?
Genes and myths: which genes and myths did the different waves of the peopling of americas bring to the new world?
The spatial distribution of folklore-mythological motifs is shown to correlate rather tightly with the distribution of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y-chromosome (NRY) haplogroups. The analysis of spatial distribution of folklore-mythological motifs confirms earlier findings of geneticists which identified South Siberia as the Old World homeland of the main wave of the peopling of the New World (the diffusion of the respective populations in the New World turns out to be associated with the spread of Clovis and para-Clovis archaeological cultures). Indeed, this is just South Siberia where the highest concentration of the Amerindian folklore-mythological motifs in Eurasia is observed. On the other hand, it turns out to be possible to connect the penetration of mtDNA HG C and NRY HG Q > Q3 to the New World with this migration wave. The spatial distribution of the ‘Circumgobi-Amerindian' folklore-mythological motifs follows rather closely the distribution of mtDNA HG C in the New World. This makes it possible to re-construct up to a considerable detail the mythology brought to the New World from South Siberia by this migration wave. Another migration wave turns out to be associated with the distribution of mtDNA HG B and motifs of ‘Melazonian' mythological complex whose highest concentration is observed in Melanesia, on the one hand, and Amazonia, on the other. These motifs form a few connected sets, which suggest certain possibilities for the reconstruction of some features of ‘proto-Melazonian' mythology brought to the New World by the bearers of mtDNA HG B. MtDNA HG A frequencies in Siberian and American populations display a rather strong and statistically significant correlation with the number of the ‘Raven Cycle' motifs in respect of folklore-mythological traditions. There are certain grounds to believe that both these motifs and the respective genetic marker (‘Arctic A') were brought to the extreme American North-West and extreme North-East Asia (‘Transberingia') later than both maternal lines B+C and Circumgobi-Amerindian, Melazonian and Ural-Amerindian motifs had been brought to the New World. The presence of a relatively homogenous Transberingian ‘genetic-mytho-logical' zone characterized by high frequencies of both mtDNA HG A and the Transberingian motifs seems to be accounted for, first of all, by the fact that they were brought to this zone relatively later with the migrations apparently corresponding to the movement to this area of Dene, Esko-Aleut and Chukotko-Kamchatkan language speakers and replaced to a considerable extent earlier genetic markers and folklore-mythological motifs. But, on the other hand, the same fact seems to be additionally accounted for by the functioning up to the Modern Age of the Transberingian communicative network, as in the Holocene the communication through the Bering straits does not appear to have ever interrupted, and led to additional homogenization of the zone. And the movement through the Bering straits definitely went in both directions, in the framework of which their way to the Old World appears to have been found by both some New World genetic markers (e.g., NRY HG Q3), and apparently some folklore-mythological motifs which were developed already in the New World (the possibility of the migration of some Transberingian motifs from the New World to the NE Asia [suggested {in a bit exaggerated way} already by the members of the Jesup Expedition] seems to be supported by a higher concentration of these motifs in the New World part of this zone). The analyzed evidence suggests that the Ural-Amerindian mythological complex was brought to the New World by a wave of migration which took place between 10,000 and 13,000, i.e. not long after the main wave of the peopling of Americas.