Anthropologist Peter Klevius corrects "afropologists'"* senseless misunderstanding and confusion on Reddit about the"out-of-Africa" delusion.

According to Peter Klevius, the start of the Homo lineage was initiated by a climate cooling caused by the closing of the Panama isthmus and due lover sea level in the SE Asian archipelago (see below).

* "Afropologist" here refers to people who either are themselves involved or have ignorantly accepted the concerted ranting from those who are.
 

Väinö Myllyrinne from Finland was the world's tallest man who was also healthy throughout his entire life span until he prematurely died from consequences of a hip surgery after an accident at age 54. He peaked at 251.4 cm. There have been taller men but they have all been sick and/or died early, and Sultan Kösen is younger and uses canes, witch Väinö Myllyrinne never needed (see video). According to Peter Klevius, the mixing of North Eurasian women with the s.c. kurgan people, genetically produced many healthy giants in the borderline between proto-Uralic and PIE speakers see (below).

These unscientific stupidities would not flourish were it not for PC media's (Google etc.) censoring and brainwashing, which suppresses true science*.

* There are roughly four categories of scientific discourse:

1. True science, which covers all fields and isn't affected by PC or financial and career aspects. Peter Klevius is a complete virgin scientist in this respect because although his first ever (1981) scientific article was well paid for and highly supported by Wittgenstein's successor at Cambridge, G. H. von Wright, since then he hasn't monetized on science. Moreover, very few, incl. the editorial boards, understood the paper which would possibly never had been published was it not for the fact that the chief editor being a close friend to von Wright.

2. "Normal" science which on the face of it seems serious but is hampered by peer review stiffness and paper inflation (compare what Peter Klevius wrote in Demand for Resources 1992 in the chapter Science and References).

3. Speculative science. However, Peter Klevius is a coward and wouldn't dare to speculate in public.

4. PC "science" - like "out-of-Africa" mythology based on nothing except wishful guesswork at best and mind corruption at worst..

Quite telling also that Peter Klevius isn't even mentioned, which makes it almost impossible for ordinary people and "afropologists" to see anything else than these kind of stupid and completely unfounded remarks. There simply doesn't exist a single argument for "out of Africa" that Peter Klevius can't easily debunk in a way that even less intelligent people may see the light.

However, the bottom line is that Africa is impossible from every aspect (see below) and therefore doesn't even qualify as a candidate.

 

From https://www.reddit.com/r/evolution/comments/om4wdv/does_homo_floresiensis_prove_that_human_origin_is/

"Afropologist": All the early fossils of human ancestors come from Africa. So far everything from 2-6 million years ago has been discovered on the African continent.

Peter Klevius: So extremely wrong! They are all ambiguous and fit in a shoe box - together with a decent pair of shoes.

"Afropologist": H. floresiencis is probably about 1 million years old.

Peter Klevius: So 1 Ma it suddenly came out of a continent that lacks any trace of it, and then made it over tha Wallace line to Flores where it flourished on several places for nearly 1 My. Or transformed 1 My back to a much earlier evolutionary state in a process that is unheard of before. All of this hocus pocus when there's a logical explanation that ticks every box - it evolved there in a much better evolutionary laboratory than continental Afrasia. Just as we know e.g. antelopes did before they went to Africa.

"Afropologist": All australopithecines and ardipithecines are in Africa, humans nest genetically within the African Great Apes, African populations are genetically the oldest and most diverse with all non-Africans nesting as a subset inside of that diversity. Out Of Africa is alive and well lol.

Peter Klevius: All floresienses and lutzonensis are in SE Asia. The oldest bipedal ape fossils (12 Ma) have been found in Europe but didn't evolve there. And the much younger P6-7 My) but Africa's oldest bipedal ape was found in a green corridor stretching from the Mediterranean into Sahara, and with no connection to sub-Saharan or East Africa. And nesting genetically to some extent species is worse than guesswork because we have every reason to believe that the closest ape ancestor is equally extinct as are Neanderthals and Denisovans. And genetical deep branching several hundreds of thousands ya tells nothing about where they then lived - also considering cold adapted traces. This kind of reasoning we used to call charlatanism when it pretends to be "scientific". "Out of Africa" is more than terminally ill - it's equally dead as Monty Pyton's parrot! And unlike the parrot, it was born dead.                      

"Afropologist": H. floresiensis likely represents an archaic lineage that radiated out of Africa before our own and didn't leave any descendants. Human evolution isn't a linear march of progress towards modern humans. It's a very bushy story with plenty of dead ends.

Peter Klevius: Homo floresiensis and Homo lutzonensis clearly left descendants in China (Red Deer Cave people in Maludong and and Longlin cave in Yunnan) which had archaic human like skulls completely different from the apelike naledi. The only dead end is "out of Africa"!

"Afropologist": Also, we don't really know how they got to Flores. It's important to remember sea levels were a lot lower back then, so you could travel a lot further on land. They could've walked most of the way, and then sailed or swam if they needed to.

Peter Klevius: No, 1 Ma the climate was warmer so the sea level was higher. Moreover, it's ridiculous to talk about walking and then sailing from Africa instead of the sel-fevident scenario that fits what we do know, namely that Homo floresiensis was out of reach for Africa but its cousin Homo lutzonensis cousins could easily have made it to Africa as Homo habilis. A long oscillating cooling trend started around 3 Ma due to the final closing of the Caribbean ocean passage. This is exactly when we expect the first Homos to have appeared.  

"Afropologist": The emerging views is that Africa is the most important location for human evolution, but that important migrations also occurred into Africa.

Peter Klevius: All migration went originally into Africa. And as Africa is a peninsula to Eurasia, nothing then hindered back and forth migration contrary to the afropologist delusion that even big brained modern Homos had difficulties to get out of Africa.

"Afropologist": Early Erectus (or possibly H. Habilis) out of Africa, and into Asia some time after 2.3 million years ago

Peter Klevius: H. Habilis) out of SE Asia and into Africa some time around 3 Ma!

"Afropologist":  European branch eventually becomes Neanderthals, but there is also movement back into Africa.

Peter Klevius: Neanderthals and parts of Denisovans were non-tropical Homo variants which became engulfed in the human genome.

"Afropologist":  African population then develops into H. sapiens, and then migrate into Asia and then later Europe.

Peter Klevius: Asian population then develops into H. sapiens, and then migrate ovwe the world while hybridizing with more archaic versions hence leaving the racial pattern we see today.

