Most visitors here are probably aware by now that the Iron Age genomes from Hinxton are the two male samples 1 and 4 (ERS389795 and ERS389798, respectively). You can find confirmation of this at the link below.
The researchers were surprised to find that the older Iron Age men were genetically more similar to people living in Britain today than the Anglo-Saxon women were. Stephan Schiffels of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute reported the results October 20 at the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics.
“It doesn’t look like these Anglo-Saxon immigrants left a big impact on the genetic makeup of modern-day Britain,” Schiffels said.
The finding raises an intriguing possibility that indigenous people in Britain may have repelled the Anglo-Saxons but adopted the invaders’ language and culture, says Eimear Kenny, a population geneticist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, who was not involved in the work. More ancient samples from other times and parts of Britain should give a clearer picture of that episode of history, she said.
Anglo-Saxons left language, but maybe not genes to modern Britons
In regards to the main thrust of the article above, I'm not sure if there's much point discussing whether the British today are mostly of Celtic or Anglo-Saxon stock based on just five ancient genomes from a single location in England. However, if I was told that Hinxton4, the only high coverage genome in this collection, was a modern sample, I'd say it belonged to an Irishman from western Ireland, rather than an Englishman from eastern England.
Thus, unless Hinxton4 was an ancient migrant from Ireland, then it does seem to me as if there was a fairly significant admixture event in England between the indigenous Irish-like Celts and newcomers from the east, which eventually resulted in the present-day English population.
In any case, there are indeed some noticeable differences between the two sets of samples, and these can be visualized by plotting their f3 shared drift statistics.
For instance, plotting the f3-statistics of Hinxton2, which actually looks like the genome of someone straight off the boat from the Jutland Peninsula, against those of Hinxtons 1 and 4, we see that the former shares most drift with the Danes. Moreover, the Danes, Swedes and Germans, all Germanic speakers of course, deviate strongly on both graphs from the lines of slope that run from the Erzya to the Irish. The reason they deviate from these lines is because they don't share enough drift with Hinxtons 1 and 4 compared to the other reference populations from Northwestern Europe, especially the Irish.
A similar pattern can be seen when plotting the average results of Hinxtons 1 and 4 against those of 2, 3 and 5. However, the effect isn't nearly as pronounced, possibly because Hinxtons 3 and 5 are of mixed Celtic/Germanic origin.
See also...
Analysis of an ancient genome from Hinxton
Analysis of Hinxton2 - ERS389796
Analysis of Hinxton3 - ERS389797
Analysis of Hinxton4 - ERS389798
Analysis of Hinxton5 - ERS389799
43 comments:
I was in a hurry, so I hope this makes sense. I'll edit it later if it doesn't.
So Hixton3(the one with the insane North Sea score) is most likely an unadmixed Anglo-Saxon?
No, I made a mistake, that sample looks slightly admixed.
Hinxton2 is the pure Anglo-Saxon, as far as I can see.
Fixed now.
Wait a minute...
Hinxton 1 & 4 (supposedly Iron Age Celts from Britain) share more drift with Norwegians, Lithuanians, Austrians, Swedes, Estonians, and Basques from France than they share with Danes, Germans, French, or Finns? I suppose ancient Celtic influence in Central Europe could be invoked to explain the Austrian case, and Celtic influence in Iberia and/or pre-Roman Gaul could be invoked to explain the Basque case, but what about Norwegians, Lithuanians, Swedes, and Estonians? The Lithuanian and Estonian cases are especially troubling to me. Has anyone ever heard of Celtic influence in the Baltic (that somehow missed the Germans, Danes, and Finns)? In this connection, note that even the Polish sample appears to share slightly more drift with these Iron Age Celts than the Danes or Germans do. Weird.
Drift statistics pick up both ancient and recent shared drift.
So it's the samples that share very similar ancient genetic structure (like EEF/WHG/ANE proportions) plus recent links that will share the highest drift stats.
Others won't, either because of their different proportions of ancient components, or because of a lack of recent common genetic history.
It's not rocket science, as the old cliche goes.
So, do Lithuanians exhibit EEF/WHG/ANE proportions that are more similar to those of Hinxton 1 & 4 and the Irish than to those of Germans or Danes?
