Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Stories from the Revolution... Indians... Calloway...



(Image: Mohawks, led by Joseph Brant, adhered to their long-standing allegiance to the British.)

 American Indians and the American Revolution by Collin G. Calloway 

 The Declaration of Independence accused King George III of unleashing "merciless Indian Savages" against innocent men, women, and children. The image of ferocious warriors propelled into action by a tyrannical monarch fixed in memory and imagination the Indians' role in the Revolution and justified their subsequent treatment. But many Indian nations tried to stay out of the conflict, some sided with the Americans, and those who fought with the British were not the king's pawns: they allied with the Crown as the best hope of protecting their homelands from the encroachments of American colonists and land speculators. The British government had afforded Indian lands a measure of protection by the Royal Proclamation of 1763 which had attempted to restrict colonial expansion beyond the Appalachian Mountains, and had alienated many American colonists. Indians knew that the Revolution was a contest for Indian land as well as for liberty. 

Wednesday, June 22, 2016

DsS... Wordpress...

http://ss.sites.mtu.edu/mhugl/2015/10/11/dunlaps-station/


 ← Willow Run – B24 LiberatorMesabi Range Mines, Minnesota 1939-1945 → Dunlap’s Station Posted on 11 October 2015 by Justin King Overview Present day location of Fort Dunlap Dunlap’s Station, also known as Fort Colerain, was an installation on the east bank of the Miami River which was established in early 1790. It is northwest of present day Cincinnati, Ohio nestled in a bend just downriver from the U.S. Route 27 Bridge between Cincinnati, Ohio and Ross, Ohio.

Sunday, June 19, 2016

1755 Ohio River Valley

Partie de l'Amérique septentrionale, qui comprend le cours de l'Ohio, la Nlle. Angleterre, la Nlle York, le New Jersey, la Pensylvanie, le Maryland, la Virginie, la Caroline

Author: Robert de Vaugondy, Gilles
Date: 1755
Location: Ohio River Valley, United States

Dimensions: 48 x 62 cm.
Scale: ca. 1:3,000,000
Call Number: G3700 1755 .R63

Saturday, June 18, 2016

The Mihši-maalhsa Wars – Part II

https://myaamiahistory.wordpress.com/2014/03/31/the-mihsi-maalhsa-wars-part-ii/



March 31, 2014

meekaalankwiki mihši-maalhsa – mikaalitioni kiihkayonki
The Mihši-maalhsa Wars – Part II – The Battle of Kiihkayonki
This article is the second of a five-part series on the history of our wars with the Mihši-maalhsaki (Americans), which occurred from 1778-1794 and from 1812-1814.  This second article focuses on the Battle of Kiihkayonki, also known as Harmar’s Defeat. If you want to hear the pronunciation of the Myaamia terms in this article, please visit our online dictionary at: www.myaamiadictionary.org

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Monday, May 30, 2016

The Law of Adoption: A Time for Change

Adoption is often classified under one umbrella with the assumption that all adoptions are the same. In reality, adoptions are not the same and in some situations are not even similar. Adoption statutes vary by state and individual situations can be affected by the race of the child and even by the religion of the birth mother. If no two adoptions are the same, how can something so complex be categorized under one, broad term? It cannot, and therefore, the best interest of the child in a particular case may not be the same in the case of another child. For this reason, the decision to receive identifying information relative to the child’s adoption should be the adoptee’s decision when they reach the age of majority.