Some scientists belive that human origin is asia and h.floresi is the evidence?

"Afropologist": What scientist believes that?

Peter Klevius is the name! You need to read him carefully to get out of your delusion! Start below. Google hasn't made it easy to find me. Actually, if I write the name of a person I used to know one gets better result on me than when just googling my name. This is especially true when it comes to images which you can find loads of if you scoll past Google's pessimistic outlook all the way down!

"Afropologist": Wondering that too. Literally had never heard anyone try to claim that before since it doesn't match ANY of the evidence.

Peter Klevius: Indeed, you hadn't heard about it! And unlike the "out of Africa" joke every evidence is for SE Asia. WHAT "evidence" are you talking about?!

"Afropologist": Well, Eugene Dubois (discoverer of Java Man) believed it a century ago and slowly drove himself mad trying to find evidence, but I don't think I know of any recent paleoanthropologists who have said anything like this.

Peter Klevius: Luckily, we've found evidence so we avoid going mad.

"Afropologist": And H. floresiensis isn't remotely worth considering as a candidate for an ancestor to anything.

Peter Klevius: I rest my case about my accusation about unscientific PC swarming completely darkeining science and logic.

How did flores men get to the Flores island?

Peter Klevius: They evolved on the Sahul side of the Wallace line, but in a similar environment as the Sundaland side.

Are they african early human who traveld to flores?

"Afropologist": No, from what I recall, they're more closely related to Homo erectus than they are to us.

Peter Klevius: Homo erectus has absolutely nothing to do with Homo floresiensis. It's already evident in the name. Homo erectus was a perfect bipedal, whereas Homo floresiensis, although a bipedal, was nowhere near.

Why scientists don't think that we've evolved in asia and then traveled to rest of the world?

"Afropologist": The simplest reason is that the oldest human fossils occur in East Africa. Our species, based on fossil and genetic evidence, branch from an African L haplotype, which then ventured in waves into the rest of Africa and the world at large, reproducing with the locals along the way. Albeit, not constantly, but enough to leave their genetic signatures in whole subpopulations of our species.

    If, on the other hand, H. habilis is excluded from Homo, then the meager evidence we have is consistent with H. erectus, and thus Homo, evolving from a H. habilis-grade taxon either within, or outside of, Africa. In the most parsimonious version of the “outside of Africa” scenario for the origin of Homo, H. erectus would have evolved from a H. habilis-grade hominin either in Asia or in Southeast Asia, and then H. erectus would have migrated to Africa some time before 1.87 Ma. This scenario is consistent with the aspects of the morphology of the Dmanisi and the Liang Bua hominins that are more primitive than the condition seen in H. erectus sensu stricto. This primitive morphology is one of stumbling blocks for a “within Africa” scenario for the origin of H. erectus taxon, for it would mean the migration out of Africa of two hominins, first a H. habilis grade taxon then H. erectus sensu stricto. Another stumbling block for an ancestor descendant relationship between H. habilis and H. erectus sensu stricto within Africa is that both the ancestor and the descendant overlap in time in East Africa for several hundred thousand years.

Wood, Bernard. 2011. “Did Early Homo Migrate ‘out of’ or ‘in to’ Africa?” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108 (26): 10375–76. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1107724108.

Peter Klevius: A child can understand that nn old haplotype found in modern humans in Africa is no evidence at all. There are no genetic evidence connecting DNA branching in the distant past to Africa. Antelopes also have old DNA that we do know originated outside Africa. And what is "the oldest human fossils in Africa"?! The oldest bipedal apes are connected to Europe - not East Africa. And Homo erectus appeared in Africa out of the blue without any predecessor in Africa. And the Homo floresiensis like Homo habilis overlaps Homo erectus in Africa and has such a poor fossil record than no one can be sure about its limb function.

"Afropologist": The best easy to understand evidence against an "into Africa" hypothesis is that our closest relatives (chimps and gorillas) live in Africa (also lots and lots of very old fossils of early humans and similar).

Peter Klevius: Antelopes live in Africa but certainly didn't originate there! And chimps and gorillas are knuckle-walkers unlike many ape species in SE Asia which are much more like us in this resoect. Moreover, chimps and gorillas like baboons, antelopes etc. cannot have evolved on a continent like Africa. That's why all chimps, gorillas and baboons which have been geographically isolated from each other can hybridize when individuals slip through the net - although they are called different species. Real evolution didn't occure in Africa among these. And a bipedal ape/Homo would have been even more "slippery".

"Afropologist": Parsimony supports lots of species of early humans evolving in Africa over a long period of time and successive migrations out (resulting is fossils of early humans elsewhere) with the most recent one being Homo sapiens (modern humans). The idea in that paper appears to be that an Asian early human went back to Africa, replaced the other species in Africa, and then came back out as Homo sapiens.

Peter Klevius: ?!

"Afropologist": I think Homo floresiensis is more like extremely distant cousins like Homo habilis may have led to Homo erectus in Africa but also this other lineage of Homo habilis descendants migrated across Asia that was not also a subset of Homo erectus.

Peter Klevius: Homo floresiensis is exactly what one would expect to have evolved in the tropical and volatile East Asian archipelago. That we only have traces of it for one million years should not confuse the fact that its morphology is way older yet its head is definitely on the Homo lineage. Moreover, Homo lutzonensis on the opposite side of the Wallace line disproves any counter argument. Actually, there isn't a single valid argument for "out-of-Africa" but an ocean (sorry about the pun) of arguments against it.   

"Afropologist": Homo naledi existed at about the same time as our own species and it appears to be even less related to us than Neanderthals and Denisovans. I don’t think they’ve worked out exactly how they fit into our family tree but they appear to be something else besides a Homo heidelbergensis or Homo antecessor descendant that lived about 335,000 years ago as our own lineage was called Homo sapiens (or sometimes Homo rhodesiensis) starting roughly 400,000 years ago.

Peter Klevius: Africa is like a zoo - everything is imported.

"Afropologist": So around 335,000 years ago there was Homo naledi, a lineage that was on its way to becoming Homo floresiensis, Homo neanderthalensis, Denisovans, Homo sapiens, an offshoot lineage of Homo heidelbergensis, and an even more distantly related to us lineage of Homo erectus. And that’s just some of the species we know about. Homo naledi and Homo sapiens lived at the same time. They’re not our ancestors.

