Sykes on Almas Zana's DNA: Yes....and NO

The story of ‘Zana’ the Wild Woman, as Explained by DNA analysis

http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/was-russian-bigfoot-actually-an-african-slave

 

The following news story is reproduced under the terms of the definition of Fair Use. Thank You.,

 

Was Russian ‘Bigfoot’ actually an African slave?.

 

Published: 01/11/2013

Bryan Sykes, Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Oxford, has carried out DNA tests on saliva samples taken from descendants of Zana – a so-called ‘wild woman’ captured in the late 19th century in southern Russia, who local people believe was an ‘Almasty’.
Professor Sykes’ research (part of a worldwide analysis of alleged Bigfoot samples), has yielded a remarkable result: that Zana’s ancestry was 100% Sub-Saharan African and that she was most probably a slave brought to the region by the ruling Ottomans.
To answer the riddle and establish what species she belonged to, Professor Sykes has tested samples from six of Zana’s living descendants. He has also recovered DNA from a tooth taken from the skull of one of her sons, Khwit. Such work is highly specialized and Sykes was the first geneticist ever to extract DNA from ancient bone.
But the big surprise in Sykes’ results was that Zana’s DNA is not Caucasian at all, but African. Khwit’s tooth sample confirms her maternal African ancestry and the saliva tests on the six living descendants show that they all contain African DNA in the right proportions for Zana to have been genetically 100% sub-Saharan African. 

“The most obvious solution that springs to mind is that Zana or her ancestors were brought from Africa to Abkhazia as slaves, when it was part of the slave trading Ottoman Empire, to work as servants or labourers,” says Professor Sykes. “While the Russians ended slavery when they took over the region in the late 1850s, some Africans remained behind. Was Zana one of them, who was living wild in the forest when she was captured?“
But that theory would not explain her extraordinary features, described by reliable eyewitnesses. There is an even more intriguing alternative theory. Having carefully studied the skull of Zana's son, Khwit, Professor Sykes believes there are some unusual morphological skull features – such as very wide eye sockets, an elevated brow ridge and what appears to be an additional bone at the back of the skull – that could suggest ancient, as opposed to modern, human origins.
And Sykes has raised the bold theoretical possibility that Zana could be a remnant of an earlier human migration out of Africa, perhaps tens of thousands, of years ago. If correct, Zana could be evidence of a hitherto unknown human 'tribe', dating from a distant time when the human species was still evolving and whose ancestors were forced into remote regions, like the Caucasus mountains, by later waves of modern humans coming out of Africa.
One of the Russian Almasty hunters, Dr Igor Burtsev, offers testimony in the Channel 4 documentary that may back this theory up. He unearthed Khwit's skull in 1971 and a few years later, showed it to a group of anthropologists in Moscow. They were, he says 'amazed', and identified a mix of 'primitive' and 'progressive' (modern) features in the skull. Lacking the scientific tools at Sykes' disposal, they could take it no further. Now Sykes is able to propose the theory with some confidence.
It is only a theory at this stage - and a bold and speculative one at that. But Professor Sykes intends to study it much further before reaching his final conclusions.
Zana’s story will feature in Bigfoot Files on Channel 4 on Sunday, November 3rd at 8.00pm. In the programme Mark Evans also meets former heavyweight boxing champion of the world, seven foot tall Nikolai Valuev, who admits to having a bit of a Neanderthal look himself. He is now Duma Deputy (the equivalent of an MP) for Kemerovo in Siberia and fascinated in Almasty. The programme also investigates some of the other claimed sightings of the creatures in Russia.
The series, made by Icon Films, examines the stories behind famous Bigfoot sightings and Mark Evans meets people who believe passionately that other species of hominid exist. A book by Professor Sykes about his research The Yeti Enigma: A DNA Detective Story will be published by Coronet in Spring 2014.
The programme is available to view and there are images available.

Read the story of Zana  here.

Tip: Matthew Robinson

Zana’s son Khwit

 

[CRITICISM: The definite statement that the DNA was Not Caucasian at all but was Sub-Saharan African carries a somewhat different interpretation than Sykes has stated. Recently there have been several news stories about the DNA series which is unique to Africans and NOT shared with the Out of Africa crowd (especially Cauasians) at all. Such stories have been reprinted at Frontiers of Anthropology recently.

The gist of the theory is that the Africans inside Africa were breeding with a local distinct (and now extinct) variety of humans unknown outside of Africa and the inference has been made that this was "Rhodesian Man" or the local variety of H. heidelbergensis /H. sapiens heidelbergensis instead of having anything to do with the Neanderthals or Denisovans.