The definition of adoption is to take and rear as one’s own child, specifically by a formal legal act. However, there is no legal definition of adoption. For a long time, adoption did not even require legal agreements or judicial approval, and adoption was simply an informal agreement between two families. In the early 1900s, states began creating laws in order to ensure judicial involvement in these private agreements. Adoption has generally occurred with children born out of wedlock and when the families could not take care of the children. The origins of adoption stem from protecting the child from growing up with a stigma they may face due to the circumstances of their birth, but it seems that was as much to protect the mother and birth family as much as it was about the child.
Adoption is often viewed positively by society and has many benefits such as loving families that care for and raise their adopted children as if they were their own and giving them opportunities for better lives. However, adoption also has negative implications including emotional and psychological problems for the child. The adopted child may feel a sense of abandonment and copes either by clinging on to people and relationships in an unconscious attempt to prevent anyone else from abandoning them, or by pushing people away because they feel that it is better not to care and that way when a person leaves they do not experience the sense of hurt and abandonment. In a society that preaches phrases such as “blood is thicker than water” and stresses the importance of being able to rely on family, who is there for a child of adoption to lean on since their family is not blood?
As Betty Jean Lifton says in her book The Search, “adoptees view the policy of confidentiality as a euphemism for putting everyone’s rights over their own, although as babies they had no say in the transaction”(Wegar, 1997). Every time an important decision that could affect the adoptees life came up, they had no say in it. Whether or not they live with their biological parent; who they ultimately live with and are raised by; whether or not they can see identifying information; whether or not they receive their medical history; all these decisions are being made for them, so at what point should it become their decision?
When a child is born and brought up in their biological family, he or she knows where they came from, and can ask any and all questions about the family’s heritage and medical history that may arise during childhood. By contrast, when a child is adopted, they often grow up not knowing where they came from and not having information about their biological family’s background or medical history. The adopted child usually desires information and may ask questions that their adoptive parents likely do not have the answers to. In taking away the rights of an adoptive child from knowing this information, society is saying that these children are inferior to those children who are not adopted. An adopted child should have the same rights as any other child and those rights include their right of knowledge of family background and medical history.
Some studies have found that many adoptees are ashamed and embarrassed by their adoptive status and overwhelmed by feelings of being “unfinished” or “imperfect.” Often times these feelings are unintentionally supported by the adoptive parents telling adoptees that they do not have to tell people they are adopted and that it is a private matter. The desire to know precisely why they were placed for adoption and whether they had been loved and wanted are key determinants in whether or not a child searches for their birth parents (Mabry & Kelly, 2006).
Birth mothers often argue they have a constitutional right to privacy and that their personal information should never be released to the adoptee. However, the right to privacy is not an absolute right and birth mothers should lose some amount of their privacy rights when it comes to placing a child for adoption. If the birth mother decided to keep the child, privacy would not be an issue because the child would know their mother; therefore, she does not have the right to privacy of that same child just because she decided to place the child for adoption. As a consequence of their choices, sex offenders lose their right to privacy at conviction and when they have to register on the sex offender registry board, public figures lose most of their rights to privacy when they become famous, and a birth parent should lose some of their rights to privacy when they put a child up for adoption.
Birth mothers often want assurances from adoption agencies and the courts that their identities will remain confidential. Often times they receive this assurance, the records are sealed, and it is noted that the child does not have the right to receive identifying information when they reach the age of majority. However, the right to privacy as it stands in the Constitution, is a right to privacy from governmental intrusion, not a right to privacy from one’s own flesh and blood.  Birth mothers often wants this right to privacy because they want to be free from the fear that the child might resurface and reveal their secret to the public, family, and friends who may not have known about the adoptee’s existence. These birth mothers are looking for a chance to not have to deal with the consequences of their actions, something everyone has to do every day of their lives. The birth mothers are looking for a way to not have to deal with the consequences of their actions, but they should have to deal with them, especially when there are many benefits for the adopted child who had no say in the adoption decision.
