never had the time to work on it. You launched yourself into your article (trying to split it, and then the other things) long before I would willfully have stopped working on stuff like this. It just needs a different approach than a bull in a china shop. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:10, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I gave you a review of Klysovo above, he is not doing a broadly scoped study like Underhill, he is cherry picking groups to study, I find his conclusion that R1a spread from the Ural Ukraine region of Russia to China and then to India, very speculative and possibly ethnically motivated. I showed reason within in his own article two closely related gene trees, one group the Irish, archaeological no greater than 9000 years ago had the comparable diversity to a the russian R1a1 clade the he states is 21,000 years old. IOW, I think this work is far to premature and speculative to place in the article at this point. Remember, Wikipedia is not a newspaper, we can wait to see if other authors support or contradict him.PB666 ^yap 22:35, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Don't know if you are trying to be provocative, but I have already told you his name is Klyosov.

As with your last posting, it sounds right in principle but ignores reality. (This is good to see at least.) Geneticists in this field unfortunately do not publish support and contradiction. This gives Wikipedians a lot of problems, or should I say interesting challenges. But the Wikipedia rules are clear, and in these articles I have seen them work all the time: give all theories a chance. You are proposing censoring an article based on speculation about motives which is totally unreasonable. Even if I agreed with you though about Klyosov, and I often do agree with you about weak points in articles, I would still say that we can not simply drop him from the article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:45, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I have removed both tags, see reasons below. DinDraithou may find this to be in error and replace the tags. If so we can further alter the wording or removed sentences. PB666 ^yap 07:28, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Hkseeks remarks and PB666 reply

I am having difficulties following Pdeitiker's concerns, exactly. The Anatolian hypothesis is entirely different to the Kurgan hypothesis. The Anatolian hypothesis is that of Renfrew and his supporters which places the PIE homeland in Anatolia and an earlier (ie Neolithic) period. Currently, however, the Kurgan hypothesis of Gimbutas is most favoured (as favoured as a debated issue can be). Eg Johanna Nichols, who was initially a supporter of a central Asian homeland, has now come to accepting a Pontic steppe origin for PIE. So Anatolia has little to do with the hypotheses of current geneticists who are seeing if there is any genetic back-up for the Kurgan theory. Hxseek (talk) 23:56, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

The first person who was concerned was DinDraithou. Although I had a problem concerning Kurgan PIE hypothesis more than a month ago, being one of many speculative theories on the page that warranted critical attention. I allowed Andrew to work on removing the quotation and shortening it. After DinDraithou made his critique Andrew, for all intents and purposes blew him off. I urged Andrew to read up on the issue and make corrections, however after a day or so he ignored the problem. Consequently I went over the online literature both here and on the internet. What I found was there were many, many errors in Andrews version. First the Kurgan hypothesis was placed under the Bronze age header, yet everyone entirely agrees that Kurgan hypothesis for PIE origins covers a Neolithic period except in the SW corner of wave 3 culture which intermingled with the protoDacian culture and had a sparse copper age component (not considered part of the Near eastern Chalcolithic culture. DinDraithou has fixed much of the problem by referring to geography rather than age, thus allowing inclusion of Neolithic age migrations however this does not solve the cultural discontinuity problem between Kurgan-PIE hypothesize and credible Bronze-age-IE migration into S. Asia.

The second issue is that PIE as far as anyone can tell at this point has nothing to do with how Indo-iranian languages reached India. Let me rephrase that given there is a PIE and given that PIE reaches the Southern Black Rea region PIE (from whomever, we don't know and we don't care) has no futher neccesary involvement in how IE reached S. Asia, that is a separate issue. Therefore, given that some unknown PIE age language reached Anatolia, independent PIE migrations cannot explain IE languages in India, that comes much later. In fact, no-one asserts Kurgan hypothesis associated cultures with migrations to India. When I made these distinctions DinDraithou made it clear that the fault of the section had been deduced, while Andrew simply thought it was a 'labeling problem'. As he wrote on his talk page it might be bad science but at least we can place it in a context compatible with the archaeology. The problem is much bigger, Andronovo may have a Kurgan age horizon, but the Bronze-age putative IE culture that spread into India is not of the Kurgan hypothesis age, it is at least 600 years later and both bronze technology and IE language appears to have come from the region of the Anatolia. While that may seem minor, it completely negates the Kurgan hypothesis other than local expansions in the Ural/Ukraine regions and some protrusion east of the Urals. In addition there is a continuity of cultural exchange east-west between Black Sea cultures and Central European cultures from the Late paleolithic, increasing in the mesolithic and much increased in the early neolithic. Some authors believed that during the late Mesolithic NE black sea peoples migrated seasonally into central Europe, and interbred with Western European Mesolithics, but when the Neolithic comes they begin settling and assume LBK within the loess belt. Therefore my point is that the Kurgan hypothesis is neither needed to explain R1a in central Europe either. In fact one of the densities seen in Underhill is that R1a1a7 densities overly the loess belt pretty well. Again this began 2000 years before Kurgan culture. This is not to argue that Kurgan expansion may have left a genetic footprint in the Andronovo region, but for that foot print to reach S. Asia, the process in terms of particular chrono-cultures was indirect. With the western migrations it appears to be completely unneccesary and unwise to make a PIE distinction since the relic language of Europe is not PIE, and the evidence of migration extends over a period almost 1 magnitude greater than PIE with the most likely times of entry much earlier than Kurgan according to Underhill. Therefore while it could have a direct impact, it is unlikely that R1a spread because of PIE or Sredy-Stog horse culture. I have reworded the paragraph now such that if reflects the inapplicability of Kurgan to SE expansions of R1a.

The third problem concerns Klysovo. I have read two extremely long methods papers in JoGG. What I have found that he does present a techniques that might find future use. He replaces the pairwise diversity analysis with maximum parsimony analysis. This technique may, in many cases offer better resolution of STR diversity. So I am not questioning whether a maximum parsimony STR analysis is superior relative to pairwise diversity estimates. My critique is one of a specific application, in a way the breadth of the study is a wall of words. However, in real father, son combinations reversals have been observed. Therefore one expects patterns of reticulation in parsimony trees, they must exist but these were not presented by Klysovo. The next problem is that he did not do a study comparable to Underhill. Instead he picked some unstudied groups of E. Asians, certain Indians, and came to some rather wild conclusions. I think the conclusions he is drawing the support a Ural -Ukranian origin of R1a1a in Asia, S.Asia and Europe, would be, in any publication I've refereed, premature; however since he is writing a methods paper he is presenting it as an example of the types of situations it might resolve. Ergo, we really need to see this approach applied on a comprehensive dataset like Underhill et al. 2009. I deleted this paragraph, I think being a new technique, cherry-picked comparitor populations, and results contradicting major studies, we need to wait for rebuttals or support from other studies. I sis this because I think we should avoid jump the gun additions to this article, in fact given the contention here we really should have a WP:MEDRS of applying maximum respect to comprehensive articles, such as underhill et al 2009 or reviews of the literature. PB666 ^yap 07:26, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

The internal disputes about the Kurgan hypothesis pertains the nitty-gritty which we do not need to concern ourselves with (on this article), especially with genetic articles which look for broad gradients of gene flow generated by directional movement of peoples. It is certain is that the direction of linguistic spread (according to these theories) was northwest to southeast (broadly, Ukraine to south). What has undergone substantial re-evaluation is the manner of spread. Questionable that an Aryan-oid 'indo-European' people spread en masse from a confined homeland. Rather, PIE might have been a lingua franca along trade routes, etc. Ie a convergent vs divergent linguistic model.