Peter Klevius: Homo naledi is of zero interest but is presented as something special while Homo floresiensis is called a sick Hobbit or just a weirdo in the evolutionary tree - while the stunning Deer Cave People in China get no prime time at all because of the silly "out-of-Africa" PC ranting. What all African fossils have in common is overlapping in time which is exactly what you'd expect in an evolutionary dump - not in an evolutionary cradle.

"Afropologist": I think the biggest problem with any into Africa hypothesis is, that our closest living relatives are all there, and we haven't yet found any stem hominids outside of Africa. Floresiensis and Nadeli and the Dragon Man(whatever this ones called) are all not really stem hominids. If we ever find a stem hominids ranging outside Africa we'd have a good argument for migration into Africa and not just out.

Peter Klevius: Lack of evidense is no evidence! And as the African continent (which is a peninsula to the Eurasian continent) is impossible for evolutionary isolation, we do know that the important fossils are in SE Asia which is not only tropical but also a volatile archipelago.

Peter Klevius wrote:

How the pliocene-pleistocene Panama isthmus debunks wild rafting "theories" and confirms Peter Klevius' calm out of SE Asia human evolution analysis!

January 21, 2023

Also read how conjoined twins solved the mystery of consciousness.

 Peter Klevius tutorial for Greta Thunberg and others ignorant about climate changes and human evolution

* Without DNA and our latest findings, but being a geologist, Eugene Dubois was perfectly right when he already 1891 searched in the right place and discovered "the missing link" of his time, i.e. what he named Pithecanthropus erectus, now called Homo erectus, in SE Asia. Peter Klevius thinks 'pithecus' is still more appropriate considering that Homo habilis and Homo floresiensis, like Dmanisipithecus, all lack what is considered the classic "Homo" erectus trait, i.e. full full modern human like bipedalism. We were wrong about the brain, and now it's apparent we were also wrong about bipedalism. Dubois founded paleo-anthropology by not only finding the fossils, but he also analyzed them in a wholly new way by pulling human fossils out of the context of racial identification and shoved it into an evolutionary context. 

 Peter Klevius aid to release afropologists from their "out-of-Africa" delusion:

1. An easily mowing bipedal ape with a big brain who eats almost everything can not possibly evolve on a continent like Africa - only possibly hybridize.
2. Africa lacks unambiguous transitional fossil between ape and Homo.
3. DNA doesn't prove that ancestors 100,000 years ago lived in Africa.
4. SE Asia has everything Africa lacks (incl. Homo floresiensis and Denisovan DNA).

And to Greta Thunberg: We're already overdue to the next iceage! Every ice core indicates this very clearly. So please, warn the world against a coming freeze that could arrive much quicker than any warming.

The easily disproved "out-of-Africa theory" is shockingly bad "science" riddled with errors of fact, attribution - and rafting. An appalling example of science replaced* by PC.

* Peter Klevius is a virgin scientist because he doesn't have to contaminate himself with peer pressure. And his extreme sensitivity for logical criticism saves him from self-delusion. So in his writings there's no bias - only occasional stupidities. Whereas bias is deliberate, stupidity is spontaneous. There was a time when stupid people like Peter Klevius were overwhelmed by fossils from Africa, but also lacking info about ancient DNA and the existence of Homo floresiensis. To his defense Peter Klevius may say that he was at the least puzzled (in Demand for Resources 1992) by the existence of the 280,000 BP mongoloid faced Jinniushan in Northern China and the equally mongoloid faced modern Khoisan people who were said to be the true natives of Africa.  

Chimps have absolutely nothing to do with the evolution of the Homo lineage, other than that it's also an ape - although perhaps not that "great" as it's described by afropologists.

 

                                                         Ape

                                                  Homo floresiensis

 Debbie Argue et al (2017) suggest Homo floresiensis is a long-surviving relict of an early (>1.75 Ma) hominin lineage and a hitherto unknown migration out of Africa, and not a recent derivative of either H. erectus or H. sapiens.

Peter Klevius likewise suggests H. floresiensis is a long-surviving relict of an early (>1.75 Ma) hominin lineage and a hitherto unknown native of SE Asia, and not a recent derivative of either H. erectus or H. sapiens - because trying to squeeze H. floresiensis bipedal apelike post-head features into H. erectus would challenge the very definition of the latter. However, how would a predecessor to H.erectus have reached Flores if we rely on existing data about the wide and strong Wallace line current which would have brought them (dead) to Africa rather than to Flores? Moreover, out-of-Africa ranters seem to have no problem keeping modern humans locked inside Africa (or even worse - failing to survive outside Africa) for hundreds of thousands of years without entering the huge landbridge to Eurasia that has always existed east of the Nile. But the primitive H. floresiensis, which - except for its humanlike head and molar morphology that is more progressive even compared to modern humans - represents something from Lucy's time that has never been seen in Africa but is exactly what one would expect from a derived ape.

So based on available free info Peter Klevius proposes that H. floresiensis evolved exactly as afropologists say about bipedal australopithecines, i.e. stepping out from the jungle to the savannah, or at least a more open landscape, and in the case of Flores, also an open shoreline. However, nothing forced the australopithecines in Africa back into the jungle as was the case on Flores during every interglacial. This was the reason why H. floresiensis got a much better packed and formed brain, because only those survived who could shrink without losing intelligence (compare the microchip race of today). And we do know that the cold periods with lower sea level lasted much longer than the interglacials which made evolution of bipedalism possible even on Flores and similar islands. So Flores may well have been isolated all the time but the very existence of H.floresiensis there for at least 800,000 years may function as a model for similar evolution on islands which were not always isolated but still long enough to create H. floresiensis like archaic Homos which then could enter mainland and hybridize with relatives who also may have re-entered the former island.


H. habilis seems to be most like H. floresiensis in several traits. The youngest H. habilis , OH 13, dates to about 1.65 mya, and we do know that H. floresiensis was on Flores at least 0.8 mya - and with even smaller bones than the more recent ones at Liang Bua, which strongly contradicts suggestions about H. erectus somehow reaching Flores and shrinking. As H. floresiensis ecolved in SE Asia it means that its predecessors must be at least equally old as the oldest H. habilis in Africa, because the latter must have come to Africa from SE Asia during times when interglacials were warmer than today, hence .

The oldest fossil (parts of a jaw) attributed to Homo is 2.8 mya, and based on the first major iceage dip in temperature Peter Klevius hypothesizes that the Homo lineage started around 3.3 mya.

