Talk:Haplogroup E-M215/Archive 1

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E-M78alpha

I'm pretty sure it originated in East Africa, as per Semino et al. saying that E-M78 arose in the region, since the cluster has not been given a separate lineage yet (i.e. the implications of the cluster are not yet known), AFAIK. "Horn of Africa," is a better description since it probably arose in modern-day Somalia or southern Ethiopia/N. Kenya (among the Borana), for which "Northeast Africa" is a bit misleading since it implies an Egyptian or Sudanese origin moreso than a Somali/S. Ethiopian/N. Kenyan one. — ዮም | (Yom) | Talk • contribs • Ethiopia 09:29, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Okay on the Horn of Africa, but not the other two points.

1) E3b in Southeastern Europe (and indeed all of Europe) is dealt with in the third paragraph, so there's no need to specify "Southern Europe and Greece" in the second paragraph. "Traveled west" (from the Near East) suffices as a lead-in to the more detailed information that follows.

2) The alpha cluster is a mutation that arose in the Balkan peninsula of Europe from an earlier marker with a Near Eastern origin, according to Cruciani et al. 2004 :

"...the clinal frequency distribution of E-M78α within Europe testifies to important dispersal(s), most likely Neolithic or post-Neolithic. These took place from the Balkans, where the highest frequencies are observed, in all directions, as far as Iberia to the west and, most likely, also to Turkey to the southeast. Thus, it appears that, in Europe, the overall frequency pattern of the haplogroup E-M78, the most frequent E3b haplogroup in this region, is mostly contributed by a new molecular type that distinguishes it from the aboriginal E3b chromosomes from the Near East."

The East African connection is as distant as that of E-M81. And indeed, E-M78α is not found at all in the Horn of Africa (see Table 1, Table 2). ---- Small Victory

Cruciani 2007

Has any one of you read Cruciani's latest paper dated March 10, 2007? It should be at pubmed. It's hard to imagine someone responsible for this entry saying he/she is "pretty sure" of a fact of the character under discussion, but has not read Cruciani's latest work. He leaves no doubt about where he believes M78 originated (page 11). If you want to disagree with his plainly stated and carefully reasoned conclusion that's one thing, but for goodness sake read what he says first.

As for the old designation E-M78alpha, that "cluster" has been retired in favor of SNP V-13. Testing positive for this mutation and negative for V-27 presently defines subclade E3b1a2* according to ISOOG nomenclature. (see http://www.isogg.org/tree/ISOGG_HapgrpE07.html) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grandcross (talk • contribs) 04:32, 29 May 2007

Changes to E-M81

I remember reading this article some time ago when it included a mention of Sicily. I looked through the history and found a change, of 18 Feb 2007, that resulted this:

The characteristically Berber haplogroup, E3b2-M81, is the most common throughout the Maghreb region of North Africa and is absent in Europe, except for the Iberian peninsula and Sicily. It is considered to have entered the European continent as a result of Islamic domination over these regions of Southern Europe.[1]

Since then, it has been changed and no longer includes mention of Sicily.

I would like to ask why, why has it been changed and why Sicily, and the Iberian peninsula, have been excluded? Are the above statements not true? What relation is there between Sicily and E3b?

I am Sicilian-American, my father is 100% Sicilian, his father's father was born there. I would be very interested to know the answers to the above questions, and any other pertinent ones.

Thank you,

Calogero —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.21.105.129 (talk) 07:14, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Different lineages of e3b should be discussed

I think its important to differentiate from the different e3bs, the clades that are associated with caucasoids, ethiopids (proto-eurasians) and subsaharan africans. It is important, its one of the central arguments in Afrocentrism and the Nordicists say of southern europeans

e3b doesn’t mean a recent relatively recent African heritage…this shows DEEP ancestry in that region -ancestry that all people have (for people out of Africa this ancestry is specific to East Africa). E3b1 M78-alpha clade (which originated in the Balkans is the most common e3b in all Europe, esp. Balkan peoples including Albanians, Macedonians, Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, and Turks) evolved more recently than F did (20,000 vs. 45,000 years ago) and therefore more distantly related as far as splitting from the African lineages.

All haplogroups are related too and it took 10,000 years for E3b to split off from e3a –evolution takes a long time. It’s simple evolution. Its similar to the creation of a new species –with the exception that humans are the same species and haven’t diverged to the point that we can’t interbreed and produce viable offspring. The first humans started out as one INTERBREEDING POPULATION (with the same features, genotype, etc.), then there became a BARRIER TO GENE FLOW (East Africans vs. Sub-Saharan Africans), this barrier causes DIFFERIENTATION because of the different selective pressures–in phenotype and genotype (East Africans having the “elongated” features associated with caucasoids, but retaining pigmented (melanin, a natural sunblock) skin because they live in Africa- When the proto-Eurasians in East Africa (duscussed later) left Africa, some went to Europe and Asia they continued to differentiate and evolve to the environments where they settled. In Europe, this differentiation wasn’t as much because the first Paleolithic Europeans couldn’t go very far into Europe since it was covered with ice and too cold (not adapted for that environment -neandertal territory) during the last Ice Age, this caused them to be restricted to refugia in Iberia, Italy, and Greece and only expanded to the rest of Europe after the Last Glacial Maximum –which is why Europeans like English, Greeks, and Italians are very closely related; they’ve been living together for a long time and have only relatively recently been a separate population. http://www.huxford.com/Haplogroups

http://www.ajhg.org/AJHG/fulltext/S0002-9297(07)60950-1?large_figure=true http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3659/is_199902/ai_n8845695 http://www.citeulike.org/user/Archaeogenetics/article/511923 http://bp1.blogger.com/_Ish7688voT0/R6Nt4XlfrwI/AAAAAAAAAFA/NzaQHAnUOvI/s1600-h/pc300k.jpg (fig. from a study discussed on Dienekes' Anthropology Blog ) http://bp2.blogger.com/_Ish7688voT0/R4aBpZcxH4I/AAAAAAAAAEw/rCvdWN1dOhU/s1600-h/russians.jpg (fig. from study on Dienekes' Anthropology Blog) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_history_of_Europe

To say that southern Europeans are Africans NOW because e3b came out of Africa, and African Somalis are the original bearers of e3b and they are somewhat close to Sub Saharan Africans that populate the rest of Africa is a slippery slope. Everybody came out of Africa. There are significant and distinct stages in phenotype and genotype that lead to the different founding populations of the world since people left Africa.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B8JDD-4R1WP1R-X&_user=137179&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000011439&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=137179&md5=313fe3e15d387b81224b265dd3f97737

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2004/09/racial-affinities-of-prehistoric-east.html

East African (particularly Somalis and Ethiopians) populations is where e3b1 originated and is the trademark of the first people to come out of Africa, the Proto-EURASIANS that populated the rest of the globe, their distinct Eurasian characteristics are NOT because of recent admixture with Near Easterners or other caucasoids.

http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v13/n7/full/5201390a.html http://www.biodiversityforum.com/aethiopid-ethiopid-genetics-t2132.html (discussed are studies that involving Ethiopian phenotypes and genotypes-including figures from these studies) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_human_migrations

PREHISTORIC East Africans aren’t like Sub-Saharan Africans, who were evolving in a different direction because of selective pressures in the tropical Niger Congo basin, who are considered by scientists as "True" Negroids in PHENOTYPE AND GENOTYPE.

http://racialreality.blogspot.com/2005/11/caucasoid-affinities-of-somalis.html http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2007/03/x-chromosome-haplotype-of-recent-origin.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somali_people#Genetics

The spread of e3b1 came into Europe from the Near East during the Neolithic, when they spread agriculture and there Afro-Asiatic language (the people who characterize this movement are the North African Berbers).

http://dienekes.ifreepages.com/blog/archives/000531.html (Dienekes' Anthropology Blog discussing a study done on the e3b haplogroup) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E3b

To end, dont believe bias, Skopjian propoganda...like this debunked, ill-merited genetic study done by Arnaiz-Villena published in the obscure Tissue Antigens, it has been flamed by four world renowned geneticists including pioneer Dr. Cavalli Sforza >

http://racialreality.blogspot.com/2004/09/study-clarification-ii.html)

DISCLAIMER: I’m no expert and I am not an authority on genetics..its just a sort of a interesting hobby for me, so some of the information in here might be wrong -I tried to only say things that I could back up with credible people in the sources I cited. Obviously the average joes on the blogs discussing genetic studies arent authorities on genetics, but people who did the studies being discussed are (except for Deinekes).

Just my two cents. 134.121.247.116 (talk) 08:36, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion: add "old" names of E3b into article

Since people are clicking on E3b to find out about E3b, you might want to add in brackets all the previous names of this haplogroup as it keeps changing. I.e. M78 (formerly known as E3b1, E3b1a, and now whatever they call it), E3b1a1, E3b1a2, etc... Hkp-avniel (talk) 17:49, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Changes today

I saw some knee-jerk reversions when I started working on this today. Please note that sources would be easy to provide wherever requested, but obviously they'll constantly be to the same sources, and even in academic articles such tedium is not common. In any case, please make remarks about what is missing or wrong first, as is appropriate after a major change. Do not just knee-jerk reverse.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:09, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

My reversion of your unjustified, unsourced, wholesale edits to this article are, again, based on the fact that they are not referenced, are unexplained, revert already sourced material, and mired in what is irrelevant minutiae to the average Wiki reader. Causteau (talk) 19:14, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Please look through what has been changed. The problems were obvious. Just for example: M215 defines the clade, and not M35, different dates were given for the same events in different parts of the article. And so on. Your reasons for reversion are also not founded: the sources are the same as before. In fact some of the wrong were found by just looking up the articles that were supposedly used before. And you are not the marketing manager: you do not get to say that there is too much detail. I am going to repeat the reversion. If you want to call in a moderator I would have no problem with that, but I'd also have no problem with discussing changes to the article in real detail. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:55, 16 May 2008 (UTC)(talk) 20:35, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

The adjustment of the dates are just one of many problems with your edit since they are outdated. You've also included a lot of unreferenced and irrelevant technical information in place of or alongside existing information already covered in the reference section. I have therefore adjusted your recent edits to remove the factually wrong and tangential and/or unreferenced information which includes:

1) Almost all men with the mutation M215, also have the mutation M35, which means that they are currently designated as being in E1b1b1. (As with other haplogroup names, the speed of new discoveries is leading many writers to use simpler names which simply refer to the SNP being considered, for example E-M215 or E-M35.) -- Unreferenced.