This is an abbreviated outline of archaeological progression of cultures in western steppe as envisaged to fit with Kurgan-PIE hypothesis.

It is of no consequence, meaning or value to the R1a article, yes some authors may have believed that it is a causative factor of spread, I would think that the horse culture in a neolithic context may have been more of a factor. Either way, Kurgan is not the culture that migrated into S. Asia, since bronze technology is middle and near eastern in origin, and IE appears to be Anatolian.

At minimum Central/Near eastern languages and culture were major contributors to whatever post-kurgan culture contributed. PB666 ^yap 07:26, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

The Sredy-Stog culture emerged in 4th millennium BC. First evidence of use of horse, Kurgan burials, and pastoralist economy (which might have developed as a modified adaptation of agricultural economy from the neighboring Tripolye-Cucuteni culture (agricultural) by the 'autochthonous', preceding hunter-gatherer Dnieper-Don culture.

Yamnaya culture in western Eurasian steppe in Bronze Age. First use of wheeled chariot. The afansevo culture in central Asia seen as an extension of western Eurasian artefacts and physical type (ie Europid).

Andranovo culture appears in 2nd millennium. Linguistically, corresponds to development of distinct Indo-Aryan language group

Ofcourse this is a hotly debated topic. What we should use genetics for is for identifying genetic flow. We should not be tempted to link them with specific historic, archaeologic or linguistic events (as indeed the publishing geneticists tend to have done), for we cannot be exactly sure that the spread of agriculture, or IE was a demographic phenomenon. Genetic studies are too imprecise in their dating to do this. In fact, biological spread could have nothing to do with any noted event on the historical or archaeological record Hxseek (talk) 23:56, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, exactly, we should on present evidence of cultural/language links when the evidence is so obvious that Dinosaurs would see the KT extinction coming. As I have said, there are finger print links between peoples at the HLA haplotype level that have not been asserted by any migration. There is a haplotype, for instance found in Asia, in Japan, in Siberia, In the Tlinglet and Athabascan and Na-dene which is very long and recent, but it is also found in the highland regions of South America. There are haplotypes in West Africa and the Sahul that are found also in the Baloch, Turkic peoples but in no people in between. Sometimes genetic links are found that precede cultural or archaeological evidence, showing migrations and cultural events that archaeologist never expected. One has to be extremely cautious of the discussion sections of science papers. I singled out this article for improvement because it was top loaded with speculative quotations from the literature, these, IMHO, ruined the article and drove race-based arguments about the page. I feel no obligation to present opinions in papers that have a faulty understanding of archaeological contexts, language associations, or use obsolete identification techniques unless some overwhelming body of concordance suggest that one must not ignore a theory or certain future article problems will result.PB666 ^yap 07:26, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

PB666 ^yap 07:26, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

This is just argumentative patent nonsense. PB666 is referring to discussions which never happened, edits which never happened, and words which were never in the articles. But using a lot of words. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:51, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

State of the Article

Open forum for critiques, let us have it!PB666 ^yap 22:14, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

No, this is not a forum. WP:NOT. Discussion needs to be relevant to this article. Long postings about personal theories should NOT be posted because they are irrelevant to what we can cite in the article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:59, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

For critiques of the article, you placed this because the below disagree with what you have written.PB666 ^yap 18:13, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

In per se article over there and around quack? (What are you talking about please?)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:32, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Klyosov under or overrepresented

cont from above. I don't think Klyosov's article should be excluded just because it is new and has different methodolody 9as long as it is pointed out). Different methodological approaches are prevalent throughout all articles, hence the wild fluctuations in TMRCA and conclusions. Kivisilid's or underhill's new articles also have not yet been analyzed by geneticists, so do they need top be excluded also ? Hxseek (talk) 00:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Klyosov's article is not excluded. "Publications in 2009 made major changes in our understanding of R1a.", "In 2009, several large studies of both old and new STR data, including Mirabal et al. (2009), Underhill et al. (2009), and Klyosov (2009) concluded that not only are there are two separate "poles of the expansion" with similar ages, but also that of these two poles, Asian R1a1a is apparently older than European R1a1a.""Recently, looking at Chinese STR data not included in other studies Klyosov (2009) concluded that the common source of Indian and European R1a must be somewhere near the modern Chinese ethnic groups known as the Hui, Bolan, Dongxiang and Sala.""(Other methods, such as used by Klyosov (2009), tend to give much younger estimates for any given set of data.)""Researchers using this estimation method therefore believe any Bronze Age or more recent dispersals affecting modern R1a1a diversity can not involve the clade as a whole, but only some branches.Klyosov (2009), on the other hand, would see this as a period for a very early branching within R1a1a, detectable from STR data rather than SNP data, wherein early European and Indian branches of R1a1a settled into their early positions. The initial homeland of European R1a1a in this scenario was on the very edge of Europe, near the Urals.""Based on analyses of STR diversity within clusters, Klyosov (2009) gives the most recent argument that there was a movement of R1a1a from Eastern Europe to India. He associates part of this gene-flow with Indo-Aryan language and culture, and believes this flow originated in the Pontic-Caspian region." That's a whole lot of coverage to a very speculative paper. If anything, based on the numbers of peoples involved in the study its representation needs to be markedly reduced. Underhill includes bothe SNP and STR results, SNP are consider to be classic markers, and reticulation of SNPs in NRY is extremely rare. Whereas Klysovo does not attempt to find New SNPs, but instead entirely relies on an approached which is know to produce reticulations.PB666 ^yap 01:30, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Ok. And not to labour the point, and I am happy with calling it 'Steppe culture', but Andronovo shows genetic (in archaeoloogical sense) relationship to Timber-Grave culture of Kurgan horizon. Hxseek (talk) 02:45, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

See below, I was working on a detailed answer below.PB666 ^yap 04:59, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with PB666 and majority of users here..the kurgan linguistic based theory has no place on an article dedicated to a biological codding that is R1a. I would also ask why the Sharma (2009) study has been only been given a word of two of reference in the main text. It's not only the biggest study from all corners in India, but it's published on 2009 as well. Why is this being ignored?? Could someone please kindly explain?? HonestopL 23:28, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Dear mysterious stranger I am not sure which consensus you claim to represent, but just concerning Sharma, it is currently one of the most cited sources in the article. It is discussed in several sections. Of course it is discussed less than Underhill et al, which not only has even more data, but also discovered new SNPs etc. The only thing missing is a full run down of all basic R1a1a data which is also the case for every paper. As you will recall, we made a data article especially to make everyone happy: [12]. So what is missing?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:33, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Right, and as you will read below, Klyosov states that Russian R-M17 is of Balkan origin, directly, not south Siberian. He claims South Siberian R-M17 migrated to the balkans starting before 11 to 12000 years ago, he find German, Russian and Polish R1a1 are roughly equivilent in Age, 4700 which means no Kurgan migration westward. There goes the PIE theory. He also notes that Andronovo A-DNA has local analogs but these do not align with his 30 Indian haplotypes. There are lots of contradictions about the Indian origins that should be resolved prior to the point that they are ready for this encyclopedia.PB666 ^yap 04:59, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

If you wait around 30 minutes the latest theories tend to get blown right out of the water, what responsibilities do we, as conveyors of respectable literature have? I think in the future, before rushing like lightning to add the comments of the latest paper to this or any other Y-DNA we should take the time and let the dust settle so that we can give it a thorough read, the two papers of Klyosov were 69 pages long. That takes a while to digest.PB666 ^yap 04:59, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

