Individualism and the Western Liberal Tradition
Page 2
Because of their intelligence, humans have been able to create novel environments, such as by domesticating animals and thereby permitting the use of dairy products as a mode of subsistence. These novel environments in turn may select for different mutations and ultimately for different traits, such as lactose tolerance in a dairying culture or traits such as shorter stature that results from accommodation to a low-quality agricultural diet (see below). As a result, the argument for a psychological basis for Western individualism does not require that one document the existence of individualism in a direct line of descent from the primeval people who first populated Europe ~45,000 years ago, or even from far more recently.
A theme of this volume is that there is a northwest-southeast genetic and psychological gradient in Europe, with individualism being more common in the historical populations of northwest Europe. However, genetic influences on traits related to individualism may have developed and continue to be under positive or negative selection pressure into contemporary times.
As a result, it becomes important to document the first traces of individualism by doing research on the earliest peoples whose behavioral profiles are fairly well known. Later chapters document individualist tendencies in the earliest important influences on European individualism—Indo-European cultures (Ch. 2) and the hunter-gatherer cultures of northwest Europe (Ch. 3). It is apparent in the following that at least some genetic influences from these peoples persist into the contemporary era.
Three Distinct Population Movements in
Pre-historic Europe
There is an emerging consensus for three distinct population movements into Europe during prehistoric times: 1) Western hunter-gatherers (WHGs), 2) farmers from Anatolia, known as Early Farmers (EFs), and 3) the Indo-Europeans (I-Es) originating in the Yamnaya culture of the Pontic Steppe region in present-day Ukraine and Southern Russia.[6]
1) WHGs are the primordial European population, entering Europe ~45,000 years before present (ybp). Jones et al. suggest the following scenario for an early separation of the WHG from other groups of migrants in the original exodus from Africa:
Given their geographic origin, it seems likely that CHG [Caucasus hunter-gatherers] and EF are the descendants of early colonists from Africa who stopped south of the Caucasus, in an area stretching south to the Levant and possibly east towards Central and South Asia. WHG, on the other hand, are likely the descendants of a wave that expanded further into Europe.[7]
Upon entering Europe, the WHG displaced the Neanderthals, but picked up a small amount of Neanderthal genetic material through interbreeding.[8] Based on examination of skeletons found from Spain to Hungary dating from the Mesolithic period (~11,500ybp to ~6000ybp), these people constituted a “relatively homogeneous group”.[9]
In Scandinavia, a distinct subgroup known as Scandinavian Hunter Gatherers (SHGs) evolved from WHGs, but it remains uncertain whether SHGs have contributed to the genetic makeup of modern Scandinavians.
2) The EFs arrived from Anatolia around 8000ybp, introducing agriculture and defining the transition to the Neolithic era. Genetically, they do not resemble present-day Anatolians.[10]
3) Finally, the I-Es arrived from the Pontic Steppe region in the Early Bronze Age (~4500ybp). The proto-I-Es, also known as Yamnayans, are an amalgam of “Armenian-like” Near Eastern peoples (48–58 percent)[11] with three hunter-gatherer (h-g) groups: Caucasus h-gs (CHGs), Ancient North Eurasians (ANEs) including Siberia (Ancient North Eurasians [ANEs]) and Eastern h-gs (EHGs). The ANEs are related to North American Indians,[12] while the EHGs are at the eastern end of an East-West genetic cline of hunter-gatherers.[13]
The general picture is that Western European populations were relatively were genetically distinct from each other in the Early Bronze Age, but became increasingly intermixed following the I-E influx, resulting in relatively less (though still significant) differentiation in contemporary Europe.
ANEs
Ancient North Eurasians
CHGs
Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers
EFs
Early Farmers from Anatolia
EHGs
Eastern Hunter-Gatherers
I-Es
Indo-Europeans
H-Gs
Hunter-Gatherers
SHGs
Scandinavian Hunter-Gatherers
WHGs
Western Hunter-Gatherers
Abbreviations used in this chapter
Percentages of Admixture of WHGs, EFs, and I-Es
The EF migration from Anatolia which defines the beginning of the Neolithic at first resulted in an “almost complete replacement” of previous WHG populations in the south of Europe, reducing them to a 7–11 percent share of the resulting genome. However, there was a later resurgence of WHG ancestry to 23–28 percent of the genome in the early Bronze Age;[14] Haak et al. also note a “resurgence” of WHG genetic representation around this time.[15]
Importantly for the discussion in Chapter 4, the genetic legacy of the EF’s continues to be more prevalent in the south of Europe today, being highest in Sardinia (~90 percent), while the contribution of the CHGs and EHGs (by way of the I-Es) is more prevalent in northern and central Europe. Jones et al.:
CHG, or a population close to them, contributed to the genetic makeup of individuals from the Yamnaya culture, which have been implicated as vectors for the profound influx of Pontic steppe ancestry that spread westwards into Europe and east into central Asia with metallurgy, horse riding and probably Indo-European languages in the third millennium bc.[16]
Allentoft et al. also studied the introduction of the Yamnaya-derived I-Es into Europe during the Bronze Age, beginning around 4500ybp with the Corded Ware Culture (found between the Rhine and the Volga rivers and in southern Scandinavia), as well as evidence from later dates of I-E presence in Italy.[17] Corded Ware DNA and Yamnaya DNA form a clade (a group with a common ancestor) to the exclusion of Bronze Age Armenians, indicating that the “Armenian-like” admixture of the Yamnaya noted above “has a steppe origin rather than a southern Caucasus origin,” i.e., it does not actually come from Armenia.[18]
The I-E expansion carried Yamnaya genes over vast distances, from Scandinavia to South Asia. But it is important to note that Yamnaya incursions into Iran and India did not result in individualist societies, likely because the peoples they conquered there remained strongly collectivist. Moreover, as emphasized in Chapter 2, the I-Es exhibited important tendencies toward individualism, but their general method was not to eradicate the people they conquered: they dominated them, making use of their labor, etc., and eventually interbred with them.