The naledipithecus is the "star" of the latest African show, while the real star in SE Asia is called "just a hobbit"!

Do realize that the real comic here is that the fossil ape skull of Naledipithecus was "reconstructed" to look as human like as possible. However, Peter Klevius can assure you that the modern Homo sapiens skull to the left has absolutely no resemblance in the real world with the masked ape skull to the right.

 And this is how the "reconstruction" is made when the skull (Homo longinensis aka "Red Deer Cave  people")  is from China.

 The enormous fuzz about naledipithecus in South Africa ought to be compared to the deafening silenec about the s.c. Red Deer Cave people and Longlin people in China, which really shows the scientific PC bias sickness at full glory. Naledipithecus is an evolutionary dead end as everything else in the African fossil dump, whereas the Red Deer Cave/Longlin Homos may favorably be seen as evolved from H. floresiensis like Homos. We do know that they belong to the base of mtDNA M9, i.e. same hg as Tibetan Sherpas as well as SE Asian indigenous people. We also know that they share extremely primitive traits expected in H. habilis - and  e.g. H. floresiensis. Also consider that the Denisovan genes in the Sherpas have a setup for high altitude living.

H. floresiensis' nearly complete right humerus (LB1/50) appears fairly modern in most regards. However, it's remarkable in displaying only 110 degrees of humeral torsion, well below modern human average. Assuming a modern human shoulder configuration, such a low degree of humeral torsion would result in a lateral set to the elbow. Such an elbow joint would function more nearly in a frontal than in a sagittal plane, which isn't what one would expect for tool-making. However, H. floresiensis probably did not have a modern human shoulder configuration: the clavicle was relatively short, and it has been suggested that the scapula was more protracted, resulting in a glenoid fossa that faced anteriorly rather than laterally. A posteriorly directed humeral head was therefore appropriate for maintaining a normally functioning elbow joint. Similar morphology in the Homo erectus Nariokotome boy (KNM-WT 15000) suggests that this shoulder configuration may represent a transitional stage in pectoral girdle evolution in the human lineage.

Instead of being "puzzling" when not assessed through obscuring "out-of-Africa" glasses, H. floresiensis is the very fossil one would expect in the out-of-SE Asia scenario. It perfectly fills the gaps seen in the "out-of-Africa" mythology. In fact, not a single one of the fossil species found in Africa evolved there. All primates came out of SE Asia - as did all other mammals which didn't originate in Gondwana. Moreover, "afropology" has put a heavy and distorting toll on much classification, resulting in an extreme overall Africa bias that distorts almost everything in primatology as well as re. other mammals. So for example, although most people today admit that as classical portrayed s.c. "African animals" like deers, giraffes, lions, etc. came out of SE Asia, there is also no good reason to believe that elephants evolved in Africa, but a lot of indications for the contrary. And the reason for this was climate changes in the past causing intermittent landbridges between islands and mainland in tropical SE Asia. This Africa bias should be critically scrutinized whenever afropologists stick to their beloved "rafting delusions".


Peter Klevius can't stop wondering over serious looking "scientists" going from a heated debate over where in Africa human evolution originated, to a consensus meltdown view that "it happened all over Africa" - but not outside Africa. 

And according to Wikipedia (2022) modern humans reached Australia 65,000 BP - and Eurasia 5,000 years later!

Every "out-of-Africa" argument is hollow to the very bone:

1. So many fossils in Africa - which has its unique Rift Valley smorgasbord where most of the oldest fossils are found. Quantity doesn't prove quality. However, although there are (not yet) equally old Homo erectus fossils in e.g. China, there are equally old 2.1 Myr stone tools possibly made by them. A fossil rarely proves that it evolved there - a possible exception being Homo floresiensis. And as humans couldn't have evolved in China - although China is much more diverse than the whole of Africa - then the fossils in its neighbourhood ought to be even older. Moreover, the least likely place (except for a few caves) to find fossil and culture is the SE Asian "cradle of human evolution" because high sea level now covers former savannah belts etc. and much of the rest is similar to African jungle area which also lacks fossil.

2. The "oldest DNA" argument was based on DNA taken from modern "mongoloid" cold adapted Khoisan people whose ancestors came to Africa relatively late - i.e. long after the "mitochondrial Eve". And even the original pygmies were probably there already before the Khoisan people (but also long after "Eve") although they also had old Homo DNA as showed by ancient DNA from Holocene fossils.

3. Culture, like fossils, is dependent on material findings and  often difficult to assess. However, the extreme spike in sophistication radiating from Siberia to Iberia in the West and Sulawesi in the East 40-50,000 BP clearly indicates what Svante Pääbo and Peter Klevius (the latter long before Pääbo) have seen as the sign of a better packed brain setup.



Speciation, hybridization and phenotype

It's important to take into account the difference between

1. speciation, which needs isolation
2. hybridization, which is the opposite
3. phenotyping, which needs both isolation and staying within a certain environmental influence to develope - without becoming a new species.

The end result in the fossil record could be either a new species or a hybrid. They, in turn, could have various differences in phenotype.


Homos are bipedals but apes "invented" bipedalism long before Homos "copied" it

Homo bipedalism arose in an island environment. A model, based on observations of extended-leg bipedalism in wild orang-utans and supported by the fossil record, suggests that habitual terrestrial bipedalism derived from arboreal hand-assisted bipedalism in a habitually orthograde hominoid. This is also supported by a mutation(s) in homeobox genes governing lumbar vertebra morphology and facilitating habitual orthogrady, which may have been present in our hominoid ancestors.