I don't know if that's the case in this instance, but it's clear to me that more homogenous populations with higher levels of WHG, like Lithuanians, tend to share higher, and maybe often higher than expected, drift stats with ancient European genomes of a hunter-gatherer/northern character, as well as with modern individuals from all over northern Europe. I'm sure a lot of people here have noticed this.
It's why the French_Basques always share more with the ancients genomes ( EEF and WHG) than the French. It's the lack of ANE, for the Basques and for the ancient samples
It's like I said, shared drift stats reflect shared ancient and recent genetic history. But that's a very basic explanation, and the reasons for high drift sharing often differ for different population pairs.
Helgenes50 wrote,
"It's why the French_Basques always share more with the ancients genomes ( EEF and WHG) than the French. It's the lack of ANE, for the Basques and for the ancient samples"
In this case, the Norwegians, Lithuanians, Austrians, Swedish, and (just barely) Estonians exhibit higher shared drift stats with Hinxton 1 & 4, whereas the French, Germans, Danish, and (just barely) Polish exhibit lower shared drift with Hinxton 1 & 4 vis-à-vis the French Basque sample. If the higher shared drift of the Basques compared to the non-Basque French is due to a shared lack (or dearth) of ANE in the Basques and in the ancient samples like you say, then you must be presuming that the higher shared drift between the ancient samples and modern Lithuanians is due to either a closer relationship among the non-ANE components of Hinxton 1 & 4 and Lithuanians in contrast with the non-Basque French or to relatively recent genetic interactions among the insular Celts and Lithuanians that have excluded the non-Basque French, right? Because I'm pretty sure that the British, Irish, and Lithuanians do not have lower ANE than the Basques.
Considering the fact that the North Italians, who probably do not have a particularly high amount of ANE but probably do have some Celtic influence or relationship, also have relatively low shared drift with Hinxton 1 & 4, I think that ANE and recent gene flow may be less relevant to explaining this pattern than WHG/EEF ratio.
So, returning to my earlier question, do Germans and Danes have lower WHG/EEF ratios than Irish, Lithuanians, Norwegians, Swedes, and Hinxton 1 & 4?
@Ebizur
"Has anyone ever heard of Celtic influence in the Baltic"
I think the problem is thinking in terms of culture = genes.
The source region for each wave of north sea genes is the same in all cases (with perhaps increasing eastern euro added over time) but the culture can change in between waves e.g.
wave(s) of north sea genes + celtic culture*
followed by
wave(s) of north sea genes + germanic culture
(*that they picked up from the Gauls)
... with the significant genetic mixture not being west vs east between celtic and germanic but more north vs south between the more north-easterly north sea genes and the more south-westerly more Basque-like Atlantic coast genes.
Honestly, this is all a bit confusing. First the abstract stated that the 3 samples from Anglo-Saxon invasion time were closer to modern day Brits, and also shared some Finn like traces. And the two Iron Age samples were more Iberian like.
Then the archive with the samples said that the 5 of them were Iron Age samples.
Then from the presentation they say that Iron Age samples are similar to modern day Brits, while Anglo-Saxons look different and seem to have had no impact in the British population.
Meanwhile, your analysis of the 5 samples show they are pretty close to each other (we're splitting hairs guessing the differences). And all of them are quite northern (more than modern Brits).
So from your analysis, it looks to me that pre-Anglo-Saxon Brits and post Anglo-Saxon Brits were about the same, because Anglo-Saxons were pretty close to British Celtic population. And all of them were closer to modern day Irishmen and Scots, while English population have turned a bit more southern because probably of slow migration from Southern Europe along the modern centuries (say Italy, Greece,...)
But I guess that until we don't see the published paper they are all just guesses.
@ Davidski @ Ebizur
I vaguely remember you mentioning somewhere, that the Baltic component most likely tracked mesolithic survival, while the East Euro component tracked Slavic expansions, or later eastern movements (did you?)
I was somewhat skeptical that ADMIXTURE soul pick out such fine-grained differences. Surprisingly it seems like it can. The ancient genomes we see so far tend to segregate rather cleanly into each component. And the Baltic score are high for all WHG-high europeans, but not necessarily East Euro. The high-atlantic set in Hinxton also have high baltic, and so does the Bronze Age Hungarian, who has next to no east euro. It seems that old WHG survival tends to track Baltic.
