Talk:Ancient Beringian

Any criticism we can use?
i only ask because I’ve seen some but nothing that can be used. Doug Weller talk 21:05, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

initial sentence
The Ancient Beringian were a population of Paleo-Indians that diverged from other Native Americans about 20,000 years ago. Ancient Beringians migrated from Siberia across Beringia and into Alaska during the lithic stage sometime prior to 11,500 years ago. This is accurate, based on the actual article (see page 4 of the Nature article).

The earlier statement: 20,000 years ago they were in Beringia is not what the article says. While some of the news reports have misinterpreted this, others clearly get the nuance right, such as the NY Times article. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/science/native-americans-beringia-siberia.html

If someone wants to claim this, they should support it from the Nature article. Such a statement cannot be found there, because it isn't there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Akyuanyuan (talk • contribs) 23:31, 7 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi, okay I have added your suggestion to the opening paragraph. Thank you IQ125 (talk) 17:03, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Will fix all this up this week....wording is a bit off ...they did not diverge....but were the first. Again will take time get real sources and fix the wording and time frame.--Moxy (talk) 14:36, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Initial sentence and NPOV
I think the initial sentence violates NPOV by stating it as fact. We shouldn't be doing that for obvious reasons. Doug Weller talk 17:36, 8 January 2018 (UTC)


 * The opening paragraph is supported by a Journal written by the archaeologist PhD's that made the discovery. The information in the Journal is based on the facts of their research.  However, what is your suggestion for a change to the opening paragraph? IQ125 (talk) 18:30, 8 January 2018 (UTC)


 * Something that doesn't have us stating it as fact. I'm not sure right now and have to go do something in real life, sorry. Eg AB is the name given to a group (whatever) believed to be/reported as,... Doug Weller  talk 19:38, 8 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Dear "IQ125", when you are saying "a Journal written by the archaeologist PhD's", you mean to say that you created a new article based entirely on a single paper, and then went on to bolster it by adding every journalistic report on the paper you could find as independent "references". This is not the way to do it. The study is relevant, and it should be added as additional evidence to the relevant articles, but please don't try to write entire articles about individual scientific papers (exceptions are papers of extreme cultural significance such as Einstein's Annus Mirabilis papers (note that even here, the article is about a group of papers, and one article per paper), but such extreme notability only becomes apparent after a few years at the least). See Category:Academic journal articles for more examples. If we would allow this, it would become common practice for any research group to publish press releases for their papers as Wikipedia articles. --dab (𒁳) 12:20, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

Merge
It is not advisable to create new pages based on individual studies or press releases. It is better to work these into existing treatments, in this case, Paleo-Arctic Tradition and/or Paleo-Indians. What is being announced here is "we have found andient DNA in Alaska dated to 11.5 kya; everything is consistent with the Beringian migration model as it stands". This is no reason to create a new page seeing that the entire topic is already sprawling across several well-developed pages. --dab (𒁳) 12:10, 2 February 2018 (UTC)

No merger: the Ancient Beringian are a significant and separate group of Paleo-Indians that deserve a separate article to support the facts, information and citations about them. There is certainly enough information now for a separate article and the article will expand over time as more information is added. There are many published studies and articles referenced in the citations and external links. It would be inappropriate to merge the Ancient Beringian article with another article. IQ125 (talk) 11:30, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

No merger Paleo-Arctic Tradition per Category:Archaeological cultures of North America and  Paleo-Indians has a parent article already at Genetic history of indigenous peoples of the Americas.--Moxy (talk) 14:22, 4 February 2018 (UTC)

Alright, please explain how "Ancient Beringians" are different from the population of the Paleo-Arctic Tradition. According to Potter, who apparently coined the term,
 * "Ancient Beringians were a Native American group that formed a genetically distinct population between 21,000 and 11,500 years ago, and probably persisted in Alaska until about 6000 years ago."

As far as I can tell, "Ancient Beringians" is the term for the archaeogenetics associated with the PAT just like "Ancient North Eurasians" is the term for the archaeogenetics associated with the Mal'ta–Buret' culture (so that by analogy, it is perfeclty reasonable to treat "Ancient Beringians" under a "genetics" section at the PAT page). Please confirm that this statement is correct, or alternatively explain in what way I am mistaken, but please do me the courtesy of posting a reply that establishes you are actually familiar with the topic to a degree that enables you to have a meaningful discussion on it. --dab (𒁳) 06:57, 5 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Pinging IQ125 and Moxy to respond to the above; it would be useful to whoever closes this merge request, and the DYK nomination cannot proceed until this closes. BlueMoonset (talk) 15:19, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Merge: Not seeing why this is worth maintaining a separate page. While the content is well worth keeping, it seems more beneficial as additions to other already established pages. Voltaire&#39;s Vaquero (talk) 22:51, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Merge per Voltaire Vaquero. Doug Weller talk 14:25, 7 February 2018 (UTC)

Merge per Voltaire Vaquero, a single article should not be the basis for a content fork-- Kev min  § 00:00, 7 May 2018 (UTC)


 * right, IQ125 and Moxy clearly failed to understand the topic, so I guess the merge option with Denali Complex stands. Denali Complex is at present a redirect to Paleo-Arctic Tradition, and might in principle be developed.
 * "Ancient Beringian" is a label for a genetic lineage, while "Denali Complex" is the archaeological culture. Now, the advances in archaeogenetics have given us a couple of such terms, and they will be important in keeping track of future developments.
 * At present, most of these terms redirect to the relevant archaeological cultures, e.g. Ancient North Eurasians to Mal'ta–Buret' culture, Early European Farmers to Neolithic Europe, etc. This is mostly because our coverage of archaeogenetics is very poor and lagging behind. In principle, these redirects could more reasonably point to archaeogenetic topics, but at present we do not have suitably well-developed redirect targets.
 * This page at present covers the single 2018 Nature paper, which introduced the term "Ancient Beringians". It will be very easy to handle this in a similar way as Ancient North Eurasians etc. If the term should prove to be taken up in future studies, it can still become part of a larger coverage of the genetic history of LGM Beringia. --dab (𒁳) 08:14, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

Actual content of the Nature paper
Unlike what has been reported in the page (apparently because nobody read the paper), the AB lineage is not derived from the analysis of two infants. Two infants were discovered in 2013, dubbed USR1 and USR2. The present study analysed USR1 only. Based on the USR1 lineage, the paper reconstructs a phylogenetic tree, as follows:
 * (pre?)-Proto-Mongoloid, 40kya
 * divergence of ANA from Proto-Mongoloid, 36kya with gene flow until 25 kya
 * ANE admixture (40%) during 25-20 kya
 * split of AB vs. (NNA+NSA) at 20-18 kya
 * NNA vs. SNA divergence at 17.5-14.6 kya

"Ancient Beringian" (AB) is a conventional term for a genetic lineage on equal footing with "Ancestral Native American" (ANA), "Native North American" (NNA) and "Native South American" (NSA). Actual historical populations are again derived from these, e.g. Athabascans are identified as 88% ANA and 12% Siberians, Palaeoeskimo are are identified as 74% Siberian and 26% ANE, and Inuit as 67% Palaeoeskimo and 33% ANA.

This is a topic of genetic genealogy, and not of a specific population associated with a specific time or archaeological culture. The best editorial decision would be to introduce this new data into Genetic history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, but of course this mean some work. --dab (𒁳) 09:22, 26 July 2018 (UTC)