Danuvius guggenmosi is the first recorded Miocene great ape to have had the diaphragm located in the lower chest cavity, as in Homo, indicating an extended lower back and a greater number of functional lumbar vertebrae. This may have caused lordosis (the normal curvature of the human spine) and moved the center of mass over the hips and legs, which implies some habitual bipedal activity. The robust finger and hypertrophied wrist and elbow bones indicate a strong grip and load bearing adaptations for the arms. The legs also show adaptations for load-bearing, especially at the hypertrophied knee joint. There was likely limited ankle loading, and the ankle would have had a hinge-like function, being most stable if positioned perpendicularly to the leg as opposed to at an angle as in apes. Danuvius was likely able to achieve a strong grip with its big toes, unlike modern African apes, which would have allowed it to grasp onto thinner trees. Adaptations for load bearing in both the arm and leg joints to this degree is unknown in any other primate. Plantigrade catarrhine monkeys lack the capacity for suspensory locomotion or to focus body weight over the knee joint; African knuckle-walking apes lack strong big toes and thumbs, and have more robust finger bones; and both lack an extendable knee. Orangutans have a clambering motion too, but their knees lack weight-bearing ability. The total anatomy of the limbs suggest Danuvius was capable of a seemingly unique manner of locomotion called "extended limb clambering". Danuvius likely walked along mildly inclined tree branches with its foot directly laid onto the branch, using its strong big toes for grasping. The strong knee joint would have provided balance while walking by counteracting torques, and the strong hands would have carried out a similar function during suspension or palm-walking. Extended limb clambering emphasizes knee extension and lordosis, as well as the suspensory mechanisms seen in apes, and may be a precursor to obligate bipedalism seen in human ancestors. The Hammerschmiede site is located in the Upper Freshwater Molasse of the Molasse basin; by the late Miocene, the Paratethys Sea had dried up and the Alps had lifted, allowing the expansion of wetland habitats in the basin. The late Miocene may have been the beginning of a drying trend characterized by increased seasonality, causing deciduous forest to turn into a less dense woodland, and fruit and leaf production to occur cyclically rather than year-round. The late Miocene cooling trend may have led to the replacement of more tropical flora by mid-latitude and alpine varieties, and ultimately the extinction.
 

Primate evolution is a consequence of climate changes

 

 

∼60–50 Mya the sea level was ∼150 m above present while dropping sharply during middle Eocene glaciations while extending coastlines and creating land bridges.

Analyses by Fengyuan LI and Shuqiang Li (Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 2018) suggest that Plio–Pleistocene sea-level rises contributed to recent divergence of many species. Their findings cannot reject the hypothesis that sea-level changes during the Paleocene–Eocene and Plio–Pleistocene played a major role in generating biodiversity in SE Asia; sea-level changes can act as “species pumps”. This is how Peter Klevius described it back in 2004 when he still believed in continental evolution, and instead of islands used the Central-Asian passes as the "arteries" through which genes were "pumped" between the south and the fat- and protein rich north due to climate changes.

Plio–Pleistocene experienced more than 58 rapid rises exceeding 40 m hence causing multiple isolations with far-reaching consequences for allopatric speciation in megadiverse SE Asia, one of the most geologically dynamic regions on earth. Fluctuating sea levels also periodically converted mountains into islands. Cycles of Plio–Pleistocene sea-level fluctuations isolated and connected landmass and in doing so drove allopatric speciation. Thus, sea-level changes have been identified as the key factor driving the megadiversity of SE Asia. Fragmentation of land hence is the key to diversity in speciation.

Fancy rafting "theories" by afropologists are scientifically empty but populist. 

According to Peter Klevius (1992-2012), human evolution was triggered by pliocene-pleistocene climate changes (iceages/interglacials) which were increasingly more dynamic and the overall tendency cooler. Also according to Peter Klevius, the closing of the Panama isthmus was the final obstruction in the oceanic current system that started cooling the planet already in the eocene due to the breakup of Gondwana, and due to the closing of the Tethys ocean and the resulting circumpolar current that caused the freezing of Antarctica. The stepwise closing of the Panama isthmus (completely closed some 3 mya) shaped not only the Gulf stream but also how the currents in eastern Pacific changed, which is probably also behind the el Nino phenomenon. However, because of the volatile geology/tectonics/volcanism the Panama isthmus has experience due to the collision between the Sout American and North American plates, we lack of full understanding about it still, yet already do know that the closing was a much more extended process than previously thought. Against this background it's not far fetched to calculate with changing and moving of mangrove forests over thousands of years which would have facilitated large mangrove "islands" which later connected to other such "islands" hence giving plenty of opportunities for survival and relocation för animals specialized on feeding of mangrove or whatever was at hands there. Living on and moving through the Panama isthmus mangrove forests could also explain why the prehensile tail is a predominantly South American adaptation, and how monkeys and rodents from North America managed to cross long before more terrestrial mammals.

 Why would early monkeys raft over the Atlantic ocean when they could climb the Caribbean mangroves forestover to South America from North America where we know Rooneyia existed?!And why would recent fully modern Homos stay inside Africa when early Homos were in China more than 2 Mya?!

Monkeys and rodents were the first to access South America - by utalizing ever changing mangrove forests in the geologically volatile structure of Caribbean and the Panama isthmus.

Not a lesser knuckle-walking chimp ancestor but rather a great gibbon-like one fits the bill for the evolution of human bipedalism. 

Sadly, we have no gibbon-like apes in Africa - only clumsy knuckle-walkers. Also do note that we're extremely short in supply of timely ape fossils.

There's something peculiar with naming gibbons as belonging to the "lesser apes" while chimps are said to belong to the "great apes". And although gibbon apes are smaller than chimp and gorilla apes, there anyway seems to be a certain biased hierarchy hiding behind "great" and "lesser". You don't call an African elephant a "lesser mammouth" do you!

* Although truly bipedal apes may have existed more than 13 mya, it was only with the onset of the cooler and fluctuating iceages in late Pliocene that triggered the Homo lineage to develop a better brain combined with bipedality.

Bipedality is a hallmark of the gibbon-human lineage as gibbons also walk and run perfectly bipedally, unlike the clumsy knuckle-walking chimp - but is thoroughly overlooked by afropologists because there are no extant gibbons in Africa.

Suspensory activity and human bipedalism both originated from a form capable of both.

Gibbons are the most bipedal of all non-human primates.

The foot function of gibbons during terrestrial bipedal locomotion, with high mobility of the foot as well as the regular display of both arboreal and terrestrial bipedalism, makes the gibbon a model for an ancestral tree-living hominoid/protohominin.

Extended limb clambering

Fossil of the right pes of Oreopithecus, Homo floresiensis and Homo sapiens reveals the transition of a flexible, arboreal gibbon-like foot to an inflexible terrestrial human foot with Homo floresiensis as a transitional taxon.

Although a compliant foot is less mechanically effective for push-off than a `rigid' arched foot, it can contribute to the generation of propulsion in bipedal locomotion via stretch and recoil of the plantarflexor tendons and plantar ligaments.