It is exactly the definition mentioned all the references of the article, and there was no reference in the older text which was more specific than that.--80.200.59.250 (talk) 23:02, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

If this is "exactly the definition mentioned [in] all the references of the article", then it shouldn't be very hard to cite the exact quote where you got it from should it? 76.65.182.164 (talk) 02:14, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

There are general references to key articles relevant to the whole Wikipedia article under discussion. I will now put in a more clumsy reference into the text, because you insist, but this is in my opinion poor style. And in any case if this was your concern, why did you not just put in a reference, and why did you revert to an older text which is no different in this respect? You also have not answered my contention that the older version you are defending gives different dates for the same events. Surely something had to change? And why did it need to have two sections covering the timing of the origin of M215? And if it did need this repetition, then how do you justify now arguing that discussion of the timing of M215's first appearance is irrelevant?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Clumsy or not, references are the only way to ensure verifiability, one of Wikipedia's central policies. You have yet to include that reference you promised, so until you do, your assertion may be removed. Causteau (talk) 12:36, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

You know very well that your edit war is what stopped the process of working on the article, because now I have to spend time justifying everything, and you also know that in terms of comparison between the new and the old article, this is irrelevant. The old article had no reference either. You also know that the article does have references. The only question is concerning putting the references in every sentence, which is what you are implying Wikipedia requires. That is frankly ridiculous.--217.136.96.109 (talk) 13:35, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

What started the edit war was a bilateral refusal to accommodate any changes by the other party. However, one of the factors that ensured that the edit war would happen is your repeated refusal to provide verification for statements you wished the world to read and consider factual. If your statements are indeed factual, I ask you, how hard is it to present quotes from sources backing up what you say? For example, you asked me here to defend the phrase "the most commonly distributed E1b1b sub-branch is E1b1b1a", and I dutifully complied by providing a quote directly from a Cruciani paper. Where have you made any such effort on this page? Causteau (talk) 23:09, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Well that is plain wrong. You never suggested or made any normal edits which were not accomodated by me. Doing full reverts on other people's changes is not making changes in the sense implied above. Concerning verifiability, I did not worsen the article, but we can work on this together if you want. I am trying to make you discuss the details below, so please should your good intentions there. But can I please ask you to follow Elonka's advice and tag specific places which you think need a specific reference? It might help understand the point you are making. Of course I fully expect that most of them will be on parts of the text which were already in the old text!:)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:14, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

2) M215 and M35 are believed to have first appeared in the Horn of Africa approximately 26,000 years ago, amongst populations who already had the mutations DYS391p, P2 (or PN2), P179, P180, and P181. P2 is considered the defining mutation. P2 is thought to have first appeared somewhere in Eastern Africa, possibly not far from where M215 and M35 later appeared, although such speculations become increasingly difficult as we go further back in time. -- Unreferenced and contains irrevelant information. Stating that "the following is as per Cruciani et al's various articles and the ISOGG tree" is too vague, especially with regard to the statement that PN2 is "considered [a weasel word; by whom?] to be the defining mutation"; exact footnotes are required.

The reference is more specific than any reference in what was replaced. None of the references of the article before I changed it disagree on this point. If exact footnotes are required, great, put those in. They were not there before, so putting in the old text has made the situation no better in that respect.--80.200.59.250 (talk) 23:02, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey, you're the one that made the edits. The burden of proof is therefore squarely on your shoulders, not on mine or on those of any other Wiki user. The fact remains that you need to support your claims, I shouldn't have to do it for you. 76.65.182.164 (talk) 02:14, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Well no, in Wikipedia there is no assumption that earlier editors somehow own an article and have a right to do full reverts. Full reverts are intended for vandalism. There is no "burden of proof" rule except that we all have to convince each other and all other editors and potential editors equally. You have no higher rights than I do, and you are equally in a position where you have a burden of proof. So please get off your high horse and explain whether you seriously wish to state that E1b1b is defined by M35. If you agree that was wrong, then why on earth do insist on leaving it there? Because the large-scale effort annoyed you?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Stating that "exact footnotes are required" is an obvious reference to the quote in #2 that was being critiqued. It has nothing to do with any uppity behavior (kindly stop trying to make this personal). Again, per Wiki's attribution policy, "editors should provide attribution for quotations and for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, or it may be removed." As for the inclusion of your phrase that E1b1b "is defined by the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) mutation M215," I have no problem with that since it is actually relevant to the page provided you can supply a reference for it. Causteau (talk) 12:36, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I can and you can also. This is disingenuous. M215 is given as the defining SNP in all the articles mentioned in the references already. And once again, the new version is no worse referenced than the old version, and so reversion is not justified in that respect. The aim is to make the article better, surely? In any case, to do a full revert like you've been doing is nothing to do with normal Wikipedia behavior. --217.136.96.109 (talk) 13:35, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Again, I ask you, why do you insist on running around the issue? The issue in this particular area of the page is the inclusion of the phrase "is defined by the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) mutation M215," in your edit. I already clearly wrote that I have no problem with that statement provided you can provide a direct quote here on this page from a study which backs it up. You've already suggested that M215 defining E1b1b is the new standard, so it shouldn't be difficult proving it is. Wiki readers need to know that the edits they are reading are based in fact and not on personal assurances from editors. Causteau (talk) 23:09, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Please focus on the discussion section below where I have given concrete proposals about this matter. As mentioned there the best reference seems to be Cruciani 2004, but there are complexities. I therefore want your comment on those, and perhaps we can move forward!--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:14, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean P2? P2 is relevant because the origins and nearest relatives of the clade under discussion are clearly relevant, and they were discussed, but with errors, in the older version. --80.200.59.250 (talk) 23:02, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

No, I mean PN2, as employed by Underhill et al. PN2 is indeed not relevant to this particular page. This is why Cruciani never even bothered to delve into its origin in order to go about explaining the origin of E3b. He just cut straight to the point: We obtained an estimate of 25.6 thousand years (ky) (95% CI 24.3–27.4 ky) for the TMRCA of the 509 haplogroup E3b chromosomes, which is close to the ky estimate for the age of the M35 mutation 306 reported by Bosch et al. (2001) using a different method. Several observations point to eastern Africa as the homeland for haplogroup E3b—that is, it had (1) the highest number of different E3b clades (table 1), (2) a high frequency of this haplogroup and a high microsatellite diversity, and, finally, (3) the exclusive presence of the undifferentiated E3b* paragroup. ->from Phylogeographic Analysis of Haplogroup E3b (E-M215) Y Chromosomes Reveals Multiple Migratory Events Within and Out Of Africa 76.65.182.164 (talk) 02:14, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Cruciani and his group (actually the older versions of the article are wrong in writing as if he writes alone) has written many articles about specific points, but nothing which is meant to cover E-M215 like an encyclopedia article, so you have to put together things from different articles, of course! But he certainly does refer to P2, which is the more common name for PN2. The quote you cite here is of course a source for both my version, and the older version.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Adding a simple "et al." after "Cruciani" is only a formality and definitely feasible.

So why did you revert it? And now that you've admitted that many of my changes were improvements, why do you revert those? There is something basically wrong with your approach here.--217.136.96.109 (talk) 13:35, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

What I am doing there is what I thought and hoped you had been doing, and that is making comprises in order to reach a mutually acceptable final edit. When I posted that statement above, you had already posted your let's-put-a-moratorium-on-reverting sign on the main page, so I honored that wish in order to actually try and reach that compromise. I never reverted the main page after having posted that comment. That is a figment of your imagination and belied by the time stamps on the postings. Causteau (talk) 23:09, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

OK. But the comment you are complaining about was in past tense: "why did you revert it?" I did not mean to imply that you'd done it one more time, yet.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:14, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

That said, in the quote supplied with regard to the origins of haplogroup E3b, Cruciani clearly did not need to refer to PN2. Why would he? He already explained where E3b originated and how he knows that, and it has nothing to do with the fact that "P2 is thought to have first appeared somewhere in Eastern Africa" or that "P2 is the defining mutation", information already covered on the E main page. Those statements are, again, irrelevant to the origins of E3b. What is relevant is the Cruciani quote, which is both authoritative and concise. Causteau (talk) 12:36, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

This is even more true considering the fact that Cruciani has already made clear why he believes E3b originated in East Africa, and it has nothing to do with PN2: "The high frequency of this clade (table 1) and its high microsatellite diversity suggest that it originated in eastern Africa, 23.2 ky ago (95% CI 21.1–25.4 ky)" -> from Phylogeographic Analysis of Haplogroup E3b (E-M215) Y Chromosomes Reveals Multiple Migratory Events Within and Out Of Africa

The quote you have given is concerning M78, not M215. Read the article.--80.200.59.250 (talk) 23:02, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I know. My bad. The correct quote is above. 76.65.182.164 (talk) 02:14, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

So are you also going to keep insisting that Cruciani says that E3b "has nothing to do with PN2"? PN2, as explained in the article you keep reverting over, is an alternative name for P2, and Cruciani clearly names P2 many times?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

You are quoting out of context. What has "nothing to do with PN2" is "why Cruciani believes E3b originated in East Africa," not that "E3b has nothing to do with PN2" as you've somehow concluded. Causteau (talk) 12:36, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I do not follow. Are you saying that the edits I made disagree with E3b originating in East Africa?--217.136.96.109 (talk) 13:35, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

No, I am not saying that at all. What I am saying is that Cruciani has already established that E1b1b has its origins in East Africa and how exactly he knows that (high microsatellite diversity, high frequency, etc.). I am saying his reasons for reaching this conclusion about the origin of E1b1b -- as cited by himself in the quote above -- has nothing to do with where "P2 is thought to have first appeared" or what "the other major haplogroup of E-P2 (E1b1)", namely, E3a, is defined by. Those are superfluous statements you keep inserting into your edits, and they are already covered on the parent Haplogroup E page. Causteau (talk) 23:09, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

So are you saying that the present text as proposed by me implies that Cruciani drew his conclusions about the age of M215 based upon something about P2? I really don't see how. What is your point here?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:14, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

3) Collectively, the E-P2 branches of the human family tree of male lines are currently referred to as E1b1 (formerly E3). Apart from the M215/M35 (E1b1b/E1b1b1) branch which this article describes, the other major haplogroup of E-P2 (E1b1) is E1b1a (formerly E3a), which is defined by M2 (also known as DYS271 or SY81), but also shows mutations such as M180/P88, P1/PN1, P46, P182, P189, P211, and P293. -- How E3 is currently referred to and the other major haplogroup that characterize it is irrelevant information that has nothing to do with the origins of E3b/E1b1b already cited in the previous edit. This is a page on E1b1b, not E3/P2 or E3a/E1b1a.

How on earth can that be irrelevant information?--80.200.59.250 (talk) 23:02, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

For the reasons I've already cited and Cruciani enumerated above. 76.65.182.164 (talk) 02:14, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

You have given no such reasons, and no such arguments from Cruciani. Read the Cruciani et al articles again please.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

What's not to understand? How E3 is currently referred to and the other major haplogroup that characterizes it -- information that is already included on the E main page, where it belongs -- is, as the quote above drawn from your edit insists on mentioning, not relevant to which population E1b1b first appeared in and how we know that it is that population where E1b1b did, in fact, originate. The Cruciani quote does all of that, and in one fell swoop. Causteau (talk) 12:36, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

So you are really arguing that we should not talk about the ancestral population from which M-215 sprung at all, or what are you arguing? It seems bizarre to suggest that articles with over-lapping subject matter may not cover some of the same facts.--217.136.96.109 (talk) 13:35, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

That's not what I'm debating. I'm stating quite plainly that how E3 is currently referred to and where it originated as well as what the other major haplogroup that characterizes it (namely, E3a) is defined by -- information you keep including in your reverts -- has no bearing on the origins of E1b1b in East Africa. It has no bearing on how we know in the first place that E1b1b has its origins in a population there. High microsatellite diversity, high frequency, etc. as Cruciani has plainly stated does. There's therefore nothing "bizarre" about not being eager to saturate the page with irrelevant trivia like the aforementioned. Causteau (talk) 23:09, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

If you want to include comments about high satellite diversity and the way the likely origin story has been developed by Cruciani and others that sounds really great. But how is that in conflict with my edits? I really don't see your point. You are saying that certain aspects of the origins of M215 should not be included in the origins section, aren't you? So why do you keep mentioning yet other aspects as things which are missing? What is the link?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:14, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

4)More generally, all major E haplogroups are native to the continent of Africa, with branches being found in all parts of Africa, with some sub-branches possibly having been founded in the Middle East. -- Again, this is a page on E3b/E1b1b, not "all major E haplogroups"; the only information that is relevant to this page is where E3b originated and where it spread to, not where the other E clades came about, who carries them, or what have you.