The same phenomenon occurs for Atlantic and West Med though. These components are high when Baltic is high as well. This makes me suspect there is something special about Basques that we are also picking up, not just their low ANE, and that the four components, Baltic+Atlantic+N.Sea+West.Med, account for the 'Northwestern Shift' I mentioned elsewhere.
Davidski, we can try making 'partial' pca plots of European Admixture component scoring with all other components removed except for the above four, + east euro. I expect this would provide us a huge degree of resolution, and East Euro will score away from the rest in the 2nd vector (the first will be dominated by WHG-Basal), proving you correct. Ancient DNA can be added too.
I think the important thing to keep in mind is that Hinxton4 is the only high coverage genome in this sample.
Also worth noting is that we don't have any British Roman or British Norman samples, which might be very informative in this context.
rk, I suspect that "Baltic" tracks WHG ancestry in western Europe, while "Eastern Euro" is largely reflecting Indo-European influence.
Davidski wrote,
"I think the important thing to keep in mind is that Hinxton4 is the only high coverage genome in this sample."
Thank you for this reminder.
However, Hinxton 4 is supposed to be one of the Iron Age British Celts and Hinxton 2 is supposed to be one of the Anglo-Saxons, right? It still looks like the Lithuanian and Austrian samples share slightly more drift with the Iron Age British Celt than they share with the Anglo-Saxon, which is at least a bit counterintuitive.
Is this because Hinxton 2 was essentially just an acculturated British Celt (and maybe had a bit more EEF ancestry than Hinxton 4 had), or is something more complex going on here?
Since Scandinavians, Germans, and Dutch do seem to exhibit an excess of shared drift with Hinxton 2 vis-à-vis Hinxton 4, I think we must reject the hypothesis that Hinxton 2 is merely an acculturated British Celt. Hinxton 2 certainly had some sort of genealogical connection or overall similarity of deep ancestry proportions with modern Germanic peoples that Hinxton 4 lacked (or had only to a lesser extent).
So the Lithuanian and Austrian samples' excess of shared drift with Hinxton 4 is really curious.
Hinxton2 is definitely an Anglo-Saxon, probably with very little if any Celtic admixture.
The Iron Age Celt, Hinxton4, is very different; much more Irish, but also more Baltic-like.
I suspect this Baltic affinity is actually WHG affinity, from Western Europe. I think the reason it shows up as Baltic in the f3-stats and the K15 is because East Baltic populations have the highest levels of WHG in Europe today.
The Anglo-Saxons generally have higher ratios of Eastern Euro to Baltic in the K15, which I suspect means higher levels of ANE.
That ScienceNews article shows the attitude of many people when it comes to genetics and history. They like simplicity, ethnocentrism, and giving inherited character-traits to ethnic groups. This needs to change as more knowledge is being learned with DNA and it's more and more people are getting interested.
The article uses the word indigenous Britons to give an image of noble-primitiveness, noble-savage, and innocence(from advanced invaders).
Like I said before people like simplicity. I remember a Family Guy episode where Stewie learned leonardo da vinci was his ancestor, as if he's something pure and decedents from a one man.
The author of the article was suggesting English are Britons with nearly 0% Anglo-Saxon ancestry. This simply isn't true and Davidski supports the idea that English have alot of non-Briton ancestry. The controversy over whether English are simply Britons who were controlled by an Anglo-Saxon elit was proven wrong nearly 10 years ago with Y DNA.
"The finding raises an intriguing possibility that indigenous people in Britain may have repelled the Anglo-Saxons but adopted the invaders’ language and culture, says Eimear Kenny, a population geneticist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, who was not involved in the work."
This quote goes along with the agenda I'm pretty sure experts on Anglo-Saxon invasion can confirm the Britons didn't defeat them and adopt their language and culture out of choice.
A Norman elite of 8000, into a million, caused a language change. Someone can change a language, while being a very minor component. 20k Anglo-Saxons mixing with 500k Brits, could certainly cause a change, if one must speak their language as a part of daily life.
Didn't the Norman conquest of England result in closer cultural and trade ties with France? Couldn't this have been accompanied by the increased movement of people across the channel, in both directions?