With bipedalism accounting for 10–12% of their locomotor activities gibbons alternate brachiation with fast bipedal bouts on large boughs and branches (diameter >10 cm), and bipedalism is their preferred terrestrial gait when crossing gaps in the forest canopy. This means that, despite the high incidence of brachiation, the hind limbs are important for propulsion generation in gibbons. Like most arboreal primates,gibbons have a mobile, prehensile foot structure with a divergent, opposable hallux. The gibbon foot is essentially flat (i.e. lacks a longitudinal arch as seen in modern humans) and displays a midtarsal break during bipedalism. The plantar aponeurosis is relatively weakly developed compared with the human plantar aponeurosis; however, other plantar connective tissues lying deep to the plantar aponeurosis, such as the plantar ligaments and the tendons of the digital flexors, are prominent. Both the long digital flexors and gastrocnemius are short-fibred, pennate muscles, favouring economical force production and elastic energy usage. Unlike other nonhuman apes, the external portion of the gibbon Achilles' tendon (i.e. triceps surae tendon) is particularly long,comparable in size to the human Achilles' tendon. The high tarsal mobility and absence of a longitudinal foot arch means that the gibbon foot cannot act as rigid lever for push-off; however, the muscle architecture of the lower limb seems to facilitate that the gibbon foot will contribute to the generation of propulsion via elastic recoil of plantarflexor tendons and plantar ligaments.

The gibbon wrist was already prepared for bipedalism

One unique aspect of a gibbon's anatomy is the wrist, which functions something like a ball-and-socket joint, allowing for biaxial movement. This greatly reduces the amount of energy needed in the upper arm and torso, while also reducing stress on the shoulder joint.

As gibbon-like hominids switched from the above methods of locomotion to walking on two feet, wrists would adapt to additional tasks. Walking on two feet freed the hands for other uses. Ancestors became able to use their hands for throwing and clubbing. The wrists must move in specific ways to enable these activities. For example, when comparing human capabilities to chimpanzee capabilities, chimpanzees do not have the same capacity for extension of the wrists. This could suggest that changes in the wrist occurred to give humans these capabilities. Major changes also occurred in hominid hand structure, which made it possible for ancestors to begin gripping, grasping, and releasing tools with precision. These changes have had a significant impact on behavior and the success of the species.

 

 Say hello to your mitochondrial Eve - the Colugo from SE Asia!

 

 

 

 

 

Additional pics related to the post. 

 

Peter Klevius wrote:

Saturday, June 17, 2017

Why were tall men from the south dumber than tall men from the north?

Why has the tallest region  in Europe (parts of Balkan) also been the poorest when the next tallest region (Northern Europe) has been the most affluent?

Answer: It's got absolutely nothing to do with tallness - and everything to do with brainpower. Oops, did Klevius say something "blasphemic"? Ok, here's Klevius' defense.

 Väinö Myllyrinne, Finland, 251 cm (8 ft 3 in), had the world's biggest hands - and a quite ordinary life, except for some circus trips to earn some bucks on his stature.

So what if Väinö Myllyrinne had been born into a warrior family some 5,000 ybp and equipped with a brain like, say Klevius (but way more aggressive)? Oops, Klevius did it again.

Height is genetically determined. Stunting because of malnutrition is only between 1-2 cm in a study of the Chinese famine 1959-1961. What has previously been assigned to malnutrition is in fact selection. Growth hormone irregularities are relatively rare.

There's a distinct genetic growth stop at around age 14 for a huge (?) part of the world's population, while others continue growing until the age of 16-18. Mixing of these genes give results that no one so far has studied in more detail. This is the basic reason for height variation among today's humans. Klevius strongly suggests that someone starts a research project based on this Klevius' problem formulation.

However, some continue growing also after their growth spurt. One such an example was the world's tallest healthy man (most exceptionally tall people are sick and die young) the Finnish Väinö Myllyrinta.

Väinö Myllyrinne (born 27 February 1909 in Helsinki – 13 April 1963 in Helsinki, Finland) was an acromegalic (continued growth after the growth plates have closed) giant who was at one time (1961–1963) the world's tallest living person and is the tallest non-American person of all time whose height is not disputed (do note that all Americans were physically handicapped). He stood 224 cm (7 ft 4 in) and weighed 141 kg (311 pounds) at the age of 21, but experienced a second phase of growth in his late thirties, attaining a height of 251 cm (8 ft 3 in) and weighing 376 pounds. Myllyrinne is considered the tallest soldier ever, having served in the Finnish Defence Forces. He underwent his conscript training in 1929 in the Viipuri Heavy Artillery Regiment, and was 220 cm (7 ft 3 in) tall and really strong. In the 1930s he travelled around Europe. He returned to Finland in 1939 to serve in the Finnish Army during the Winter War. In 1946, he moved to Järvenpää and ran a chicken farm. He died in 1963 after a hip surgery caused inflammation. In 1962, just a year before his death, he was measured by doctors at 2.47 m (8 ft 1.2 in). This confirms with normal shrinking over more than a decade. He had a 340 mm (13.2 in) size hand, the largest known.

Väinö Myllyrinne

Väinö Myllyrinne with two upper average size women.

Peter Klevius' (who isn't tall) analysis: Because the northerners had access to short and intelligent women to the north of themselves among the hunter-gatherer population, they also  got closer to the genetic background of modern humans. So some kids became short, others average, and some tall - and some even blond. Likewise, some got average IQ while a few got the genius gene. And a few became highly intelligent giant warriors at a time when size mattered - especially in sparsely populated areas where hit and run attacks were easy and where they could gather more of the same while going southward. One may assume that these phenomena happened more frequently during bad farming times - which occurred quite often in the vulnerable climatic borderland of farming, and dwelling in dark woodlands in the extreme north added blondness and fair skin.

The tallest people seem to have followed part of haplogroup I-M170. And when it comes to aDNA there are hints that point to the same direction, e.g. some tall ancient human remains in the southern Gravettian ice-age refuges (e.g. Italy).

However, it's mainly tall people from Fennoscandia/Russia (Indoeuropeans and Uralics) who - together with shorter people - constituted the stock from which the technological expansion of the West emanated. This has also led to many misconceptions, i.e. that being tall would somehow be connected to intelligence - no matter how many short geniuses (Einstein etc.) there are. Looking back in prehistory it seems more likely that the opposite is true. However, luckily today we've already messed everything up globally to an extent that it's impossible to tell anything for certain based on physical appearance. So why not just follow James Mallory's Bhuddist advise in the context of Tocharians: Don't believe what you see!

The Indoeuropean language border just south of the Uralic one is approximately the same as the border of farming which is pushed to the dark north when affected by the Gulf-stream.