Again, before I edited this page, there was already a section called "Origins" which was very poor. To discuss the origins of M215, you need to mention --- the origins.--80.200.59.250 (talk) 23:02, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

No you don't, and the Cruciani quote above alone is proof of that. 76.65.182.164 (talk) 02:14, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Cruciani both the probable place where M215 first appeared, and the defining SNP of the parent haplogroup, which is P2.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Cruciani already covers the origins of E1b1b in East Africa and how we know it originated with a population there. And the PN2 and E3a information you are proposing we include is already covered on the E main page, where it belongs. Causteau (talk) 12:36, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

5)It should however be mentioned that both are associated with the Mediterranean, and so they have possibly been subject to more study due to their proximity to Europe. -- Unreferenced. Sounds a lot like original research too.

Compare it to what it replaced, which was the opposite. To me this seems a neutral observation aimed at avoiding misunderstandings, and only based on the reference material, but in any case what it replaced is a theme of ignoring the majority of M215 diversity, which is in Africa.--80.200.59.250 (talk) 23:02, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Gutting the article of a useful timeline of the birth and spread of E3b from East Africa into North Africa and into Europe that's amply supported by the studies listed in the reference section for a one-line piece of pure, unsupported speculation does not constitute an improvement. 76.65.182.164 (talk) 02:14, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

The useful timeline was in conflict with the Origins section, and in fact although stated to be a timeline, it was a mishmash of comments written in a very poor style. It appeared in a section which was supposedly about M78, but actually apparently referred to random citations from throughout Cruciani which were not all about M78. If you can make a truly useful timeline for the article that would be great.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you that the timeline section could definitely use some work as far as writing is concerned. However, the overall structuring makes perfect sense. The timeline is listed under M78, and indeed is mostly about it. M78 is obviously the most prevalent sub-clade of E1b1b and therefore deserves a slightly lengthier treatment, as it counts the most carriers. I will try and tighten this section up. Feel free to add suggestions as to how you think it can be improved. Causteau (talk) 12:36, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Define prevalent, and give a source. You should work by the standards you say everyone else should. For further comments see below in the section by section comments I have spent a lot of time on in order to try to be constructive.--217.136.96.109 (talk) 13:35, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I already provided you with a source that states the prevalence (meaning how commonly it is found) of M78 among sub-clades of E1b1b quite bluntly: "Haplogroup E-M78 was observed over a wide area, including eastern (21.5%) and northern (18.5%) Africa, the Near East (5.8%), and Europe (7.2%), where it represents by far the most common E3b subhaplogroup." (Cruciani et al. 2004) Causteau (talk) 23:09, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

6)Again, estimations of age are difficult and vary greatly, but M78's age has been estimated at about 22 thousand years, though some estimations are significantly more recent. This means it is not necessarily significantly older than M215 itself. It probably originated within the same communities in the Horn of Africa. -- Information in bold is outdated. According to the latest estimate from Karafet et al., Haplogroup E as a whole is "older than previously estimated, originating approximately 50,000 years ago," and the age of E1b1 is pushed back to around 48,000 years ago (39,300-54,700 years ago).

If that is the latest information, then why not reference into the article. Why do a full revert to defend the old version of the article which made no such remahttp://en.wikipedia.org/skins-1.5/common/images/button_italic.png

Italic textrk?--80.200.59.250 (talk) 23:02, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

A full revert was necessary for the reasons plainly stated above and below. I won't insert the information on the date of haplogroup E or E1b1 because, again, this is a page devoted to haplogroup E1b1b. When the new, older dates specifically for E1b1b are made available, rest assured, I will personally insert them. Far better to include something that's actually up-to-date and relevant than to mislead the reading public with obsolete or speculative info.76.65.182.164 (talk) 02:14, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

You are resisting plainly stating anything about your full revert strategy. Remember that you did not want to discuss anything, and when I insisted you have taken the attitude that only one of us has to prove anything? The dates that are currently in the article are more clearly stated and coherent than in the old article. Of course you can put in more up-to-date information or fix any errors.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Who's resisting what? A blind man can see who has really done the most justifying, the most quoting, the most linking to actual references. We can resolve this issue alright... provided we both agree to some sort of compromise. But in this particular instance, there isn't much compromise to make since your edit differs by literally one date if we don't count the timeline which yours lacks. So now what you need to do is show that the 10,000 Western Asia date for E1b1b1a2 that you have proposed in the face of the latest ages suggested by Karafet et al. is legit by providing an actual reference. Causteau (talk) 12:36, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

7)The timing of this clade is strongly suggestive that it was brought to Europe along with early farming and pottery technologies, along with some J haplotypes. -- Unreferenced.

Easy to fix once again, and once again not something that differs with the old version, which made similar statements with a similar lack of reference.--80.200.59.250 (talk) 23:02, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

If the assertion that farming and pottery technologies were first introduced into Europe by Neolithic migrants from North Africa or the Near East -- a suggestion made nowhere in the version you edited -- is indeed easy to prove, then please prove it. Such a suggestion won't go unchallenged, you know. 76.65.182.164 (talk) 02:14, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

That is fine. The old version you keep insisting upon refers to "neolithic agriculturalists". See Neolithic.

"Neolithic agriculturists" does not amount to being the first to introduce farming and pottery technologies into Europe, as your quote appears to be suggesting. If the Neolithic agriculturists were indeed pioneers in that regard, then a simple footnote should cover the matter. Causteau (talk) 12:36, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Aside from the above issues, your new edit seems fine to me. 76.65.182.164 (talk) 22:40, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

You obviously have some information at hand which could improve the article. That would be great. So why not do that instead of reverting to a version which is worse concerning every criticism you make?--80.200.59.250 (talk) 23:02, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Again, I reverted your edit to the far superior one that preceded it for the reasons enumerated above. 76.65.182.164 (talk) 02:14, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

You have never pointed to anything superior in your preferred version. Everything you do not like in the new version is the same or worse in the old version. Improvements to the new version which you seem to want sound fine. But why on earth would you keep replacing the article with one which has none of those improvements which you supposedly want?

The version of the article that existed before your edit is not perfect. I don't believe anyone ever claimed it was. What was claimed was that it is preferable to yours because it is by and large sourced, and it doesn't include any irrelevant information already included on other pages. It's not a question of what that version has over yours, but what it lacks that makes it preferable to the version you edited. Causteau (talk) 12:36, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

This is where I really think your approach shows its problems. The aim of any proper Wikipedia article edit is to make it better, even if not yet perfect. We've gotten to the point where you are admitting that your reverts were opposed to this principle. Instead you can therefore only justify the reverts by comparison to a version which does not yet exist, a more perfect version.--217.136.96.109 (talk) 13:35, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

No, I'm not admitting any such thing or making any such comparison (what on Earth?). I'm saying, in plain language, that the version you reverted was flawed, but, by the same token, the version you replaced it with is even more flawed per the reasons outlined ad nauseam on this page. Whatever the case, we should indeed work together to try and create an edit we can both agree on. Causteau (talk) 23:09, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

If someone replaces a flawed article with a more flawed article, then they are making the article worse right?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:14, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Concerning the old edit which you want, may I ask you to defend a few assertions?

"The most commonly distributed E1b1b sub-branch is E1b1b1a."

Sure: "Haplogroup E-M78 was observed over a wide area, including eastern (21.5%) and northern (18.5%) Africa, the Near East (5.8%), and Europe (7.2%), where it represents by far the most common E3b subhaplogroup." (Cruciani et al. 2004) Causteau (talk) 12:36, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Well if that is your source, the text was plain wrong. Widely distributed does not mean most commonly distributed. And most common in Europe does not mean most common.--217.136.96.109 (talk) 13:35, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Are you serious? M78 is hands down "the most commonly distributed E1b1b sub-branch". The Cruciani quote states this point blank: "Haplogroup E-M78 was observed over a wide area, including eastern (21.5%) and northern (18.5%) Africa, the Near East (5.8%), and Europe (7.2%), where it represents by far the most common E3b subhaplogroup." It's not just in Europe as you've somehow deduced, but East and North Africa, and the Near East as well. Causteau (talk) 23:09, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

And the following is described as a phase in the history of M78...

"Sometime in the Upper Paleolithic, between 23.9 and 17.3ky ago, E1b1b (M215) bearing chromosomes first appeared in Eastern Africa [Cruciani et al. 2004]."

Good observation. I've tracked that TMRCA down to M78 per Cruciani et al. 2007, and not E1b1b as stated in the edit. This too has now been corrected. Causteau (talk) 12:36, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

And how about steps 3 and 4 in the timeline? 3 is from a theory about what might be a sidetrack, but presented as if it is explaining the source of all European E3b. 4, probably happened before 3, and certainly seems to have happened before the main introduction of M78 into Europe at least according to most of the sources referenced. At the very least these two points need clarification and re-working if they are to be re-included. At the moment they are confusing and arguably wrong.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with you that these two latter points need reworking. Causteau (talk) 12:36, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I beg you to please now look at the more detailed comments below. I have spent time on them. I think they show my intentions. I think that by working on this discussion page we should be able to agree on texts fairly easily. Just stop doing full reverts! To me it is striking that once you've had to respond to even basic comments, you show very little difference in opinion from me. Your basic reason for reverts is, or at least seems to be, just the surprise of seeing a big group of edits start to appear on an article that has been quiet for a long time. Please get over that and help me make this article better.--217.136.96.109 (talk) 13:35, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Good post. Believe me, I want to resolve this issue as quickly as you do. Let's get to work below. Causteau (talk) 23:09, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

2 competing versions: attempt to move forward

We presently have an old version of the article being defended by Causteau, and a newer version or versions, resulting from edits I have been making over recent days. These edits are certainly unfinished work and can be improved upon, but this has slowed to a virtual stop because as each edit is being put in Causteau is reverting wholesale. In other words we have a revert war. Attempts to discuss this have so far not gone very far. See above. But some issues seem to be identified which are GENERAL issues, that Causteau apparently sees as reasons for a GENERAL revert.

1. "Burden of Proof". Causteau believes that a newer edit has a burden of proof on Wikipedia. I believe that all edits are equal in this respect on Wikipedia. I mean that old edits and new edits can equally be called upon to justify themselves, and are equally exposed to editing by others if they do not convince.

However I do think that it is in the spirit of Wikipedia that there is a burden of proof upon anyone doing a full revert rather than a normal re-edit. Full reverts are for extreme cases such as vandalism, and treating an edit this way for something like a point of style is way out of line.

