Donald Yates - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Donald Yates
Phase I. A sample of 52 individuals who purchased mitochondrial DNA testing to determine their fe... more Phase I. A sample of 52 individuals who purchased mitochondrial DNA testing to determine their female lineage was assembled after the fact from the customer files of DNA Consultants. All claim matrilineal descent from a Native American woman, usually named as Cherokee. The main criterion for inclusion in the study is that test subjects must have obtained results not placing them in the standard Native American haplogroups A, B, C or D, hence the use of the word “anomalous.” Most subjects reveal haplotypes that were unmatched anywhere else except among other participants. There proves to be a high degree of interrelatedness and common ancestral lines. Haplogroup T emerges as the largest lineage, followed by U, X, J and H. Similar proportions of these haplogroups are noted in the populations of Egypt, Israel and other parts of the East Mediterranean.
Phase II. A sample of individuals who took a mitochondrial DNA test to determine female lineage (n=67) was created from participants in DNA Consultants' Cherokee DNA Project Phase II. Almost all beforehand claimed matrilineal descent from a Native American woman, usually believed to be Cherokee, and often named in genealogy research undertaken by the customer. The majority of subjects revealed "anomalous" haplotypes not previously classified as American Indian. Many matched others in Phase I. Several individuals overcame the barrier of a sealed adoption to find biological relationships, often to other participants. As in Phase I, a Middle Eastern type, haplogroup T, emerged as the most common lineage (19.4% in Phase II, 22.7% overall in the project), followed by H, U and J, all Eurasian types. Sub-Saharan African haplogroup L (9%) was prominent as a minor category. Old Europe haplogroups I, N, V and W occurred in small amounts and should be considered strikingly new, unreported signals of authentic Cherokee ancestry.
Philosophy is not a concept often applied to Native American traditional knowledge except in a lo... more Philosophy is not a concept often applied to Native American traditional knowledge except in a loose sense. Yet it seems a fruitful approach for understanding what has sometimes been called an American Indian "system" of wisdom or spirituality. In interviews conducted with the Potawatomi-Shawnee-Cherokee-Tihanama elder Paul Russell during the summer of 1996, one can identify many of the earmarks of a full-fledged philosophy expressed in a native tongue, including a cosmogony, logic, epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, peculiar terminology and description of the role of the practitioner.
""From the presentation: Our schools and textbooks teach that American Indians in what became th... more ""From the presentation: Our schools and textbooks teach that American Indians in what became the United States had and have a primitive and under-developed religious sensibility. Like other indigenous peoples, they are animistic, totemistic or pantheistic. They never advanced to the level of institutionalized religions with priesthoods, scriptures or ecumenical appeal. They have myths but not theologies. The fundamental divide between native spiritualities and the imperial, colonial forms of worship of Christianity and Western Civilization is well dissected in Vine Deloria’s book God Is Red, where a strong distinction is drawn between what Deloria defines as Indian spirituality and Western religions.
""
International Journal of Community Diversity, vol. 13, May 2014
Abstract: Although the fields of direct-to-the-consumer DNA testing and genetic counseling have ... more Abstract: Although the fields of direct-to-the-consumer DNA testing and genetic counseling have experienced rapid growth in the past five years in providing people with increasingly accurate analyses of their ancestry, admixture, family medical history and risk factors for disease, the subtle role of epigenetics in heredity has so far not been comparably exploited in medical research nor greatly appreciated by the wider public. The history of DNA testing in the consumer realm reveals a shift from sex-linked testing and easily traced Y chromosome and mitochondrial lines of descent to an emphasis on autosomal results, which are more diversified, complex and determinative. Matches showing ancestral relatedness are now possible to autosomal populations based on forensic science, ethnic strains and multi-generational markers, such as Native American and Jewish. Epigenetics, defined as the superstructure of genes, is beginning to be linked to population genetics to explore the environmental effect upon genes, nutrition and a host of transgenerational factors in susceptibility to diabetes, cancer, stress and other diseases or conditions. Specific areas discussed here are the Dutch Hunger Winter Study, methylation, cancer, stress, environmental toxins including fungicides and air pollution and neurological diseases. The emerging field of epigenetics with its emphasis on environment and nutrition is thus superseding the older model of genetic determinism in dictating people's health decisions, self-identity and ways of understanding their individual ancestry and ethnicity.