HonestopL appears to be a new account made especially in order to write this post. Sounds familiar.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:58, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

And just as in several recent cases, although PB666 responds to a new voice by saying that this is what he was talking about, it clearly has NOTHING to do with what he is talking about. HonestopL is arguing that all mention of the Kurgan linguistic theory should be taken out of the article. Is that what you are arguing for PB666? If so then why have your recent edits done the opposite? [13] Strange!--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:58, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Excuse me andrew, but I'm a casual user on wikipedia giving my opinion, which I'am granted privileges to do. I agree with others that a kurgan theory (linguistic based) has no connections on an article dedicated to a biological codding (R1a). I have an interest in genetics from all sides, but I like to point out inconsistencies. You seem to have a hostile attitude and would ask you to please refrain from making baseless accusations. seems you have your hands full of problems with other users here. And I think you should probable take a break from editing.. as you been basically editing between 12-18 hours everyday. I really do find your edits problematic and others have pointed out here. my two cents. HonestopL 14:27, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

He stomps on anyone who criticises him. I have a belly full of elbow.PB666 ^yap 19:34, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

So you are saying we should remove ANY reference to hypothesized Kurgan connections? Please be clear. You seem to be very confused.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:57, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

PB666, this accusation made on Honestopl's talkpage is terribly inaccurate. I never accused you of using socks, MMagdalene posted on my talkpage about the possibility. And I told her explicitly that I did not think it was you. You should know this, because you then posted another accusation there, claiming I was acting inappropriately by contacting our "ex reviewer" (!), who had however contacted me. This all seems like very poor form to me, but from a practical point of view, if I continue to presume you are not really being dishonest on purpose, it does show once again that you really are not reading the things you are aggressively reacting to.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:56, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Honestopl, which consensus were you talking about, which other users are you talking about, and which edits are you talking about? Yes people from the public can come and post here, but no one needs to listen to single use accounts unless they have something to say.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:45, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I have told you I have a problem with the "kurgan hypothesis" repeatedly, starting more than a month ago. Several others have voiced the same concern. You and one other person have insisted on keeping it, I have tried to work toward a consensus status on how it should be kept, deemphasizing its importance and critiquing it. If by my choice and my choice alone (see old R1a1a page), it goes. You continually confuse my attempts to build consensus with my POV, I have tried to take a Neutral and Critical point of view on everything, you seem not to understand that. As per Sharma et al, I discussed my concerns, but since you want to interject Klyosov's fractured opinion on Indian R-M17 origin we may now need to increase coverage of Sharma et al in south Asian origins section. If you remove that sentence I keep deleting we don't need to do this. In any case, half of the sentence is in the wrong section. You have not been working toward a consensus but simply adding more POV stuff that will cause edit warring in the future.PB666 ^yap 17:23, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

My suggestion, if you are honest, is that you leave this talkpage so that the other opinions you are chasing away can speak up. It is not your blog. You came to this article because you could see the progress being made in building a consensus in a difficult subject. Let that continue. Give it a chance again. The article is certainly not going to get any better from these long blog postings you put here.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:21, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Andrew needs to reference the following paper (Klyosov 2009a, JoGG 5(2):186-216) when mentioning the problem with the Z... approach.:

“

"As a result, this mutation rate has been widely used in the academic literature qutoe indiscriminantly. often (or always) resulting in time span to common ancestors some 200-300% greater compared to those obtained with genealogical mutation rates. In fact it is east you calculate from Table A that the 0.00069 [(]mut[ations]/marker[)]/gen[eration] mutation rate is appliable for a time span equal to 2560 generations, that is 64,000 years ago. For >64,000 ybp the actual mtuation rate will be lower than 0.00069, for <64,000 ybp the actual mutation rate will be higher.

”

— Klyosov, JoGG 5(2):186-216

What this means that by 64,000 years 2 of 3 STR mutations will have reversed themselves at least once. Whereas a between 64000 years they will have reversed between 0 and 66%, Again since underhills estimates are closer to the present the number of reversions will be substantially less, probably on the order of 20% and indicate and overestimate that is likely double, but not triple.

I have been going over Klysovo with a fine tooth comb, to address whether it is over- or under-represented. I found that Andrew got it wrong. Klyosov does not believe that R-M17 spread from from the Ukraine. He believes that R1a1 spread from South Siberia South Siberia. He states at least three times that R-M17 spread from South Siberia to the Balkans (11,600 years ago), it later dispersed northward, into Germany and the Ukraine about the same time, Poland sightly later and finally reached Scandinavia about 1000 years later, from his perspective there is not Kurgan-Europe R-M17 connection. Its all from SE Europe, even that is exclusive because Anatolian R-M17 is about 4000 years in age. He goes onto state that While R1b1 maybe of Kurgan origin, Kurgan R1a1 is likely of Balkan origin, and Andronovo R-M17 is also of the Balkan lineages. However, I still think his method is under-dating, lets be generous to him, by 30%,at least its not off by a factor of 250%. I am all good with his methods up to this point. Thats the reason why the Irish R1b1 and Russian R1a1 were of similar structure, he is not arguing for an early paleoRussian origin of R1a1.

He goes on to say the following, which I think we should definitely reference in the article.

“

The literature frequently refers to a stream that R1a1-M17 originate from a "refuge" in the present Ukraine about 15,000 years ago, following the Last Glacial Maximum. This statement was never substantiate by any actual data related to haplotypes and haplogroups. It is just repeated over and over through a relay of references to reference. [This I love, just my style] The oldest reference is apparently that of Semino et al. (2000) [your bud Andrew] which states that "this scenario is supported by the finding that the maximum variation for microsatellites linked to Eu19 [R1a1] is found in Ukraine" (Satanchirae-Benereecetti, unpublished data). Now we know that this is incorrect [And any reference to this papers or papers that reference this should be removed from the Main]. No calculation were provided in (Semino et al, 200) or elsewhere which would explain the dating of 15,000 years.

”

“

The a paper by Wells et al. (2001) states "M17, a descendant of M173, is apparently much younger, with an inferred age of ~15,00 years." No actual data or calculations are provided. The subsequent sentence in the papers says, "It must be note that these age estimates are dependent on many, possibly, invalid assumptions about mutational processes and population structure." This sentence has turned out to be valid in the sense that the estimate was inaccurate and overestimated by about 300% [ . . . .]

”

However the next step he takes he gets himself into trouble, and I think that the method he is using is going to be most accurate in recent time frames and more problematic with deeper branchings. His Indian studies are a mess however, we should not trust these results, they are too preliminary, his analysis based on his YSearch database yielded 30 haplotypes and a TMRCA of 4050 which he implies is of paleoRussian origin. He then goes onto suggest that the 3600 year old Andronovo specimens match the local population (do not appear to match Indian R1a1 however). However later he admits there is an older branch that entered India. In doing this he is mentioning the work of other researchers of haplotypes he did not test, IOW how is it he tested and only managed to test Indians R1a1 of paleoRussia origin. He gives a solution to the problem which is more or less an approximation. The proper solution would be to ask the authors of these papers for DNA to redress the STR series and repeat his calculations - Thamseem et al (2006), . I think we should avoid his south Siberian conclusion. He uses two few Indian haplotypes. Basically, he does not reference Underhill but is used data from tribes in Andrea Pradesh, South India (which do not show that great of diversity and comes up with a figure to 7125 years (IOW Tribal R-M17 is of a different, east asian, origin than Brahmin R1a1 of Balko-russian origin, which would explain the tribal/Brahmin delimna.). Whereas Underhill looked 181 South asians from across the country, neither looked at Sharma's R1a1. Underhill found that Indian R-M17 was twice as old in West India and S Pakistan relative to Central Asian R1a1, therefore if Klyosov places Central Asia R-M17 at 4100 years then Indian R1a1 is 8100 years. So we shall see. Moreover the the data for the chinese estimates are based on 5 marker haplotypes and there may be a reliability issue in the typing.