No one knows better what I believe than myself. And what I believe is what Wikipedia believes: That an editor should provide attribution for quotations and for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, or it may be removed. Causteau (talk) 13:59, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Please stop this. This is a meaningless comment you keep making. Pretty much anything can be removed from Wikpedia. The quesiton is whether a full revert was justified, and this is connected to whether the edits I made were worse. To repeat it one more time, the old article which you reverted to also had not citation on every sentence, and not having a citation on every sentence is not the same as having no references. That's it. Please get over it and stop trying to justify what you clearly can not. Let's just try to make the article better.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:37, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

2. Sourcing. Causteau justifies treating the new edits like vandalism because they are "unsourced". This seems extreme to me, but also disingenous. The newer edits can possibly give more sources (remember I was stopped from working) but on the other hand:

A really lame attempt at trying to paint me as the "bad guy" to salvage your edit. I asked you repeatedly not to make this personal, but you just don't seem to want it any other way. Whatever the case, the fact remains that you changed virtually the entire article without so much as leaving a justification or any references whatsoever, and no amount of spin on your part and misrepresenting my words and actions can change that. Causteau (talk) 13:59, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

You can hardly have even read what you reverted, as is clear now. The fact is that I made some quite basic corrections. There were lots, because lots were needed. More are still needed. You've said that you admit this. Your position is getting so confusing because you are most interested in justifying past actions. No wonder that makes the discussion look personal. Let's just look at the article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:37, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

• They contain no less sourcing than the old version

Correction: Your wholesale edit contained exactly the same references as the old edit... but for a bunch of new information, essentially rendering them worthless.

...and yet, you claimed that your justification for a full revert was lack of sourcing, which of course implies that the version reverted to was better in this respect.

Where, for example, does it state in the references that farming and pottery technologies were first introduced into Europe by Neolithic migrants from Northeast Africa like you insinuated in your intial edits? Causteau (talk) 13:59, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Let's discuss that in detail below, but for example, just looking quickly Cruciani 2007 refers to this as a theory, even though they now go in another direction because of their new estimate. By the way, you realize that I changed this section for you some time ago or not? I mean you've still been reverting it! It does seem clear that you see no reason to read the edits before reverting. Lots of edits means you feel justified to revert fully, right?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:37, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

• This a short article with only a handfull of key references, and those references do not disagree on much at all. To take one example specifically used by Causteau, that M215 defines the haplogroup under discussion can even be seen in the titles of some of the references. In any case Causteau's knowledge level on this subject makes it unbelievable to me that he is honestly proposing that this haplogroup is defined by several different SNPs.

That's plain untrue. Anyone reading this can scroll the page for references of me "defending" that definition, and they are sure to come up empty handed.

Honestly? Look at the title of Cruciani et al 2004.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:55, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

What I was doing was what I've been doing all along: Asking you to produce evidence to support your claims. Prove that what you are saying is indeed verifiable by pointing out actual passages from the literature. How hard is that to do? I've done it several times on this page alone at your request with very little reciprocation... and I'm not even the one that edited the page! Causteau (talk) 13:59, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

No just you just did a few full reverts :). Can we get serious please? You have clearly made the more controversial style of impact on the article. Full reverts are a nuclear option. Large scale edits are encouraged in Wikipedia. My edits did not change many of the facts and figures. The old version is incoherent. You've already admitted that.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:37, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

• Inserting detailed references for every sentence, which would in most cases have to refer to all the articles all the time, simply seems to me to be a style question.

Straw man argument. I never asked you to insert "detailed references for every sentence". I asked you to render your claims verifiable per Wikipedia's policies. Causteau (talk) 13:59, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Honestly, if that is not what you meant, then I can't follow. This can best be discussed by looking below at the real passages you reverted from and to. That's the only way.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:37, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

So given the above awkward situation I propose that reverts please stop, and we base ourselves on normal editing. For this revert I have been reverting the reverts, always back to the last "normally edited" version. Instead we should go through section by section...

• Introduction
• Origins of M215
• The sub clades introduction, which Causteau wants to remove entirely
• M78, not including the timeline and sub-clusters
• the M78 timeline, which I have removed entirely, but which I think might possibly be fixable
• The M78 subclusters
• M81

I think everyone should give their opinions on both subjects. For each section, I'll post both latest proposals below, and then we should point to EXACTLY what we are saying about each version.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 08:06, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Were I a cynic, I would be inclined to believe that what you're really trying to do here is twofold: 1)Spin the facts of your initial wholesale, unjustified, unreferenced edits in your favor by deliberately misrepresenting my actions and statements, and 2)Draft this whole new "team"-editing charade to essentially freeze the page as you personally want it under the guise of "cooperation". All I hope is that you prove me wrong. Causteau (talk) 13:59, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Good thing you are so non-"personal"! :) I think my intentions are quite obvious. Do I want the page to go back to a worse version? No. And I can not understand why you do, or at least why your deliberate actions have been purely to that effect. (Claiming that Wikipedia rules forced your hand is just plain silly.)

Do I have any problem if someone improves upon what I do? No I absolutely do not.

You are very welcome to put in the sources, which you also know, and which were never better in any previous versions. But of course, contrary to the basic spirit of Wikipedia, editing to make improvements, where you see possible improvements, is what you so far refuse to do.

So how can you make any accusations about me stopping you? You edited only by doing full reverts. Try some focused edits.

I think I have absolutely no reason to hide the fact that I think that full reverts should be avoided in future. If trying to work with you stops the article being reverted like that to a worse version, then that is good, but the aim is certainly to go beyond what I have done.

Now, if I were a cynic, I'd say all your efforts so far have been focused upon trying to avoid the edits being kept, because you found it over-"bold" that there were so many edits. (I just happened to have time!) This is even though you have not once argued that the edits made the article worse concerning pure statements of fact, and your implied argument that the article is now less verifiable fall apart when examined.

Let me make a joke. Maybe your tone in the passage I am replying to is meant to make it look excusable when you make no effort at all to work with me on the article.

For example, perhaps your desperate interest in citation quality, despite the fact that you stand like a knight defending an article without citations, is fake. Or maybe not!

Maybe your intention is to force me to do the grunt work for you by threatening to otherwise delete edits which are otherwise agreeable to you. :) Well, if your intentions are even that good, then I will still try to cooperate.

--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:37, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

What's really frustrating about arguing with you Andrew is that you and I are too much alike. Like me, you feel compelled to answer every last rejoinder, every last reply, and this ultimately leaves us both with a heap of counter-arguments to make. While we both know I could very easily answer every last one of the statements you've left above, doing so won't get us any closer to actually resolving this headache. That said, it's very irresponsible of you and, frankly, more than a little offensive to suggest that I'm not trying to resolve this issue when I've spent the better part of the past few days analyzing your edit, pointing out its flaws, admitting to the flaws in the edit I chose over yours, all in an effort to reach a better ultimate version. There's no question the reverts have got to stop. If I didn't think this was the case, if I was so opposed to compromise as you claim, I would've reverted your latest edit the minute I first caught sight of it early this morning. But I didn't do that did I? Right. Let's get to work. Causteau (talk) 23:11, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Upon consideration I think it is worth saying that I have no particular problem with your compulsions to answer when in debate. That was not the problem, and is not the problem. Whether I am similar in the way I discuss things seems irrelevant also. I think it needs to be pinned down that the problem this article had did not come from bad debate, it came from full reverts, instead of debate. When you say that "if I was so opposed to compromise as you claim, I would've reverted your latest edit the minute I first caught sight of it early this morning" this is what made me feel I should respond. Reverts are for vandalism or other extreme cases, you should not even be thinking in this direction.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:04, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Introduction

Here are the two versions under discussion:

Old version to which Causteau keeps reverting.

In human genetics, Haplogroup E1b1b (M35) (previously called E3b and Hg21 from 2002 to 2008) is a Y-chromosome haplogroup with a distribution spreading from the Horn of Africa to the Mediterranean and into Europe and the Middle East. It is defined by the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) mutations M215 and M35, which are almost always found together.

Latest edit when the revert war started.

In human genetics, Haplogroup E1b1b (previously called E3b and Hg21 from 2002 to 2008) is a Y-chromosome haplogroup with a distribution spreading from the Horn of Africa. It is defined by the single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) mutation M215. It is found in various forms in Southern, Eastern, and Northern Africa, the Mediterranean and into Europe, and the Middle East.

Almost all men with the mutation M215, also have the mutation M35, which means that they are currently designated as being in E1b1b1. (As with other haplogroup names, the speed of new discoveries is leading many writers to use simpler names which simply refer to the SNP being considered, for example E-M215 or E-M35.)

First comments.

• The biggest substantive detail which is different is that the old version claims that M35 is a defining SNP, whereas not one of the references used by both editors does this. In fact the main autors cited, Cruciani et al, refer to this clade as "E-M215" quite often. The fact that M35 is not always equivalent to M215 (not always found in the same people) is also referred to in the cited literature IIRC. It has certainly been known for some time.
• There is no difference so far in the level of sourcing.
• There is more detail in the new version, for example the list of SNP's shared by the clade but not normally used in discussions about it. I suppose this might be an example of what Causteau claims to be un-necessary detail?
• The older version almost seemed to downplay the African nature of E-M215. In this particular passage for example, it mentions that it spread from one part of Africa, but implies that it is not significantly present in most of Africa. That needed to be corrected.

--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:34, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

The request for a citation is awkward, and in my opinion extreme, but I am trying to take it seriously. My first problem is that if you think about it, this article should even arguably be titled E-M215, because the "family tree" style names constantly change: E3b, E1b1 etc. In other words, if I find the first article to name the haplogroup defined by M215, it will use old terminology, so then I have theoretically give every article in a chain from that first one in order to show that they are all referring to the same haplogroup? To start with though, I am at least going to add Karafet et. al. to the references, because this was (I think) the origin of the name used as the main title of this article. That raises another problem: the article is available online only through pay-per-view options I think? But would it be better than nothing to cite the supplementary online material at http://www.genome.org/cgi/data/gr.7172008/DC1/1 ? Obviously the most up-to-date resource for the naming is really at the ISOGG webpage, which is cited in the article already.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:46, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

So, my first question is whether the article should be re-titled M215.

A second question if we are aiming at the best article possible, if concerning the dates "from 2002 to 2008" which is from the old version of the article. Obviously the 2008 refer to the Karafet article, which is when E3b became E1b1b, but what does 2002 refer to? The wording implies that it refers to BOTH Hg21 and the term E3b? If it refers to the 2002 article that introduced the E3b terminology, then obviously the text is faulty because it implies more. I think the 2002 article mentioned the HG21 terminology as the older equivalent E3b terminology though, so it was important.

While Karafet et al 2008 is the source of the new E1b1b terminology, it was not the first time that it was published that M215, and not M35, was the correct defining SNP. I realize of course that they were often treated as equivalent, and indeed, for example Semino 2004 treated M35 still as the defining SNP. Cruciani 2004 starts the article using M215/M35 and even M35, but then on page 1015, they announce that they've discovered 2 people who were M215+ and M35-. Then see the diagram on p.1018, which shows the new way things are defined - just like I said. I think I am right in saying that this is the correct reference then for saying that M215 and M35 are not equal? Please comment.