Saying that Zana's DNA was of a special kind of DNA NOT found in Caucasians might well imply the exact oppositre of what he is claimimg: Zana could be a relic "Rhodesian man" and the structure of Khvit's head and face definitely has that appearance.-DD]

Followup to Meldrum article

There is a reconstruction of the Chinese Yeren included in the article and drawn after the Witness' specifications, the article's Figure 3:

I do consider this to be an exceptionally good representation but of the wrong type. This is at least partly copied fter a drawing made from reports in the Caucasus, of the Almas type. It is a pretty good representation of the Eastern Bigfoot AKA The American Almas. It is a different type than the typical Sasquatch that the footprints are attributed to in the article. Both types are present in China and especially noting also Manchuria, and this type is also reported all across Siberia and Central Asia, and traditionally into Japan also. This would include the Marked Hominid of Coleman and based on the work of Mark A. Hall, and the composite is a good match for "Mecheny"

Bones and teeth of this type have been found and they are classified as a variety or subspecies of Homo sapiens, differentiated from the rest of us mostly because they have more prominent body hair.

Zana's Child and Old Neanderthal Crosses

Above right, Zana the Wild Woman and at right, photo said to be of her son Khvit. Below, Myra Shackley's photo of Igor Burtsev with the skull of Khvit. All of these photos are from Igor Burtsev, reprinted by permission. Below Igor are two views of the skull.

There was some controversy about theskull of Khvit, allegedly the son of a local man and Zana, a captive Wild Woman in the area of the Caucasus mountains in the late 1800s. There were some statements that the skull had some Neanderthal traits, and against this the skull was said to look like n Australoid (Australian Aboriginal) I could tell at once that certain specific features of the skull were Neanderthaloid and nothing like an Australian Aboriginal. Among these are the flattened vault with a low rise in back and low forehead, a rounded transverse section of the cranium, large rounded eye sockets and arched brow ridges above them, and the specific type of mandible with an elongated and backward-slantinting ramus in back (In many Neanderthals this elongation makes a considerable gap between the last molar tooth and the ascending ramus in the back of the jaw) Although the skull overall is of the modern human type, it has a distinctive Neanderthal appearance, including the view from in front and face-on.

It has been known for a long time that several of the earliest modern human skulls from the Mid-East had the look of Neanderthals crossed with regular human beings, and the example usually shown is the skull number 5 found at the excavation of the Skhul cave (Cave of the goat) in what was then Palestine. I would say Khvit was comparable to these Skhul crossbreeds in many ways. These men of the Skhul cave were tall, as big as Cro-Magnons and over six feet tall. It is thought that their increased height came about because some of the Out of Africa humans were also thought to be very tall, along the lines of the modern Watusi. 

 

Incidentally one of the early types of Paleo-Indians had very large skulls and were identified by Neumann as Otamids. I have spoken of them before because their skulls had a mixture of Neanderthal and CroMagnon (Indian) features and they are frequently cited in stories of "Giants found in mound burials". They were the common type all over much of North America and even parts of South America until they were displaced and absorbed by more recent populations. But these skulls also have many of the same traits of Skhul and Khvit's skull. in the news article below a date of 35000 years old for the level of the burial had been suggested for this case, but the skull type persisted for a long time until very recently in many parts of the United States.

Petra co Oase "Earliest modern human in Europe" and  Shanidar Neanderthal from Mid-East
As you can see the overall form of the outline is much the same and the two are doubtless related through some degree of intermixing. Below, the Shanidar skull from face-on view.

 

Actual anthropologial illustration of an Australian aboriginal's skull. The braincase is characteristically high and narrow, with a comparatively low and broad face. The top of the skull has a sort of a ridge along the top.The lower jaw does not have that peculiar elongation and slant to the ramus. Although the brow ridges are developed, both the brow ridges and the eye sockets are of the typical "Modern" form, as opposed to the Neanderthals where the eye sockets tend to be distinctively rounded and the brow ridges arched over them. (Compare the Shanidar skull above the two views of the Australian Aboriginal skull.) Neither Khvit's skull nor the Skhul skull had anything of the typical Australoid abut the,. Otamid skulls are also called "Australoid" in the literature and the use of the term is mistaken in those cases also.

 

Below, Night Cam "Bigfoot" photo from a facebook group clearly showing a creature with much the same kind of cranium as Khvit and the Skhul types. And below that, the reconstructions by Harvey Pratt also show the same type of head.

Larry Surface, Ohio Night Cam BF photo

Harvey Pratt Forensic Artist drawing of Eastern Bigfoot type

Pennsylvania BF Track resembling Neanderthal tracks but much larger.
Also from a Facebook discussion group about Bigfoot.

Russian publications listing for Igor Burtsev's notice on Khvit's Skull:
http://www.stgr-primates.de/news.html#skulls