Another reason birth mothers should not have an ultimate say in whether the adoptee receives identifying information is they are human and can change their mind. Many birth mothers decide years after the birth of the child that they do want to know the child and may like to have a relationship with the child. Many mothers who put their children up for adoption are under the age of 25, which means they do not have a fully developed brain. They also cannot fully rationalize the situation due to hormonal changes and are in the midst of emotional turmoil, all of which create a situation in which the mother should not be making such a drastic, life-altering decision for both her and the child.
In response, many birth mothers and activists suggest voluntary mutual consent adoption registries. These registries are either passive or active, active being the more effective of the two. Active registries require staff and trained, certified intermediaries to conduct searches, make contacts, and facilitate reunions (Mabry & Kelly, 2006). However, these adoption registries only work if both parties are open to a reunion and are willing to be found. Most adoptees that seek to unseal their records do so because of their inability to gain any information from the birth mother’s desire to remain anonymous. Although these registries have worked for some people, many feel these registries do not help in finding people who do not want to be found, resulting in a waste of time and sometimes money.
The long term social, emotional and psychological effects to the birth child should take precedent over the birth mother’s desire to keep the child a secret. There are many reasons why a birth mother might desire to keep her pregnancy and choice to place the child up for adoption a secret, but there are also many reasons why the child needs to know the particulars of their adoption. “The primal wound is the devastation which the infant feels because of separation from its natural mother. It is the deep and consequential feeling of abandonment which the baby adoptee feels after the adoption and which continues for the rest of his life” (Verrier, 1993).
The adoptee has a personal need to know where they came from, to understand the circumstances of the adoption, or often times the child will grow up feeling abandoned and will always feel inadequate. It is a true psychological problem for adoptees not to know the background information of their adoption, therefore, giving reason to why the child deserves the option to see their adoption record and also to seek out their birth parent to ask questions.  There are many things the birth parents know that the papers will never tell, ergo, leaving the child feeling empty without having a chance to contact their birth parents.
Social scientists have concluded that as adoptees grow and develop their own identities, many need information about their past to fully develop their identity. Some adoptees have an overpowering desire and need to know the circumstances of their birth and adoption, as well as whether their parents looked like them physically. Often, an adoptee’s ability to develop self-esteem is intertwined with his or her need to know this information (Mabry & Kelly, 2006).
Many children are placed for adoption due to pregnancy out of wedlock or the parent being too young to properly raise the child. In those instances, as well as, with any adoption in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, D.C., Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin where medical history disclosure is not required, adoptees do not have any medical information, which could be pertinent to their health or the health of their children if they choose to have them.
When a birth parent is young, important medical history such as alcoholism and cancer may not be known. With a predisposition to either of those, an adopted child may choose to change their lifestyle accordingly. However, for adoptees with no medical history, they do not have the knowledge and therefore do not have a chance to change their lifestyle. Also, some biological diseases only appear every few generations and the adoptee may be a carrier. The adoptee needs their family medical history in order to better assess whether or not they are a carrier of a disease or are predisposed to certain diseases, both of which affect them as well as their future children and families. It is hardly reasonable to think that a birth mother’s right to privacy is more important than the health of the adoptee or their future children.
The movement to unseal adoption records began with Florence Fisher, an adoptee who publicized her twenty-year search for her birth mother. She openly criticized all who would not help her in her search, including lawyers, doctors, court clerks and hospital personnel. She received feedback from many adoptees sharing in her frustration, inciting her to organize Adoptee’s Liberty Movement Association (ALMA). The goal of ALMA was to “abolish the existing practice of sealed records… [and cause the] opening of records to any adopted person over eighteen who want, for any reason to see them.” ALMA filed a lawsuit against New York adoption agencies and state officials in 1977 alleging that New York’s sealed record statutes violated adoptee’s due process, equal protection and Thirteenth Amendment rights under the United States Constitution. The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denied each claim (Mabry & Kelly, 2006).
ALMA was on track with this lawsuit, despite the Court of Appeals denial, in that in most states, the sealed record statutes do violate adoptees’ due process of law rights, in that adoptees have a due process right to personal information. Other arguments in support of ALMA’s case and adoptee’s rights is their Ninth Amendment right to know their identity- an element that is essential in their personhood and their capacity to become psychologically stable. Also sealed records violate an adoptee’s equal rights protection because they are the only group that cannot access or obtain this information freely. Also, some adoptees have argued that like a due process right, they have a First Amendment right to receive personal information. The problem does not lie in these arguments, which have all been unsuccessful in court, but lies in the high standard of proof necessary to unseal adoption records (Mabry & Kelly, 2006).