Yes, Normans came for another two hundred years. Never in greater numbers. It was probably the same for Anglo-Saxons. Then you have to factor in the Danes. If Brits are more like the Iron Age samples, than Danes and Saxons combined, it's a pretty fair conclusion that north Germanic blood, especially Anglo-saxon, is in the minority.
@ Davidski @ Chad
This became a huge discussion between me and Maju a few articles ago, about the differential contribution from elites to a settled ag pop over time.
I have a feeling that the Normans may have 'Southernized' the gene pool over time, esp as both Celts and A-S were so northern, and analogous situations have arisen elsewhere in the historical timeframe.
The prevalence of a Anglo-Saxon *non*-invasion doctrine amongst modern British scholars is symptomatic of their biased , "immobilist" stance, and ignores all evidence ; including the fact that there was a population drop in UK in the immediate post-Roman period, allowing the settlement of newcomers without too much tension . Bedes accounts of war reflect later wars between kingdoms and not ethnic was between "peoples".
"It still looks like the Lithuanian and Austrian samples share slightly more drift with the Iron Age British Celt than they share with the Anglo-Saxon, which is at least a bit counterintuitive."
The Celts migrated to the British Isles from the Hallstatt area in southern Germany/ Austria. The Germanics from NW Germany.
@apostateimbressions
Austrians are created from Bavarians and Austria was only created in 998AD.
Hallstatt was created by modern central german celts.
Romans did not conquer north of the Danube river in Germany, so a theory of southern German markers in britian in the times of the samples seems a very slight possibility.
Davidski, my uncle scores 3.045 Askenazi Jew in the Jtest, is that normal? On 23andme speculative he was estimated as 26% south European, including 0.1% Askenazi and 2% Italian(oftenly confused with Jewish right?. My guess is he's around 25% Puerto Rican(his grandfather was probably adopted, ultimate family secret revealed), with ~18% Spanish(he scored 10.8% Iberian at 23andme).
His southern European score suggests another big chunk(8% at leas) is either south European or Jewish. His mother was 50% west coast-Norwegian and 50% British-German colonel. Put that in a calculator using his results in any admixture from GEDmatch suggests his other 50% is very southern. In most admixtures he scores higher in west-Asian centered components than any west Europeans, but it's still a small difference.
His father's mother's father was of mysterious American heritage, including Irish and German, and no recent immigrants. His father's mother's parents though were straight from Saxony, Germany. I think it's likely they had Jewish and German ancestry.
If there is Jewish ancestry it is at the most 4% or so in me and 8% or so in my uncle, so very minor and hard to notice.
My uncel's uncle though is taking a 23andme test. I'm afraid of him seeing the results. His father told him the family was English and Scottish(that's what the records say), and that father was likely an adopted Puetro Rican!!! His mother's parents were always said to be 100% German, but now it seems they likely had some Jewish ancestry. I'm happy if the Jewish thing is true, plus no family lies were involved.
Picture your whole life you were told you were 100% Polish and formed an identity around it, and learned you were 50% Turkish, 25% Jewish, and 25% Czech. That's how big of a shocker his results will be, if he believes them.
I'm pissed at my great great grandparents(not genetically it appears) for never telling my great grandfather he was adopted(maybe they swapped babies, I don't know).
Besides possible Jewish the family is still by mostly Stuttgart+Loschbour+MA1, then also Native American and west African.
"I'm pissed at my great great grandparents(not genetically it appears) for never telling my great grandfather he was adopted(maybe they swapped babies, I don't know). "
Never mind that "he was born at home" He never came out of his "mother", and she knew it but never told anyone.
Barak,
That jtest score is pretty normal. Full Ashkenazis score in the mid 90s for Ashkenazi, on 23andme. It's doubtful that he has any.
"That jtest score is pretty normal. Full Ashkenazis score in the mid 90s for Ashkenazi, on 23andme. It's doubtful that he has any"
There's some type of southern-ancestry besides Puerto-Rican coming from the German side, and Jewish is the best candidate. My uncle is 50% North Sea, but his Euro-segment of ancestry is almost identical to French, and 25% Puerto Rican can't explain that. If not Jewish, there's Italian or Balkan.
Well, even if he was Jewish, its not directly a lie to say they where German, if they came from Germany.
