Deadly shelter

A new study finds a sweep in East Asia, clustered around the genes affecting coronavirus. Razib Khan goes into the data and finds less of this in Japan, suggesting that it hit the mainland after the Jomon had already settled Honshu.

This blog has had a couple of comments about Palaeolithic / Latest Glacial 'rona. Here we are noting that Neanders didn't get the bug at all, to such an extent that when they interbred with us, they cost us immunity. That immunity was restored in places - like Aurignacians in Europe, heavily involved in I2 and R1b profiles - but not in India despite its R1a Brahmin-caste.

When all this started I was, I freely admit, a basic bitch who thought this was a China Killer, perhaps due to those Neanders, and not to be fretted by us huwite folk, because the old northern winters fixed it for us. This new research tells a different story: it was a China killer... past tense. The late 20s kBC past. By that time the Neanders weren't around to tweak our genes anymore. Nor were the "Basal Eurasians". Nor even the Gravettians.

As genetic markers, that metronome is in the human generation, standing in for a tree-ring. We infer the year from that. As for which genes, we're talking pure human so not the Neander rs10490770; however I also see nothing in the paper by that format, so that's annoying for those of us who like our papers to communicate in the same language.

The "CoV-VIP" genes went under selection 900 generations ago, really getting underway 800-500 with a 870 peak, and staying under pressure until 200 generations. In years that's 23000-3000 BC. For reference the LGM - the Ice Age - was worst 24500 BC, running to the 18s kBC somewhere but really staying Pleistoceney until the Younger Dryas. The protein peak and LGM correlate such that I wonder if that corresponds to shelter in bat caves.

Other lines of evidence point that the Beringians had already left Siberia by then. The Native Americans aren't under this selection, so that adds more evidence to that thesis and a constraint on when they started out: 900 or more generations back. The CoVIDs having done their damage along the Yellow River I expect that future migrants north then had that Cov-VIP advantage, so were able to move north and replace those old Siberians with the Manchu-types living up there today. It would be interesting to see the genetic profile of pre-contact Alaskan Na-Dene and (especially) Inuit here.