Please also comment if I should add some sort of remark to mention that M35 had once been treated as equivalent to M215, in terms of the DYS profile clusters it defined, especially in literature up until 2004. Or is there no confusion possible? I thinking about the confusion an annoyance created when I did not explain this before.

And perhaps it should be added, if it be true, that hg21 was originally defined without knowing the SNP? I am not going to put that in unless someone can confirm this though. I might be wrong. But to put it in other words, I understand that:

• First a cluster of haplotypes was found using DYS values.
• Second people found both M215 and M35.
• Third and most critically, in 2004, M215 was found to be ancestral to M35, making M35 less important for classifaction purposes, given that it was so close to, but derived from, M215.
• Finally, after years where people knew the old terminology was getting obsolete, the Karafet article "officially" renamed E3b. This new name, by the way, basically just shows that extra branches were recognized, and one of them is in fact M35 not being equivalent to M215.

Please comment. Or if it seems like the above shows something other people agree with, perhaps someone already thinks they can write a new improved intro.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:15, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem with Andrew Lancaster's introduction aside from the assertion that the distribution of E1b1b/E3b stretches from "Southern, Eastern, and Northern Africa, the Mediterranean and into Europe, and the Middle East". The problem here is the mis-labeled and/or redundant link Southern. It links to a page on Southern Europe which is already covered by the Mediterranean link. The E3b haplogroup is only observed in two or three small ethnic groups in Southern Africa, but not in the rest of the Southern African populace. The traditional definition of the distribution of E3b is that "haplogroup E3b is widespread in Northwest Africa, East Africa, the Middle-East and is also common in Europe, albeit at variable frequencies" (Gonçalves et al. 2005). Those are the areas with significant frequencies across many different ethnic groups, not just one or two small ones. This is also the definition most DNA genealogy testing sites go by, so this is the definition I think we should be presenting on Wikipedia i.e. the standard one. Causteau (talk) 23:22, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the Southern.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:17, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully no-one will mind but on second thoughts I have also reviewed the original concerns of Causteau, and made the referencing and explanation more broken up and perhaps bordering on pedantic. I am not sure if my formatting of the sources can be improved, but I figure if someone has ideas about that, then they can help out in this way.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:28, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Origins of M215

Here are the two versions under discussion:

1. Old version being reverted to constantly by Causteau:

Based on its high frequency and high microsatellite diversity, E1b1b is believed to have first appeared in the Horn of Africa approximately 26,000 years ago, and then dispersed to the Middle East during the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods. From there, it is believed to have traveled north and west with the expansion of Neolithic agriculturalists.

2. Latest edit, opposed by Causteu:

The following is as per Cruciani et al's various articles and the ISOGG tree, referenced below.

M215 and M35 are believed to have first appeared in the Horn of Africa approximately 26,000 years ago, amongst populations who already had the mutations DYS391p, P2 (also referred to as PN2), P179, P180, and P181. P2 is considered the defining mutation. P2 is thought to have first appeared somewhere in Eastern Africa, possibly not far from where M215 and M35 later appeared, although such speculations become increasingly difficult as we go further back in time.

Collectively, the E-P2 branches of the human family tree of male lines are currently referred to as E1b1 (formerly E3). Apart from the M215/M35 (E1b1b/E1b1b1) branch which this article describes, the other major haplogroup of E-P2 (E1b1) is E1b1a (formerly E3a), which is defined by M2 (also known as DYS271 or SY81), but also shows mutations such as M180/P88, P1/PN1, P46, P182, P189, P211, and P293.

More generally, most major E haplogroups are native to the continent of Africa, with branches being found in all parts of Africa. The only exception is E-V13, the only largely European E clade, which appears to have been founded in the Middle East, before dispersing from the Balkans around Europe and the Mediterranean area.

First comments.

• Referencing has been added for Causteau, although he perhaps has not noticed that, or think it is insufficient. I personally think it is already on the point of ridiculously pedantic, because the article is short, only states a few facts, and only has a few references, all of which agree on most points. I think only points of difference need to be noted?
• The older version gave no references!
• Once again it might be argued that some of the detail is unnecessary, but I think this needs to be argued in detail. This is a short article and it seems worthwhile to allow it to be relatively complete.
• Causteau specifically argues that any discussion of M215 being within the bigger P2 clade should not be included, and is not coming from any of the references. I will just say that this is wrong. The old article mentioned the clade and geography within which M215 appeared, and mentioning P2 is only clarification, and very much according to the articles Causteau himself quotes, apparently unaware of this fact.
• Once again, the older version seemed to downplay the importance of Africa in this article, and this did need to be corrected. The wording inserted is almost exactly as per Cruciani 2007.

--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:35, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I've already explained ad nauseam to Lancaster that he can't just state abruptly that "P2 is considered the defining mutation" after a sentence on the origin of E1b1b as he has done. This leaves the user with the impression that P2 is the defining mutation of E3b when it's really the defining mutation of E3.

That's bordering on dishonest, or perhaps you really have not looked at the text. Either way it shows your knee-jerk style. The full text reads "P2 is considered the defining mutation of the parent clade of E1b1b [E3b]". How can that be interpreted to mean that P2 is considered the defining mutation of E1b1b [E3b]?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:54, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Lancaster also insists on adding the superfluous line "P2 is thought to have first appeared somewhere in Eastern Africa, possibly not far from where M215 and M35 later appeared, although such speculations become increasingly difficult as we go further back in time", which has nothing to do with the origin of E1b1b and would therefore be more at home on the general haplogroup E main page.

I guess I can only ask someone else to comment on this. I think you can argue your case or mine. (Which normally means that the text is at least good enough not to deserve a knee-jerk deletion.) Here is an explanation of how I see. The section is and was about the place and population into which M215 first appeared, and from which it spread. As I have said, P2 was the defining SNP of the lineage within which M215 appeared. So the question is whether it is interesting to someone wanting to read specifically about the M215 lineage, to know that it probably started in a lineage that had been in the same area for a long time.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:54, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

He then goes on a long spiel about how E3 is currently referred to, and even includes the mutations E3a shows for good measure. I've rightly pointed out to him that all of that information he included is irrelevant to the topic at hand, which is the origins of E1b1b, not P2 or E3a.

E1b1b is a sub-clade of the parent P2, so that is obviously relevant. E3a is the sibling clade of E3b, and as above I'd like someone else to comment. If we are talking about the origins of the M215 mutation, is it not relevant to mention what genetic evidence about sibling clades suggests? In my opinion, people wanting to read about the origins of M215 will want to know about the population into which it first appeared. Indeed that was also the spirit of the version I started editing, and which Causteau reverted to so many times.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:54, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I then provided him with a direct quote from Cruciani, an authority in the field, that proves my point: We obtained an estimate of 25.6 thousand years (ky) (95% CI 24.3–27.4 ky) for the TMRCA of the 509 haplogroup E3b chromosomes, which is close to the ky estimate for the age of the M35 mutation 306 reported by Bosch et al. (2001) using a different method. Several observations point to eastern Africa as the homeland for haplogroup E3b—that is, it had (1) the highest number of different E3b clades (table 1), (2) a high frequency of this haplogroup and a high microsatellite diversity, and, finally, (3) the exclusive presence of the undifferentiated E3b* paragroup. Not once does Cruciani need to bring up the origin of P2 or under what name E3 is currently known or what mutations E3a shows to establish the origins of E3b. Cruciani not only establishes the origins of E3b in a population in East Africa, but also explains just how we know that (high microsatellite diversity, high frequency, etc.). A paraphrase or direct quote from him would be a much preferable and authoritative alternative to the irrelevant rambling on anything but the origins of E1b1b/E3b that currently plagues Lancaster's edit. Causteau (talk) 01:37, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

In what way is the above quote of Cruciani even relevant to this discussion. Are your seriously arguing that one short passage which does not mention P2 proves that he does not ever mention P2 when discussing M78? Let's get this straight: in the exact article you are quoting, he mentions P2! This is another example of knee-jerk writing. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:54, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

The sub-clades Introduction

Here is the section which has been added to introduce discussion of the two main sub-clades of M-215, which Causteau has consistently removed.

The two most commonly found sub-clades of E1b1b (E-M215) are E1b1b1a (E-M78) and E1b1b1b (E-M81). It should however be mentioned that both are associated with the Mediterranean, and so they have possibly been subject to more study due to their proximity to Europe.

Perhaps Causteu can live with there being an introduction. It is hard to tell whether he even realizes he is removing it, because he insists on doing full reverts instead of detailed editing! What is clear however, is that Causteau thinks that it is too opiniative to write that the two seemingly most common clades might not really be, because of the focus of research, whereas I think this is just the implication of a careful reading of the references both of us are using. The reason I think it is important is because so many people get mislead when they read about E3b, and anthropological reconstructions of pre-history generally. As a compromise I suggest:

The two most commonly researched sub-clades of E1b1b (E-M215) are E1b1b1a (E-M78) and E1b1b1b (E-M81), both are associated with the Mediterranean. They probably represent the two sub-clades with the largest populations.

Comments please. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:36, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, this section should be revised to say these are the main subclades of M35 instead of M215. Then it should be added that the most current phylogeny of M35 (E1b1b1) includes the ancestral state plus six branches, which are defined by the following SNPs: M78, M81, M123, M281, V6 and P72. Where the first three probably represent the most researched branches and the ones with the largest populations. A brief comment could summarize what is currently known about each sub branch. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Phouum (talk • contribs) 17:54, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Something like this?

As mentioned above, nearly all E1b1b lineages are within E-M35 (E1b1b1). The most current phylogeny of M35 (E1b1b1) includes the ancestral state (E1b1b*) plus six branches, which are defined by the following SNPs: M78, M81, M123, M281, V6 and P72.

The two best known sub-clades of E1b1b1 are E1b1b1a (E-M78) and E1b1b1b (E-M81), both are associated with the Mediterranean. They probably represent the two sub-clades with the largest populations within E-M215 (E1b1b).

To be honest I know very little about the other branches, though I understand that they are suspected to be very small, and possibly recent, except perhaps in the case of M123? Any, I presume sections on these could be added by anyone with the confidence and knowledge.

--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:30, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Right. M123 is a very significant branch and its presence is noted in several genetics studies, including the following from Jordan where a hotspot was found with 31% of this lineage (http://wysinger.homestead.com/jordan.pdf). A significant presence of M123 was also detected in Turkish haplotypes (http://hpgl.stanford.edu/publications/HG_2004_v114_p127-148.pdf), among other places.

On the other hand, the highest percentage (77%) of undiferentiated M78 haplotypes reported in any single population has been found in Somali males (http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/v13/n7/pdf/5201390a.pdf). Of course, this study reflects results previous to the discovery of the V-Series mutations so their finer distribution in sub branches wasn't known. Phouum (talk) 19:38, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

So, I take it that you think that at least a section on M123 should be added. Do you want to have a go? I can't imagine anyone will object to such an endeavor. Of course if it is badly written, people will rip the guts out of it then, but only with the best intentions! :) --217.136.96.109 (talk) 20:06, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Anyway, for now I'll put in the new text as discussed.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:24, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

The M78 subclades

This section has not been as much re-worked yet, but can still be improved. In any case there are already differences between the old version and new version, and these have not met Causteau's approval:

In this case it is better to go through point by point...