In most states, the standard of proof for unsealing adoption records must contain one or a combination of the following: exceptional circumstances, a compelling need, cause, good cause or to promote the child’s wellbeing (Mabry & Kelly, 2006). The standard of proof in other court situations, for example medical malpractice, is much easier to achieve than the standard of proof for unsealing adoption records. Yet, unsealing adoption records is to benefit the adoptee, an innocent person in this situation, while medical malpractice lawsuits often will ruin a doctor’s reputation, if successful, and are many times, unfounded claims. If a person can so easily sue another person, ruining their reputation and possibly even their career over an unavoidable situation, an adoptee should be able to obtain information that is pertinent to their health, mental wellbeing, and psychological wellbeing. This is information about themselves, for what is a child but a bi-product of their parents.
As of 2006, the most successful movement for unsealing adoption records occurred in 1998 when Bastard Nation, an activist adoption group, launched Measure 58- a ballot initiative in the state of Oregon to make “unaltered, original and unamended” birth certificates available to adoptees who were twenty-one or older. It also required that the same filing fees, waiting periods and procedures that non-adopted Oregonians faced should also apply to adoptees that sought their birth certificates. Bastard Nation initiated Measure 58 because it believed adoption records should be available to adoptees without condition or restriction. A majority of Oregonians voted to adopt the law, amid controversy  (Mabry and Kelly, 2006).
Seven birth mothers filed a class action that challenged Measure 58 on constitutional grounds. They alleged that they were assured of privacy and confidentiality when they placed their children for adoption between 1960 and 1994, of which they expected a continuation of this privacy and anonymity until they decided otherwise. Due to these appeals, the enactment of the law was postponed until May of 2000. However, during that time, the state of Tennessee enacted legislation that allowed adoptees to receive their birth certificate, which was also challenged in the courts. Ultimately, Measure 58 was upheld because it did not violate the Oregon or United States Constitutions. The Tennessee legislation was also enacted, after the appeals court denied the legislation and the Supreme Court of Tennessee overruled and enacted the legislation concluding that it did not violate the birth mother’s right to privacy under the Tennessee Constitution (Mabry & Kelly, 2006).
Recommendations to solve the issue of sealed adoption records include the release of medical history or the release of original birth certificates, rather than releasing all the information in the adoptee’s file. The release of medical history is only one aspect and, although it is a step in the right direction, would not help with the psychological, emotional and social growth of the child. The automatic disclosure of birth certificates to adult adoptees is a possible avenue that has been addressed in some states and has been successfully passed.  In Alabama, Alaska, Kansas, New Hampshire, Oregon, and Tennessee adoptees must wait until they are 18-21 years of age, depending on the state, to receive their birth certificate, but once they reach the age of majority, they have automatic right to their original birth certificate.
The best possible measure would be to unseal adoption records and give the adoptee access to their complete adoption record when they reach the age of majority. This would be the most effective way of dealing with all the issues that adoptees face. In allowing full disclosure, adoptees would have the option to contact their birth parents to search for background information. The adoptee could then obtain answers to questions they need answers to before they can move on with their lives. They could obtain their biological family’s medical history, and other information they may want or need. It would also give the adoptee and birth parents the opportunity to form a relationship. It has been found that many years later, birth parents desire to meet and form relationships with the children they had placed for adoption.
What seems even more important than the “to search or not to search” question is the right of every adoptee who so wishes to know his or her background (Krementz, 2003).  The issue of the acquisition of information to adoptees is as strong as ever. In a society that preaches free speech and freedom of information from the government, it is not fair that individuals are able to keep any information about themselves a secret from their own flesh and blood. Birth mothers argue that they are entitled to a level of privacy; however, that privacy is forfeited once they made the decision to have a child.
There are other solutions that if agreed upon by both parties would provide a middle of the road compromise to meet the needs of the birth family and the adoptee. Release of birth certificates only, a questionnaire with any and all necessary information, and private meetings that do not involve anyone other than the birth parents and child could be considered. The best thing the courts can do is give the child the information they are entitled to, their background information. Adoptees need to have access to their biological families’ medical history, their background information, and all other information pertaining to their adoption in order to grow and mature healthily. With new policies and statutes in place, such as this or statutes similar to what is seen in Tennessee, it could be possible to solve many of the problems that are present with both adoptees and their birth parents.