Since the 1990s, genetics has transformed many of our notions of race, ethnicity, and identity. I... more Since the 1990s, genetics has transformed many of our notions of race, ethnicity, and identity. In the 2000 U.S. Census, respondents were given the option of checking multiple ancestries or ethnicities for the first time. The similarities of identifying as a descendant
Drafts by Donald Yates
Overview The Tucson Artifacts consist of lost-wax, cast-lead ceremonial objects inscribed with me... more Overview The Tucson Artifacts consist of lost-wax, cast-lead ceremonial objects inscribed with medieval Latin historical texts and names such as Jacob, Israel, Benjamin, Joseph, Saul and Theodore, some also with Hebrew phrases like " help of the Exile, " others with diagrams or busts of leaders, ships, trademarks in Tang-era seal script and temples, one Mesoamerican glyph, Romanesque-style angels in glory and other emblems, including the Ten Commandments and cult objects like spice spoons, Frankish axes and braziers. There are also military anthems and mottos. A series of thick double crosses, joined like sealed albums (I-V), contain the records of the colony signed by OL (Oliver), with dates ranging from 560 to 900 A.D. The overarching provenance is described as Romani, or Romans, and Levites (L) and Israelites (I). One of the stand-out emblems is a triple tiara, a symbol of Jewish priesthood associated with the Mesoamerican figure of Quetzalcoatl, a foreign god in Old Mexico. The writing is a form of legal square Roman capitals, an official script in use for records housed in temples for centuries in the lands of the Roman Empire. Its composition, irregularly filling a cruciform plan, shows that it was probably copied from drafts in cursive on wax tablets dictated by Oliver, keeper of records and master of the military recruits. In annalistic manner, the accusative absolute rather than the ablative absolute is used, and certain symmetrical and numerological schemes are employed by the inscriber to highlight names and events, as in formal epitaphs. The rough exterior of the riveted-together double crosses demonstrates that the filling of the matrix (air holes are apparent on the finished works) took place on site in the same desert environment where the artifacts were later excavated, probably in a mining cave, for one can detect still the impress of gemstones, beads, pearls, sand, gravel and mesquite leaves captured in the making of the ceramic matrix—the floor of the casting process. The Latinity of the inscriptions is typical of the so-called Dark Ages, with a slight uncertainty of orthography, case, syntax and tense, but the register is classical, with allusions to Vergil, the Bible and Roman law. It is apparent that the author's original speech, however, was not Latin, not anything like the sermo humilis spoken in Latinate parts of the empire, but a Celtic tongue, and on the finished artifacts are numerous Brittonic glosses, incised after the fact in ogam. An example is the Old Welsh/Breton/Cornish word da as a calque scratched over the word ROMANI on the Albion Cross (4A), translated " good, " as in the corresponding captions TOB (Hebrew for " good ") below temples on artifacts 6 and 13, showing the equation of Romani, the army's legal identity, and the Land of David, or the Holy Land (Beaulande in Old French chansons). Ogam in the style named Romesc Breas (Roman Breton) in The Book of Ballymote listing ninety-three varieties labels the Romani colonists as Good, in the sense of Beaulande, the Holy Land.
Phase I. A sample of 52 individuals who purchased mitochondrial DNA testing to determine their fe... more Phase I. A sample of 52 individuals who purchased mitochondrial DNA testing to determine their female lineage was assembled after the fact from the customer files of DNA Consultants. All claim matrilineal descent from a Native American woman, usually named as Cherokee. The main criterion for inclusion in the study is that test subjects must have obtained results not placing them in the standard Native American haplogroups A, B, C or D, hence the use of the word “anomalous.” Most subjects reveal haplotypes that were unmatched anywhere else except among other participants. There proves to be a high degree of interrelatedness and common ancestral lines. Haplogroup T emerges as the largest lineage, followed by U, X, J and H. Similar proportions of these haplogroups are noted in the populations of Egypt, Israel and other parts of the East Mediterranean.
Phase II. A sample of individuals who took a mitochondrial DNA test to determine female lineage (n=67) was created from participants in DNA Consultants' Cherokee DNA Project Phase II. Almost all beforehand claimed matrilineal descent from a Native American woman, usually believed to be Cherokee, and often named in genealogy research undertaken by the customer. The majority of subjects revealed "anomalous" haplotypes not previously classified as American Indian. Many matched others in Phase I. Several individuals overcame the barrier of a sealed adoption to find biological relationships, often to other participants. As in Phase I, a Middle Eastern type, haplogroup T, emerged as the most common lineage (19.4% in Phase II, 22.7% overall in the project), followed by H, U and J, all Eurasian types. Sub-Saharan African haplogroup L (9%) was prominent as a minor category. Old Europe haplogroups I, N, V and W occurred in small amounts and should be considered strikingly new, unreported signals of authentic Cherokee ancestry.
Philosophy is not a concept often applied to Native American traditional knowledge except in a lo... more Philosophy is not a concept often applied to Native American traditional knowledge except in a loose sense. Yet it seems a fruitful approach for understanding what has sometimes been called an American Indian "system" of wisdom or spirituality. In interviews conducted with the Potawatomi-Shawnee-Cherokee-Tihanama elder Paul Russell during the summer of 1996, one can identify many of the earmarks of a full-fledged philosophy expressed in a native tongue, including a cosmogony, logic, epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, peculiar terminology and description of the role of the practitioner.