V12 Old version:

• E1b1b1a1 (V12*) The oldest sub-clade, found mainly in Southern Egyptians (arose ca. 15.2 kya); formerly comprised a few of Cruciani's delta cluster.

V12 New version:

• E1b1b1a1 (V12*) The oldest sub-clade, found mainly in Southern Egyptians (arose ca. 15.2 kya); formerly comprised a few of Cruciani's original "delta cluster" which he had defined using DYS profiles.

I am guessing that this small change is acceptable. In was necessary to add the comment about how the clustering was done, because it is not explained, but the clustering is referred to. It could be argued that it was mentioned in the timescale, but it was not really, and anyway I removed that section.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:48, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

V32 Old version:

• E1b1b1a1a (V32*) Prevalent in the Horn of Africa among Somalis, Ethiopians, and Eritreans; formerly defined as the gamma cluster (arose ca. 8.5 kya).

V32 not changed in new version.

V13 Old version:

• E1b1b1a2 (V13*) The most prevalent clade among Europeans, especially Greeks, Bulgarians, Macedonians and Albanians; first arose in West Asia ca. 11.5 kya, and equivalent with Cruciani's alpha cluster.

V13 New version:

• E1b1b1a2 (V13*) The most prevalent clade among Europeans, especially in the Balkan peninsula; first arose in West Asia around 10 thousand years ago, and is equivalent to Cruciani's alpha cluster. The timing of this clade is strongly suggestive that it was brought to Europe along with early farming and pottery technologies, along with some J haplotypes.

I want to start by mentioning that this particular passage has obviously had problems. Please look at the history of editing. People have been trying to specify particular Balkan ethnic groups, and I suppose this was too controversial. Therefore I have taken a more general approach.

Lancaster's "general approach" essentially involves single-handedly deciding that Greeks, Bulgarians, Macedonians and Albanians aren't important enough to warrant individual mention in the M78 section of the article -- even though they harbor among the highest frequencies of M78 in any world population -- but the various East and North African ethnic groups are. How exactly is that a productive edit? The Macedonians link, moreover, was added just the other day by another Wiki user, and it engendered no "controversy" whatsoever. Why would it? Causteau (talk) 00:25, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I am just trying to get a text that people won't keep re-editing. I am one of the people who have played with this text over the long term. I believe I put in the Albanians. I did this based on Pericic's article, and I was thinking of arguing the case a bit more, but my reading of the various articles which collect data on this matter does not give me enough confidence that we can say very much about which Balkan populations have the most E3b, except perhaps that it is less on the extremes of the Balkans (Slovenia, Rumania for example). I am not totally against trying to pin down a more detailed statement though. But for example, why include Belgarians and not Serbs?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:21, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

The high frequencies of E3b in Greek, Macedonian, Albanian, Bulgarian, and yes, Serb, populations have been established across several different studies including Cruciani et al. 2004, Semino et al. 2004 and Peričic et al. 2005 (the latter wasn't included in our references, so I just added it). However, the forgoing isn't as true for other Balkan populations such as Hungarians and Croatians since they carry much lower frequencies of the haplogroup. This is why I'm adding the above European ethnic groups to the list of notable E3b1a carrier populations in Europe. Causteau (talk) 11:32, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Would it not be more elegant, and attract less Balkanization, to say something like "Southern and Central Balkans"? I think we are basically agreeing that the various studies would include Albania, and Macedonia, as well as least parts of Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and perhaps parts of Croatia (Croatia has a weird shape). Lower densities are found in Slovenia and most of Croatia. I am not sure if Rumania and especially Hungary are really always referred to as Balkan. Please try making a good wording if you can think of one.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:35, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, please have a look at the Balkans article, which pretty defines the Balkans in a way which excludes the areas with lower density, or has them right on the edge.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:38, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

The most controversial point for Causteau however is apparently concerning the dating of V13, and whether it was associated with early farming and pottery. As usual, he is wrong to imply that the old article had better references, so we can ignore that complaint. In any case I have now re-written my original edit, to try to reflect the possibility that V13 is more recent, which is what I think was causing concern.

As usual, Lancaster misrepresents my statements by replacing them with ones of his own creation. I clearly wrote that the 10,000 West Asia date for E1b1b1a2 that he proposes does not jibe with the latest age re-assignments to the E and E1b1 parent clades suggested by Karafet et al., and so it's therefore necessary for him to provide an actual reference instead of misleading the reading public with unverifiable dates. Instead, he comes back today with a dismissive "so we can ignore that" and still no reference in tow. What gives? Causteau (talk) 00:25, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

The most recent article which I saw that asserted a connection to the intro of farming into Europe was Wiik 2007. See http://www.jogg.info/41/Wiik1.pdf. But this takes it for granted, and is not ideal as a source reference. The theory was much older, as implied by the way Cruciani 2007 is worded.

Cinnioglu 2004, not yet in the article references, associates European M78 lineages with the expansion of agriculturalists (p.134). He references an unpublished Semino article.

Cruciani 2004, p.1014-5, already in the references, talkes about E3b lineages introduced from the Near East into southern Europe by immigrant farmers, during the Neolithic expansion. He cites Hammer 1998, Semino 2000, and Underhill 2001.

Underhill 2001's (Phylogeography etc) comment on farmers coming from the middle east into southern Europe during Neolithic expansion is on p.51.

So, yes, the idea is quite ubiquitous in the literature, and standard, even if questionable. I am now wondering if I will be accused of trying to include original research by mentioning that pottery is associated with Neolithic farmers entering the Balkans. :)

--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:53, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

The only thing that's ubiquitous is the notion that the Neolithic migrants to Europe were likely agriculturalists. Neolithic agriculturists, however, does not amount to being the first to introduce farming and pottery technologies into Europe, as Lancaster's quote appears to be suggesting. If the Neolithic agriculturists were indeed pioneers in that regard, he should produce a quote that states that plainly like I've repeatedly asked him to instead of presenting a bunch of sources that simply state that they were farmers. Causteau (talk) 00:25, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

So as I jokingly predicted, you are in fact contending that your real objection to this is that farming and pottery were brought into Europe before the Neolithic expansion. I previously suggested just putting a reference to the Wikpedia article on the Neolithic to secure that point, and you seemed to dismiss that suggestion. I had therefore understood, and it seems very clear from what you've written, that your only objection was that there references to this article did not say what I said they said. Anyway, the articles I have just referenced really do associate E3b both with the introduction (i.e. first introduction) of farming specifically, and with the "neolithic expansion" into Europe more generally, which includes the introduction of pottery. Please look up the sources I've mentioned.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:22, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

In any case I have done a new version which takes out anything which seems controversial to you, such as references to pottery. I have made sure there is a link to "Neolithic". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrew Lancaster (talk • contribs) 10:37, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

V22 Old version:

• E1b1b1a3 (V22*) Prevalent in Northeast Africa and Egypt, with higher microsatellite variance (0.35 vs. 0.46, respectively) in Egypt, comprising most of those classified in Cruciani's earlier delta cluster.

V22 not changed in new version.

Comments please. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:48, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

The M81 sub-clade

In the latest revert of Causteau, I am surprised to see that he has left my edit, except that there is an insistence on making a one-bullet bullet list. Why? Perhaps this was not the intention. The text is currently:

E1b1b1b: The most common Y chromosome haplogroup in North Africa. Colloquially referred to as the "Berber marker" for its prevalence among Mozabite, Moyen Atlas, Kabyle and other Amazigh groups. Also quite common among North African Arab groups. Reaches frequencies of up to 80% in the Maghreb.

This haplogroup is also found in Iberia and Southern Italy, probably due to ancient migrations during the Islamic, Roman, and Carthaginian empires.

I basically added the last paragraph. As usual this lack of editing on my part does not mean this section can not also be improved.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:52, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

The M78 section

Old version, not including the sub-sub-clades:

The most commonly distributed E1b1b sub-branch is E1b1b1a. The flow of E1b1b can be summarized into about four main episodes, based on geographic and quantitative analysis of haplogroup and micro satellite diversity:

1) Sometime in the Upper Paleolithic, between 23.9 and 17.3ky ago, E1b1b (M215) bearing chromosomes first appeared in Eastern Africa [Cruciani et al. 2004].

2) The E1b1b1a mutation (M78) then occurred in the E1b1b chromosomes distributed in Northeast Africa. Migrants from Northeastern Africa with the M78 mutation then made their way westward to North Africa.

3) Sometime around 13ky ago, these M78 bearing E1b1b chromosomes were introduced into Europe by the migrant community in North Africa.

4) Between 20 and 6.8ky ago, M78 bearing E1b1b chromosomes were introduced into western Asia from Northeast Africa [Cruciani et al. 2007].

This haplogroup arose ca. 18.6 kya after the spread of E1b1b1* (M35) from the Horn of Africa to Egypt, and has been further divided into subclades by Fulvio Cruciani, on the basis of the following SNP mutations:

New version, not including the sub-sub-clades:

Again, estimations of age are difficult and vary greatly, but M78's age has been estimated at about 22 thousand years, though some estimations are significantly more recent. This means it is not necessarily significantly older than M215 itself. It probably originated within the same communities in the Horn of Africa. It has been further divided into subclades by Fulvio Cruciani et. al. (2004, 2006, 2007), on the basis of the following SNP mutations.

The biggest change is the removal of the timescale. I have mentioned already that a timescale might be possible to make, but I could not see how to save the one in the old version. The timescale will be discussed in another section. So looking at the other parts:

• The old version says that "The most commonly distributed E1b1b sub-branch is E1b1b1a". This sentence is not good English, and it is not easy to determine what it means. It absolutely needed to be changed. Secondly most possible interpretations of it seem to me to be at least debatable. Here is surely a case where the author needs to give a source!
• The old version says that M78 "arose ca. 18.6 kya after the spread of E1b1b1* (M35) from the Horn of Africa to Egypt". Giving such specific times and places ignores the level of complexity in the discussions in the supposed references, and this is misleading. I think there are two options: explain all the theories and counter theories in a lot of detail, or give broader statements about time and place which are compatible with all articles.
• Once again the new version has better referencing than the old version!
• The final paragraph of the old version seems to be from a still older version and perhaps originally introduced the whole section? It gives a different foundation date for M78, which is not necessarily wrong. Tidying up is however obviously needed!

--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:37, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Lancaster's comment that the assertion that "the most commonly distributed E1b1b sub-branch is E1b1b1a" makes no sense and therefore needs a source has no merit. A simple scroll through the upper portions of this page will quickly show that he has already been explained what that quote means. I've also presented him with an authoritative source that's already included in the reference section of the article, which quite plainly states the prevalence of E1b1b1a/M78 (meaning how commonly it is found) among sub-clades of E1b1b/E3b: "Haplogroup E-M78 was observed over a wide area, including eastern (21.5%) and northern (18.5%) Africa, the Near East (5.8%), and Europe (7.2%), where it represents by far the most common E3b subhaplogroup." (Cruciani et al. 2004) Causteau (talk) 05:50, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I think you can be more constructive than that. As you know, the reason I now what the quote was meant to say, is because you explained it above, in another section of the discussion page. Please keep in mind that just because you were focusing on that part of the discussion page first does not mean that our discussion above happened significantly before the section you are now responding to was written, which is what you are now accusing me of.

Furthermore there are several clarifications which I already made in reply, and which you could already be replying to now...