Haak et al. corroborate the I-E component of European ancestry, finding evidence for a “massive migration” of the Yamnaya into Europe, beginning around 4500ybp and associated with the Corded Ware culture.[19] Around 75 percent of the ancestry of the Corded Ware samples in Germany came from the Yamnaya, as did 60 percent of the Y-chromosomes, the Y-chromosome percentage indicating that the conquering males had relatively high reproductive success compared to previously resident males. This was a sudden influx, suggesting an invasion rather than cultural diffusion—a proposal that fits with the highly militarized culture of the proto-I-Es discussed in Chapter 2.
In addition to the ~75 percent Yamnaya ancestry of the Corded Ware culture, Haak et al. estimate around 4 percent WHG and 17 percent EF. In modern Europeans, the highest Yamnaya ancestry is among Norwegians, around 55 percent, with decreasing percentages in southern and eastern Europe (the lowest being 10 percent in Sardinia). Their results also indicate a north-south cline in WHG ancestry. The highest percentage of WHG ancestry is in the Baltic states (Lithuania and Estonia, with ~40 percent WHG ancestry), with zero representation in Spain and Italy. Contemporary Norway and Iceland have ~17–20 percent WHG ancestry. This indicates that after the Corded Ware period in Central Europe (4900–4400ybp), there was a resurgence of h-g genetic input throughout Europe.
Haak et al. conclude:
In addition to the findings from Haak et al. noted above, Lazaridis et al. find that the ANE (which arrived in western Europe via I-E genetic influence) are represented in modern Europeans at a maximum of 20 percent.[20] They infer from their data that contemporary southern Europeans inherited their European hunter-gatherer ancestry mostly from the EFs as a result of their mixing with WHG in the south of Europe. On the other hand, northern Europeans acquired up to 50 percent of their WHG ancestry from WHGs in the north of Europe—i.e., their h-g contribution was over and above the contribution of their EF ancestors. This indicates that the WHG in northern Europe were not simply replaced, either by the EF’s or the I-Es, but eventually mixed with the latter groups. They also note that in general Europeans have a larger proportion of WHG than ANE ancestry. ANE ancestry was absent prior to the Neolithic transition to agriculture in both WHG and EFs, a finding consistent with the ANE ancestry contributing to the Yamnaya culture implicated in the I-E invasion beginning in the early Bronze Age.
The Pitted Ware Culture of Coastal Scandinavia
The finding of WHG ancestry above and beyond that contributed by the EFs who had mixed with WHG in their northward migration fits with findings of Malmström et al. on the Neolithic Pitted Ware culture of southern Scandinavia (~5200ybp–4300ybp).[21] This culture co-existed with both the Funnel Beaker culture (derived from EFs) and the Corded Ware culture (dominated by I-Es). The Pitted Ware culture, including the Late Mesolithic Ertebølle culture, was a h-g culture that lived close to the sea and whose diet was mainly based on shellfish and other seafood, as well as hunting and gathering. As discussed in Chapter 3, these communities were sedentary for at least much of the year and developed large communities with complex social structure.
The Pitted Ware findings include a number of unique mitochondrial haplotypes (particularly haplotypes U and K) not found in either the Funnel Beaker (EF-derived) samples or the Corded Ware (I-E-derived) samples, and they clustered with Mesolithic h-g samples from central Europe and Iberia. Based on the very large differences in the prevalence of mitochondrial haplotypes between the Pitted Ware h-gs and the other groups, Malmström et al conclude that the Pitted Ware h-gs could have contributed anywhere between zero and 60 percent of the mitochondrial haplotypes of the contemporary Swedish population while they could not reject any level of contribution from Funnel Beaker samples up to complete replacement of the Pitted Ware h-gs. In conjunction with the data from Lazaridis et al. on the unique contribution of northern WHGs to the gene pool beyond that resulting from EF-WHG mixing in the south of Europe, a direct contribution to current Swedish populations from the Pitted Ware h-gs or at least some other northern h-g group seems likely. Malmström et al. note that the possible continuity between the Late Mesolithic Ertebølle culture and contemporary Scandinavians remains an open question. Given the discussion in Chapter 3 on the Ertebølle culture, this remains an important issue for future research.
