In the internet you can find advertisements for DNA tests with the promise to find out about your cultural heritage like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyaEQEmt5ls.
Has anyone published about how this link can (technically) be made? Can you explain this to me or recommend articles to me that will make me understand how this works? Thanks.
Article Beyond “Natural” and “Cultural” Heritage: Toward an Ontologi...
It is well understood, as it has been for a very long time, that natural heritage is completely different than cultural heritage. DNA is nature, while culture is nurture. Humans do create cultural constructs or mores based on observable gene expression (perceived racial heritage, physical deformity) but these change throughout time and adjust to circumstance.
The "science" behind using isotope analysis and DNA sequencing in order to determine the nationality, or geographical origin, of an individual has been debunked as inaccurate and too open to biased interpretation of data:
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/326/5949/30
The video you reference in your question is, at best, a sensationalist and overtly melodramatic marketing tactic. It has no basis in sound science.
As a personal, anecdotal, non-scientific reference to the vast difference between DNA and culture, I am 55% English, 25% Swiss German, 12% Native American, 5% Finnish Saami and 3% Yakut, but I have no experience with the cultural traditions of any of these populations. Despite my genetic heritage, I am American and was raised with no religious practice and no cultural traditions of any kind, except those that could be considered broadly or generally modern American.
Nationality is a social/political construct, so you cannot find it in DNA. It's not a measurable unit. The same for the culture, it's a complex set of norms, values and habits which human beings learn by socialization/enculturation.
I guess these tests you mentioned are based on the DNA analysis of ethnic origin, which IS traceable in DNA. Or it's a fraud.
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