• The sentence is not good English. If it is not obvious why then I'll spell it out: "most commonly distributed" is not standard English, while "most widely distributed" is. "Commonly distributed" according to my understanding of my mother tongue, would mean something which is distributed often, ie many times, like "they commonly distributed alms on Sundays". Commonly refers to frequency in time, not place.
• The quote you say is the source, simply does not say what you seem to want the article to say. 1. It says that M-M78 was the most common E3b type in Europe only. 2. It says that E-M78 is found "over a wide area" which is obviously not the same as being "most widely distributed", let alone most commonly distributed.

Honestly, I think defending the original text in this case is a lost cause, surely? So if you really have a problem with the new text, why not put in the exact Cruciani quote? (BTW, putting in the quote does not require deleting anything else in my humble opinion. The whole point of the edits I made in this section was to clean up what was obviously a mish mash of old edits, so that it can indeed be built up again with more careful and coherent material.)--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:38, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

The quote works fine and I could insert it, but there is another quote from Cruciani I'd rather insert in another area of the article so I'll pass. I've just looked over your version, and I noticed you included a statement which partly emphasizes the prevalence of M78 but in tandem with M81: "The two best known sub-clades of E1b1b1 are E1b1b1a (E-M78) and E1b1b1b (E-M81), both are associated with the Mediterranean. They are thought to represent the two sub-clades with the largest populations within E-M215 (E1b1b)." This works fine. Causteau (talk) 10:21, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Good to hear. I've been playing with this section with your comments in mind. Please keep an eye on it to see if I do anything wrong. I am trying to cover so many concerns, that I fear I might end up with some redundant explanations of the same things in different parts of the article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:35, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Causteau, I see you've removed all reference to the fact that M215 and M35 seem to have sprung from the same long term population as their parent SNP, P2. Personally I think that the history of E-M215 is interesting to people partly because of what it implies about human migrations coming out of Eastern Africa. That is certainly the focus of quite a lot of the literature on it. But discussing this means discussing more about the context and "family tree" of M-215. I can't justify simply reverting on what is arguably a matter of taste, but I have already asked others to comment. POTOH, prhaps I can at least ask you whether you can understand why I think readers will want to know about this subject, and perhaps you can think of a better way to say it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:24, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

The M78 timescale

Here is the timescale which was removed:

The flow of E1b1b can be summarized into about four main episodes, based on geographic and quantitative analysis of haplogroup and micro satellite diversity:

1) Sometime in the Upper Paleolithic, between 23.9 and 17.3ky ago, E1b1b (M215) bearing chromosomes first appeared in Eastern Africa [Cruciani et al. 2004].

2) The E1b1b1a mutation (M78) then occurred in the E1b1b chromosomes distributed in Northeast Africa. Migrants from Northeastern Africa with the M78 mutation then made their way westward to North Africa.

3) Sometime around 13ky ago, these M78 bearing E1b1b chromosomes were introduced into Europe by the migrant community in North Africa.

4) Between 20 and 6.8ky ago, M78 bearing E1b1b chromosomes were introduced into western Asia from Northeast Africa [Cruciani et al. 2007].

First comments:

• Episode 1 is about M215. So it should be in the origins section. What's more it gives the wrong origin date for M215.
• Episode 2 adds nothing to what has already been said in other parts of the article.
• Episode 3 needs a lot more explanation and sourcing. I think it is misleading and arguably wrong. By implication it is describing the arrival of M-V13 in Europe, which it is not.
• Episode 4 logically comes before episode 3. And for anyone not familiar with the literature, it is potentially misleading. What's more, it could like episode 2 simply be dealt with the general text.

--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:38, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Causteau, I see from your note on my talk page that you do not like the fact that the timeline was removed. Please note that we agreed that if it were to be included, it needed a lot of work. I see no problem in principle, and indeed, without checking the full history of this article it might have been me who originally made one. I have been discussing this with others, and I think one of the problems is that when this article was written Cruciani's timeline ideas were simpler and easier to follow. The literature is now more complex. A timeline would therefore require quite a lot of work if it is not going to be confusing and controversial. And even then I fear it will become so complex as to fail as a summary. However, I think it is natural that someone should try to work on it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:27, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Edit warring

Hiya, I'm stopping in as an uninvolved admin, since I see this article has been getting a lot of activity recently. I have no opinion on the content, but if I can help, please let me know. Have recent edits been in accordance with the Wikipedia policies of Verifiability and neutrality? Or is there some other issue? --Elonka 19:23, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I have considered how best to answer, and I decided it was best to be "opiniative". I hope this will not grate, but the intention is to give something that only claims to be one side of the story, and that can not be taken - hopefully - as more than that.

In my opinion, the situation certainly has the potential to be helped by a third party. People looking at this case might be surprised at such an idea, because the esoteric and detailed nature of subject might seem to make that rather a tall order. However closer examination might show that concerning the esoteria, the details and facts, the two sides, of which I am one, are amazingly close. So that is probably not the problem.

We have an article which was long quiet, except for a few occasional subtle reversions on a section involving the Balkans. I have caused a disturbance, by finally spending some time on this article, which I had long planned to do. I think the number of edits has given the impression of arrogance, and a white knight appeared to make sure no large changes could be made any more by reverting any changes without discussion, on the basis of any wikipedia guideline he could find. This is all debatable "perspective" of course!

In any case, yes, we had an edit war in the sense that all changes were being totally reverted for some period. The good news is that we are now not doing reverts, for the time being, and there is discussion on the discussion page. My interlocutor and I both claim that our intentions are good, and we both opine that we doubt the other's are equally good.

A third party would therefore be rather handy in making sure that neither of us now start to allow the discussion to break down.

It is especially useful that both of us have claimed to be working by Wikipedia norms, so a third party experienced in such norms might be able to cut off diversions in that direction. The most obvious dispute so far can be summarized in my opiniative opinion by asking whether total reverts of a serious (but imperfect) and arguably improving edit, are a bigger no-no than making edits which include no better - 'or worse' - sourcing giving "verifiability". But this summary is controversial! To explain my idea about that controversy...

• My interlocutor would presumably emphasize, based upon the comments made, that such sourcing should be more demanded of anybody daring to make large scale changes in a long unchanged article.

• I have stated that I believe that any improvement in an article is a good thing, and weak points in the improvements should be edited bit-by-bit, and not by total reverts. I also feel that if the intention is better sourcing, then the person who wants that should work on it. (we both seem to know the sources.) Note that this article inevitably must be based upon a very small number of academic sources which are extremely consistent in most regards.

I would welcome more readers of the present discussion, because the main aim is to improve this article. I feel that not only the two main protagonists, but also others, might truly desire this, and might be helped through a difficult period to attain something better than we might otherwise have attained.

--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:33, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll do my best to help. :) In regards your question about improvement style, could you give me a couple diffs as examples? --Elonka 21:59, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I've actually made something of an effort today. If you look in the discussion section above you'll see that there is a debate, which is awkward but better than a revert war, and then a section where I have now summarized every change versus the preferred reversions, with my understanding of what the issues are or might be. I am now waiting to see if there will be any constructive response. Again I hope its clear my interlocutor might describe it otherwise. He/she claims to believe that I am just trying to make bad edits look like they had good intentions, as you can indeed read above. His/her preferred approach in terms of style was full reverts in order to stop any large scale editing. He/she would presumably say, based upon the actions and statements which are clear to see, that it was unfair of me to have made it difficult for him to carry out these reversals. On the other hand if I had improved the quality of citations, he/she might, if I take the comments seriously, have been happy to accept the changes. It just so happens that this was not what I saw as being most urgent. So, optimistically, perhaps we just had different priorities.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 22:13, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I am glad that things are calmer now. I did spend some time looking at the article history, and here is what seems to be the state of things:

The edit warring has been done by:

• Causteau (talk · contribs)
• Andrew Lancaster (talk · contribs)
• 76.65.182.164 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))
• 80.200.59.250 (talk⁺ · tag · contribs · filter log · WHOIS · RBLs · proxy check · block user · block log · cross-wiki contribs · CheckUser (log))

I'm guessing, based on the pattern of edits, that Causteau is 76.65.182.164, and that Andrew is 80.200.59.250. If I am wrong, I apologize.

Regardless of who's whom though, the edit warring must stop. As it is, I would be within my rights to block all four accounts, right now. I'm not going to do that, but if I see another series of reverts (from either side), you can expect blocks and/or page protection, regardless of whether or not you've passed the 3 reverts per 24 hours.

My honest recommendation on how to proceed at this point, is to slow down. Instead of overhauling the entire article at once, pick one paragraph that you want to change. Make an edit, ensure that the edit is linked to a reliable source, and then wait and see how things go. See the Bold, revert, discuss cycle.

In other words:

• If anyone sees edits that they disagree with, don't revert the entire thing. Instead, try to change the page, to try and find a compromise position.
• If anyone sees anything that is unsourced, rather than just deleting it outright, instead, tag it as needing a source, with a {{fact}} tag.
• If something is deleted, that someone feels should not have been deleted, do not just add it back, unless you also include an inline citation which verifies it.

If you have any questions, let me know, --Elonka 03:19, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your assistance and advice. It's good to have a third party oversee things. Hopefully this matter can now be resolved. Causteau (talk) 06:05, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think Elonka is correct about the interpretation of what has happened, and about the two incorrectly signed accounts (one of which is mine) and about the best way to work on it - ie without full reverts (as per my numerous requests). I note your reference insertion, which is fine but not necessarily the best reference for the comment being referenced, which is a comment about the history of the name. (And BTW is an unreferenced comment from the old version of the article, the one being defended as if it had better sourcing.) I have raised the question about whether the comment being is even correct, above. In particular, was HG21 the name of this haplogroup specifically only between 2002 and 2008? But perhaps this is best discussed above where I have made a section for it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 06:14, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

If my source was mis-placed, I do apologize. I was intending to give an example of how to do an inline citation. If you do not agree with where I placed the source, then yes, by all means please move it.  :)

I was pleased today to see that both of you may be circling in on a consensus version of the article. I noticed that one disagreement has to do with placement, such as whether to refer to something as "E1b1b1 (M35)" or "M-35 (E1b1b1)". In situations such as these, I find it best to again refer to reliable sources. How do they generally list the symbols? It can be useful to include an actual quote from the source, in one of the <ref> notes on the article. --Elonka 02:11, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I think the intention of your example was clear for everyone, and was only helpful. Concerning the terminology questions, they also seem resolved now. E1b1b is the current term for this clade since the very recent Karafet article, but because the terminology has been changing so quickly, more and more researchers are also using terms like E-M215 and E-M35 (just naming the most "downstream" SNP of the population they are talking about). So both these and older designations have to be at least mentioned in the article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:31, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I think I understand now. We have had this kind of issue in many other topics on Wikipedia, where there is a conflict between "the newest" name, and "the best known" name. In such cases, the consensus is to stick with "best known" name even if it's not 100% accurate, since our target audience is for laypeople, and we want to use the "principle of least astonishment". Article titles too, are generally expected to go with "most common" name. See WP:COMMONNAME. Perhaps there are some popular sources that could be drawn upon, to determine most common usage? Newspapers and mainstream magazines are often useful for this kind of determination. --Elonka 00:33, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

See below where a new discussion has started about this. In this case there are at least 3 reasonable options:

• the most "official" name in recent years which was the most widely used name for a while,
• the new "official name" which is confusing and not yet widely used,
• a name which has been reasonably common for a long time but is now becoming more common, probably most common, and most easy to understand.