Further, there is genetic continuity between the SHGs and the Pitted Ware culture. Mittnik et al. find that the SHG did not contribute to the genetics of southern Sweden in the early Neolithic. However, their results for the middle-Neolithic showed genetic continuity of the SHG with the Pitted Ware culture of the same area, proposing a two-way model between SHG-derived (74±6 percent) and EF-derived (26±6) genetic contributions. In the late Neolithic-early Bronze Age, their results are consistent with some local admixture between the EFs and the SHGs—“the Neolithic PWC [Pitted Ware Culture] foragers are largely genetically continuous to SHG.”[22]
Thus, a direct contribution of SHGs to contemporary Swedes remains a possibility, although the data thus far are also consistent with the h-g contribution to contemporary Swedes of around 20 percent (see above) deriving completely from WHGs, whether by way of mixing with EFs or independent of it.
Further Evidence for North-South WHG and EF Genetic Clines
The north-south gradient in WHG genes is the theme of a study by Pontus Skoglund et al. of three 5000-year old h-gs and one 5000-year old farmer, all from what is now Sweden.[23] When compared to contemporary European and Levantine samples respectively, the three Neolithic h-gs appeared largely outside the distribution of the modern sample, but in the direction of contemporary Finnish and northern European individuals. On the other hand, the Swedish farmer clustered with contemporary southern Europeans. Skoglund et al. estimated that contemporary Swedes have the following percentages of EF-related ancestry in a north-south gradient: 31±6 percent (northern), 36 ±7 percent (central), and 41±8 percent (south). The fraction of farmer-related ancestry decreases from 95±13 percent in Sardinians to 52±8 percent in individuals of northwestern European descent overall). Skoglund et al. suggest that there were barriers to gene flow which gradually relaxed, and that present-day Europeans are intermediate to the primordial WHG population and the farmers who entered Europe from the southeast in the transition to the Neolithic—again highlighting the contribution of h-gs to the contemporary European gene pool, particularly in northern Europe.[24]
Another study by Skoglund et al., based on one Mesolithic h-g, six Neolithic h-gs, and four Neolithic farmers, found genetic continuity between the Mesolithic and Neolithic h-gs, as well as genetic differences from the Neolithic farmers.[25] Corroborating previous findings, the Neolithic farmers (EFs) clustered with contemporary southern and central European populations, while the h-gs, although outside the variation of contemporary European populations, were closer to northern European populations, particularly Lithuanians, with contemporary Swedish groups intermediate between the farmers and the Neolithic h-gs but closer to the h-gs. The Mesolithic h-g used for comparison purposes had no trace of farmer ancestry despite having lived well after the beginnings of agriculture in the area, while the Neolithic farmers had significant h-g ancestry presumably as a result of mixing during their expansion north into areas previously occupied by h-gs. The genetic distances between the farmers and the h-gs in this study were greater than the distances between any contemporary European population (Finnish vs. southern Italian is greatest[26]).
Another study of Mesolithic h-gs in Sweden used saliva from masticated food of three individuals,[27] finding that they clustered between EHG and WHG, but in the direction of WHG, and closer to contemporary northern European populations as compared to central and western European populations; they were most distant from southern and eastern European populations. Mesolithic individuals found in Norway were closer to the EHG group, whereas those found in Sweden (including the three individuals in this study) were closer to the WHG group. This latter finding confirms previous findings that the Scandinavian peninsula was populated beginning at the end of the last Ice Age in two separate migrations, one from the south (~11500ybp) by WHG and one from the northeast (~10300ybp) by EHG. enc
I conclude that there is a north-south genetic gradient in Europe, with the EF genes much more common in south and WHG (including SHG) and I-E genes more prevalent in the north. This implies that any genetically based psychological contributions of h-g’s and I-Es would be more common in contemporary northern Europeans than in southern Europeans,
while genetically based psychological contributions of the EFs would be more common in the south of Europe.
However, as noted at the outset of this chapter, these genetic continuities and clines are probably also influenced by selection in situ—that is, genetic differences that are continuous with these pre-historic clines were likely to continue to evolve as the mixed populations in the cline from southern to northern Europe remained separated for several thousand years. For example, genetically based psychological predispositions or physical features originally more pronounced in one of the three groups could be selected for without major effects on the entire autosome. Thus, if traits predisposing to individualism were more pronounced in h-gs and I-Es compared to the EFs (as appears to be the case), these genes could spread in the population without a major effect on the general autosomal contribution of the EFs. The same could also occur with physical features, such as light skin, blond hair and blue eyes, given that these traits may well have been more advantageous in northern latitudes as well as sexually selected aspects of physical attractiveness in individualist marriage (see following section and Ch. 3). In any case, a theme of later chapters is that there are psychological differences related to individualism that reflect this north-south genetic cline.
Selection for General Cognitive Ability and
Physical Traits
Michael Woodley et al. performed a genome-wide-association study comparing the frequency of genes that have been linked to general cognitive ability (GCA) in contemporary populations with the same genes from Europeans who lived from ~4500–~1200 years ago.[28] The results showed selection for genes linked to GCA over this period.