Orkney Islanders have Siberian relatives

A new study on ancient human migrations suggests that Orcadians and Siberians are closely related, writes Roger Highfield.
# The limits of gene ancestry tests
# Links between humans' ancestors redrawn
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/05/23/sciorkney123.xml

Orkney Islanders are more closely related to people in Siberia and in Pakistan than those in Africa and the near East, according to a novel method to chart human migrations.
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The surprising findings come from a new way to infer ancient human movements from the variation of DNA in people today, conducted by a team from the University of Oxford and University College Cork, which has pioneered a technique that analyses the entire human genetic makeup, or genome.

Although it provides relative genetic contributions of one group to another, rather than timings, it confirms how the first modern humans came out of Africa 50,000 years ago, mostly from a group in southern Africa called the San.

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Why 50,000 years ago?

Population Bottlenecks and Volcanic Winter
http://jqjacobs.net/anthro/paleo/bottleneck.html

The "Weak Garden of Eden" model for the origin and dispersal of modern humans posits a spread around 100,000 years ago followed by population bottlenecks. Then, around 50,000 years ago, a dramatic growth occurred in genetically isolated, small populations. In a 1998 article, Stanley Ambrose proposed an alternative hypothesis—a volcanic winter scenario—to explain recent human differentiation. The bottleneck was caused by a volcanic winter resulting from the super-eruption of Toba in Sumatra. If Ambrose's hypothesis is correct, modern human variations differentiated abruptly through founder effect, genetic drift, and adaptation to local environments after around 70,000 years ago.

........

Aren't there traces of human habitation here on the North American Continent - Turtle Island - at least 50,000 years ago - also in S. America.

Now, I'm gonna have to look up the location of the Orkney Islands.

They are wonderful remote and beautiful.

and other sites are unproven to general satisfaction.

The Oregon news is recent.
Oldest Native American Evidence Discovered = fossil feces dated at 14,300 years
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=397

what a wonderful revelation. recommend.

Northern Scandinavia is inhabited by the Sami (Lapp) people, who originally came from Siberia. Some of them could have gotten into a boat and drifted away to the Orkneys, which are surprisingly close to Scandinavia. (The Shetlands are even closer, and there are lots of Scandinavian place names up there.)