ISSN:
1824-310X
Keywords:
Population genetics
;
Phylogeny
;
human history
;
isolation by distance
Source:
Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
Topics:
Biology
Notes:
Abstract Molecular biologists and some population geneticists have recently claimed to be able to reconstruct modern human populations remote history by means of phylogenetic trees. Many objections to this method are discussed in the present paper. The most important are 1) Inter-populations migrations are likely to have been important, even in the remote past. So the “treeness” of this evolution is disputable. 2) There is no reason to believe that actual molecular phylogenies would be convergent between different molecules and would therefore represent populations history. The various kind of genetic data, their relations to other data and the limits of their possible use in the analysis of our past are then discussed, together with the ideological background of the most common theories and of their publication. It is very likely that the history of different populations was heterogeneous. Small and isolated hunter-gatherers frequently evolving close to a phylogenetic model, while dense and increasing populations, since the Neolithic, were closer to a dynamic network model, structured by isolation by distance. In any case, our present knowledge is obviously insufficient to reconstruct our genetic past, especially on the long term, and we can only hope that the development of the HUGO Genome Diversity project is going to yield the significant information presently lacking.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF02437453
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