References
DeWoody, M. (1993). Adoption and disclosure. Washington, D.C.: Child Welfare League of America, Inc.
Leavy, M.L., & Weinberg, R.D. (1979). Law of adoption. Dobbs Ferry, NY : Oceana Publications, Inc.
Lifton, B.J. (1994). Journey of the adopted self. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Mabry, C.R., & Kelly, L. (2006). Adoption law: theory, policy, and practice. Buffalo, NY: William S. Hein & Co., Inc.
Verrier, N.N. (1997). The Primal wound: understanding the adopted child. Baltimore, MD: Gateway Press, Inc.
Wegar, Katarina (1997). Adoption, identity, and kinship: the debate over sealed birth records. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

R1b DNA...

http://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1b_Y-DNA.shtml

Eupedia Genetics
Eupedia Home > Genetics > Haplogroups (home) > Haplogroup R1b

Haplogroup R1b (Y-DNA)

Version française
Haplogroup R1b (Y-DNA) - Eupedia
Contents
Author: Maciamo.
Last update July 2015 (updated 'conquest of Western Europe')



Geographic distribution

Distribution of haplogroup R1b in Europe
Distribution of haplogroup R1b in Europe
R1b is the most common haplogroup in Western Europe, reaching over 80% of the population in Ireland, the Scottish Highlands, western Wales, the Atlantic fringe of France, the Basque country and Catalonia. It is also common in Anatolia and around the Caucasus, in parts of Russia and in Central and South Asia. Besides the Atlantic and North Sea coast of Europe, hotspots include the Po valley in north-central Italy (over 70%), Armenia (35%), the Bashkirs of the Urals region of Russia (50%), Turkmenistan (over 35%), the Hazara people of Afghanistan (35%), the Uyghurs of North-West China (20%) and the Newars of Nepal (11%). R1b-V88, a subclade specific to sub-Saharan Africa, is found in 60 to 95% of men in northern Cameroon.

Distribution map of haplogroup R1b in the Old World

Distribution map of haplogroup R1b in the Old World (Eurasia and Africa) - Eupedia

Subclades

Here is a schematic tree of the principal R1b subclades. Please refer to the International Society of Genetic Genealogy (ISOGG) for the full tree with all the SNP's and the latest nomenclature.
Phylogenetic tree of haplogroup R1b (Y-DNA) - Eupedia

Click on the trees below to enlarge

Phylogenetic tree of haplogroup R1b-L21/M529 (Y-DNA) - Eupedia
Phylogenetic tree of haplogroup R1b-DF27/S250 (Y-DNA) - Eupedia
Phylogenetic tree of haplogroup R1b-S28/U152 (Y-DNA) - Eupedia
Phylogenetic tree of haplogroup R1b-S21/U106 (Y-DNA) - Eupedia



Origins & History

Paleolithic mammoth hunters

Haplogroup R* originated in North Asia just before the Last Glacial Maximum (26,500-19,000 years ago). This haplogroup has been identified in the remains of a 24,000 year-old boy from the Altai region, in south-central Siberia (Raghavan et al. 2013). This individual belonged to a tribe of mammoth hunters that may have roamed across Siberia and parts of Europe during the Paleolithic. Autosomally this Paleolithic population appears to have contributed mostly to the ancestry of modern Europeans and South Asians, the two regions where haplogroup R also happens to be the most common nowadays (R1b in Western Europe, R1a in Eastern Europe, Central and South Asia, and R2 in South Asia).
The oldest forms of R1b (M343, P25, L389) are found dispersed at very low frequencies from Western Europe to India, a vast region where could have roamed the nomadic R1b hunter-gatherers during the Ice Age. The three main branches of R1b1 (R1b1a, R1b1b, R1b1c) all seem to have stemmed from the Middle East. The southern branch, R1b1c (V88), is found mostly in the Levant and Africa. The northern branch, R1b1a (P297), seems to have originated around the Caucasus, eastern Anatolia or northern Mesopotamia, then to have crossed over the Caucasus, from where they would have invaded Europe and Central Asia. R1b1b (M335) has only been found in Anatolia.