""From the presentation: Our schools and textbooks teach that American Indians in what became th... more ""From the presentation: Our schools and textbooks teach that American Indians in what became the United States had and have a primitive and under-developed religious sensibility. Like other indigenous peoples, they are animistic, totemistic or pantheistic. They never advanced to the level of institutionalized religions with priesthoods, scriptures or ecumenical appeal. They have myths but not theologies. The fundamental divide between native spiritualities and the imperial, colonial forms of worship of Christianity and Western Civilization is well dissected in Vine Deloria’s book God Is Red, where a strong distinction is drawn between what Deloria defines as Indian spirituality and Western religions.
""
International Journal of Community Diversity, vol. 13, May 2014
Abstract: Although the fields of direct-to-the-consumer DNA testing and genetic counseling have ... more Abstract: Although the fields of direct-to-the-consumer DNA testing and genetic counseling have experienced rapid growth in the past five years in providing people with increasingly accurate analyses of their ancestry, admixture, family medical history and risk factors for disease, the subtle role of epigenetics in heredity has so far not been comparably exploited in medical research nor greatly appreciated by the wider public. The history of DNA testing in the consumer realm reveals a shift from sex-linked testing and easily traced Y chromosome and mitochondrial lines of descent to an emphasis on autosomal results, which are more diversified, complex and determinative. Matches showing ancestral relatedness are now possible to autosomal populations based on forensic science, ethnic strains and multi-generational markers, such as Native American and Jewish. Epigenetics, defined as the superstructure of genes, is beginning to be linked to population genetics to explore the environmental effect upon genes, nutrition and a host of transgenerational factors in susceptibility to diabetes, cancer, stress and other diseases or conditions. Specific areas discussed here are the Dutch Hunger Winter Study, methylation, cancer, stress, environmental toxins including fungicides and air pollution and neurological diseases. The emerging field of epigenetics with its emphasis on environment and nutrition is thus superseding the older model of genetic determinism in dictating people's health decisions, self-identity and ways of understanding their individual ancestry and ethnicity.
Since the 1990s, genetics has transformed many of our notions of race, ethnicity, and identity. I... more Since the 1990s, genetics has transformed many of our notions of race, ethnicity, and identity. In the 2000 U.S. Census, respondents were given the option of checking multiple ancestries or ethnicities for the first time. The similarities of identifying as a descendant
Overview The Tucson Artifacts consist of lost-wax, cast-lead ceremonial objects inscribed with me... more Overview The Tucson Artifacts consist of lost-wax, cast-lead ceremonial objects inscribed with medieval Latin historical texts and names such as Jacob, Israel, Benjamin, Joseph, Saul and Theodore, some also with Hebrew phrases like " help of the Exile, " others with diagrams or busts of leaders, ships, trademarks in Tang-era seal script and temples, one Mesoamerican glyph, Romanesque-style angels in glory and other emblems, including the Ten Commandments and cult objects like spice spoons, Frankish axes and braziers. There are also military anthems and mottos. A series of thick double crosses, joined like sealed albums (I-V), contain the records of the colony signed by OL (Oliver), with dates ranging from 560 to 900 A.D. The overarching provenance is described as Romani, or Romans, and Levites (L) and Israelites (I). One of the stand-out emblems is a triple tiara, a symbol of Jewish priesthood associated with the Mesoamerican figure of Quetzalcoatl, a foreign god in Old Mexico. The writing is a form of legal square Roman capitals, an official script in use for records housed in temples for centuries in the lands of the Roman Empire. Its composition, irregularly filling a cruciform plan, shows that it was probably copied from drafts in cursive on wax tablets dictated by Oliver, keeper of records and master of the military recruits. In annalistic manner, the accusative absolute rather than the ablative absolute is used, and certain symmetrical and numerological schemes are employed by the inscriber to highlight names and events, as in formal epitaphs. The rough exterior of the riveted-together double crosses demonstrates that the filling of the matrix (air holes are apparent on the finished works) took place on site in the same desert environment where the artifacts were later excavated, probably in a mining cave, for one can detect still the impress of gemstones, beads, pearls, sand, gravel and mesquite leaves captured in the making of the ceramic matrix—the floor of the casting process. The Latinity of the inscriptions is typical of the so-called Dark Ages, with a slight uncertainty of orthography, case, syntax and tense, but the register is classical, with allusions to Vergil, the Bible and Roman law. It is apparent that the author's original speech, however, was not Latin, not anything like the sermo humilis spoken in Latinate parts of the empire, but a Celtic tongue, and on the finished artifacts are numerous Brittonic glosses, incised after the fact in ogam. An example is the Old Welsh/Breton/Cornish word da as a calque scratched over the word ROMANI on the Albion Cross (4A), translated " good, " as in the corresponding captions TOB (Hebrew for " good ") below temples on artifacts 6 and 13, showing the equation of Romani, the army's legal identity, and the Land of David, or the Holy Land (Beaulande in Old French chansons). Ogam in the style named Romesc Breas (Roman Breton) in The Book of Ballymote listing ninety-three varieties labels the Romani colonists as Good, in the sense of Beaulande, the Holy Land.