In article <mcoon-2901961757570001 at porky.microbiol.washington.edu>,
mcoon at valis.microbiol.washington.edu (M. Coon) wrote:
> Question; Are south american indian peoples more or less interbred with
> europeans than north american indians?
>> I understand that south amercian populations were also decimated by
> diseases introduced by europeans.
Yes, but the populations to which I was referring were distinct
amazonian groupings that (as I understand it) had had little prior contact
with Europeans and possibly little exposure to their diseases. Certainly
when Dave Watkins took oral histories from one of these tribes the major
cause of death of adult males was spearing and not disease (although he
never identified whether the speared died immediately or later, of
infections of their wounds). It would be interesting to ask what are the
MHC types of urbanised populations with a longer history of exposure to
europeans. The other question would be to ask what might a suitable
genetic marker be to identify the extent of genetic admixture in these
populations - ie how many of the European-like haplotypes derive in fact
from European ancestors?
>> > Or did the original European colonists simply screw around a lot?
>> STDs, though likely responsible for much suffering by Amerindian peoples,
> were not, I think, the source of most of the disease (or is this just a
> turn of phrase?).
This comment about screwing around was not addressed at STD's as the
source of infectious disease but at the source of European-like haplotypes
within Native American populations.
Paul
--
Paul J Travers phone : +44-(0)171-631-6862 (office)
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England or : paul at histo.cryst.bbk.ac.uk