Neolithic cattle herders

It has been hypothetised that R1b people (perhaps alongside neighbouring J2 tribes) were the first to domesticate cattle in northern Mesopotamia some 10,500 years ago. R1b tribes descended from mammoth hunters, and when mammoths went extinct, they started hunting other large game such as bisons and aurochs. With the increase of the human population in the Fertile Crescent from the beginning of the Neolithic (starting 12,000 years ago), selective hunting and culling of herds started replacing indiscriminate killing of wild animals. The increased involvement of humans in the life of aurochs, wild boars and goats led to their progressive taming. Cattle herders probably maintained a nomadic or semi-nomadic existence, while other people in the Fertile Crescent (presumably represented by haplogroups E1b1b, G and T) settled down to cultivate the land or keep smaller domesticates.
The analysis of bovine DNA has revealed that all the taurine cattle (Bos taurus) alive today descend from a population of only 80 aurochs. The earliest evidence of cattle domestication dates from circa 8,500 BCE in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic cultures in the Taurus Mountains. The two oldest archaeological sites showing signs of cattle domestication are the villages of Çayönü Tepesi in southeastern Turkey and Dja'de el-Mughara in northern Iraq, two sites only 250 km away from each others. This is presumably the area from which R1b lineages started expanding - or in other words the "original homeland" of R1b.
The early R1b cattle herders would have split in at least three groups. One branch (M335) remained in Anatolia, but judging from its extreme rarity today wasn't very successful, perhaps due to the heavy competition with other Neolithic populations in Anatolia, or to the scarcity of pastures in this mountainous environment. A second branch migrated south to the Levant, where it became the V88 branch. Some of them searched for new lands south in Africa, first in Egypt, then colonising most of northern Africa, from the Mediterranean coast to the Sahel. The third branch (P297), crossed the Caucasus into the vast Pontic-Caspian Steppe, which provided ideal grazing grounds for cattle. They split into two factions: R1b1a1 (M73), which went east along the Caspian Sea to Central Asia, and R1b1a2 (M269), which at first remained in the North Caucasus and the Pontic Steppe between the Dnieper and the Volga. It is not yet clear whether M73 actually migrated across the Caucasus and reached Central Asia via Kazakhstan, or if it went south through Iran and Turkmenistan. In the latter case, M73 might not be an Indo-European branch of R1b, just like V88 and M335.
R1b-M269 (the most common form in Europe) is closely associated with the diffusion of Indo-European languages, as attested by its presence in all regions of the world where Indo-European languages were spoken in ancient times, from the Atlantic coast of Europe to the Indian subcontinent, which comprised almost all Europe (except Finland, Sardinia and Bosnia-Herzegovina), Anatolia, Armenia, European Russia, southern Siberia, many pockets around Central Asia (notably in Xinjiang, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan), without forgetting Iran, Pakistan, northern India and Nepal. The history of R1b and R1a are intricately connected to each others.

The Levantine & African branch of R1b (V88)

Like its northern counterpart (R1b-M269), R1b-V88 is associated with the domestication of cattle in northern Mesopotamia. Both branches of R1b probably split soon after cattle were domesticated, approximately 10,500 years ago (8,500 BCE). R1b-V88 migrated south towards the Levant and Egypt. The migration of R1b people can be followed archeologically through the presence of domesticated cattle, which appear in central Syria around 8,000-7,500 BCE (late Mureybet period), then in the Southern Levant and Egypt around 7,000-6,500 BCE (e.g. at Nabta Playa and Bir Kiseiba). Cattle herders subsequently spread across most of northern and eastern Africa. The Sahara desert would have been more humid during the Neolithic Subpluvial period (c. 7250-3250 BCE), and would have been a vast savannah full of grass, an ideal environment for cattle herding.
Evidence of cow herding during the Neolithic has shown up at Uan Muhuggiag in central Libya around 5500 BCE, at the Capeletti Cave in northern Algeria around 4500 BCE. But the most compelling evidence that R1b people related to modern Europeans once roamed the Sahara is to be found at Tassili n'Ajjer in southern Algeria, a site famous pyroglyphs (rock art) dating from the Neolithic era. Some painting dating from around 3000 BCE depict fair-skinned and blond or auburn haired women riding on cows.
After reaching the Maghreb, R1b-V88 cattle herders could have crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to Iberia, probably accompanied by G2 farmers, J1 and T1a goat herders and native Maghreban E-M81 lineages. These Maghreban Neolithic farmers/herders could have been the ones who established the Almagra Pottery culture in Andalusia in the 6th millennium BCE.
Nowadays small percentages (1 to 4%) of R1b-V88 are found in the Levant, among the Lebanese, the Druze, and the Jews, and almost in every country in Africa north of the equator. Higher frequency in Egypt (5%), among Berbers from the Egypt-Libya border (23%), among the Sudanese Copts (15%), the Hausa people of Sudan (40%), the the Fulani people of the Sahel (54% in Niger and Cameroon), and Chadic tribes of northern Nigeria and northern Cameroon (especially among the Kirdi), where it is observed at a frequency ranging from 30% to 95% of men. According to Cruciani et al. (2010) R1b-V88 would have crossed the Sahara between 9,200 and 5,600 years ago, and is most probably associated with the diffusion of Chadic languages, a branch of the Afroasiatic languages. V88 would have migrated from Egypt to Sudan, then expanded along the Sahel until northern Cameroon and Nigeria. However, R1b-V88 is not only present among Chadic speakers, but also among Senegambian speakers (Fula-Hausa) and Semitic speakers (Berbers, Arabs).
R1b-V88 is found among the native populations of Rwanda, South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau. The wide distribution of V88 in all parts of Africa, its incidence among herding tribes, and the coalescence age of the haplogroup all support a Neolithic dispersal. In any case, a later migration out of Egypt would be improbable since it would have brought haplogroups that came to Egypt during the Bronze Age, such as J1, J2, R1a or R1b-L23.
The maternal lineages associated with the spread of R1b-V88 in Africa are mtDNA haplogroups J1b, U5 and V, and perhaps also U3 and some H subclades (=> see Retracing the mtDNA haplogroups of the original R1b people).

