In a paper entitled, “A New Model of Computational Genomics” [1], I introduced an algorithmic test for ancestry using whole-genome mtDNA. I’ve since updated that test significantly, as described below. In this first of what will be a series of articles, I will present the results of this test as applied to specific regions of the world, in this case, to Scandinavia. Each of the articles will contain an independent summary of the algorithm and its overall results, and so you can read each independently.

Algorithmic Testing for Ancestry

Assume you’re given whole mtDNA genomes A, B, and C. The goal is to test whether genome A is the ancestor of both genomes B and C. It turns out, this is straight forward as a necessary (but not sufficient condition) for ancestry. Specifically, if we begin with genome A, and then posit that genomes B and C mutated independently away from genome A (e.g., groups B and C travelled to two distinct locations away from group A), then it is almost certainly the case that genomes B and C have fewer bases in common with each other, than they have in common with genome A.

For intuition, because we’ve assumed genomes B and C are mutating independently, the bases that mutate in each of B and C are analogous to two independent coins being tossed. Each mutation will reduce the number of bases in common with genome A. For example, if genome B mutates, then the number of bases that A and B have in common will be reduced. Note we are assuming genome A is static. Because B and C are mutating independently, it’s basically impossible for the number of bases in common between B and C to increase over time. Further, the rate of the decrease in common bases is almost certainly going to be higher between B and C, than between A and B, and A and C. For example, if there are 10 mutations in each of genomes B and C (i.e., a total of 20 mutations combined), then the match counts between A and B and A and C, will both decrease by exactly 10, whereas the match count between B and C should decrease by approximately 20. Let |AB| denote the match count between genomes A and B. We have then the following inequalities:

Case 1: If genome A is the common ancestor of both genomes B and C, then it is almost certainly the case that |AB| > |BC| and |AC| > |BC|. See, [1] for further details.

Even though this is only a necessary condition for ancestry, this pair of inequalities (coupled with a lot of research and other techniques), allowed me to put together a complete, and plausible, history of mankind [2], all the way back to the first humans in Africa.

Ancestry from Archaic Genomes

The simple insight I had, was that if A is not archaic, and B is archaic, then A can’t credibly be the ancestor of B. That is, you can’t plausibly argue that a modern human is the ancestor of some archaic human, absent compelling evidence. Further, it turns out the inequality (since it is a necessary but not sufficient condition) is also consistent with linear ancestry in two cases. Specifically, if |AB| > |BC| and |AC| > |BC|, then we can interpret this as consistent with –

Case 2: B is the ancestor of A, who is in turn the ancestor of C.

Case 3: C is the ancestor of A, who is in turn the ancestor of B.

If you plug in A = Phoenician, B = Heidelbergensis, and C = Ancient Egypt, you’ll find the inequality is satisfied for 100% of the applicable genomes in the dataset. Note that the dataset is linked to in [1]. It turns out you simply cannot tell what direction time is running given the genomes alone (unless there’s some trick I’ve missed), and so all of these claims are subject to falsification, just like science is generally. That said, if you read [2], you’ll see fairly compelling arguments consistent with common sense, that Heidelbergensis (which is an archaic human), is the ancestor of the Phoenicians, who are in turn the ancestors of the Ancient Egyptians. This is consistent with case (2) above.

Putting it all together, we have a powerful necessary condition that is consistent with ancestry, but not a sufficient condition, and it is therefore subject to falsification. However, one of these three cases is almost certainly true, if the inequalities are satisfied. The only question is which one, and as far as I can tell, you cannot determine which case is true, without exogenous information (e.g., Heidelbergensis is known to be at least 500,000 years old). You’ll note that cases (1), (2), and (3) together imply that A is always the ancestor of either B or C, or both. My initial mistake was to simply set B to an archaic genome, and assert that since A cannot credibly be the ancestor of B, it must be the case that A is the ancestor of C. Note that because A cannot credibly be the ancestor of B, Cases (1) and (3) are eliminated, leaving Case (2), which makes perfect sense: B is archaic, and is the ancestor of A, who is in turn the ancestor of C. However, this is not credible if C is also archaic, producing a lot of bad data.