The problem also involves the naming method of the 2002 and 2008 articles which are respected as semi-official updates. The method was very clever in 2002. It tries to show a "family tree" within the name. So E is the parent clade of E3 (people with mutation P2), and E3 has "children" E3a and E3b (people with mutation M215), etc. The problem is that many new branches have been found and will continue to be found, meaning that these names are going to start changing more quickly, and getting impractically long. While working on this article I have constantly had to robotically count the number of steps I've put in the new name in order to make sure I get right, and I believe it is the same for others.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 05:27, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

To allow wider discussion, I've added a "requested move" template above, to propose the article title should be moved from Haplogroup E1b1b (Y-DNA) to Haplogroup E-M215 (Y-DNA).

Both forms are acceptable under the YCC naming conventions. So far the WP haplogroup article titles have all been of the first form, but it seems to me that, as partly outlined above, there seem to be some good reasons for now moving to the second form, at least for the case of this haplogroup, viz:

• The first-form systematic name is likely to become increasingly unstable, as more new SNPs are discovered.
• It is also likely to become increasingly longer, and unmemorable. Arguably, it has already jumped the shark in this respect.
• It is also unfamiliar, in that (until very recently) the haplogroup was designated E3b, and this is a form readers will probably continue to encounter in external documents for some considerable time to come. The dissonance bewtween E3b and E1b1b may be something that many may find confusing; but the duality between E3b and E-M215 should be rather less so.

Therefore, I suggest that the E-M215 name be used in the title of the article; and that further subhaplogroups in the article be primarily referred to using designations following this form, although with the current tree-form names also being mentioned at least on first introduction: so "E-M35 (or E1b1b1)", etc.

What do people think? I'll also post a message at WT:HGH, to let people know about this discussion. Jheald (talk) 11:45, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

• Support Jheald (talk) 11:45, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure of the correct procedures, so I'll just post a response. I am slightly in favor of this proposal. I think it has to happen eventually, because I think that all signs are that the naming system currently still slightly more "orthodox" is collapsing. (More SNPs will be found.) In any case, I will start by putting a re-direct on M-215.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:09, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it's a bad idea to rename the page to E-M215 because the orthodox E1b1b naming system hasn't collapsed yet, and until it does, we should be presenting what the leaders in the field assert as the primary name for the haplogroup. When the E3b naming convention was still in effect, for example, most studies were titled after it. Another thing to consider is the average Wiki reader. Many recognize the E3b name from various websites, and are now starting to grow accustomed to the new E1b1b nomenclature. Observing the primary naming system makes it easier for these readers to conduct research across different websites and draw parallels between the information they glean from those sites and the latest studies since both are more likely to observe the first form. Most of the popular DNA genealogy testing sites frequented by the general public, including Family Tree DNA, also uphold the new E1b1b nomenclature. In addition, most if not all of the other haplogroup pages on Wikipedia observe the first form. Take J2. This is why I think it's a mistake to force the E1b1b page to be the lone exception to the rule when a simple redirect on M215 could easily solve the problem instead of completly overhauling the prevailing naming system. Causteau (talk) 23:11, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I see your point, which is why I say that my preference for M-215 is slight. E1b1b has some authority right now, because of the recent Karafet article, which is seen by many as the new YCC update. However it is a little more complex than you mention.

The most common name used right now is still E3b. E1b1b is a new proposal that might catch on, but there are also signs that it will not. The very publication of the Karafet article has meant that the E1b1b type of naming system is now being questioned more, understood less, and used less.

Also, E-M215 is actually already being used more, and it was also frequently used in all the original papers going back many years.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 05:18, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose. Unlike what happens with mtDNA clades, ISOGG provides an oficial (or quasi-oficial) nomenclature frame for Y-DNA ones. Sure that, when an upheaval of clade names like this one of 2008 happens, people will hesitate and use older names or the defining SNP names instead but it's a matter of adequation. Certainly all articles when a clade has changed name recently should clearly mention its old name, exactly as the ISOGG site does but using the SNP names is of little help because any given clade may have several known defining SNPs, sometimes more than 20, and certainly most people is even less familiar with such nomenclature, except maybe for their "pet clades".

I strongly recommend following ISOGG nomenclature everywhere and use all warnings necesary until the new names become more familiar to all us, what may take years. --Sugaar (talk) 10:56, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

New round of changes 20 May: building on the base

Causteau at least seems OK with the work today, but there is a contentious point perhaps: Causteau you are very concerned to remove any mention at all of parent clades. I think you are very extreme about it. You have only allowed mention of the immediate parent clade, and this was very shortened, so that we now just mention it's SNPs. However an essential part of your argument for this was that people could and should look this up in the E haplogroup wikipedia article. I have therefore put a mention of the fact that this clade is part of the E haplogroup today. Sounds logical? But you removed it. So how can people look things up in it? Remember, if people already knew that E3b was part of E they might not need the article. It is not self-evident. Can you please put in whatever minimal reference to this important fact about E1b1b being a part of E you can allow? The second thing I think you should feel some responsibility to do is to now make sure that the E haplogroup does not actually mention all the things you deleted from this article?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:18, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

You might like to consider adding a {{Infobox haplogroup}} to the top of the article, which could summarise some of this information. (Compare its use eg at Haplogroup I (Y-DNA)). Some context in the article linking back to Haplogroup E might not be a bad idea. Jheald (talk) 12:30, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Lancaster, you are being unreasonable again.

Nice "reasonable" opening to a constructive discussion. Do you realize that you are replying to someone else?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:56, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

If you'll be honest with yourself for a minute, you'll admit that the page that exists now is almost 100% of your creation. That, in and of itself, should satisfy you. But yet here you appear to want me of all people to make more concessions, and after today's barrage of edits.

No. I think it is very regrettable. Why do I have to do the work? I think you are confusing yourself with your previous announcement that you think we are similar. I do not want to be the only person editing this article. It just happens that I am. You are clearly highly territorial about this article (look at the words "concessions" and "satisfy"). I just want to make sure there is a good E3b resource on the internet which I am not embarrassed to refer people to.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:56, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

What I wrote earlier was that most people have read about E3b -- not haplogroup E. It is E3b that brings them to this page, hence, I suggested a page redirect on M215 (E1b1b/E3b). Again, no mention of haplogroup E. I've said it before and I'll say it again, that information is already included where it belongs, on the haplogroup E page. We've already cited what we needed to cite: The population of origin and therefore the place of origin of haplogroup E3b (East Africa), and the clade from which it arose (P2). There's absolutely no need to mention haplogroup E. Anyone that's looking for information on it can simply input "haplogroup E" in the search box on Wikipedia or even on Google, and it takes them straight to the page in question. The forgoing is why I'm removing that edit. Causteau (talk) 12:36, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

So to make it clear, you have made a big point out of removing "withing the E haplogroup" from the following...

In human genetics, Haplogroup E1b1b (formerly known as E3b) is a Y-chromosome haplogroup, within the E haplogroup

So now there is once again no mention of E3b being part of the E haplogroup, which is the name of the next level up in this hierarchy that has a Wikipedia article. Frankly, that's ridiculous. If someone removed any reference to Carnivora on an article about Cats, then that would be the same reasoning. In general, any article where an hierarchical classification is a core part of what is being discussed, should mention the next hierarchy up. I can not agree with your extremist and possessive attitude about this, and I am confident that no-one who thinks about it calmly, including even you, can.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:56, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

WP:Build the web. A contextual link to Haplogroup E is useful -- it lets people follow the thought, "so where did E1b1b come from? Who else came from the same ancestry? How did that ancestral population become differentiated?" These are all questions that people reading this article might also be interested in. There is (probably correctly) no article on Haplogroup E-P2, the immediate ancestor; so concisely linking Haplogroup E, where these questions are considered, is a good thing. Jheald (talk) 12:50, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

The Haplogroup E page has exactly two lines on P2. This E1b1b page has more information on P2 than it does. Moreover, such a link already exists in the form of the phylogenetic tree at the bottom of the article. It visually illustrates the relationships of the various clades with their ancestors. That's what it's there for. Causteau (talk) 13:00, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Then that's pretty good evidence that Haplogroup E (Y-DNA), rather than E-P2, is the most immediately important ancestral group for context. Most of our other haplogroup articles have links to the most immediately important ancestral group, either in the lead itself or in the Origins section, where the reader will find the links as they read the article, in addition to the full linked phylogenetic tree at the bottom. Jheald (talk) 13:05, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Causteau: most people who look this up also need to have the tree explained to them! People use these articles to be informed. We are not supposed to be creating riddles. What's easier - to add a text explaining that tree and how it relates to the article, or to add 2 or 3 words naming the next level up in the tree which has a Wikipedia article? Then people can just click. And anyway, what great problem are you trying to avoid?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:08, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Nobody's trying to "avoid" anything Lancaster. It's a question of relevance. E3b arose from P2, not directly from E. And this fact is already clearly explained in the text. Causteau (talk) 13:18, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

If your reverts are NOT intended to avoid a problem, then how do you justify them? Or did you not read what you were responding to?

In any case, the point is that if an edit makes an article better, or of equal quality, we should leave it. We do not own this article as individuals. And when we judge what is better or worse, we should be able to explain what pros and cons we were weighing up. Two people are explaining to you that there is a big and basic problem with this article if there is no link up in the hierarchy. So a big problem would have to be justified by something at least equally big - not just a little bit of wasted memory on the Wikipedia server!

Your response which now seemingly diverts attention to P2 is silly, and again if you are serious then please do not just cripple the article, fix it like you imply you would, which would mean making a P2 article. That P2 article should of course link both upwards and downwards within the accepted phylogeny. If you refuse to put in the alternative solution, then your revert is un-justified by the explanation you have given. This is the same as when you previously argued that people could look things up in the E article, but then deleted references to that article.

In the end, the article needs a Wikipedia link up to the article concerning the next level. I am asking you to do it in whatever way you think works.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:55, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

The discussion seems to be getting a bit tense. If I may, I'd like to make a suggestion: When formulating a post, just as an intellectual exercise, try to avoid using another editor's name, and also try to avoid the words "you" or "your". This can help steer the conversation away from accusations, and more towards what we're here for, which is discussing the actual article. Discussions will (usually) be most effective if they focus on the content, and not the contributors. If it is necessary to refer to a specific edit, use a WP:DIFF, like so.[2] This can both improve communication, and also be of assistance to other editors who may be reviewing this thread, so that they can offer their own opinions. Thanks, --Elonka 15:40, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Archiving

This page has been growing very rapidly, and was at over 100K in size. I went ahead and created an archive, and moved the (relatively) inactive threads there. Some of them were only 48 hours old, which is a bit quick for archiving, so if anyone feels that any particular thread is still "active", please feel free to move it back to this talkpage. Otherwise, all of the discussions are still easily viewable in /Archive 1, and if you want to reply to something there, it's probably best to just start a new thread with the same section header, and say "Continuing discussion from archive" or something. Thanks, --Elonka 15:58, 20 May 2008 (UTC)