The Vikings, Goths, the Seima-Turbino, phenomenon, Kurgan people etc. are all example of movements of mainly tall male warriors in the first stages. And all of them were closely connected to Uralic speaking cultures.

This map from Chernyc's Nomadic Cultures in the Mega-Structure of the Eurasian World (2017) emphasizes the hot spot area of metal working in the 5th millennium. However, do note the upper reaches of the darker area which points towards the most often cited Urheimat of proto-Uralic. This strange tail seems to be quite unexplainable if you don't take this into account.

The unfortunate belittling of first the steppe people and then the Uralic speakers has blindfolded many theories - and maps. Here the Corded Ware culture well overlaps later Uralic areas. Klevius assumes the people there must have spoken relaed languages at the time of Corded Ware.

According to Klevius, Corded ware horizon is a mix of Indoeuropean and Uralic with bilingual border zones. Although Iceland was populated from Fennoscandia some two millennium later, Icelandic has many characteristics in common with Finnish. This makes sense when considering the Vikings started as "Finland-Swedish" (see Origin of Vikings) explorers/raiders capable of making themselves understood from Finnish Karelia to Old Nordic Scandinavia and beyond, e.g. Shetland, Scotland, England, Ireland etc. And do note that 'land' is an old pre-Viking age Gothic word.

Haplogroup U descends from a woman in the haplogroup R mtDNA branch of the phylogenetic tree, who is estimated to have lived around 55,000 years ago. An Upper Palaeolithic human who lived in Western Siberia c. 45,000 years ago has been shown to belong to the U* mitochondrial haplogroup. Haplogroup U has also been found among ancient Egyptian mummies excavated at the Abusir el-Meleq archaeological site in Middle Egypt, which date from the Pre-Ptolemaic/late New Kingdom, Ptolemaic, and Roman periods.

Red hair distribution from a northern heartland. The Uralic speaking Udmurts have been described as the "most red-headed" people in the world and having "deep blue eyes".



Blond hair distribution was connected to southern Fennoscandia being the northernmost place were small scale farming was possible due to the Gulf stream. However, this part of the farming world was also the darkest, hence putting immense pressure on vitamin D uptake - resulting in survival advantage for fair skinned people in the farming/hunting communities. The northern hunter-gatherers, like Inuits, Sami etc., got their vitamin D from other sources.

Read about Kvenland and Finnland - the oldest 'land' in the world.


If, as Klevius working theory suggests, the boost in intelligence, that created the unique paleolithic Eurasian art etc. track from Mal'ta Buret to the Pyrenees, was the result of a Homo floresiensis like tropical island dwarfed brain genetically flowing up in the form of Denisovan to big skulled northern homos, then we would expect a concentration of intelligence genes in the sparsely populated north (because those going back south were diluted by the mass of people already there). Most of these moderṇ (<50 and="" are="" br="" central="" compared="" e.g.="" europeans="" fair="" haired.="" half-northern="" iberians="" most="" nbsp="" nor="" north="" northerners="" not="" of="" relatively="" short="" skinned="" stature="" still="" to="" very="" were="" ybp="">

The tallest people used to live in Australia - already some 40-60,000 ybp. 

There are two main unsolved mysteries about height:

1  Where did the tall genes originate?

2   Which genes determine earlier and later growth stop?

Lake Mungo man (Australia) who lived more than 40,000 ybp is estimated to 196 cm (just a couple of centimeter shorter than Klevius childhood friend).

Mungo Man's "wife" was found 400 m away from him.

These guys from the Burrup peninsula (Western Australia), photographed in the 1920s, were 200.6 cm and 195.5 cm.

These guys photographed in the 1920s in North West Australia, were reportedly both over two meter.

However, most Aborigines are of relatively short stature, and the tall guys above were reportedly even less intelligent than other tribes the Western "conquesters" - to use a word commonly used about muslim colonizers - had met with.

Southern farmers were short and not particularly intelligent

It's a myth that - as Klevius still thought 1992 - that farming caused civilizations. It was only when the gains of farming was utilized by non-farmers that the so called "civilizations" emerged in Mideast. Long before this time there had already been advanced civilizations from Ural to Ukraine.

Klevius theory on IQ and human evolution and its relation to stature - the first truly intelligent humans weren't tall.

As you dear reader already know, until proven wrong Klevius analysis of the evolution of modern humans is in its shortest form as follows:

1 The early IQ track visible through the Aurignacian art/technology track from Baikal/Siberia to the Pyrenees means something extraordinary happened in the Altai region more than 50,000 ybp when the first sewing needles were already in use.

An extremely sophisticated stone bracelet was produced in Siberia/Altai more than 40,000 ybp. Both the needle above and the stone bracelet were found in the Denisova cave.

2 DNA analysis from the Denisova cave has revealed both hybridization between so called Neanderthals, Homo sapiens sapiens, and a third party, the so called Denisovan who in turn is also linked to Australia, Papua New Guinea and Melanesia.

3  Homo floresiensis proves that a bigger skull can shrink in a tropical jungle/island environment without loosing IQ. So if a similar but opposite (i.e. expanding skull while keeping up the per cm3 IQ) process was at stake among the so called Denisovans when they managed to re-enter mainland Asia during lower sea level, they would sooner or later meet with their big skulled northern relatives in the Altai area. As a resukt some of their kids would get both a big skull as well as high IQ. How many of them is up to guesswork so far but there must have been quite a few (proportionally - considering small population) of them to cause such a rapid spread of what we might call the truly modern human over the world.

However, this spread was far from even. Climatic as well as geographical factors played an important role - compare e.g. Mammoth fluctuation, migration and extinction.

When farming emerged population rapidly increased while stature and intelligence decreased (e.g. compared to the early geniuses in Altai). So when the tall Kurgan people from the Russian steppe met the southern farmers the difference in height could be up to half a meter - and some of the Kurgans also possessed superior intelligence due to their mating connections to the north. So whereas mating with average farmer girls didn't produce many geniuses, the opposite was true when it comes to girls/women from the north.

Klevius will teach you more about this scenario later on but in the meantime he suggests you read the Finnish/Karelian epic Kalevala where

Louhi is a "wicked queen" with magical power of the land known as Pohjola (the North). Louhi promises her eldest and most magnificent maiden daughter to the smith Ilmarinen if he forges a Sampo (or Sammas) which was a magical artifact constructed by Ilmarinen that brought riches and good fortune to its holder.