The North Caucasus and the Pontic-Caspian steppe : the Indo-European link

Modern linguists have placed the Proto-Indo-European homeland in the Pontic-Caspian Steppe, a distinct geographic and archeological region extending from the Danube estuary to the Ural mountains to the east and North Caucasus to the south. The Neolithic, Eneolithic and early Bronze Age cultures in Pontic-Caspian steppe has been called the Kurgan culture(4200-2200 BCE) by Marija Gimbutas, due to the lasting practice of burying the deads under mounds ("kurgan") among the succession of cultures in that region. It is now known that kurgan-type burials only date from the 4th millenium BCE and almost certainly originated south of the Caucasus. The genetic diversity of R1b being greater around eastern Anatolia, it is hard to deny that R1b evolved there before entering the steppe world. 
Horses were first domesticated around 4600 BCE in the Caspian Steppe, perhaps somewhere around the Don or the lower Volga, and soon became a defining element of steppe culture. Nevertheless it is unlikely that R1b was already present in the eastern steppes at the time, so the domestication of the horse should be attributed to the indigenous R1a people.
It is not yet entirely clear when R1b crossed over from eastern Anatolia to the Pontic-Caspian steppe. This might have happened with the appearance of the Dnieper-Donets culture (c. 5100-4300 BCE). This was the first truly Neolithic society in the Pontic-Caspian Steppe. Domesticated animals (cattle, sheep and goats) were herded throughout the steppes and funeral rituals were elaborate. Sheep wool would play an important role in Indo-European society, notably in the Celtic and Germanic (R1b branches of the Indo-Europeans) clothing traditions up to this day. However, many elements indicate a continuity in the Dnieper-Donets culture with the previous Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, and at the same time an influence from the Balkans and Carpathians, with regular imports of pottery and copper objects. It is therefore more likely that Dnieper-Donets marked the transition of indigenous R1a and/or I2a1b people to early agriculture, perhaps with an influx of Near Eastern farmers from 'Old Europe'. Mitochondrial DNA sequences from Dnieper-Donets culture showed clear similarities with those of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture in the Carpathians (haplogroups H, T and U3).
The first clearly Proto-Indo-European culture was Sredny Stog (4600-3900 BCE), when small kurgan burials begin to appear, with the distinctive posturing of the dead on the back with knees raised and oriented toward the northeast, which would be found in later steppe cultures as well. There is evidence of population blending from the variety of skull shapes. Towards the end of the 5th millennium, an elite starts to develop with cattle, horses and copper used as status symbols.
Another migration across the Caucasus happened shortly before 3700 BCE, when the Maykop culture, the world's first Bronze Age society, suddenly materialized in the north-west Caucasus, apparently out of nowhere. The origins of Maykop are still uncertain, but archeologists have linked it to contemporary Chalcolithic cultures in Assyria and western Iran. Archeology also shows a clear diffusion of bronze working and kurgan-type burials from the Maykop culture to the Pontic Steppe, where the Yamna culture developed soon afterwards (from 3500 BCE). Kurgan (a.k.a. tumulus) burials would become a dominant feature of ancient Indo-European societies and were widely used by the Celts, Romans, Germanic tribes, and Scythians, among others.