Some Jewish families, specially in the Rhinelands, lived in Germany for almost 2000 years. Thats almost bejond believability. X-D
Plus the traditional "definition of German", wihc is possibly different to that of other ethnicies. (Chancelor Helmut Schmidt once said: German is the only ethnicy in Europe, that isnt bound to the name of a tribe but a language name.
During the early and high middle ages the word for German was "Tiutsche Zunge", literate: "Teuton tounge", means: German speaker.
The king was crowned to the title: "Kuning der tiutschen Zungen", what means: "King of the German speakers". Same for the country: "Rihhi der tiutschen Zungen" = Realm (Empire) of the German speakers.
When the 1. Empire fell apart the the throne was empty for decades, an Austrian singer (13th century), who also was a knight, asked: Why do the German speakers dont have a king? Even the bees have one? Phillip, put on the crown and lead the empire back to old glory!
I always go mad if people keep claiming that there was no Germany in the middle ages or even an idea of it. And that there was no German nationalism back then.
A "Kingdom of the German speakers" is as good as a "Germany". No need to nickpick on names. And a singer that demands a new king of the German speakers is nothing but a German nationalist.
And what says the song "Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?" (Whats the German fatherland?), from the early 19th century?
It says: "So weit die Deutsche Zunge klingt..." = "as far as the German tounge can be heard". Wich again is, in the medieval tradition, the view that "Germany" is the linguistic terretory.
Well.. whatever ... blabla ;-)
"So the Lithuanian and Austrian samples' excess of shared drift with Hinxton 4 is really curious."
If a Belgae Celt, Lithuanian and Austrian were more WHG and the Saxon was more (WHG + ANE) wouldn't that explain it?
i.e. if there were multiple waves into Britain from the same source region but that source region had a gradually increasing Eastern Euro ANE component.
.
"A Norman elite of 8000, into a million, caused a language change"
Norman castle
http://www.bbc.co.uk/staticarchive/67a73c535dee208764dd2a5d42ff0e423a41cb88.jpg
Saxon castle
...
.
"I have a feeling that the Normans may have 'Southernized' the gene pool over time"
and
"If Brits are more like the Iron Age samples, than Danes and Saxons combined, it's a pretty fair conclusion that north Germanic blood, especially Anglo-saxon, is in the minority."
There's going to be a vasconic like substrate and the modern English are going to be a mixture of A-S and that substrate and the evidence will be in north wales.
I appreciate that's a data less claim with no weight for people who haven't spent a lot of time in that region but it's true all the same.
"Well, even if he was Jewish, its not directly a lie to say they where German, if they came from Germany."
I'm saying my great great grandparents lied about their son not really being their son. Another set of Greatx2 parents could be not known they were part Jewish, and there's no crime in that.
Even though in 1910 there were hardly any Peutro Ricans if any in rural western America, it happened somehow.
The Jewish thing is just speculation and probably very minor. 23andme shows my uncle obviously has some German ancestry, so they weren't 100% Jewish. I know there's something southern besides Spanish in there, just not exactly sure what it is.
But anyways this doesn't distort what our lying grandparents said about our ancestry in a huge way. We don't have any significant NE European, Austrian-SE German ancestry, or Balkan-Italian-Jewish-type ancestry it's pretty much all totally west European just more SW(Spanish) than thought. The near eastern ancestry probably almost entirely comes from Stuttgart-like people.
The effect really trickles down to me, so I could easily pass as a German with a little native american and west African. I pretty evenly split between Mesolithic European at just over 50% and near eastern at around 45% or less.
@Davidski,
"Hinxton2 is definitely an Anglo-Saxon, probably with very little if any Celtic admixture.
The Iron Age Celt, Hinxton4, is very different; much more Irish, but also more Baltic-like. "
Absolutely! This last point is critical. I've often lamented the fact that many "Irish" samples on 23andme are in reality mixed samples, with mostly Irish heritage, but often other stuff thrown in.
My father, who is 100% Native Irish as far as I can tell, consistently shows BOTH more Basque-like AND North Sea-like ancestry than other Irish 23andme samples. Put simply, when his DNA is modeled, removing the Irish as a reference, he looks:
50% Western Scottish + 25% Danish + 25% Basque
This is from one of the MDLP admix calculators, which lacks an Irish reference population.
