- Thread starter Abuela
- Start date
Dominican's DNA proves Taino natives are not extinct
I am missing a point here. Why would someone say that just because a current person alive has a minority percentage of genetic material from a group of ancestors that those ancestors are "not extinct" if there are no people with at least a majority of genetic material from those ancestors still alive?
Bad journalism is my explanation.
The ancestors are indeed extinct, while the currently alive person merely has a small percentage of their genetic material.
Would anyone claim Neanderthals are not extinct because Asians and Europeans still have a small percentage of Neanderthal genes?
Even though Neanderthals and Denisovans are both extinct, modern humanity may owe them a debt of gratitude. A 2011 study by Stanford University researchers concluded that many of us carry ancient variants of immune system genes involved in destroying pathogens that arose after we left Africa. One possibility is that these gene variants came from other archaic humans.
https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/neanderthal/
Bad journalism is my explanation.
The ancestors are indeed extinct, while the currently alive person merely has a small percentage of their genetic material.
Would anyone claim Neanderthals are not extinct because Asians and Europeans still have a small percentage of Neanderthal genes?
Even though Neanderthals and Denisovans are both extinct, modern humanity may owe them a debt of gratitude. A 2011 study by Stanford University researchers concluded that many of us carry ancient variants of immune system genes involved in destroying pathogens that arose after we left Africa. One possibility is that these gene variants came from other archaic humans.
https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/neanderthal/
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Yes many words...I heard Barbacue Barbacoa?, also Quisqueyana. Batay Lots I think. Hammock Hammaca Interesting
Alsothe names of many animals and even colors. Most Dominicans aren't aware what are the Taino words, but use them all the time and often interchangeably with the Spanish equivalent. A good example is frong, in Spanish is sapo, but in the language of the Tainos is maco. Another example is tree, in Spanish is árbol (some people with very limited formal education would simply call them palo, you will hear many Dominicans in rural areas using this word instead of árbol), but in the language of the Tainos is mata. Orange (the color) in Spanish is anarajado, but in the Taino language is mamey. Turtle in Spanish is tortuga, but in Taino language is hicotea. The tarantula in Spanish is the same name (I think the English simply accepted the Spanish word into the English langauge), but in the Taino language is cacata. The list is long.
I think Dominicans become aware that these words are not fully Spanish once move abroad and find other Spanish-speakers have no idea what is being said with these words (the exception is often Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and Venezuelans; who tend to use those very same Taino words with the same meaning; lets not forget that mass emigration from what is now the DR often ended up in those three places, especially during the Haitian invasions that caused for most of the Dominican population to flee). Even then, most Dominicans are more likely to consider those words as Dominicanisms instead of Taino words, simply due to ignorance.
Some traditional building methods have a Taino base. By this I mean that the buildings originated as Taino huts, but were improved by incorporating some Spanish building styles. Actually, that's how the typical Dominican wooden house came to be. The Spaniards simply took the round huts of the Tainos and made them square, added internal divisions to create different rooms, added persianas (which originally were two small wooden doors that open outward, and later many were replaced with the wooden shutter types and recently the metal shutters), and added extra wooden beams to make the houses sturdier. Until mid- to late-20th Century the typical Dominican wooden home was roofed with dried Cana leaves (the fronds of the Cana palm) and that is a Taino tradition. This was replaced mostly by zinc, but there are still many homes with thatch roof. In recent decades even the rich adopted this for their roofings, especially at their quintas (villas) near certain beach areas.
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that doesn't mean it is taino. after the conquest many enslaved native americans were taken from the continent to the islands. spoils of war, prisoner of war and slave. That accounts for for an unknown percentage of NA genes present in a typical Fausto or Demaris.
Add a drop of milk to a gallon of water...you got water.
The problem with your assertion with regards to my score is that in other calculators it doesn't appear as "Mayan" (some of them ended up here after being rescued by Spanish guardacostas from the captivity some French buccaneers raiding the Yucatan had them, but that's a story for another day), "Andean" or "Beringian" (in the case of North American indians), so it is very likely the segments are Taino, Carib or at the very least, generally Arawak, given the handful of Venezuelan and Brazilian matches I get.
NS, we are in complete agreement. Broadly Arawak. For sure. This whole 23andme and ancestry stuff is misleading to lots of people. Obvo, you’ve got a good grasp. I disagree with the assertion that the Taino bloodline is extinct. Sometimes I think I see it in people’s faces. But whether I’m seeing remnants of the caciques of quisqueya that were present at the time of European contact? That’s the part I’m not so sure about.
I read about the indigenous people of the northeast. Niantic, Wampanoag, shinnecock, montaukett, corchouges, pawtuxet, wyandanch. All Algonquin. Exonyms, demonyms, who knows. All the same, but different.
Taino (big island) Carib (little island but really where does it end in South America?) are all arawaks. I’m not saying the indigenous dna of DR is Mayan or incan. But it’s not necessarily Dominican. Could be Cuban or boricua.
Going past GGGGGranparents is meaningless.
What is it....half of Europeans are descended from Charlemagne. A quarter of English from Edward i.v.
I read about the indigenous people of the northeast. Niantic, Wampanoag, shinnecock, montaukett, corchouges, pawtuxet, wyandanch. All Algonquin. Exonyms, demonyms, who knows. All the same, but different.
Taino (big island) Carib (little island but really where does it end in South America?) are all arawaks. I’m not saying the indigenous dna of DR is Mayan or incan. But it’s not necessarily Dominican. Could be Cuban or boricua.
Going past GGGGGranparents is meaningless.
What is it....half of Europeans are descended from Charlemagne. A quarter of English from Edward i.v.
Oh, btw. 8% is not trivial. Agreed. That’s like if one of your great great great great grandfather was 1/2 Arawak. I agree. Not trivial. I have a GGGgrandmother who is indigenous.
The ironic thing is that most of this I learned as a hobby, since, besides this forum, I usually hang out on anthropology/biodiversity forums, which is where I first got familiar with most of this stuff. I remember when 23andMe first came, it was quite a sensation, but looking back one can't help but shake one's head at how rudimentary it all was, since they only used a handful of SNP's from one's autosomal makeup to make their analysis. Nonetheless, it has been quite an experience, since high school and even initial undergrad biology doesn't get to delve as deep in the world of DNA, and it usually can be quite a lot to swallow or understand in one sitting.
...the DNA that shows up on a test in the DR, that is native ,can be deceptive....I have a son in the DR, his native DNA from me is Minnesota, Ojibwa from USA...if his Dominican mother has any native DNA from the DR....well I would like to see how they sort that one out.......Doc.....
It is not deceptive, in fact, I could claim membership roll on a tribe easier than Pocahontas Warren, for sure. When analyzing DR demographics you have to take into account three things:
a. Most families here mixed early on (absolutely all families here show varying degrees of Euro/Afro/Amerind DNA, just like Cubans and Ricans).
b. This land received very little immigration overall, compared with other continental or either islander locales.
c. As a result, most people here, outside Yankees/Euros and Haitians, share genes with one another (we are all cousins of sorts), due to this nation growing organically from an initial pool of 6,000 souls.
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As a final tidbit (and totally destroy your "deceptive" claim), a good chunk of Domi families tend to show Amerindian maternal haplogroup markers on them (A2 and C being most common among them). For those of you not familiar with biological lingo, haplogroups are the "genetic surname" that people carry from one generation to another. For example, maternal haplogroups tend to be passed down from mother to daughter and paternal ones from father to son. Even though males have maternal haplos too, they don't get to pass it down to their children, only the autosomal info they got from their mothers. Women don't have paternal haplos at all for the reason that they don't carry the Y chromosome.
The mixture started from the very start.
I remember when I visited the Parque Arqueológico La Isabela in La Isabela, near Puerto Plata. That's where Columbus founded the town of La Isabela, the first permanent European settlement in the New World. When the guide took us to the cemetery, he very clearly said 'este cementerio es español-indígena' (this cemetery is Spanish-Indigenous), meaning that based on DNA studies that some Italian scientists did in the site, the skeletons that were buried with Christian crosses are a mixture of Spaniards and Tainos. He didn't say if the Tainos were mostly women, but it goes without saying that they probably were. The Indian chiefs often gave women to the Spaniards as 'welcome gifts' and, of course, those men after crossing the Atlantic for at least a month in cramped quarters with no sight of women at all certainly didn't object to that.
Its not clear to me if the Spaniards practiced polygamy (the Tainos, especially high ranking males and the chiefs certainly had more than one official wife, and unlike with the Spaniards, their wives needed to be buried alive with their husband if he died first).
Taino women that adopted mainly Spanish way of life were considered Spanish and were buried along their husbands in the Christian manner.
Also many alliances were made between the Spanish and the Tainos, which perhaps lead to close Taino friends converting to Christianity and allowed to be buried along with the Spaniards.
Anyway, that's the first European cemetery in the New World and itself has plenty of Taino remains.
...you missed the words "can be"...sorry I wont post on your thread again...maybe you should be off topic...................
Don't abstain, by any means. What I would ask you to explain, however, is in which way those results "can be deceptive", specially when they (Amerindian scores) have been consistent in appearing in every long established Domi family on this side of the island across the board that have tested themselves so far. The poster Gurabo444 has prepared a google doc showing the ones tested on 23andMe so far, and in which the pattern can be seen in full display (he even took the pains of making sure the people in question were fully Domi before putting the numbers down, so as to avoid the charge of having halfies incline the results in any direction whatsoever). I can ask him for the document if you want to see the results for yourself.
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I will have that test done some time soon, some of my Puerto Ricans friends here in NC already did it a few months ago.
All I have to do is visit a website and request the sample collection kit and send it back.
I believe the fee is $ 60. Bucks.
Some of them came out 60 % European and Taino, I am sure in my case will about the same.
JJ
All I have to do is visit a website and request the sample collection kit and send it back.
I believe the fee is $ 60. Bucks.
Some of them came out 60 % European and Taino, I am sure in my case will about the same.
JJ