Klyosov is still using R-M17 = R1a1 PB666 ^yap 04:50, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

PD,

1. Concerning these types of comment "Andrew needs to reference..." etc, can you please cease and desist? If you see a missing link or a spelling mistake or whatever why on earth would you take the time to note it here and on your weird GA review page [14] instead of just fixing it?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:44, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

2. What you are writing above is your own review, because as HXseek and I have pointed out, none of the articles we cite in this field have reviews we can cite. There is almost no secondary literature in this field. Problem for you is that (a) your abuse of this talkpage by posting long digression of your personal opinions (as confirmed by admins) [15] is a wasted effort because nothing written on Wikipedia talkpages can be used as a source, and (2) we clearly can not invent rules especially to censor one paper that you personally do not like. If articles need to be old, and to have been mentioned in secondary literature we need to delete nearly everything in the article and insist on theories from 2002. That would be ridiculous.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:44, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

And by the way you already tried to use the exact opposite argument, saying that the inclusion of Klyosov in the article might represent material that is too old, and the author might have changed his mind: [16]. Once again, such a ruling, applied to all the sources, would mean what? If we can not use recent or old sources, then this whole R1a article needs to be deleted I'm afraid.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:44, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

It is interesting to consider just how many positions you've had in the last few days concerning Klyosov, the Kurgan hypothesis, and any connection between the two - all within the context that there is virtually nothing about these subjects in the article except some very uncontroversial remarks. Just to take a very recent and stunning example of the swings, this is clearly intended to be a misleading edit summary?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:54, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I never referred to Klysovo as being archaic, I was referring to two other articles. I have always contended you exceeded the review process when you inserted klysovo. The specific articles I was refering to regarded the earliest assertions that there was a Kurgan origin for all R1a1. Second I was reacting to your edits targeting specific issues in the article. I did not have the time to sit down and thoroughly read the 70 page article until yesterday, at which point.

His name is Klyosov, and (a) what on earth does "exceeded the review process" mean in this context and (b) where is there a rule that editors should not edit until PB666 has read their sources and confirmed that they may be used? Are you even thinking about what you write? This makes no sense at all!--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:48, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

The basic problem is that, as with your attempt to go overboard about the use of the word Bronze Age, when you saw another editor raise it, you are clearly desperately looking for rules to WP:GAME in order to have some sort of impact on this article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:44, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

3. Here is a great example of why it is a waste of time to try taking you seriously. You write: "I found that Andrew got it wrong. Klyosov does not believe that R-M17 spread from from the Ukraine." Now, as far as I know, in the last few days me and DinDraithou have been making the reference to R1a-Aryan connections more vaguely "from the Steppes". It is you who consistently been re-inserting words like "Pontic Caspian". Now you found out it is wrong, by actually reading the source, and you blame it on other editors. You should read and fully understand first and not use Wikipedia as your notepad.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:39, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

4. Just in case it is not clear, there are several ways in which Klyosov's terminology appear to be in error, for example his use of the term "proto Slavic" as a language related to "Aryans". I think there is however no-one here who is arguing that we must re-produce that terminology in the article. It is clear enough that he is referring to whatever language developed into Indo Aryan, which was indeed a close relative of proto Slavic. So this can be handled without drama.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:30, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Once again Andrew, you take a constructive approach and turn it into destructive diatribe. The critique of HKseek was completed in 2 steps, the first displaying what the article has, and second displaying what the article exerted and did not have that might be important. When I went to add the second there was an edit conflict, what I wrote, with the exception of a couple of sentences had nothing to do with HoneStopL's comments (notice the indent). If I had specifically directed these for his attention I would have also added that Sharma et al has problems because it did not discriminated R1* and that that there were issues regarding the R1a* they detected. That we agree on a few issues is meerly a coincidence and it had nothing to do with Gaming.

The problem with Klyosov's analysis of the Steppe/Indo-Aryan connection is that he does not directly link or discriminate with Russia or Anatolian by any attempt to mesh the haplotype trees together. The A-DNA are not indo-aryan ancestors, However the Anatolian R-M17 is exactly the same age as the so-called "Steppe" sourced in India.

My basic argument is that your edits have been added prematurely without a critical discussion, and these edits reflect errors in your understanding of Klysovo. My original critique does stand Ukraine and Russia are not older sources of R-M17 in Europe, they are equal-aged derivations of an even older source in Europe. Why do you think I kept pointing at the IE diagram? In addition after reviewing the section on India, it appears that he cherry picked studies which he compared. However the two most comprehensive studies of India, Underhill and Sharma were neglected in his analysis. That's a problem.PB666 ^yap 14:49, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

You are crossing purposes here, if you really, really want me to go away, I suggest you mellow out (As the folks on the ANI page basically told you), and let the process complete itself in its own way. Had Hkseek not criticized Klysovo's impact, errantly but nonetheless usefully, this process was very, very close to completion. You should take that as advice, not a critique.PB666 ^yap 14:49, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I see nothing constructive above. What is apparently annoying to you is that I am entering information before you personally understand it. Have a look at your own description of how you noticed DinDraithou's comments and then went searching for a way to say Andrew was wrong. Your whole approach is just wrong. As has been pointed out to you by Hxseek and me, Anatolian has got nothing to do with Indo-Aryan and Balto-Slavic. Neither does it have anything to do with DinDraithou's concerns. And when did Hxseek criticize Klyosov? I think he questioned your approach? etc. Your remarks are in a complete state of confusion.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:42, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

You mean before you personally understand it, I saw no mention of the Balkan origin on the page, and your edits were at expanding the belief of a Stepp origin. Klyosov did nothing that shows he can discriminate a Stepp migration of R-M17 from Russia versus and Bronze-age/IE migration from Anatolia, that dates are compatible with both, he is simply giving an opinion. I cited numerous reasons where there is trouble with his conclusions with India.

Here is the basic issue Andrew, I am a broken record. The problems with this article have been the repeated use of highly speculative opinions, unsupported opinions, there are hundreds out their and WP cannot possibly represent them all. In reading Klyosov I found that on this issue he and I strongly agree. These are exactly the types of critiques that belong in the article. We cannot prove or disprove what he has recently added, but what we can say with clarity is that the critiques are valid. However new speculations were given undue weight in this article. I am trying to provide a source of resistence to providing undue speculation. It is my opinion that undue speculation is the cause of edit warring in the HGH project and _we_ need to reign it in. I thought you were on this side of the line, but in regard to this page you have been extremely biligerent about cutting back on Undue speculation. I can provide you with just two measures of the problem. Almost everyone agrees now that R-M17 did not originate in Eastern or Western Europe, and yet it is the longest section in origins WP:UNDUE in addition South India has some of the best evidence, it is close to the shortest. The statement you placed that I keep reverting actually belongs in part in the South Asian origin part. "The literature frequently refers to a stream that R1a1-M17 originate from a "refuge" in the present Ukraine about 15,000 years ago, following the Last Glacial Maximum. This statement was never substantiate by any actual data related to haplotypes and haplogroups. It is just repeated over and over through a relay of references to reference. The oldest reference is apparently that of Semino et al. (2000) which states that "this scenario is supported by the finding that the maximum variation for microsatellites linked to Eu19 [R1a1] is found in Ukraine" (Satanchirae-Benereecetti, unpublished data)"