Updated Ancestry Algorithm

The updated algorithm first tests literally every genome in the dataset, and asks whether it is at least a 60% match to an archaic genome, and if so, it treats that genome as archaic for purposes of the test, so that we avoid the problem highlighted above. This will allow us to reasonably assert that all tests involve exactly one archaic genome B, and therefore, we must be in Case (2). Interestingly, some archaic populations were certainly heterogenous, which is something I discussed previously. As a result, there are three ostensibly archaic genomes in the dataset, that do not match to any other archaic genomes in the dataset, and they are therefore, not treated as archaic, despite their archeological classification. You can fuss with this, but it’s just three genomes out of 664, and a total of 19,972,464 comparisons. So it’s possible it moved the needle in marginal cases, but the overall conclusions reached in [2] are plainly correct, given the data this new ancestry test produced.

There is however the problem that the dataset contains only Heidelbergensis, Denisovan, and Neanderthal genomes, leaving out e.g., Homo Erectus, and potentially other unknown archaic humans. There’s nothing we can do about this, since we’re constantly finding new archaic humans. For example, Denisovans were discovered in 2010, which is pretty recent, compared to Heidelbergensis, which was discovered in 1908. Moreover, the three genomes in question are possibly three new species, since they don’t match to Denisovan, Heidelbergensis, or Neanderthals. All of that said, taken as a whole, the results produced by this new algorithm, which makes perfect theoretical sense and must be true, are consistent with the results presented in [2]. Specifically, that humans began in Africa, somewhere around present day Cameroon, migrated to the Middle East, then Asia, producing the three most evolved maternal lines that I’ve identified, somewhere around Nepal, specifically, the Ancient Egyptians, the Vikings, and the Ancient Romans. The first two maternal lines are both found around the world, and descend from Heidelbergensis and Neanderthals and / or Denisovans, respectively, suggesting that many modern humans are a mix between the most evolved maternal lines that originated in three distinct archaic human populations, effectively creating hybrids. The Ancient Roman maternal line no longer exists, and seems to have been deliberately annihilated. For your reference, you can search for the Pre Roman Ancient Egyptian genome (row 320, which descends from Heidelbergensis) and the Icelandic genome (row 464, which descends from either Neanderthals or Denisovans, or both, it’s not clear).

Maternal Ancestry Among Scandinavians and Germans

Intuition suggests that the Sami People, who are indigenous Scandinavians, should as a general matter test as the ancestors of at least some Scandinavian people. At the same time, because all but the Finns and Sami speak Germanic languages, we would expect the Germans to test as the ancestors of at least some Scandinavian people. All of that said, during the Viking Age, the Scandinavians made use of a Phoenician-like alphabet, known as Runes, and so it’s at least possible we should see either Continental European ancestry (e.g., the Basque used similar scripts in antiquity), Middle Eastern ancestry, or some other form of ancestry that explains this otherwise anomalous alphabet. We will examine each of these questions below using the ancestry test.

Levänluhta

Levänluhta is an underwater gravesite in Finland that contains the remains of about 100 individuals from the Iron Age (c. 800 to 500 BC). Though Scandinavia has been occupied by humans since the Stone Age, common sense says that these individuals should test as the ancestor of at least some modern Scandinavians. This is indeed the case, and in fact, these individuals test as even more ancient than the Sami People, which you can see in the chart below. A positive number indicates that the population in question is a net ancestor, whereas a negative number indicates that the population in question is a net descendant. That is, if e.g., X is the number of times the ancestry test was satisfied from Sweden to Norway, and Y is the number of times the ancestry test was satisfied from Norway to Sweden, the chart below plots X – Y for each population. As you can see, all other Scandinavian groups test as the descendants of the individuals buried in Levänluhta. You can find the acronyms used below at the end of [1], but for now note that FN = Finland, NO = Norway, SW = Sweden, DN = Denmark, SM = Sami, IL = Iceland, and AF = Ancient Finland (i.e., Levänluhta). If you look at the ancestors of the individuals buried in Levänluhta (i.e., X – Y > 0), you’ll see HB = Heidelbergensis, AN = Andamanese, and other archaic populations, suggesting the individuals buried in Levänluhta are somewhere between archaic humans and modern humans, despite being a relatively recent Iron Age gravesite.

The Sami People

The Sami People are indigenous Scandinavians that speak an Uralic language and live in Northern Scandinavia, spanning Sweden, Norway, Finland, and Russia. For context, Uralic languages are spoken in regions around Finland, including Finland itself, Estonia, parts of Russia, as well Hungary. Uralic languages are to my knowledge not related to Germanic languages. As such, we should not be surprised if the Sami have a maternal ancestry that is distinct from the rest of the Scandinavians and Germans. This is in fact the case, and in particular, the Sami contain a significant amount of Denisovan mtDNA. See, [1] for more details. As noted above, Denisovans are a relatively recently discovered subspecies of archaic humans. The main archeological site where they were discovered is the Denisovan Cave in Siberia, and the dataset includes 8 Denisovan genomes from that site.

