In AD175 Marcus Aurelius brought 5,500 Sarmatian heavy cavalry warriors to northern Britain where, after twenty years service, they "settled in a permanent military colony in Lancashire" which was "still mentioned almost 250 years later." You remind us of the possibility that the colony could have influenced the legend of King Arthur, and go on to add something new: it also "could have introduced several thousand copies of that hypothetical allele into Lancashire" and that the average Englishman "might be mostly Sarmatian in a key gene or two." I'm English, and intrigued! Are you able to expand on this? (Book pp. 146-148) I hope it is something good like increased unruliness (independence streak) and aggressiveness in battle and not something naff like Sarmatian lewdness...!!
I have no further knowledge or insight about that, but Greg might. I will call this question to his attention and we may see what he knows.
HCH
Edit: Q&A is now closed. Thanks to everyone for participating, and thanks very much to Harpending and Cochran for their responses.
In response to Kaj's review, Henry Harpending and Gregory Cochran, the authors of the The 10,000 Year Explosion, have agreed to a Q&A session with the Less Wrong community.
If you have any questions for either Harpending or Cochran, please reply to this post with a question addressed to one or both of them. Material for questions might be derived from their blog for the book which includes stories about hunting animals in Africa with an eye towards evolutionary implications (which rose to Jennifer's attention based on Steve Sailer's prior attention).
Please do not kibitz in this Q&A... instead go to the kibitzing area to talk about the Q&A session itself. Eventually, this post will be edited to note that the process has been closed, at which time there should be no new questions.