He was the most NW sample on the 23andme map of Europe for a few years, now he is the second most.
Oh and BTW, my father he has blue, blue eyes, black hair, and skin that tans easily - somewhat similar to Western Hunter-Gatherers, like La Brana.
@Fanty,
"Plus the traditional "definition of German", wihc is possibly different to that of other ethnicies. (Chancelor Helmut Schmidt once said: German is the only ethnicy in Europe, that isnt bound to the name of a tribe but a language name.
During the early and high middle ages the word for German was "Tiutsche Zunge", literate: "Teuton tounge", means: German speaker."
So it would seem that Helmut Schmidt was either lying or ignorant, or more likely just being a politician?!
The word Deutsche is derived from the name of the Teutones tribe. Teutones itself is Celtic, derived from the Gaelic "Tuath" meaning people or tribe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teutons
@Pconroy:
In fact its unknown what the ultimate origin of that word is.
I know of the idea that it may be derrived from that. But some dismissed that idea.
There is a second idea, wich is aswell unproven. That its derrived from the god Tiu.
Tacitus mentions that story that the Germans believe to stem from 3 brothers. These 3 brothers stem from a man named "Mannus" ("man"). That "man" stems from a demigod named Tuisto who is the son of a god named "Tiu", "Diu", "Ziu" or "Tyr", who is/was the god of war and the sky and the leader of the Germanic pantheon before Odin/Wodan was introduced to the religion.
The old German version of the word "Deutsch" is "TIUtsch", the Frankish version is "THIOdisk".
A similiar dispute is what "German" does mean. If its of Germanic origin it means "Spear people" (makes sense, if one reads Tacitus). If its of celtic origin then it means "Neighbours" makes also sense) and if its of latin origin it means "Pure".
So what is it now? ;)
And no matter what the ultimate origin is, the oldest DEFINATELY KNOWN usage is not for a people but for a language.
Oldest known usage is from the th century and a pure language name. Not used on terretory or a people.
The first ever known use on a person is from the 9th century. (no massive usage, only for single persons like "Ludwig der Deutsche" (Lois "the German")
First ever known usage on a terretory is from the 10th century. Here in the 10th century the term starts to be used on the population frequently.
BUT....
Its almost always written not "tiutsche" (deutsche) but "Tiutsche ZUNGEN" (Deutsche tounges/speakers)
Almost 100% of all text apearances from 10th-13th century always combine it with "Tounges".
Stuff Like: "Duke Conrad send me another 2000 german tounges."
I think thats pretty unusual.
He is not speaking of "2000 Germans" but 2000 German tounges.
The king is crowned not to be "King of the Germans" but "King of the German TOUNGES" (but modern history books translate it into "King of the Germans". But the original texts uses "German tounges" wich I find is important.
Same for the country name.
Original text:
"Rihhi der tiutschen Zungen" = Empire of the German TOUNGES
In modern German history books the states name is translated to:
"Reich der Deutschen" = Empire of the Germans
Oh the numer didnt type out.
oldest known usage of the term "Deutsch" is 7th century.
Texts that old NEVER use it on people, things or terretory but ALWAYS refer to a communication code (language)
Maybe interesting to add, medieval Germans knew 3 different kind of peoples:
Deutsch (used on Swiss, Austrians, Germans but also for Dutch and Flemish speaking Belgians) But I never read that it was used on Skandinavians or English. Actually I dont know how these people have been called -.-
Welsch = known usage on French and Italians
Wendisch = used on Slavic speakers
"Oh and BTW, my father he has blue, blue eyes, black hair, and skin that tans easily - somewhat similar to Western Hunter-Gatherers, like La Brana."
It's safe to assume WHG had dark skin, but it's impossible to know the tone. The thing to do is look at the same skin-color associated SNPs in your dad's raw data and see if he is missing the same light-skin mutations as WHG samples.
I believe the inference on who contributed more was based on the fact that modern Brits share rare snps with Iberians, much closer to the rate of Brits. Something from the conference too, about the Saxons having a Central Euro component to them, which was apparently lacking in the Brits. The case was the same in the Balto-Finnic component in Anglo-Saxons. I posted it in the previous Hinxton section, I believe.
Post a Comment