The Yamna period (3500-2500 BCE) is the most important one in the creation of Indo-European culture and society. Middle Eastern R1b people had been living and blending to some extent with the local R1a foragers and herders for over a millennium, perhaps even two or three. The close cultural contact and interactions between R1a and R1b people all over the Pontic-Caspian Steppe resulted in the creation of a common vernacular, a new lingua franca, which linguists have called Proto-Indo-European (PIE). It is pointless to try to assign another region of origin to the PIE language. Linguistic similarities exist between PIE and Caucasian and Hurrian languages in the Middle East on the one hand, and Uralic languages in the Volga-Ural region on the other hand, which makes the Pontic Steppe the perfect intermediary region.
During the Yamna period cattle and sheep herders adopted wagons to transport their food and tents, which allowed them to move deeper into the steppe, giving rise to a new mobile lifestyle that would eventually lead to the great Indo-European migrations. This type of mass migration in which whole tribes moved with the help of wagons was still common in Gaul at the time of Julius Caesar, and among Germanic peoples in the late Antiquity.
The Yamna horizon was not a single, unified culture. In the south, along the northern shores of the Black Sea coast until the the north-west Caucasus, was a region of open steppe, expanding eastward until the Caspian Sea, Siberia and Mongolia (the Eurasian Steppe). The western section, between the Don and Dniester Rivers (and later the Danube), was the one most densely settled by R1b people, with only a minority of R1a people (5-10%). The eastern section, in the Volga basin until the Ural mountains, was inhabited by R1a people with a substantial minority of R1b people (whose descendants can be found among the Bashkirs, Turkmans, Uyghurs and Hazaras, among others). The northern part of the Yamna horizon was forest-steppe occupied by R1a people, also joined by a small minority of R1b (judging from modern Russians and Belarussians, the frequency of R1b was from seven to nine times less lower than R1a). The western branch would migrate to the Balkans and Greece, then to central and Western Europe, and back to their ancestral Anatolia in successive waves (Hittites, Phrygians, Armenians, etc.). The eastern branch would migrate to Central Asia, Xinjiang, Siberia, and South Asia (Iran, Pakistan, India). The northern branch would evolve into the Corded Ware culture and disperse around the Baltic, Poland, Germany and Scandinavia.

The Maykop culture, the R1b link to the steppe ?

The Maykop culture (3700-2500 BCE) in the north-west Caucasus was culturally speaking a sort of southern extension of the Yamna horizon. Although not generally considered part of the Pontic-Caspian steppe culture due to its geography, the North Caucasus had close links with the steppes, as attested by numerous ceramics, gold, copper and bronze weapons and jewelry in the contemporaneous cultures of Mikhaylovka, Sredny Stog and Kemi Oba. The link between the northern Black Sea coast and the North Caucasus is older than the Maykop period. Its predecessor, the Svobodnoe culture (4400-3700 BCE), already had links to the Suvorovo-Novodanilovka and early Sredny Stog cultures. The even older Nalchik settlement (5000-4500 BCE) in the North Caucasus displayed a similar culture as Khvalynsk on the Volga. This may be the period when R1b started interracting and blending with the R1a population of the steppes.
The Yamna and Maykop people both used kurgan burials, placing their deads in a supine position with raised knees and oriented in a north-east/south-west axis. Graves were sprinkled with red ochre on the floor, and sacrificed domestic animal buried alongside humans. They also had in common horses, wagons, a heavily cattle-based economy with a minority of sheep kept for their wool, use of copper/bronze battle-axes (both hammer-axes and sleeved axes) and tanged daggers. In fact, the oldest wagons and bronze artefacts are found in the North Caucasus, and appe