I maintain that the state of Y-DNA is a shambles, the sloppy thinking in these articles is a reason for much edit-warring. The sloppy state of articles Andrew Lancaster has worked on is also an indication of the sloppy thinking in the Y_DNA field. If you clean up the sloppy conclusions in your head, sit down an write out carefully what can be shown to be true, Articles like E1b1b you can clean the chaff out of articles and start working within the wikiguidelines. Instead every active editor of this project drags in the literature (supportable or otherwise) that favors their POV, inflates it and this is the trigger of edit wars.PB666 ^yap 16:33, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you are a broken record, but the record is also scratched and jumping around between different songs. Within a few hours you are posting here to say the article is already at a high level and almost GA, and now you are back to calling my work sloppy again.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:34, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

PB666 is also not very "self critical" about what the admins on ANI said: [17]. The first admin commented that PB666's talkpage editing was described as a "clear series of WP:TALK violations". The second admin who was the one who suggested I take a break was explicitly doing so on the basis that PB666 was deliberately baiting me. (I said I did not think it was true in this case.) The third admin wrote that PB666's "attitude towards [ownership] is indeed quite extreme, and does seem to need some considerable adjustment". So while no-one has taken action, which is common on ANI, the message was clearly very different to how PB666 would like to remember it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:42, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I am, if you will stop adding material premature and speculatively to the article, I will stop critiquing the article here. Most of what I have written comes in direct response to issues of he main page, as above I did not initiate these issues, I am simply responding. Everytime I come about creating an overview and critique, you run over to the ANI page and declare bloody murder, and every time you walk away with nothing. If you simply focused on the critique issue, the article would improve and all of this would die down. They also said they had concerns about adding much information about Kurgan hypothesis and that there had been much edit warring on other pages about this highly contentious issue. This article has had a ton of speculation, and it has been a battle all the way to see that it is reduced. When I have pointed out, as above, problems with Y_DNA approaches and validity, you have battled me. One of the clearest statements made in Klyosov was the previous work on R-M17 was top-loaded with unsubstantiated speculation. Your favored source of the day agrees with me, my only point, what of his work that is also premature we should also consider, potentially speculative.PB666 ^yap 16:33, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

How are you defining "premature and speculative"? Why are saying I am favouring authors? To remind you, I am just putting in what the literature says, that is not favoring anyone, and that is not speculating. You want me to keep some out. Concerning the Kurgan issue it does not need to be important in this article. It is not critical to any of the theories we are talking about. (I do think we should mention the word as an associated word, because people need to find key words from the articles or books or webpages they read.) Please consider what edits I have really done, not ones you imagine.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:46, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

See Klyosov quote above. Because of the precedents of the literature concerning R1a (see DGG's comments below) we have to be more critical of the literature and more careful not to engage in adding new speculation after debunking speculation that was added 2 or more years ago. Klyosov clearly wants to link Indian R-M17 to Eastern Steppe (culture and langauge) but is that (or not) making the same error that other authors make, which he soundly debunks. There is alot of work regarding Indian R-M17, although I still question it, however there is only one paper so far with 5 locus haplotypes from a second hand source which suggest south Siberian origins. Have papers with greater sources of STR data been debunked, if so what are the risks here. That was my issue.

I should add that you added this, but you failed to mention on the page the Balkan origin of European R1a1. Why is the Steppe Indian link great (despite that different results come from different studies) but the Balkan -German/Ukrain link not worthy of mention (Even though Klyosov mentions it over 3 times). Please do not accuse me of baiting the issue unless you have completely read both Klyosov articles carefully.PB666 ^yap 17:11, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

The article DOES mention the Balkan origin. If I spent less time defending myself here, and carefully explaining problems with the edits you did before reading the Klyosov article, it would have been done earlier. I did not accuse you of a baiting strategy. An admin on ANI and another editor (Wapondaponda) have suggested it is what you might be or are doing. I disagreed.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:30, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

By the way, do you want me to work faster, or slower? Do you want me to put more details from Klyosov in, or less? You are entirely inconsistent!--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:36, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

You did accuse me. And I could care less what you do. I will give you one last pointer, you resisted me in increasing the size of the lead here and here however here is the lede for Haplogroup_R1a_(Y-DNA)#Origins_and_hypothesized_migrations_of_R1a1a and this subsection Haplogroup_R1a_(Y-DNA)#Eastern_European_migration_hypotheses. And yet you don't see a problem with the imbalance, and that somehow I am the bad guy for critiquing this. WP suggests editors use their editorial judgement, if you based your judgement on nothing more that klyosov's critiques you would have more than enough reason for trimming these two section ledes and the subsections within Eastern_European_migration_hypotheses. I repeat I originally had only the chance to skim these 2 very long articles based on what you stated and what you wrote. Since you are exhibiting WP:OWN over your editions it now becomes your full responsibility to read the article carefully and determine what in it is speculative and what is not. I have clearly stated my interpretation based on Hkseeks critique. The South Siberian groups which may be fragile if it subsequently proven not to be true by other methods it deserves to have its own section. Again if we apply his critical sword to things that are fragile that interpretation should be eliminated. Remember he is critiquing others published results for most of the 2009a, but with regard to India (30 European' haplotypes) and South Siberia he is presenting new and unpublished results.PB666 ^yap 19:30, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Give a diff for the accusation. You read things which are not there.

I see you also went to MMagdalene's talkpage [18], and in response to a posting of me telling her that, no, I do not think you are using sock puppets, you have attacked me for trying to besmirch you name in front of the "ex reviewer"! Look up what tilting at windmills means.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:56, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Other concerns

Are there any other concerns about the Main, please read it first and look for errors.PB666 ^yap 05:02, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

To repeat this is not a "forum" where one person gets to post long opinion pieces and then others can comment. That would be a blog. You can get a blog and then direct us to it. But of course you know no one would read it. You are getting an audience using Wikipedia's talkspace here, and that is a violation of Wikipedia policy.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:02, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I am not asking you to ad-hominem attack me but to critique the article. We are getting alot of constructive comments Andrew, from DinDraithou, from HonestopL and from DGG. Please do not denigrate the process for politial reasons.PB666 ^yap 16:56, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

What?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:26, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

GAN

PB666, a GAN is not an appropriate way to solicit comments on the content for improvement - that's what a peer-review is for. You should only submit an article for GA consideration if you believe it to be ready (barring minor changes) for the status. If you look at the criteria for a GA, you should be able to see clearly that it's not. Also, I don't think that transcluding comments from the GAN discussion page is appropriate, nor is turning this talk page into a "forum" for comments. The talk page is meant to discuss, and obtain consensus for, edits to the article. I highly suggest that you submit this article for peer-review to get some outside opinion before you go any further. Also, get an assessment from someone in the Cellular and Molecular Biology project; according to that project, this article is still Start-Class. MMagdalene722 ^{talk to me} 15:00, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I think that classification was given by PB666 himself, as was the one for WP:HGH?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:44, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I believe this article is ready barring minor changes. See above, I was asking for any critiques, I had not major critiques of this article, all that remained were minor issues.PB666 ^yap 16:00, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually you have switched between calling the article nearly good enough, and calling it disturbing, crap, etc. Anyway, if you are going to ask for any review I certainly want to repeat my honest advice that you first fix minor problems - at least if they are not controversial items. If you spelling errors, or missing links, or extra commas, just fix them. Also please do not make use of any such nomination as a diversion from talkpage discussion, which is the most important way to get consensus. You've heard from others now that I was correct in asking for this before. If you start asking reviewers to take sides, they will just leave.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:10, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Andrew, I have a right to change my mind as the page changes, you have no right to critique my reevaluation. I thought in posting the request for critique that the article was GA ready, I did not realize that there was still critiques out their and I welcome their critique. If Hkseek had not I probably not read the 69 page Klyosov articles. You can disrespect the critique process, that is your prerogative, but I embrace it.PB666 ^yap 17:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

What critique process have I shown disrespect for? By the way you were accusing Klyosov of fraud, and editing what the article said about him, before hxseek made any remark. Very interesting to hear that at this stage you had not even read the thing. It sure shows how carefully you consider the positions you take.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:24, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

This is clearly a baiting tactic, WP advised editors to use good judgement. I was using good editorial judgement in removing a statement I considered: 1. Speculative, 2. Belonging in part to another section of the Main. 3. Increasing the wordiness of a section unnecessarily. Ergo I had more than adequate wiki-guided reasons for removing it. The fact you keep replacing it is a clear indication that you thwart the guidelines. You are the most recent source of speculation entering this article, this is not MW, SV or Soph, its you and only you.PB666 ^yap 19:07, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I would like to know which speculation you say I introduced. Are you talking about me citing articles?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:17, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

"It should be noted that according to this particular new variant of the scenario, Indian R1a1a is made up of two components, one which came from the direction of Europe, and one which arrived in India much earlier. Klyosov proposes that both these old branches have their common ancestor in or near southern Siberia." Indeed he does say this but the European branch has an ancestor in SE Europe, and the Source of neither this, or the fact another branch came through China has nothing to do with the section in which it is placed. If you must have this as part of the article, I would discuss it with everyone here before adding back the section on East Asian origins, because previously there was not compelling evidence what-so-ever. This particular passage clutters the section with information that should be considered speculative and as-to-point uncontested. Does a general reader really need to know this information while reading about Steppe migration hypothesis. At least in part, no, but if in part very carefully worded.PB666 ^yap 19:41, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Please be clear. Who do you accuse of speculating? Me or Klyosov?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:47, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion

You will never make a perfect article. On this particular topic, the way the discussion has been going, you may never even make a stable GA, because you will need to deal with future work as it is published, and each time you do, there will be apparently be a debate on its significance and how much space to devote to it. What might be productive is the following dual strategy:

1. to let this article be a presentation on the actual population genetics of the locus, with a paragraph or two on each major theory, but keeping the focus closely on the genetics. Clearly, people study this sort of genetics not just for its abstract fascination, but because they are interested in the implications for the history of human populations, and their more or less closely associated cultures. If they study this for its overall interest, for truly academic purposes, excellent; if they study it to prove a particular cultural or political point, generally not quite so likely to give valid results, and very much less likely to give valid interpretations. In any case, the details and disputes over the interpretation, and the relationship of the genetic to the linguistic and archeological and historical data, belongs in other articles. This article can not realistically be expanded to present all of human pre- and proto-history.

2. to write articles on all the related topics about human civilization and biology that are missing or inadequately handled in Wikipedia. DGG ( talk ) 16:05, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

DGG this sounds more or less like the approach I have been proposing when it comes to subjects like controversy about the Kurgan hypothesis: keeping the linguistics, archaeology etc as simple as possible but giving enough key words that people looking this up will find the links they need. So for example I have argued that we should de-emphasis Kurgans, but at least keep mention of the word. (They are not a key part of the genetics related argument. For geneticists the key thing is just that they know there is a theory about people bringing Indo Aryan languages along the same route some people say R1a traveled.) To be honest, I am not sure that PB666 will really disagree with what you describe if he thinks about it, but in practice his edits and talk page comments seem to show him being opposed to it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:16, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

DGG, you clearly have read and understand the issue here. That is the problem. We don't even explain the jargon well, like STR diversity dating, but we bend over backwards to insert speculation-links outside of the genetic field, when this upgrade page began there were 4 theories (not hypothesis but theories) to explain the same phenomena. If we could just sit down and agree to this point DGG, that we will work toward reducing speculation in that arena alone much of this issue would subside. Andrew, my edits were based on what you wrote, I was trying to improve your writing (concensus building, without doing an all-out delete), if it was by my choice I would cut the European origins section in half. I should point out that if you read Klyosov he very strongly links a Eastern Steppe-Indian migration to IE and Bronze age, that is the statement we have been 'warring' over. Again, he does nothing to prove this since Anatolian (source of bronze age culture and IE langauge fits the same criteria). IOW he had debunked other authors but then he asserts his own speculation. I am not critical of some, I am critical of all, even if they realize the faults in others they may not realize thier own faults. I should point out that I provided Andrew a reference from the first Klyosov, for his benefit, such that he can critique Underhills dating method without the widely agreed but potentially WP:OR statements made.(Even though a support Underhills work and conclusions). I am trying to help Andrew improve this article. PB666 ^yap 16:52, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

DGG. The GA reviewer asks for a dis-interested third party, would you mind going over the page and making critiques.PB666 ^yap 16:53, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

PD, You seem to read every critical remark as agreeing with you. DGG suggests "focus closely on the genetics" and not "the details and disputes over the interpretation".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:23, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Doctor heal thyself: "if they study it to prove a particular cultural or political point, generally not quite so likely to give valid results, and very much less likely to give valid interpretations." The problem is you do not realize that you are adding this form of questionable interpretation to the page. You think, that as long as an Author speculates this, its good for you to speculate this, but this is exactly what has trashed up the page. Klyosov clearly identifies the source and the reason for past invalid speculation. We need to apply the same logic to him. If multiple sources can explain a given phenomena and he has not gone about the careful process of eliminating these other sources, why should we abide by his speculation? You still don't get it, the speculation of today that looks solid, will be disproven tomorrow, for the exact reason DGG stated, linking genetics to culture or language is a necessarily troubled way of conducting molecular genetics.PB666 ^yap 18:04, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

In medical science articles there is now a standard of WP:MEDRS developed just to deal with this issue, we may need to request the same standard be implimented here, wait for the review, not pummel articles with the latest interpretations with the latest papers.PB666 ^yap 18:04, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I would think that criticizing the literature is indeed a job for someone getting published in a peer reviewed journal, not us. Your personal thoughts on the matter should cease to be posted here please. This is not your blog.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:17, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Andrew, peer review does not stop many things from happening, If peer review were great how did the statements of Semino and Wells make it past peer-review, how about Underhills dating technique. In science if something lies within a two fold range of confidence we consider it to be of reasonable error, if its distribution is over a 3 to 4 range it is considered speculative. Where is the critique in Underhill of his dating method, why were not diversity statistics given in the tables as opposed the TMRCA? And why are you criticizing his dates.PB666 ^yap 18:32, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Folks, enough is enough, Andrew has clearly tried to thwart the GA process by obstructing article improvement out of line with WP:MOS, he creates these fantastic impressions of me harming the page, when he is doing most of the editing and I am providing mostly critique of what is on the page that will attract future problems. I was trying to bow out this process yesterday but I did not realize there is still an overhanging critique of speculative material. Andrew has engaged in edit warring on the page based on his misunderstandings of definitions, did not understand the point of a lede, did not understand the point of explaining things carefully to outsiders, etc. I have directed my critiques at NPOV page edits in an effort to weed out the source of past problems, and I have recieved critique all the way. The point that he is arguing with me about agreeing with an outside review on the source of problems I have pointing to for more than a month, and that he has repeatedly obstructed in my attempts to reduce this type of material. The fact that the European Origins section is clearly WP:UNDUE relative to the South Asian section because of the addition of speculation proves my position. The GA process has failed, for whatever reason this will never be a good article, because of the edit-warring manner and the lack of desire to at least genuflect at the wiki-guides. The fact that the two major battlers in the HGH wiki-wars (AL and MW) agree that these types of articles should never be brought to GA review shows everyone their desire to place their own standards above that of the encyclopedia, to not make a great effort in accessibility and to propogate jargon and speculation. In the future, when you guys are involved in edit wars, please do not get me involved, it is clear that neither of you are working toward improving the encyclopedia you just want a place to insert your content. DGG, if you think I am this bad editor, just, please, stay here awhile and critique these folks and watch what happens.PB666 ^yap 18:32, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Deitiker, with all due respect you SCREWED the GA process up YOURSELF, and I even tried to warn you in good faith. What you say that AL and MW "agreed" is purely false. You are tilting at windmills.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:16, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

If thats the way you feel about it, expect an R1a1a page soon.PB666 ^yap 19:44, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

You already did it before, and it did not work. The reasons were explained politely to you at the time [19]. It would be a POV fork, as shown by the posting you have just made which explains that this is the intention. So it would be deleted.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:50, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

BTW just in case there in any slight chance you read anything you reply to, your response "if that is the way..." shows that you did not read the post you were replying to. It does not fit. It is like you read something else.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:52, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

With the whole Kurgan thing, eg, if a connection is mentioned by the authors, then we may mention it. This does not represent Andrew's personal view. However, we can then add a sentence of caution by stating that geneticists aren't linguists or archaeologists, their dating varies widely, and that their theories are largely speculative as they are representations of how they 'envisage' their data fits with their (often sub-optimal) knowledge of linguistics and archaeology. There are plenty of historians and archaeologists who have critiqued anthropology (physical and genetic), and its utility in explaining linguistic and archaeological spreads. So, if need be, this can be added

As a suggestion for layout, if this is going to be an issue (an I am happy with the current state of the article); one approach might be presenting the data in in the chronology of publication. Eg we can start with the year 2000 studies of Semino, Rosser, Wells (2001) and spell out how later studies have elaborated/ contradicted/ supported such findings. Hxseek (talk) 22:38, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

And AL and PD, you both need to cool down. It is apparent that what is going on here has transformed into a personal antagonism tather than constructive discussion about the article. Perhaps some time off would be an idea Hxseek (talk) 22:57, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I have no problem with what you say, the problem I have is de-emphasizing as a whole a section which by everyones account gives too much account to speculation. I also want to thank you for bringing up Klyosov, I had so rushed through the piece that I missed key points. Here is the basic problem, there is no simple way to go through this without going into excessive detail. I will try to keep it brief. Molecular clocking is the key issue, I am familiar with this because I have done molecular clocking. What happens with the best molecular clocks is some are very accurate in real time (current generations) and some are very accurate over species-length times (such as chimpanzee-human last common ancestor) very few models are accurate or can be verified in intermediate time frames. Even Klyosov admits that many STR variant lineages will be lost after 64,000 years (2/3rds). Here is the basic problem, there is a binomial probability distribution that can account for lineage length variation. This creates a confidence interval as things evolve, but it only works well if things always evolve away from shared points. If they evolve back to shared points then the confidence interval broadens greatly. When an author says he can correct for this like Zhivotovsky and Feldman, what they are talking about is an average correction. Lets take an example, Klysovo indicated that insertions were generally unitary (single steps) but deletions often occurred in pairs or triplicates. For a reversion to occur then one forward insertion, followed by a pair loss, and a forward insertion. That is three events lost to revert. In the case of a triplet loss, its four events. Those types of events marked shorten trees. In very, very bushy trees it is relatively easy to detect these, but in trees with long unbranching branches, these will be lost and undetectable. Therefore it is difficult to correct in some instances you cannot see. Correction in different trees requires different levels of corrections, and each attempt to correct widens the confidence interval.

The primary issue here is that authors, for example Klysovo says he can confidently estimate migration times to +/-2 to 20% depending on the clade (klysovo p.198). Whenever these types of tight confidence intervals have been stated in the literature, they have been subsequently refuted. Molecular clocking is a problem and over-confidence is another problem. So that people like myself that have studied molecular anthropology for a long time are dubious about such claims. Therefore we are also dubious about authors who assert with confidence that a certain gene was associated with a certain migration without some other form of evidence. It is true that Andronovo A-DNA sequences are ~4000 years old, however R-M17 in that general local could have been 2000 to 3000 years or older, not 15,000 years old, but maybe 8000. In addition even though the MRCA of R-M17 in Ural region is 4300 years in age, older than the 'Euro' grouping in India, the A-DNA did not fall into Indian clusters, but into local clusters, indicating that at least some inhabitants stayed behind. In addition tucked into klysovo 2009a, page 237 well away from other Europeans you will find that the Anatolian branch is also 4500 years and age, and even the Armenian branch at 3700 years is old enough to be the parent clades of Indian R1a1. But the author of the paper does not mention that the source of IE langauge and bronze age culture could also have given rise to Indian 'Euro' R-M17. That illustrates the key danger of placing these types of opinions into the Main page, because If I noticed this, (and particularly if _I_ notice) chances are that 10 other researchers will notice the same, and in 6 months we will have another paper refuting Klyosov's speculation with a new brand of speculation. And all the edit warring will start anew. The Kurgen/R-M17 association is based some authors estimation of the TMRCA and their particular desire to study nested haplotypes over a broad set of individual (or not). But there is no confidence in the TMRCA that allow us to confidently do this. And so the next author says it is LGM migration, then a third says it was a slavic migration, and then we battle it out because we don't understand the core nature of the variance issue. Wikipedia should not become a vessel of war-starting speculation, OTOH, we can mention a claim, cite that claim and cite the critique. New claims should then be reserved, waiting an amount of time such that the critical counter claims can be voiced.PB666 ^yap 02:52, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

A preliminary step to dealing with this is to stop blaming each other. It is clear that think that what the other one is adding is the wrong type of material. It is possible that each of you is right to some extent, though probably not equally--based on hundred of other such conflicts here. I don't want to try and analyze it. I never would want to: even if I were to take in hand revising the page, I would do it without reference to who it was that added any particular material. I don't want to see who;s wrong, I don't even really care. The sort of discussion you have been getting into is never helpful. There are four words you should not be using: "Deitiker", "Andrew" , "you" , and "I". I do not now have time to rewrite it though & I do not see why i should, for each of you probably knows more about it than I do. Stop focusing on the Wikipedia designation "Good article" and just try to make a good article in the ordinary sense of the term. DGG ( talk ) 03:42, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I did not care whether it passed or failed, my concern is that we get some outside POVs on readability.PB666 ^yap 04:32, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

The way we handle disputed scientific points is to give all the non-fringe views in appropriate proportion. We sometimes do use research articles, not reviews, in order to keep up with the pace of knowledge. We can't rely totally for objectivity on finding support in a review--the interpretation of topics like this tend to go by camps, and each camp usually writes their own review articles. It's not even unknown that they cite only their own group's publications. (I'm sure both of you know this ) The textbook consensus we say we try to rely on is usually many years away--and in rapidly moving fields, it will almost necessarily be wrong by the time it is published. There is no automatic way of writing an article--it relies upon judgment. The practical approach for doing this is to keep the conflict contained. A reasonably sure sign of trying to propagate a POV is to try to express the view in as many articles as possible. Keep the interpretation to a minim. The goal is to provide enough information about the actual genetics to make the genetics part of the various theories intelligible. DGG ( talk ) 03:42, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

DGG, I am not looking for critiques in the content, although the critique you have given has been very useful, you actually have a better feel for the problem than you let on. My problem concerns readability and understandability. There are articles concerning Y-DNA that literally drop the reader in a blender of jargon and expect them to figure it all out. This article was like that 6 weeks ago, lots of Jargon and many quotations on speculative material. Very few mainstream reviewers from wikipedia ever drop by and ask questions. The GA process was about shining some outside light on the situation so that we could get feedback about style and understandability, because, frankly its a problem that plagues the entire HGH project.PB666 ^yap 04:26, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

If you can read the entire article, from beginning to end and not be forced into endless searches on WP or the WWW for definitions and explanations, please tell us, and if not please tell us where the stumbling areas are.PB666 ^yap 04:32, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's right, and DGG made an understandable mistake. You are not making substantial points about content, but you are presenting it that way. Your real aim, as you have said many times, is to completely change the style of the article, and at the same time to educate other wikipedians about how to think critically, because you believe this kind of article, and the people who work on them, are not according to WP:MOS. But, as you have mentioned yourself [20], everyone seems to disagree with you and be opposed to this aim of yours. In any case, it is hard to see how these long postings about no subject in particular are helping either the content discussion, or the style.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:43, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

You're right, but this is not the appropriate article to clarify the basic tenets of genetic anthropology, haplogroup definitions, etc. Ideally, links would direct the reader to what an STR is (in terms of genetic geneaology), haplotype, haplogroup, etc.I believe these already exist. Hxseek (talk) 04:42, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

The pages are not so good, we need to work on these fundemental pages much more. I have undertaken to do the page on the chimp-human last common ancestor. I am going to leave the STR page to the Y-folks, hopefully if we can get some good outside critique on this page they will be motivated to improve those pages.PB666 ^yap 05:35, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

General subjects should be discussed at WP:HGH. You admit yourself you are over-loading this article and its webpage. There is enough work to do here given all the new articles which are being integrated.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:43, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

What we need to do is standardise nomenclature on this page, with others. This has already been done (as far as this article is concerned). As for sourcing, not to labour on about Klyosov, but any new article that has yet to be reviewed is still worthwhile. We as editors can reach a consensus on it by analyzing it in a manner anyone would appraise a scientific article. I do not think it has been given undue weight more than Kivisilids, or Underhill's. Your points about his methodology are interesting, and probably valid, but your personal disagreement with them do not warrant exclusion. Hxseek (talk) 04:42, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

So DGGs point is that if an article has other papers which mention similar things is better, and from my point of view if they use a different (or combine) study sets or different techniques, it is also better. If we look at Klyosov Chinese STR, no-one else has done this, and Sharma and Underhill have looked at Indian STRs and come up with different ages with different techniques, but between Sharman and Underhill their sample set is far more comprehensive, but they come to a different conclusion. So these two areas are stand-alone for Klyosov. As for Kurgan, Andronovo may have been the source of Indian R1a1, but the problem is what is the source of Andronovo, we assume this links ot Kurgan, but the bronze age technology and the language are from Anatolia, and likewise Anatolia just like Russia has older R1a1 than Andronovo, so why would we favor a Russian origin over an Anatolian origin. That is an oversight or minimally something Klyosov tested but did not elaborate upon (an oversight). If these things are added ad-libertum do not be surprised if 2 months down the road an edit war erupts over them.PB666 ^yap 05:35, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Couple of other points:

The page has grown by 10 kb just in the last week, its now becoming a hard read. I fell asleep in the origins section.

Some areas are becoming increasingly difficult to read, in and of themselves.PB666 ^yap 05:35, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I believe one of the most important criteria for GA status is a stable consensus on an articles content. If Pdeitiker you would like this article to be rated positively then you should be working to achieve consensus. This is something that you have not done, as I see little compromise with other parties involved.

One thing I agree with you is that there needs to be work on more of the fundamental pages. This is why it is quite difficult to solicit outside help on HGH articles because the technical detail tends to scare off many would-be editors. In an ideal world, one could read Wikipedia articles, and would have access to all relevant information without having to leave Wikipedia to understand a concept or find information. Unfortunately, this is still not the case for HGH articles, one still has to read external sources to understand Wikipedia articles.

I am not against any article in HGH being brought for review, but I am more concerned with the principle of a good article, than the actual GA rating which is a temporary anyway. If an article with a GA rating changes significantly, then it looses its GA rating, and would have to be go for a fresh GA review. Change is something we expect for R1a and Window dressing an article for GA review is likely to have short term effects only. My own opinion, which may not correct, is that taking R1a for GA review is like learning to run before learning to walk. If the article for R1a's parent haplogroup, R1 isn't in great shape, then how can R1a be. The same goes for R1. R1a is relatively young haplogroup, and therefore if the demographic events related to older haplogroups aren't clear on wikipedia, then it makes it much harder understand the younger ones. Wapondaponda (talk) 07:32, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

PB666, as has been explained several times by hxseek and myself, there is no mainstream theory which proposes that Indo-Aryan comes directly from Anatolia. According to both the Anatolian and Steppe theories of IE origins, Indo Aryan is a later branch which has a steppe origin. I think the only person to ever propose what you are talking about was Robert Drews, maybe 20 years ago. You are confusing this with the Anatolian theory of Renfrew and others.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:19, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

MW, I don't think your critique is valid, and BTW, if the R1 page is not in shape WP:SOFIXIT, where are you exactly in all these page improvements. Ah, that's right you create more of these disasters that need to be fixed. You gripe about this page, you gripe about ME page, lets see the genetic history or Europe with its quicksand first few sections, improve. Why don't you see if you can bring any one of these genetic histories of la-la land pages up for some kind of review. I did not create a single Y-DNA page, but somehow without my help we have these spawn running around the project that are encyclopedic bottomless pits of jargon. Second issue, why are you so afraid of self-improvement MW, why should we not be getting more external coverage an review. You guys have lots of excuses, but all are avoiding a basic and simple issue, these little pearls of wisdom should eventually _improve_. As for the claim of Andrew, I am simply pointing out that Klyosov's data had several possible interpretations, he is not a cultural or paleoanthropologist, and yet he is asserting just such a conclusion. In statistics there is a tradition, that all things should be treated as equal unless proven different. He does show similarities between E.European and the major subset of Western And S.E European, and he does show similarity between Ural and Russian, but where in the paper did he compare Anatolian R1a1 with anything by his STR analysis? Genetics may see things archaeology does not see, so that is not an excuse. But he draws heavily that Ural STRs (both modern and old) are of Russian descent, and that Indian subset called 'IndoEuropean' are of Russian desent, which is fine if no other sample groups out there, but there are.PB666 ^yap 14:03, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

It is Klyosov. That data can be interpreted in different ways is currently mentioned in the article. I think there is also a hint given that some key bits of data might be very important for him. As usual, I think it is best to stick what is really in the article, and not criticize things which are not actually in the article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:08, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

It is not a King, and we are not its subjects.PB666 ^yap 14:34, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Noted that you corrected the spelling now.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:42, 1 December 2009 (UTC)