Above is the net maternal ancestry of the Sami people, where, again, a positive number indicates that the population in question is an ancestor of the Sami, and a negative number indicates that the population in question is a descendant of the Sami. As you can see above, all other living Scandinavian people test as the descendants of the Sami, making the Sami the most ancient among the living Scandinavian people.

The Finnish People

As noted above, the Finnish people speak an Uralic language, like the Sami, and as such, we should not be surprised if they have a distinct ancestry from the rest of the Scandinavians. This is in fact the case, though they are one step closer to modern Scandinavians than the Sami, and as you can see below, all Scandinavian people (other than the Sami) test as the descendants of the Finns.

Now this doesn’t mean that all the other Scandinavians descend directly from the Finns, which is too simple of a story, but it does mean that when comparing Finns to the rest of the Scandinavians (save for the Sami), it is more likely that a given Finn will test as the ancestor of a given Scandinavian, than the other way around. This is not terribly surprising since the Finns speak a completely different language that has (to my knowledge) an unknown origin, suggesting the language is quite ancient, and the Finns seem to be as well. The Finns also have a significant amount of Denisovan mtDNA from Siberia, which is again consistent with the claim that the Finns are, generally speaking, the second most ancient of the living Scandinavians.

The Danish People

Like the Finns, the Danes also contain a significant but lesser amount of Siberian Denisovan mtDNA, and they similarly test as the ancestors of all other Scandinavians, other than the Finns and Sami, making them the third most ancient Scandinavian population. Note however that Danish is a Germanic language, suggesting independence between Uralic languages and Denisovan mtDNA, though there does seem to be some reasonable correlation.

The Norwegian People

The Norwegian people contain no meaningful quantity of Denisovan mtDNA, and they test as the fourth most ancient of the living Scandinavians. Note that the Sami, Finns, and Danes test as the net ancestors of the Norwegians, whereas the Swedes and Icelandic people test as the descendants of the Norwegians. Finally note that the Norwegians speak a Germanic language.

The Swedish People

The Swedes contain no meaningful quantity of Denisovan mtDNA, and they test as the fifth most ancient of the living Scandinavians, and are therefore more modern than the rest, save for the Icelandic (discussed below). The Swedes speak a Germanic language that is very similar to Norwegian, though the Swedes are notably distinct from the Norwegians in that they test as the descendants of the Germans, whereas the rest of the Scandinavians discussed thus far test as the ancestors of the Germans.

The Icelandic People

There is only one Icelandic genome in the dataset, but as you can see below, it is very similar to the Swedish population generally. Further, this genome tests as the descendant of all Scandinavian populations, and more generally, has only three descendants: the Ancient Romans, the Irish, and the Munda people of India. The Ancient Romans generally test as the descendants of the Northern Europeans, and are in fact the most modern population in the dataset according to this test. The Munda people of India are probably not Scandinavian, and instead, the Scandinavians and the Munda presumably have a common ancestor in Asia, consistent with the “Migration-Back Hypothesis” I presented in [2], that humanity begins in Africa, spreads to Asia, and then back to Northern Europe and Africa, as well as spreading into East Asia. Dublin was founded by the Vikings, so it is no surprise that some Irish test as the descendants of the Icelandic. However, there is only one Icelandic genome in the dataset, and so while we can’t say much about the Icelandic people in general on the basis of the dataset alone, because Iceland was (to my knowledge) uninhabited prior to the Vikings, it’s presumably the case that the people of Iceland are literally direct descendants of the Vikings, whereas in contrast, Scandinavia (as noted above) has been inhabited by humans since the Stone Age.

The Origins of the Runic Alphabet

Note that the Swedes and Icelandic are the only Scandinavians that test as a descendant as opposed to an ancestor of the Germans. This could explain why the majority of the Rune Stones are in Sweden, as opposed to the rest of Scandinavia. Specifically, the hypothesis is that Germanic people brought the Phoenician-like alphabet of the Runic Scripts to Sweden. As noted above, the Basque used a similar alphabet, who are also of course Continental Europeans, and so the overall hypothesis is that people of the Mediterranean (e.g., the Phoenicians themselves) brought their alphabet to the Continental Europeans, and the Germans brought that alphabet to the Swedes.

Asian and African Ancestors and Descendants of the Scandinavians

You’ll note in the charts above that some African and Asian people test as the ancestors and / or the descendants of the Scandinavians, in particular the Nigerians and Tanzanians, and the Koreans, Thai, and Japanese (though there are others). Though this might initially seem puzzling, it is instead perfectly consistent with the Migration-Back Hypothesis presented in [2], which asserts that many modern humans, in particular Northern Europeans, East Asians, and many Africans are the descendants of common ancestors from Asia.

The Ancient Mediterranean

The Ancient Romans are clearly descendants of the Northern Europeans, but I’ve found similar Italian genomes that are 35,000 years old. This implies that the most evolved genomes in the dataset are still at least 35,000 years old, and were already in Italy, long before Ancient Rome. The question is then, if the stage was set 35,000 years ago, in that the modern maternal lines were fully formed, why is that it took so long for civilization to develop? One possibility is that there was further evolution on the male line, or the rest of the genome, which is probably true given that mtDNA is, generally speaking, very slow to evolve.

However, civilization has geography to it, and it is simply impossible to ignore the Mediterranean, which produced the Ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Ancient Greeks, and Ancient Romans, as well as others. Why did these people so drastically outperform literally all other humans? I think the answer is written language, and in turn, mathematics. That is, my hypothesis is that the genetics only gets you so far, and that you’ll find people very similar to e.g., the Phoenicians and Ancient Egyptians in other parts of the world that simply didn’t produce on the scale that the Mediterraneans did, and that the gap was driven by written language, which in turn allows for written mathematics, and everything that follows, from accurate inventories and contracts, to predictions about the future. That said, of all the Ancient and Classical people in the dataset, none of them contain any archaic mtDNA, suggesting maternal evolution really did play a role in intelligence and human progress.

This is difficult for modern people to appreciate, but imagine having no idea what happened a few weeks ago, and how that could leave you at a loss, or even put you at risk. At a minimum, written records reduce the risk of a dispute. Now imagine having no written system of mathematics, and trying to plan the construction of a structure, or travel over a long period of time. You’d have no means of calculating the number of days, or the number of individuals required, etc. Once you cross this milestone, it becomes rational to select mates on the basis of intelligence, which is a drastic shift from what happens in nature, which is selection for overall fitness. This seems to create a feedback loop, in that as civilizations become more sophisticated, intelligence becomes more important, further incentivizing selection for intelligence, thereby creating a more intelligent people.

This is not to diminish the accomplishments of other people, but it’s probably the case that the Mediterranean people of the Ancient and Classical periods were the most intelligent people in the world, at the time, which forces the question, of what happened to them? There’s unambiguous evidence that they were literally exterminated, at least in the case of the Romans. The thesis would therefore be that the Romans were slowly and systematically killed to the point of extinction, by less evolved people, creating the societal collapse and poverty that followed for nearly 1,000 years, until the Renaissance.

Unfortunately, it seems plausible the same thing is happening again. Specifically, consider that there have been no significant breakthroughs in physics since Relativity, which we now know is completely wrong. Also consider the fact that the most powerful algorithm in Machine Learning is from 1951. Not surprisingly, microprocessors have been designed using what is basically A.I., since the 1950s. So what is it then that these ostensible A.I. companies do all day? They don’t do anything, it’s impossible, because the topic began and ended in 1951, the only thing that’s changed, is that computers became more powerful. They are with certainty, misleading the public about how advanced A.I. really is, and it’s really strange, because scientists during the 1950s and 1960s, weren’t hiding anything at all. Obfuscation and dishonesty are consistent with a nefarious purpose, and companies like Facebook probably are criminal and even treasonous enterprises, working with our adversaries, and are certainly financed by backwards autocracies like Saudi Arabia.

If you’re too intelligent and educated, then you will know that the modern A.I. market is literally fake, creating an incentive to silence or even kill the most intelligent people, which is consistent with the extremely high suicide rate at MIT. It suggests the possibility that again, intelligent people are being exterminated, and having a look around at the world, it’s obvious that civilization is again declining, arguably when compared to the turn of the 20th Century, and certainly since the end of World War II. I think we all know who’s responsible, and it’s probably not Scandinavians.