Klevius wrote:

Friday, March 25, 2016

Klevius' Finland-Swedish Hobbit story

The Dragon of Evil, Tolkien, and Moomin Mum

 The Dragon of Evil in the Tolkien calendar by Tove Jansson

Everyone (except islamist muslims) seem to agree that islamism is evil. However, many, especially politicians and muslims, claim that islam is "a great and peaceful religion". From this we may conclude that islamism contains both islam and evil in an inseparable connection which poses the question how islam could possibly be without evil. Even more so when considering that the original spread of islam during more than hundred years (before it settled as sultanates simply sponging on slave business - the so called "golden age") was completely based on evil religiously "justified" robbery, slaughtering, raping and enslavement of the "infidels". Islam's problem is it foundation in evil medieval parasitism that it has now brought to the modern society.

The twisted logic that evil islam should be blinked as "islamism" has led to a variety of incomprehensible stand points. For example and ironically, because of muslim terrorists muslims now ask for extra protection against "anti-muslim sentiments" - on top of the general protection already in place. Why? Does this mean that non-muslim right-wing politicians also should get extra protection because of right-wing extremists? However, the worst twist of all is by far the Saudi based and steered (by the Saudi dictator family) all muslim's world organization OIC and its sharia declaration via UN.

 Klevius has no knowledge about J R Tolkien's view on islam. However, Klevius is convinced that J R Tolkien would have shared Klevius definition of evil based on Human Rights equality.

J R Tolkien's main hero since he was a boy and throughout his entire life was Kullervo in the Finnish epic Kalevala. Many characteristics of Kullervo can also easily be traced in Beowulf and Hamlet both of whom were Scandinavians from a time when Fennoscandia was known as Kvenland (see further down). This period is called Vendel time after a small village near Uppsala in eastern Sweden which at that time was populated by Finns and some old Nordic speaking bi-lingual "Finland-Swedes" (see more about this further down).

Klevius is convinced that Tove Jansson would have full heartedly approved of Tolkien's choice of such an ambiguous hero as Kullervo.

The official Tolkien calendar of 2016 (left) is illustrated by Finland-Swedish Tove Jansson (aka Moomin Mum).

Tove Jansson has also illustrated Swedish and Finnish books by Tolkien (right). However, she is most famous for her Moomin books and illustrations.

Klevius wrote:

Sunday, August 10, 2014

Finland-Swedish Moomin Mum Tove Jansson 100 years

Back then Hitler (the Germans) cried for more cake - today islam (the muslims) do the same!

A brave caricature, 'more cake' was made by Tove Jansson in Finland during a time when Hitler (the Germans) were considered friend of Finland in its war against Stalin's communist Soviet-union.

Here Tove Jansson with her longtime partner Tuulikki Pietilä


Tove Marika Jansson (9 August 1914 – 27 June 2001) was a Swedish-speaking novelist, painter, illustrator and comic strip author from Finland. For her contribution as a children's writer she received the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1966.

Tove Jansson is best known as the author of the Moomin books for children and the astonishing The True Deceiver for adults. The first Moomin book, The Moomins and the Great Flood, appeared in 1945, i.e. the same year Astrid Lindgren, an other world famous Swedish speaking author, published her first book about the Tomboyish Pippi Longstocking.

Like Klevius, Tove Jansson belongs to the tiny bilingual Finland-Swedish minority. In fact, access to her summer house on the pic passes a nearby place where Klevius used to live, neighboring a carpenter who used to build Moomin furnitures for Moominland.

However, unlike Klevius, Tove Jansson never had kids. It's even alleged that she felt slightly uncomfortable with kids. So where Klevius has been a family man in practice, Tove Jansson created her family environment as a fiction.

For more on this topic do visit Klevius' Love Letter to Edith Södergran (an other world famous Finland-Swede).

The little bright Hobbit girl and the giant blonde warrior

 There seems to be no way of avoiding the fact that the first truly intelligent modern humans arose in northern Eurasia. The art and genetic tracks (see below) are more than convincing albeit not yet visibly presented as such other than on Klevius book, blogs and sites so far (though the field is slowly but inevitably moving towards Klevius). 


 The people who got the new brain set up were short in stature as most Siberian people were until recently. However, when Seima-Turbino like phenomenons started (possibly even long before Seima-Turbino) big guys who had become blond in the north hunted for cute mongolic looking girls (compare Kalevala). Some of those girls possessed still a great chunk of the original super brain (compare the Denisova cave etc) so some of the kids produced with the blond giants turned up really smart. Their smartness together with a strong physical constitution in a sparsely populated river way landscape with small villages/camps constituted an ideal environment for nomadic robbery. And after some time some of these guys had collected enough financial and man power to go further south. Klevius will in detail explain this development later. Suffice to say that this is also the explanationary basis for why the Goths from the north managed to conquer the whole of Europe.



Klevius wrote:

Saturday, June 20, 2015

Klevius Midsummer quiz: How come that Klevius can read Beowulf but modern Brits can not?!

Klevius question to BBC: Why so much focus on Muhammad and so little on Beowulf?

The epic poem Beowulf, the masterpiece of Anglo-Saxon literature, was composed in pre-Viking time by an anonymous poet. It tells the story of a Scandinavian hero whose feats include battles with the fearsome monster Grendel and a fire-breathing dragon. It survives in a single manuscript dating from around 1000 AD. In form (e.g. alliteration) and content it follows much of  the Finnish Kalevala (pictured below). Not the least as how it's influenced by later Christian material.

The simple answer is that as a Finland-Swede Klevius happens to master not only Swedish and Finnish but also old Finland-Swedish dialects - and in an extension most old wordings based on Old Nordic (aka Old Norse) over an area covering all the Nordic countries (incl. Gotland) plus Netherlands, England, Scotland plus most of the north Atlantic islands east of Iceland.

In the 1990s when Klevius studied English at Stockholm University they offered a video recording of a play based on thousand year old English texts. To Klevius astonishment he immediately recognized  many familiarities with the  East-Nyland dialects Klevius had grown up with. So when two Norwegian linguists a couple of years ago stated that English is a Scandinavian language Klevius applauded them.

So what does this have to do with Midsummer? Well, it's not just linguistics but a load of other familiarities as well, not to mention the fire feasts which may even be traced back to the Celts. And remember that much/most pre-Christian cultural influences are shared within all the Nordic countries.

For a background take a look at Kvenland: