From page 166 of a report posted recently at Academia.edu:
Majkop verfügen sowohl über eine «paläolithische» Haplogruppe (U8) als auch über «neolithische» Haplogruppen: V (Недолужко u. a. 2014), T2, N1. Bei einem Objekt aus einem Grab bei der Staniza Novosvobodnaja fanden wir auch die Haplogruppe М52. Die gewonnenen Daten sprechen für eine (auf dem Niveau der mitochondrialen DNA) mögliche genetische Gemeinschaft der archäologischen Kulturen von Majkop und Novosvobodnaja.
The presence of Indian-specific mtDNA haplogroup M52 is surprising. Maykop territory was located just south of the steppe, but M52 isn't found in any of the Bronze and Iron Age samples from the steppe tested to date.
Here's the comment from Haak, from an abstract titled The role of the Caucasus in the formation of the Eurasia's genetic makeup: Insights and questions from ancient DNA research.
Recent genetic research on autosomal and uniparentally-inherited markers has shown a remarkable genetic uniformity of Caucasian populations despite the region’s notable linguistic and cultural diversity. When compared to neighbouring regions, the smooth genetic transition from the Near/Middle East to the Caucasus is in stark contrast to the marked differences to populations from the East European steppes. Flanked by the Black and the Caspian Seas, it remains unclear to what extent the Caucasus served as a corridor and whether and if so when ancient migrations had affected and shaped the region’s genetic profile. Ancient DNA research on Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age individuals from Western Eurasia have recently thrown fresh light on the Caucasus as region, which appears to have played a critical role in the formation of the genetic ancestry of the Yamnaya people, Bronze Age pastoralist of the east European steppes. The Yamnaya carry strong signals of eastern hunter-gatherer (EHG) ancestry and ancient Near Eastern ancestry that is different from the one that giving rise to early European farmers. While modern-day Armenians are the best proxy for the putative source population of the EHG dilution in the steppes, it is highly likely that prehistoric cultural groups from the Caucasus will provide a much better temporal and contextual fit.
Actually, I'd say western Georgians are the best proxy for the putative source population of the EHG dilution in the steppes. See here...
Yamnaya's exotic ancestry: The Kartvelian connection
See also...
Steppe Maykop: a buffer zone?
Genetic borders are usually linguistic borders too
On the genetic prehistory of the Greater Caucasus (Wang et al. 2018 preprint)
177 comments:
Man, those steppe raiders, riding all the way to India to steal farmer's daughters. Steppe chicks must have been ug-ly. ;)
Seriously though, these South Asian haplogroups keep turning up, maybe evidence of that South Central Asian connection. Long-range exchange was opening up rapidly at this time, with trade routes stretching all the way to the India and the Pamirs (long before BMAC and the Harappan cities); traders and adventurers (and maybe coppersmiths and cartwrights?) could have been travelling great distances. I am really looking forward to more West and Central Asian aDNA and keeping fingers crossed we finally get some from South Asia.
What are you talking about?
There's no Indian mtDNA on the steppe. Maykop was in the Caucasus.
That was a joke, Davidski.
Maykop is actually right at the boundary between the foothills and the steppe.
It wasn't a nomadic steppe culture though.
M52 hasn't been found in any steppe remains, so no point in contributing it to steppe pastoralist groups at this point. The only other mtDNA M I can think of from ancient DNA was a male (2650-2450 BC) from modern day Syria. He was M49, I believe.
M52 is strictly South Asian AFAIK. While there have been other Indian-type mtDNA findings in ancient West Eurasia, these were in Mittani contexts, and Mittani elites were Indo-Aryan from several centuries after the purported IE conquest of IVC, so they make sense. But this one doesn't make any sense.
Is it the only sequenced lineage or just one among many? I can't read Russian nor German, so I totally rely on your second hand information.
I'm surprised that Nirjhar hasn't commented yet. :)
@Maju
Where do you know that Mitanni elites were from South Asia and not from Central Asia. Their Indo-Aryan Language was older and more archaic than Vedic Sanskrit and it is more likely that they never were in South Asia and moved directly from BMAC/Central Asia into Syria via Iran.
@DudeMan: Four Bronze Age samples from Terqa and nearby sites (Syria, Euphrates, probably Mittani context) belonged to Indian M-derived lineages, per Wittas et al. 2013: two M49, one M61 and one M4b1. The Mittani (Indo-Aryan elite) context may explain their presence. They are unrelated to older sequences from the same region (Fernández 2005), which are all typical West Eurasian, except for an L2 individual.
@Maju
The mtdna m sample from ancient Syria is too early to have anything to do with Mittani
@Coldmountains: I don't know it but the formation of Mittani is posterior to Cemetery H (late IVC phase, commonly thought to be the one affected by the IE invasion) by several centuries, so it's plausible that the Mittani elites migrated not from Central Asia but from Pakistan. The mtDNA pool just mentioned seems to support this hypothesis.
Ah, thanks, Maju. I must have missed those other samples somehow.
"The mtdna m sample from ancient Syria is too early to have anything to do with Mittani"....
You seem to be right, Coldmountains. I stand corrected. Strange though.
Actually, now that I look at it with due care, two of the individuals are older (c. 2700 BCE, Amorite period possibly, but little is known of that so old phase) and two are instead of the latest Roman period (c. 600 CE). The fact that the four carry the same loose kind of Indian lineages (and in one case maybe belong to the very same maternal line after several millennia) points to a persistent "South Asian" founder effect in the city and maybe in a wider area, now somehow erased.
... or even pre-Amorite in fact.
Majkop was definitely a pastoralist culture on which later groups like Yamnaya were modelled. This is abundantly clear
Indian specific R7a'b was also found in Romania dating 5500-4500 BC.
Rob,
Yamnaya was a nomadic steppe pastoralist culture, like Khvalynsk. Maykop was not.
Also, if more strange mtDNA HGs turn up in Maykop that aren't found on the steppe, then this puts a big dent in the theory that Maykop contributed ancestry to Yamnaya.
Dave
Yamnaya was not a **nomadic ** steppe culture; but a mobile pastoralist one based largely on cattle heading; and it was different ("evolved") from Khvakynsk.
[true nomadism came much much later- ie iron age]
Now I'm not saying Yamnaya is simply a cheap knock of of Majkop; but many of its kurgans are modelled on Majkop; and much of its metallurgy was imported from there. Even more; archaeologists have advocated a migration of Majkop to part of the steppe- like the Konstantinovka steppe variant. aDNA will add nuance to this/ prove it/ disprove it; but that Majkop was a *cultural model* for many aspects of Yamnaya economy cannot be doubted even it it turns out it was 'genetically different'.
Majkop was definitely a pastoralist system. It had light; single -layered wayrle and daub dwellings, massive kurgans; in contrast, areas south of Caucasus had mud-brick; multi-layered houses; with mostly flat inhumations. The mobility of Majkop is also supported by the fact that they extracted ores from around the region and engaged in widespread contacts; with wealth and weapons surpassing anything ever present on the open steppe . There is little to debate here
Yamnaya is commonly known as a nomadic steppe culture. That's the consensus. You can't downgrade it to just mobile on your own here.
Maykop was generally sedentary and not even particularly mobile, unless you mean some of its late steppe variants.
Err no it's not the consensus; unless you're referring to the consensus amongst amateur forumists
Look up a book - any book- and see when nomadism began. Then go look up about the economy of Majkop.
Here Rob, a good point of reference to start with. Note the use of the term nomadic.
"The culture was predominantly nomadic, with some agriculture practiced near rivers and a few hillforts.[1]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamna_culture
And that quote is based on a book.
@Capra
"Seriously though, these South Asian haplogroups keep turning up, maybe evidence of that South Central Asian connection. Long-range exchange was opening up rapidly at this time, with trade routes stretching all the way to the India and the Pamirs (long before BMAC and the Harappan cities); traders and adventurers (and maybe coppersmiths and cartwrights?) could have been travelling great distances. I am really looking forward to more West and Central Asian aDNA and keeping fingers crossed we finally get some from South Asia."
Yes, I think that by the mid-late 5th millennium all that area was well connected. Arsenic copper is indeed a good hint to follow, though there are others related to precious stones, silver, pottery...
I think that it's just a matter of few months that we'll get Asian DNA and then things will get really interesting.
@Davidski
"Also, if more strange mtDNA HGs turn up in Maykop that aren't found on the steppe, then this puts a big dent in the theory that Maykop contributed ancestry to Yamnaya."
Yes, I'm thinking more and more that the first incursions into the steppe of the "Georgian-like" people were not through the Caucasus. Their arrival to Transcaucasia might be already late (ca. 4200 BC) and until the 4th millennium they didn't cross to the north Caucasus. If the Khvalynsk dates are correct (which is not completely certain, I think), then the first "teal" people might have arrived from the eastern part of the Caspian Sea, with a less developed culture than what Maykop represents.
If so, Nirjhar might not be wrong in thinking of the possibility of Maykop people being R1a instead of R1b. It's difficult to guess, but we were already surprised with Yamnaya being R1b. We could be surprised again with Maykop turning up R1a.
Anyway, soon enough we'll know, since ancient DNA is probably on the way. Interesting months ahead.
R1a isn't from Maykop. It's an EHG marker native to Eastern Europe.
Why would you claim it arrived in Eastern Europe after the Mesolithic? That's insane.
And if more strange mtDNA HGs turn up in Maykop, then obviously the Georgian-like admixture arrived in the steppe from the Caucasus before Maykop, probably with farmers from the western Caucasus. Farming is documented in western Georgia around 6,000 BC.
"R1a isn't from Maykop. It's an EHG marker native to Eastern Europe."
Well, we don't really know. If we had some EHG carrying R1a-M417 the situation would be clear, but right know it isn't. And what do you mean by "native" to Eastern Europe? R1a is too old to be native to Eastern Europe. Old clades must have been all over the place (and I mean mostly Asia, with only a small part in Europe arriving much later). The question is about modern subclades, but from those ones we still don't know the exact origin.
I still think that Iran/S-C Asia are better candidates for modern R1a/b Eastern Europe, but soon enough we'll know so not much point in discussing too strongly about it.
Dave
God's sake Dave, you're embarrassing yourself.
About Maykop:
"These data suggest that agriculture could have played a minor role in the primary productive economy of these communities which was mainly focused on animal husbandry and its secondary products. More specifically, faunal data reveal a special focus on cattle, as at both Galyugai I (49%) and Yasenova Polyana
(65%). In fact, the short-lived occupations and the “light” architectural remains fit well in an economic organisation mainly based on pastoral activities which required periodic movements across the territory and a mobile approach to the land." [THE ARSLANTEPE ROYAL TOMB AND THE “MANIPULATION” OF THE KURGAN IDEOLOGY IN EASTERN ANATOLIA AT THE BEGINNING OF THE THIRD MILLENNIUM. G Palumbi].
About Yamnaya and other Bronze Age pastoralists: From Anatoly Khazanov (the grand-father of nomadic studies) "The Indo-Aryans could not be pastoral nomads, since there was no such thing in the Bronze Age.
At best, yamnaya was 'semi-nomadic' (Rassamakin). True nomadism came much later. This isnlt anything new or revolutionary.
Alberto,
The two earliest verified R1a come from samples of entirely and overwhelmingly EHG ancestry (the Khvalynsk R1a male only has around 10% of Near Eastern ancestry).
So R1a is obviously an EHG marker native to the Eurasian steppe, not South Asia. If it's found in Maykop, it'll be a signal of steppe admixture in Maykop.
Everyone has their pet theories, but come on, let's be honest.
@Alberto, Davidski,
It's important to keep in mind The R1b-Z2103 and R1a-M417 in LN/BA Steppe populations are both founder effects. All we need is one R1b or one R1a lineage from Teal for their R1a/b to be from teal.
Although it'd be a strange coincidence Steppe R1a/b wasn't from EHG considering EHG belonged mostly to early forms of R1a1 and R1b1. We already have R1b1a1 from EHG, it doesn't take much imagination some had R1b1a2 and are ancestral to Yamnaya's Z2103.
@Davidski
But R1a according to Yfull (which many people consider that it underestimates the age, but let's take that age as correct) is 22.000 years old. You can't seriously think that it's native to Eastern Europe. At that time all the territory of modern day Russia was depopulated. Literally. And if you're thinking about an Ukrainian refugium for R1a, I don't think that can work. We would have found R1a all over Europe in the Neolithic or earlier.
R1a arrived quite later (maybe 9-10 Kya) to Eastern Europe with Asian admixture (ANE). So it's normal to think that most of it was in Asia, only that we have no samples from Asia to verify it.
@Krefter
We have R1b-M269 in Iberian Neolithic. The EHG that is R1b is not even M269. It makes more sense that M269 was in West Asia than in the Samara region at the time. When you add to that all the other data we have, I see more likely a southern origin. But yes, as you said, it could be either. The question is open. We have to wait for ancient DNA to really know.
With R1a it would look more clear towards EHGs, but just because we have no samples from Asia and no rare finds in Neolithic Europe. When we get samples from Asia, we will be able to judge more clearly the situation.
@Alberto,
"We have R1b-M269 in Iberian Neolithic"
His R1b1a and R1 calls are false positives meaning he is actually negative. He probably didn't have R1b1a2 but instead something like H2.
@Alberto,
I don't see a reason to favor Iran/SC Asia for Steppe R1b/a. Lack of ancient testing isn't evidence. Basal R1ba2 and R1a in Iran(not all of West Asia) is the best evidence I've seen. But EHG had plenty of R1b1 and R1a1, it isn't a stretch to say M417 and L23 are from them.
I think Varna will have an interesting role here. Supine, rich burials with copper axes is in Bulgaria before Maykop and Yamnaya.
Chad
Good point. But the current thinking is that Varna influenced Majkop, but Majkop was still on the whole original. Ie masters of their own, unique form of metallurgy which spread throughout Eurasia subsequently. It's as if Caucasian- Majkop took over the north Balkan hegemony of metallurgy c. 4000 BC.
Let's see, Neolithic Anatolia yields 0% R1a/b out of a possible 27 samples.
http://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/10
10/016477.abstract?%3Fcollection=
&
"The Yamnaya carry strong signals of eastern hunter-gatherer (EHG) ancestry and ancient Near Eastern ancestry that is different from the one that giving rise to early European farmers......, it is highly likely that prehistoric cultural groups from the Caucasus "
^^^
Sensible explanation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
" It makes more sense that M269 was in West Asia than in the Samara region at the time."
^^^^
Clutching at straws.
Alberto,
The three Khvalynsk men carry the Y-haplogroups that we'd expect a population of largely ANE/EHG ancestry to carry; Q, R1a and R1b.
This is obviously the gene pool of the North Eurasian population that moved both into the Americas and Eastern Europe from Siberia.
There's no need to bring South Asia into this from ~24,000 ago, when MA1 was alive, unless you're also convinced that the ANE ancestry of Amerindians came from South Central Asia after the Ice Age.
Dave/ Alberto
Well, the ANE must have come from somewhere . And given that Siberia and much of the EE plain was an icy emptiness , it must have been the south - relatively speaking.
Problem is we don't know where because of a lack of Palaeolithic research. Quite possibly there were several refuge areas in more temperate, life sustaining climates.
But this is a bit distant to the question of R1 expanding in Majkop , Yamnaya and BB. But it does serve to illustrate the theoretical possibility that R1 groups weren't confined to EE.
We know that there was continuity in North Eurasia because we have MA1, AG2, EHG, Khvalynsk, Yamnaya and Corded Ware.
So I don't see the point of forcing South Central Asia into the picture in this context.
There were population movements from South Asia to the Near East, because South Asian mtDNA shows up in ancient Syria, Turkey and now the Caucasus. But this is another story, because these markers aren't seen in any of the numerous steppe and steppe derived groups rich in Y-DNA R1.
"We know that there was continuity in North Eurasia because we have MA1, AG2, EHG, Khvalynsk, Yamnaya and Corded Ware."
That doesn't really follow. There was a continuity of ANE - type populations somewhere, but it wasn't in Russia, northern Kazakhstan or the Baltic. We can't shut our eyes to settlement data - or the absence of it: in this case the absence of human habitation for some 6000 years. This of course, doesn't mean ANE came from South Asia, but rather anywhere south of the steppe zone
Interesting factoid: almost all of Western and Central Siberia was ice free even during the LGM.
It's more likely that this is where AG2's ancestors came from. I don't buy the continuous repopulation from South Central Asia scenario.
South Central Asia is a sink, not a source. The fact that it's a sink with a lot of modern diversity confuses a lot of people.
Dave
It's not simply about Ice sheets , but temperatures, biomass, fuel, etc.
So, Siberia might we'll have been ice free, but there is no evidence for continuous population through the LGM as there is Italy or southern France.
So I cannot offer answers, although the Altai seems plausible with its continuous sequences of microblade technology.
Im not insisting on south Central Asia as the source. Indeed we can't generalise as to which region was a sink and which a source; as this would have varied between the pre -glacial, post glacial and Holocene. So we mustn't insist on constant population movements south to north any more than on insisting continuous cycles of north to south movements.
@Rob,
"So, Siberia might we'll have been ice free, but there is no evidence for continuous population through the LGM as there is Italy or southern France. "
How much work as been done for Siberia? That's important. I'm sure more work has been done in Italy and France.
Krefter
Its been pretty well studied, I'd imagine. I mean - its Russia' big backyard :) But nothing is set in stone.
For a recent analysis, see: "Modern Human Colonization of the Siberian Mammoth Steppe: A View from South-Central Siberia". It talks about south central Siberia specifically.
For the more western side of things, see " The East Gravettian "kostenki culture" as an Arctic Adaptation", esp pg 130.
Both should come up through an easy Google search.
@Rob
Malt'ta is 24.000 years old, Afontova Gora 2 is 17.000 years old. Looks like continuity to me. Maximum ice cover in the LGM was around 26.000 years ago, according to Wiki.
Another thing, the daub houses of Maykop are rather interesting as a number of Indo-European roots are supposed to be connected to building such houses by some. (The Greek word for city-wall, for instance, may point to it.)
@Davidski
"There's no need to bring South Asia into this from ~24,000 ago, when MA1 was alive, unless you're also convinced that the ANE ancestry of Amerindians came from South Central Asia after the Ice Age."
The exact place is unknown, but the southern parts of Central Asia are the best if not the only possibility.
What Rob is saying is the reasonable scenario. If you don't buy that the LGM left North Eurasia depopulated except a few pockets in Europe (and even there extinction was close to happen) then it's on your side to prove that. The weather of Siberia is much, much harsher than that of Iberia, believe me.
ANE is highest in S-C Asia, and pretty high all the way down to India. There is no reason to think that's not the source. It makes geographical and historical sense. We know the places where it wasn't present, so once you eliminate those, you're just left with S-C Asia (again, unless you insist in it remaining -and exclusively- in Siberia during the LGM and after).
Let's wait and see. I'm just speculating for the most likely scenario. But reality can be anything, we will know soon enough.
(But yes, this all is only very distantly related to modern R1a and R1b. They are different questions, even if they do relate somehow).
epoch
Hi ! It's been a while
It's rather ludicrous to claim one sample from 24 kya and one from 17 kya as "continuity", especially given that there is hardly any evidnece of humans in the intervening period; and the materials of Afantova gora are wholly different to mal'ta.
And the LGM was just starting at 24 kya, and the peak was 22-19 kya. So you might want to use a better reference source than Wikipedia
But anything is possible. The similarities of MA-1 to AG are notable, so obviously the population survived, but the question is which locale ? One mans southern Siberia is another man's Central Asia
October 30, 2015 at 4:26 AM Delete
Yes, that Wiki date was not what I thought it was. Here a Nature article dating LGM at from at least 22,000 to 19,000 (calendar) years before present, with rapid ice decline at 19.000 years before present. [1]
Nevertheless, Mal'ta and AG2 are lumped together in creating ANE, so at least technically ANE can be situated in Siberia.
"One mans southern Siberia is another man's Central Asia"
Yes. That's true.
[1] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v406/n6797/full/406713a0.html
Once upon the time:
http://history-maps.ru/pictures/u_15_1/max_1103/
@Rob
Yes, exactly, I agree with all you said.
The population certainly survived, somewhere. But one thing we know if that the ANE population that probably was in Siberia after the LGM and that eventually made it to America belonged to hg Q, not R (as MA-1). I don't think we see much R in Siberia that predates the Bronze Age. So depopulation / re-population could explain that.
@epoch
"Nevertheless, Mal'ta and AG2 are lumped together in creating ANE, so at least technically ANE can be situated in Siberia."
Maybe. But that's somehow equivalent to saying that East Asian can be situated in Siberia. Did it originate in Siberia? Did it stay in Siberia all along the LGM (and was it exclusive to Siberia)? Or did it enter (or re-enter) Siberia from the south after the LGM?
Think about the most likely scenario for the East Asian component (very high in Siberia and in Native Americans) and then think if a similar hypothesis is applicable to ANE or not.
Here i Remark :D
I have seen the abstract on mtDNA, is very short and does not say much, just that Maykop and Novosvobodnaya seem related both with Paleolithic U8 and Neolithic V, T2 and N1.
M52 is found in Novosvobodnaya. I have seen here that in 2010 it was supposed to be South
Asian: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2859343/
And, since it is found in Tharus and Andhra Pradesh, and also in the Philipines, seems quite acceptable. But if it is found in Novosvobodnaya, this can suggest an origin from South Central
Asia, where contact with South Asia was strong.
Here the interesting descriptions of M52 people (all Indians, one not defined) in Genographic:
M52'58
tessynivette
I basically belong to the syrian christian community (sub-sect being Syro-Malabar Catholic) from the Kerala state in South India; though I was born and brought up in the state of Goa and currently residing in Bangalore. The syrian christians are generally patrilineal. From what I have heard, my mother's family name is Erakonni (from Pala) and my grandmother's family name is known as Mappilakunnel (from Pala). Erakonni family history speaks of multiple lineage stories : 1) Jewish-Chritians migrating from Babel 2) Saint Thomas christians migrating from Mylopore (Chennai), and 3) Saint Thomas converting local Brahmins families
M52'58
ruby356c
My mother is from Mumbai, most likely originally from Goa.
M52'58
skatdare
I was born in Mumbai, Mother belongs to a cast/community called Daivadnya Brahmins, natives of Mumbai & coastal region. Father belongs to cast/community Karhade Brahmins.
M52'58
SKAPALI
I am the first in my family to attempt at discovering our ancestry and using this as a base i plan to interview the elders of our family and obtain further results and try and trace back the family tree.
M52'58
Saqibz
We are from Punjab and my mother was from Ferozpur, India. Her ancestors were also from Punjab.
M52'58
Korsheda
My mother was born in Calcutta and her parents were born in or near Dhaka. We have stories in our family folklore about merchants who came from the Iran/Iraq and married local women settling in the the East Bengal area. All of my family have brown eyes but our skin colour varies quite a bit - from very pale to very dark. Most of us are average height for our sex but there are a number of us who are distinctly shorter (e.g. males - 5' 5"; females - 5'0"). I'm curious about the North East Asian, North European and Mediterranean components of my DNA. I'm assuming these component come via individuals who were traders of some sort - its great to see how human beings have, throughout time, consistently travelled and made contact with other groups. Its very exciting.
M52a1b
redifflal
M52A1B. My mother's side is Bengali Brahmins. My maternal grandfather's last name is Banerjee/Bandhopadhyay and maternal grandmother's last name is Chatterjee/Chattopadhyay. Maternal grandmother's mother's last name is Bhattacharya. The ancestral home is Uttarpara, West Bengal which is in the outskirts of Kolkata.
About V, here (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0080673) says:
Haplogroup V is very rare in the Near Eastern populations as well as in the Iranian populations studied here, being found only once in the Persian sample.
N1 in Iran is mostly present in the Azeris, so in the NW, T2 is common also in Persians.
U8 is mainly European, but U8b is found also in Jordan.
Alberto,
"(But yes, this all is only very distantly related to modern R1a and R1b. They are different questions, even if they do relate somehow)."
Yes exactly. It takes one R1a1 or R1b1 from any population to be the source of Bronze age Steppe R1b/a. Anything is possible at this point.
Same goes for Native American Q. As far as I know Native American Q is a mega founder effect. So, Native American Y DNA doesn't tell us R was rare in early ANE folk.
I agree with you about S/C Asia being an ultimate ANE source. The R2 there and in West Asia supports this.
Krefter,
I think U2 also?, and of course we have to see the R1a case too...
I would note that we are focusing too much on Maykop while North_eastern Caucasus could have been a very good corridor for the mediation of the teal-like admixture into Yamnaya.
And I would like to once again repeat that just because Modern Kartvelians appear relatively close to Teal people they should not necessarily be there descendants. IMO, North Caucasian groups are better candidates if you take away their Iron Age(?) Steppe/Northern Euro admixture (you can clearly see that they have a very elevated level of WHG admixture).
One thing that I found interesting is how close Papuans plot to Yamnaya in this set:
http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2015/08/children-of-divine-twins.html
Kind of makes sense, a large chunk of Papuan ancestry is basically paternal cousins with Mal'ta type people. In fact R/Q were basically born somewhere close to Malaysia along with M/S (heuristic narrative)
If you take an average, nominal Papuan and remove the Denisovian ancestry which came via admixture with the earliest modern Africans in the area (which I don't know if there exists a suitable proxy, maybe Mbuti Pygmies?) But if you pare all that away, along with Asian admixture, isn't what's left something similar to ANE populations?
@a: your link is broken, I presume you mean: http://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/10/10/016477
@David: "This is obviously the gene pool of the North Eurasian population that moved both into the Americas and Eastern Europe from Siberia".
There's nothing "obvious" in that. In fact I challenge you to describe in archaeological terms such "North Eurasian" population. The reality is that there is no such thing as "North Eurasian" except maybe Eastern Gravettian (would be NW Eurasian, excluding NE Asia in whole, and would not be quite the same as the ancestry of Native Americans and would have a European origin, although probably also a West Eurasian ultimate source).
What you call "North Eurasian" is just a peculiar subset of West Eurasian (or even South & West Eurasian before strict differentiation consolidated). And it probably refers to two different elements: the one shared with Native Americans belongs to the Siberian branch of the early UP (Aurignacoid), while the one shared between Eastern Europe and ancient West/Central Siberia (Ma1) belongs to Gravettian. Some admixture between both is of course granted.
In any case Q and R1 (and R1a and R1b within this one) have their greatest basal diversity in or around Iran, what is clearly not "North Eurasian" by any means. Furthermore: this cannot be any artifact because the precursors of these lineages, i.e. R and P1, link to South Asia (and nowhere else). If you dig deeper you reach to SE Asia, probably Sundaland, for K2 (Karafet 2014). So we have a clear SE Asia → South Asia → West Asia Y-DNA migration pattern with only some sublineages reaching the North, notably Q1 among those that are still important (all those ancient Siberian and Karelian Rs are extinct lines).
There is not "North Eurasian" anything, except for Kets maybe.
@"South Central Asia is a sink, not a source".
By "South Central Asia" you mean Pakistan, right? It's quite a misnomer. Source or sink or whatever, the densities that the region must have supported prior to Neolithic were no doubt much much greater than anything in Siberia, ice-free or not. One thing is that Siberia was surely largely ice-free, and another very different is to imagine it as an hospitable region able to support high densities. It was not, never, such kind of country but something much more similar to the dry parts of Antarctica. It is quite apparent that in the LGM its inhabitants, heroic as they probably were, suffered a lot from extremely cold conditions (the permafrost line reached to Budapest and Beijing), and that allowed for the N1 migration afterwards, occupying largely empty niches. Using Y-DNA as reference it is quite apparent that there is a pre-LGM Q1 or P1-derived dominated colonization of Siberia (from West Asia) and a post-LGM N1-dominated one (from East Asia). Some of the first peoples did survive but, other than in Beringia/America, in quite poor shape.
Anyways, as I just mentioned, it is not just Pakistan but it is a wider pattern spanning from Bengal to the Levant and other areas. If you remove Iran from the Q haplogroup places, then we get Oman and some Jews as more outstanding ones, if you remove Pakistan and Iran from the R geography then we have to go to Turkey and India for references. You can't just wipe half of the World because you are North-obsessed.
@Krefter: "I'm sure more work has been done in Italy and France".
Ancient-DNA-wise nope. There is much more info from Siberia than from any of those states you mention. And that imbalance affects many other key regions: Britain, Balcans, West Asia, South Asia, whatever relevant parts of Africa, Central Asia, etc. This is partly because cold helps DNA preservation, partly because of bureaucratic issues (France, India) and partly because of academic choice of focus, quite arbitrary I must say.
@Maju,
"Ancient-DNA-wise nope."
Most of the world is undersmapled. 90%+ of ancient genomes are from Hungary, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and Samara Russia. Siberia is less sampled than Spain. Our only ancient Siberian genomes are MA1/AG2 and later Bronze age immigrants. We have nothing in-between 15000 BC and 2000 BC.
I agree more is needed from the Atlantic or West Europe or whatever you want call it. I also think more is needed from Balkans, Italy, and all land surrounded the Baltic. It'll take years before we see genomes from all those regions because researchers have gotten what they wanted out of Europe now they'll be moving to other regions of the world.
Once we do get lots of Atlantic genomes it won't change much. If there was migration out of the Atlantic area it was EEF/WHG and EEF/WHG mixing with each other, something impossible to detect with any method. It is important if certain mtDNA or Y DNA lineages came out of there but that's it.
"quite arbitrary I must say."
Reich, Laz, etc. did a great job choosing which ancients to get genomes from. They trusted what archaeologist had been saying for decades: The Neolithic age was the largest migration event in European history. So they tested Mesolithic Luxemborug/Sweden and an early farmer from Germany to investigate whether the spread of farming is important to European origins. They found their answer.
But after Laz 2013 there were still lots of questions that bugged them. They wanted to discover where MA1-related ancestry came from. So they sampled Yamnaya and Corded Ware and once again they found their answer.
Next they wanted to investigate if the same Steppe people who moved into Europe moved and likely brought Indo European languages migrated into Asia like archaeology suggested, so they tested Afanasievo and Andronovo. And they found their answer again.
Why is ANE a distinct component?
I don't mean the details I mean what would cause it to happen
- regional drift?
- regional adaptation?
are there other reasons that don't include the word "regional"?
Krefter
"Once we do get lots of Atlantic genomes it won't change much"
Unless they find a valley somewhere with lots of very old R1 I think that's probably true but I think it may change the details quite a lot. For example if there was a copper age east to west move which ended in a population increase along the Atlantic coast and sparked a bronze age west to east expansion for a time (going into reverse again in the Iron Age with La Tene etc) what if that middle movement was the catalyst that sparked corded ware's expansion to the east?
Might that explain Corded Ware -> Sintashta over the top of Yamnaya.
iron weapons > bronze weapons > copper weapons > stone weapons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth
Mammoth
"Scientists discovered and studied the remainders of a mammoth calf and found that the fat in a mammoth plays a major role in the mammoth's form and ability to store large amounts of nutrients to accommodate to the colder climate they live in, thereby surviving temperatures as low as −50 °C (−58 °F).[16] The fat also allowed the mammoths to increase their muscle mass, allowing the mammoths to fight against enemies and live longer.[17]"
@Krefter
One big issue needs to be settled. Who were the Bell Beaker people, and whence did they came? We need to find out if Bell Beakers really originated in Iberia.
One other, who were the Megalithic Culture people?
George
You're correct. We should be cautious in viewing any population as an unadmixed 'fossil' group
The Bell Beaker culture may have originated in Iberia, but the Bell Beaker people originated , I believe, in Cucuteni. Cucuteni originally being a NE expansion of Starcevo, EEFs with Y I2a2, received massive input from Steppe types of Dnieper Don with R1b M269.
This is how R1a got to South Asia.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9o3EYTdM8lQUmZ1bWlvcXA2M2M/view?usp=sharing
Since when is K-526 originated in South East Asia? Any ancient DNA to back that up? Ust'-Ishim man belonged to K-M526
@Epoch: "One big issue needs to be settled. Who were the Bell Beaker people, and whence did they came?"
The most likely simple answer is that there is no such thing as a "Bell Beaker people". Instead there is a complex Bell Beaker phenomenon, which, in most cases at least, flourishes within the pre-existent ethno-cultural reality.
It's possible that this answer is not good enough for the Eastern provinces of the phenomenon, because, at least in the Eastern (Danubian) province, BB findings are almost always associated to a very specific kind of burial style, which possibly indicates a reaction to the extremes of Corded Ware (simpler burials, reverse of gender-specific positions), while at the same time also displaying some elements of continuity with it and some of its precursors (Globular Amphorae particularly, which had the same kind of gender-specific burial positions, inverted by Corded Ware). But we cannot extend this problematic, specific of Central Europe, to all the continent.
Elsewhere, beakers do not have this kind of issues: they are in essence a pottery fad (the phase has implications in terms of socio-economic development, maybe even religious/ideological aspects, but not in terms of "people"). If anything happens in the Western pre-IE areas in this period (but also extending into the Bronze Age) is a very gradual dissolution of the Megalithic (and in general "collective" burial) tradition, but it's not sudden as happened with the arrival of Corded Ware to Central and Northern Europe: it is a gradual process extending through many many centuries, very subtle. I'd dare say that it begins with the extension in some areas (Western France w/ Artenacian culture) of the less pompous variant of Megalithism, with small (sometimes even "tiny", knee high) dolmens, often without corridor, instead of the large ones that were common in previous phases, suggesting a loss of power of a pre-existent aristocracy or priestly caste and an equalization of society. This is however not universal and we see indications of hierarchy still being important in Britain (continuity of monumental Megalithism) or also South Iberia (early civilizations in which social stratification is rather growingly apparent).
We cannot ignore Bell Beaker (it is a clearly defined phase with all kinds of implications) but we cannot talk of a BB "people" either. If anything characterizes the BB period is change withing a frame of stability, stability that is only broken at the end of the Bronze Age with the Urnfield expansion. Between Corded Ware and Urnfields there's a long millennium of what seems to be mostly peace and stability, although also socio-economic evolution.
@Tesmos: K2 almost certainly originated in SW Asia, specifically in Sundaland (modern West Indonesia and Malaysia). Then P1 surely migrated West via North India, along with mtDNA R and some N, while other branches of similar composition migrated North (NO) and SE (K2b1). This must have happened before the early Upper Paleolithic in order to allow Q1 to be present in the proto-Amerindian W→E migration via Siberia, which surely originated in "Aurigancoid" Altai (archaeology, human genetics and even dog genetics support that).
Ust' Ishim is somewhat problematic because it carries a pre-NO (K2a*) lineage, what, taken alone could be interpreted as an erratic migrating along the main lineage P1. However his autosomal DNA appears to be intermediate between West and East Asia so an early migration of part of the, still forming, (pre-)NO population from East Asia to Siberia and successive admixture with their P1 Western cousins cannot be discarded. In any case that population seems to be a dead end.
Ust'-Ishim was early K2. Mal'ta was early R. Mesolithic and Bronze Age Eastern Europeans carry Y-DNA R1a/R1b/Q, and significant ANE ancestry.
Early farmers tracing their ancestry mainly to the Near East lack ANE ancestry, and lack Y-DNA R1a/R1b (excluding R1b-V88). Yamnaya are mostly R1b-Z2103, just like the R1b in modern West Asians. Z2103 is dated to the Early Yamna Period, or the period just before Yamna if YFull's estimates are slightly too recent.
The conclusion is obvious, and it's close to Davidski's position.
"K2 almost certainly originated in SW Asia, specifically in Sundaland (modern West Indonesia and Malaysia)."
Maju got this part right, at least (unintentionally I presume). K, or its IJK ancestor, probably moved from West Asia in the early Upper Paleolithic. Ust'-Ishim was K(xLT), close to the root, and his autosomal affinity is equidistant from West Eurasians and East Eurasians.
Modern K2 diversity persisting in SE Asia may be the result of higher population densities than most parts of Eurasia.
Unintentional typo indeed (following the link should clarify any possible doubts): I meant SE Asia. I stand on what I said otherwise. IJK probably coalesced in India, as did K surely. My impression is that IJ only coalesced with the Westward Upper Paleolithic migration, i.e. along with the arrival of P1 (Q, R1) to the West, which it joined to.
Of course all this would be more clear to you if you bothered pondering also mtDNA but even, considered with due care, Y-DNA alone is quite informative.
UI's mtDNA haplogroup is R, and very close to the root. MtDNA R is diverse in South Asia today, but this may be the result of higher population densities in prehistoric times. His ancestors are recent migrants to Siberia, probably from the (south)west. UI's ancestors may have been living in West Asia not long before he lived, as the close TMRCAs between K2 and IJK would indicate.
It makes sense considering the rapid proto-Eurasian expansions that took place in the crucial 50-60 kya period, presumably from West Asia. This fits with UI's equal divergence from WHG and ENA populations, and his Y-DNA and mtDNA being close to the root of two extremely widespread lineages (Y-DNA K2 and mtDNA R). I highly doubt UI's ancestors arrived from SE Asia.
@Maju,
You can't expect to be able to confidently determine where Y DNA haplogroups were 30,000+ years ago with modern data.
Kind of off subject...
The Neolithic inhabitants of Britain had the same skeletal-type as the rest of Neolithic Europe. This goes against the idea ANE in the British Isles is from Mesolithic admixture. If they were like 50% Motala we would be able to tell by looking at their skulls. This information supports the idea of immigration from the East.
The arrival of Central European Bell Beaker is associated with many new cultural-traits and a new skeletal-type. At this point it makes the most sense R1b-P312 and ANE arrived with "Beaker folk".
Krefter: Reich, Laz, etc. did a great job choosing which ancients to get genomes from. They trusted what archaeologist had been saying for decades: The Neolithic age was the largest migration event in European history. So they tested Mesolithic Luxemborug/Sweden and an early farmer from Germany to investigate whether the spread of farming is important to European origins. They found their answer.
Technically, for sampling the main structure was already done by Willeslav sampling MA1 in 2013 and the sampling of Oetzi, Skoglund's early Swedish farmers, and Neolithic Swedish hunters, and La Brana, all by 2012. But kudos to Reich's lab for working the data to produce their models and improving the data quality (although, really, Skoglund produced the same thing through treemix a little later anyway).
I think things will not change too much - it will be interesting to see the "GENOMIC DIFFERENCES BETWEEN NEOLITHIC AND MESOLITHIC HUNTER-GATHERERS IN SCANDINAVIA" - H. Malmström et al. paper which provides evidence that the Pitted Ware Culture is closer to modern Europeans and early farmers than the Motala people, and further away from MA-1. It seems like that may show admixture from farmer->PWC which may be useful / important in North Europe ancestry, at helping to explain why Northern Europeans seem more WHG shifted than a simple mix of Chalcolithic North-Central Europeans with Yamnaya/Corded Ware.
...
The Haak and Lazaridis methods, partly the AdmixtureGraph modelling but primarily stuff like qpAdm, are very interesting, but very oriented towards identifying different subpopulations which can be quantified through a different relationship to the Native American semi-outgroup. If we have Neolithic populations that are not *that* related to one another, but have no different relatedness to outgroups, qpAdm will not tell us much about it. I think this may be the case in Early Neolithic Europe and West Asia, as opposed to the idea there is a single ENF, and then mixture with various WHG and MA1 related groups changed them. Time will tell.
Matt
What would be the best way to distinguish subtle structure within BB groups and later BA groups
Btw you're right about Eske's vision - the quiet giant
@Krefter: yes we can, exactly the same that we are confident that Humankind spawned in Africa much much earlier, which is also based on modern DNA (Y-, mt- and n-). Or would you say that German Dziebel is right when he argues exactly with the same kind of anti-logic about a Human origin in America? I'm sure you won't, but then you can't do the same kind of minimum probability argumentation for the Eurasian case.
Occam's Razor rules!
Maju said
"@Coldmountains: I don't know it but the formation of Mittani is posterior to Cemetery H (late IVC phase, commonly thought to be the one affected by the IE invasion) by several centuries, so it's plausible that the Mittani elites migrated not from Central Asia but from Pakistan. The mtDNA pool just mentioned seems to support this hypothesis. "
That is unlikely because Mitanni is so archaic it is not even agreed on if Mitanni is really Indo_Aryan or basically yet undivided Indo_Iranian. That means it ultimately came from the region where Indo_Iranians evolved or a very near by regio where the people were yet shifiting to "Indo_Aryan" that place must be somewhere around Afghanistan_Turkmenistan.
If anything this mtDNA M is ancient to this region and actually is the missing connection to North African m1 and Indian m. We have to hotspots of M mtdna, one is South, Southeast Asia and one is North Africa. Somwhere in between obviously this Haplogroup must have existed also, If not it might even evolved there. And I believe just like yDNA H, which is by the brother clade to IJK and G, must have migrated once from the Near East all the way to South Asia, maybe even in connection to yDNA H.
David said
"
Also, if more strange mtDNA HGs turn up in Maykop that aren't found on the steppe, then this puts a big dent in the theory that Maykop contributed ancestry to Yamnaya."
Bottle-neck effect? If there is at least a good amount of y and mtDNA overlap and autosomally there is also a significant overlap, than the chances are high that we are dealing here with bottle-neck effect which is not unheard.
Also, if more and more "South Asian" specific (if they really came from South Asia and not vica versa) Haplogroups keep turning up this should actually quite indicate what some other and me were saying all along. That an ANE like populations moved from the East deeper into West Asia and merged with the local farmers.
@Maju,
We can be confident humanity began in Africa but we can't be confident where specific Y DNA haplogroups where for the 50,000+ years all human's ancestors were living there. I think you should be a little less confident about your theories. But whatever it's not a big deal.
Maju said...
" yes we can, exactly the same that we are confident that Humankind spawned in Africa much much earlier, which is also based on modern DNA (Y-, mt- and n-). Or would you say that German Dziebel is right when he argues exactly with the same kind of anti-logic about a Human origin in America? I'm sure you won't, but then you can't do the same kind of minimum probability argumentation for the Eurasian case.
Occam's Razor rules!"
How can you be so sure that we did not come/originate from a parallel line of evolution. The region in question[Caucasus and Siberia] is extremely old and rich in, early humans.
Early human+Neanderthal-derived ancestry=recipe for modern man.
1.8 million years old, most complete skull of a Pleistocene Homo species-Georgia
"The Dmanisi skull, also known as Skull 5 or D4500, is one of five Homo erectus skulls discovered in Dmanisi, Georgia. Described in a publication in October 2013, it is believed to be about 1.8 million years old and is the most complete skull of a Pleistocene Homo species"
http://www.nature.com/news/skull-suggests-three-early-human-species-were-one-1.13972
Nature 505 (7481): 43–49. doi:10.1038/nature1288
Mezmaiskaya Neandertha-Georgia
"....they also found that the Neanderthal component in non-African modern humans was more related to the Mezmaiskaya Neanderthal (Caucasus) than to the Altai Neanderthal (Siberia) or the Vindija Neanderthals (Croatia)"
Prüfer, K.; Racimo, F.; Patterson, N.; Jay, F.; Sankararaman, S.; Sawyer, S.; et al. (2014) [Online 2013]. "The complete genome sequence of a Neanderthal from the Altai Mountains". Nature 505 (7481): 43–49. doi:10.1038/nature12886.
We can't be 100% sure of almost anything, Mr./Ms. A, but there is a scientific principle that seldom fails which is parsimony, alias Occam's Razor.
This can be summarized as (quote):
"Science prefers the simplest explanation that is consistent with the data available at a given time"...
Although:
"... but the simplest explanation may be ruled out as new data become available".
Naturally, but let's await for that new data and not rush based on mere imagination.
Parsimony does not always lead you to the truth but it does in almost all cases, what is as good as it gets. Going against the principle of parsimony seems to require at least some serious evidence of some sort, else it's irrational and almost always motivated by wishful thinking.
For anyone who said it was impossible Bronze age replacement occurred in the British isles...
Dan Bradley of Trinity College has Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron age genomes from Ireland. He said there was massive replacement in Ireland.
IMO it's safe to assume this replacement occurred in the Bronze age.
What we're going to see is: In the Neolithic Ireland was Gok2-like with mostly Y DNA I2 and G2a. In the Bronze age a people very similar to modern Irish arrives with Y DNA R1b-L21.
Yes I agree, I would agree, we can't be 100% sure of almost anything, Mr./Ms. Maju
However we can apply the same set of guidelines for two different data sets. Rather than changing them for one set of results.
For instance:
We have two sets of data from the region known as Yamnaya horizon. Using K7 we can compare the two.
One, from a sample dated 36-38K+/- Kit Number: F999936 also known as Kostenki14,Kostenki-Borshchevo, Russia ydna C*-V199.
Population
ANE 15.81%
ASE 9.27%
WHG-UHG 37.58%
East_Eurasian 6.97%
West_African 2.21%
East_African 7.44%
ENF 20.73%
The other sample 30K+/- later [5k YBP+/-] F999968 RISE548 Temrta IV, Russia- ydna R1b-Z2103+.
Population
ANE 34.61%
ASE -
WHG-UHG 60.66%
East_Eurasian -
West_African 0.73%
East_African -
ENF 3.99%
With the latest study "Eight thousand years of natural selection in Europe"
http://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/10/10/016477.abstract?%3Fcollection=
we can see no samples of R1b-Z2103 or any other branch of R1b among the Near/Middle Eastern data set N26.
So despite all the many posts in the past blogs speculating on mtdna/ydna bringing in certain genetic/traits found in the Yamnaya.They were proven incorrect. Now focus is shifted on a different region SC. Asia, does this make sense?
Can those same theories/logic be applied to K14[Kostenki14,Kostenki-Borshchevo]?
Krefter,
EBA, MBA or LBA ? when the large transition is detected?.
or you think should be detected ? :)...
@Krefter, where did you hear about massive post-Neolithic replacement in Ireland? Is there any more detailed info you can share?
@Krefter
I wouldn't call it replacement, based on that recent autosomal study of Britain it looks a lot more like blending. Although I think the Irish are the best modern proxy for the BBC, I'm pretty sure they were the most similar based on something I read here awhile ago.
@Nirijhar, DudeManBrow, Romulus,
Jean Manco posted the information at a forum. No detailed information was given. ALl we know is Dan Bradley has Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron age genomes from Ireland and he said there was massive population replacement. IMO we will be getting a paper within the next year. I'm sure BBC will do reports, it'll tell us for the most part where British/Irish come from. They're Bronze age immigrants and have close links to Central-East Europe and Scandinavia.
"I wouldn't call it replacement, based on that recent autosomal study of Britain it looks a lot more like blending. "
Modern DNA can't tell us about percentages of ancient ancestry. Unetice and Bell beaker are very similar to modern Irish. If people like them migrated to Ireland there's very little room for native ancestry. The wording "massive population replacement" suggests there wasn't much admixture between natives and newcomers.
The British Isles may have been very sparsely populated in the Neolithic. If a larger and technological more advanced people immigrated into the Ireland and kept to themselves, overtime they'd replace the natives.
If the immigrants take up hunting grounds, farming land, grazing land, etc. Their size would skyrocket while the natives population would continuously decrease. Add to these diseases and war could have caused the natives to go extinct.
Yes, agree. That will be interesting to see for sure. In Germany we see the moving in of a Yamnaya related Corded Ware population, with around 20% of persistence by MN farmers, then the Yamnaya related ancestry reduces to around 50% in Bell Beaker / Unetice, (and slightly less in present day Germans).
So it would seem like if you had a 50% population (like the BB German samples) moving into the BI with 50% survival by BI Early Farmers, we should see 25% Yamnaya in BI, as in Spain. Yet there seems more Yamnaya than 25% in the BI. So there is a question of what is happening there, whether there was a movement into the BI by relatively undiluted Yamnaya related populations, or just not much persistence by early farming populations there, and a 50% population moving in. I think the former of these scenarios seems more likely, but it will be a matter of time to see.
@ Rob What would be the best way to distinguish subtle structure within BB groups and later BA groups Not totally sure. Autosomally, I think you would probably need fairly large and high resolution samples of regional ancient farmers, then probably would need to use haplotype analysis rather than unlinked SNPs on them to distinguish them as populations.
Davidski has in the past got some signals of differentiation between the different farmer samples with his K15 analysis that uses unlinked SNPs (North Central European Neolithic scored more a mix of "North Sea" and other components while Iberian Neolithic was more "Atlantic") but this sort of thing was quite marginal, as the "modern" K15 components Davidski has found represent divergences which had only begun then, and are partly the result of mixing of ancient populations and are not "completed" now (and will not, with modern day population movements).
Possibly the y-dna or mt-dna could be useful as well, if it was large sample size and in high detail.
Matt
Thanks
"So there is a question of what is happening there, whether there was a movement into the BI by relatively undiluted Yamnaya related populations, or just not much persistence by early farming populations there, and a 50% population moving in. I think the former of these scenarios seems more likely, but it will be a matter of time to see."
We have to factor in possibility of multiple 'waves' of arrivals to Britain from continent.
But there was definitely a population crash of late farmers in Britain- perhaps more than anywhere- thus a 'large' arrival might have been easy (both in absolute and relative terms) .
The date ? Some would argue 2300 BC (the date of the Amesbury archer) but I wouldn't be surprised if R1b groups only arrived as late as 1800 BC
@Krefter: that's something you know and are "leaking" to us or something you speculate about based on something much less precise you might have heard?
Anyhow, it's worth mentioning that Ireland is like the only place of Europe where we know that there was a strong demographic expansion within the BB period. Incidentally Ireland also is dominated by SW European Y-DNA R1b (S116), and not anything that can be linked to Northern or Central Europe.
Also we don't have any Gokhem Y-DNA data yet, do we?
@Maju
We can't yet say where K2 came from because we just don't have the data. The K2 in Island Southeast Asia is definitely very basally diverse, but it is also quite common there - it hasn't been heavily diluted by daughter lineages like O and R as it has been in East and South Asia. That is why we know so much about it, any decent sample will turn up lots of it. On the other hand there is very little in East Asia, so none at all has been SNP tested or sequenced (as far as I know).
More importantly though is South Asia. There is quite a lot of K* reported there, especially in East India and to a lesser degree in South India - also P*. Because endogamy in India has made for so many distinct sub-populations different studies come up with completely different frequencies. It has all been massively diluted by the great expansion of much younger clades of R, L, O2a, etc. But what was the original diversity? - we have no clue! There has been only one South Asian K* that I know of sequenced - and if the results of the older studies are correct there must be many millions of Indian K* men - that one NO* guy. One! It's an absurd situation.
So until we have any kind of grasp on the K* outside of Southeast Asia we won't be able to say where it actually came from, only that it must have reached Southeast Asia/Oceania quite early and in large numbers if it didn't start out there.
@Maju,
All Jean Manco said was Dan Bradly claimed there was "massive population displacement". She never claimed Bradly said "massive population displacement", she could have been summarizing.
I trust what Jean Manco says.
"Also we don't have any Gokhem Y-DNA data yet, do we?"
We have one and it's I2a1b1.
"I trust what Jean Manco says".
I do not and for very good reasons. She has been actively denying ancient DNA data just because it went against her pet theories (in which she has monetary interests, because she has written a book, which is inconsistent with such inconvenient aDNA). She's like a battering ram in favor of outlandish conjectures about BB era replacements, all of which would originate (in her delirium) in Central Europe, and she used to be, until recently at least, in total denial of mtDNA H being present among European hunter-gatherers.
Said that, there may have been demographic changes in Ireland within the BB (late Chalcolithic) period (it may be the only or one of the few reasonably likely cases), but most likely not originating in Central Europe but I'd rather think Western France instead. We'll see when the data comes out. Rumors are not good for cold headed thinking.
"We have one and it's I2a1b1".
Duly noted. Thanks.
@Capra: "We can't yet say where K2 came from because we just don't have the data".
We do have lots of modern DNA data. You can't just ignore that. Lack of aDNA is not a blank check for the wildest speculations.
@Capra: "More importantly though is South Asia. There is quite a lot of K* reported there, especially in East India and to a lesser degree in South India - also P*".
I'd like to know more details. AFAIK all or nearly all is P1 but I may well be wrong.
Something we do appreciate in the parallel issue of mtDNA N and R is that, while N does look like coalescing in SE Asia, R rather seems to originate in South Asia (although towards the East in any case), so at least mtDNA-wise the exact origin of this population is a bit ambiguous. MtDNA R is more strictly associated with Y-DNA K2 than N is (often associated with C instead). So "in my book" it is indeed possible that a revision of K2 origins towards South Asia may make some sense (but in wait of more precise and conclusive data than just "some K*")
Anyhow, it should be the Eastern India (Bengal?) - Sundaland arch.
@Maju,
"She has been actively denying ancient DNA data just because it went against her pet theories "
That doesn't mean she is going to lie.
Jean Manco is currently at the "GGI 2015". When speaking Dan Bradly was reluctant to say anything about the ancient Irish DNA in his lab according to Jean Manco. When someone in the audience asked "was there massive replacement" Bradly "muttered" yes.
Maju, tone down your attacks.
Actually some individuals have analysed more than one Gokhem genes ; and none are R1b
Maju; it might be a case of - as Dave would say- accepting your eastern European Y -roots :)
I mean we have a lot of samples from Neolithic to copper age Western Europe; from Scandinavia to Iberia. There want be anything too unusual in Britain or Atlantic France . They'll be just like everywhere else:
- I2 Mesolithic +/- C
- G2a dominated Neolithic , plus usual minor clades
- appearance of R1b c. 2000 BC
No?
A poster at anthrogencia just made some good points concerning the Dan Bradly claim.
http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?3474-Bell-Beakers-Gimbutas-and-R1b&p=118086&viewfull=1#post118086
This confirms we're talking of Neolithic-Bronze age displacement. As he said in 1980 they found in evidence in cranial a new people arrived in the Early Bronze age. I read the same is true for Britain. Based on cranial report it sounds like there was admixture with natives. It makes sense Y DNA I2a1a2a1, found in several Mesolithic/Neolithic indviduals, is most popular in Ireland.
@Krefter
I2a1b1 is more popular in Ireland, I2a1a2a1 is found almost exclusively in England. If you look at the surnames you'll see a couple Celtic last names in I2a1b1 L161, but there are essentially none under I2a1a2 L233.
See:
https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/i-2a-l161/about/background
https://www.familytreedna.com/public/I2aHapGroup?iframe=yresults
@Romulus,
My mistake.
If you look at R1b-L21 diversity in the Isles a Late Neolithic/Bronze age origin becomes more obvious. There's a lot of diversity in L21 and all the major clades are estimated by yful to be around 4,000 years ago. There's like 10 of these clades. We'll probably see some Df13s or much more deep subclades in Bronze age Ireland.
@Maju
"actively denying ancient DNA data just because it went against her pet theories"
Incredible. I can't think of a single other person I could say the same thing about.
Perhaps other mtDNA like that M could be found in the south-east area under the Caucasus.
@Maju
Different studies give very different results. Whether this is just due to uneven sampling among endogamous groups, or some is due to simple error, is not clear. We know in any case that real K* does exist in India because one of the 1000 Genomes (Telugu) samples had it.
South Asia:
Trivedi et al 2007 - India
- 44/1152 (4%) K*-M9(xK2e-M147, L-M11, M1-M5, NO-M214, P-92R7, T1a-M70) - South 16/372), East 19/357, Northeast 9/108.
- 31/1152 (3%) P1*-M45(xQ-M242, R-M207) - South 6/372, East 16/357, West 4/135, Northeast 5/108.
Karafet et al 2014 - none - 0/496 Indians and Sri Lankans.
ArunKumar et al 2012 - Tamil Nadu
- 13/1680 (0.7%) K*(xL1a-M27, L1c-M357, O-M175, P1-M45) - the study was not clear which SNPs were tested apart from these, so this might be N or T.
- 5/1680 (0.3%) P1*-M45(xQ-M272, R-M207).
Gazi et al 2013 - Chittagong Hills of Bangladesh
- 3/237 (1%) K*-M9(xL-M11, NO-M124, P1-M45, S1-M230)
- 23/237 (10%) P1*(R-M207) - doesn't exclude Q
Kumar et al 2007 _ Austro-Asiatic tribals of India
- K* - 0/1178 altogether
- P1(xR) 12/789 (1.5%) Mundari, 4/92 (4%) Khasi, and 2/297 (0.7%) other East Indian tribals - again doesn't exclude Q.
East Asia:
Zhong et al 2011 - none - 0/4149 men from China (Han and various minorities).
Cai et al 2011 - Hmong-Mienic and Austro-Asiatic speaking minorities
- K*(xNO, P1) 19/579 southern China
- K*(xNO, P1) 9/781 northern Mainland Southeast Asia
Qi et al 2013 - 10/2154 K*-M9(xNO-M214, P1-M45, T-M272) Tibetans.
Trejaut et al 2014 - Taiwanese
- 2/1077 K*-M9(xK2e-M147, L-M20, M-P256, NO-M214, P1-M45, S1-M230, T1a-M70) - one Han, one aborigine
- 2/1077 P1*-M45 (xQ-M242, R-M207) - both aborigines
Shou et al 2010 - non-Han from Xinjiang
- 32/503 (6%) K*-M9(xN-M231, O-M175, P1-M45) - but could be all L and T since both are found there.
- 2/503 (0.4%) P1*-M45(xQ-M242, R-M207)
Other:
El Sibai et al 2009 - 10/1847 (0.5%) K*(xL-M20, NO-M214, Q1-P36, R-M207, T1a-M70) in the Levant - doesn't exclude T*.
Di Cristofaro et al 2013 - 0/817 K* or P* Central Asians (mostly from Afghanistan)
Grugni et al 2012 - 0/938 Iranians with K* or P*.
I am not aware of any K* or P*(xQ, R) reported from Europe, Africa, or Siberia.
Most of these numbers are very small, but keep in mind that K2(xNO, P) - including known M and S clades - is only 24/960 (2.5%) in Western Indonesia. That's less than the frequency of Indian R clades there (R2a + R1a = 3%)! Even here the K2 has been extremely diluted by expansion of O and later gene flow from outside.
Thank you very much, Capra. I would not discard less common variants of LT, really. And it does not seem like the frequencies are enough to trump Karafet's findings easily. I agree that more research could help.
"I am not aware of any K* or P*(xQ, R) reported from Europe, Africa, or Siberia".
For the record, I was just writing an entry on Algerian genetics and K(xR1,Q) was found in one citizen of Algiers (3% of the sample) - it can be T or L or even R2 anyhow, all them lineages found in West Asia. And in any case it is n=1, so "erratic" (= doesn't matter unless more are found because it can be a weird fluke owing to recent migrations, particularly in a cosmopolitan city as Algiers used to be).
More intriguing maybe is that the Fregel 2009 study found K(xP) in n=3 (10%) of the Guanche mummies from pre-colonial Canary Islands. This is a more significant finding, although it can still be T (or less likely L). After all, haplogroup T is rather common in West Eurasia, including parts of Africa, and probably very old in its western range.
@Alberto
"Maybe. But that's somehow equivalent to saying that East Asian can be situated in Siberia. Did it originate in Siberia? Did it stay in Siberia all along the LGM (and was it exclusive to Siberia)? Or did it enter (or re-enter) Siberia from the south after the LGM?"
The tundra, where Mal'ta's people survived hunting mammoths, remained where it was, uncovered by ice, during the entire ice age. Why wouykld these people NOT remain where they were? Another thing: Is absence of proof - no finds in between - proof of absence?
@ Epoch
"Is absence of proof - no finds in between - proof of absence?"
Yes, yes it is, when its been actively looked for decades. "The Absence of evidence' argument is when people clutch at straws, and is the lowest level of arguementation. .
What evidence is there that EHG aren't directly related to MA1? It sure looks like they are to me.
And what evidence is there that the ancestors of EHG came from Central Asia after the Ice Age? None thus far.
Dave
We're going round in circles. There is no evidence for anything at the moment. There is a massive gap in aDNA samples between 22000 and 7000 years, covering 10000s km.
"What evidence is there that EHG aren't directly related to MA1"
Well, they're not. MA-1 belongs to an extinct. His relationship to 'EHGs' is peripheral and tangential, not direct. Rather, pre-pre-EHGs (ie the ANE component which then admixed with WHG components to for EHG) share a common ancestor with MA-1.
@Rob,
"Well, they're not. MA-1 belongs to an extinct. His relationship to 'EHGs' is peripheral and tangential, not direct. Rather, pre-pre-EHGs (ie the ANE component which then admixed with WHG components to for EHG) share a common ancestor with MA-1."
You're splitting hairs. EHG and MA1 are factually closely related. I'm technically not directly related to Serbians or Finnish by this of way of thinking.
not really. People are having a hard time accepting that there was no continuity of human presence in most (all Siberia) during the LGM (22-18 kya). This means that malta' -like groups became extinct or moved further south. There was then a re-expansion back north, and also northwest. It is during this time that the EHG formed as this ANE-metpopulation admixed with WHG. It is also possible this ANE -metpopulation went due west toward the south Aral-Caspian region, contributing to the formation of the Kelteminar culture.
Here is a pic https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0vOMPuFTfjwQi1lRXBiNnhOVk0/view?usp=sharing
The red dates represent older, extinct movements, the newer are black . Now, Im not saying that ANE **must have** re-expanded from southern Kazakh and Turkmenistan specifically, but is seems like a reasonable hypothesis.
If anyone has any other hypotheses, then please share. but present hard data rather than vague notions of continuity.
@Rob,
I get what you're saying. Although MA1 and EHG at some point do have a direct relationship. What the definition of a direct relationship is relative to the circumstances.
Yeah sure, Of course. No one is debating that.
There's a reason why Maris, Kets and Selkups show very high levels of ANE/EHG ancestry and close relationships with both MA1 and EHG, and this reason is not that their ancestors arrived in Siberia from South Central Asia after the Ice Age.
Ho do you know what Central Asia looked like 16000 years ago ?
-> you don't
Are are you suggesting that ANE were white walkers who could live on ice ?
Why would they have to walk on ice? Siberia was mostly ice-free. It was almost completely tundra and polar desert. Maps of the extent of the LGM are readily available in many places.
http://www.academia.edu/download/30866638/2969-2974-1-PB.pdf
Just one of several available.
I don't care what Central Asia looked like 16,000 years ago.
My view until proven wrong is that ANE survived the Ice Age in Western Siberia, which was mostly ice free, to eventually become EHG.
Chad
Good link. That paper from 2007 was one of the ones specifically critiqued by in the Graf paper (2015) which Dave actually posted earlier this year. Its of course possible, but at present the evidence is tenuous at best that Siberia was continuously populated, although I have no expertise to savouries wrong and who is right. Being 'ice-free' in itself means little. Southern Germany was Ice free but it was still depopulated for some 10 000 years. Even if we allow the presence of a handful of sites in Siberia during the glacial maximum, one cannot look past the fact that the region would have been re-populated from areas for the south. This happened in Europe and also happened in Siberia. People might not find this palatable but that's their personal issue
Dave
Your theory is certainly possible. But I'd have thought that a more scholarly approach would be to look at the totality of evidence and the big picture, rather than a narrow window of theories based on the things north of the 42nd latitude ? Moreover, if you look at where the -Stans are in relation to the Altai region where Mal'ta was found, ie an easy 1000 km southeast in the riverine oases, and the sheltering backdrop of the Kopet Dag ranges that the LGM refuge was there is more than probable.
I have no particular predilection for this scenario other than the probabilities deemed by the current evidence. But aDNA might prove this incorrect, and show that central Asia had no ANE or R1 before the Bronze Age.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene_megafauna
Lots of food.
@Davidski: "My view until proven wrong is that ANE survived the Ice Age in Western Siberia, which was mostly ice free, to eventually become EHG".
Archaeologically speaking that does not make any sense. There is no indication of any Siberian or Central Asian inflow to Eastern Europe, unless you're thinking of another process: the Epipaleolithic proto-Uralic migration via the taiga, which is probably what you had in mind when you mentioned pottery, which they brought, not from Altai but from China.
The genetic signature of East-Asian-related proto-Uralics is mostly quite different from that of Mal'ta style Paleosiberians, so I don't know how can both be conflated or confused.
Judging on the archaeology, Paleolithic Eastern Europe was settled much as other parts of Europe, in two successive waves centered in Central Europe: Aurignacian first and Gravettian later. Ultimately both macro-populations derived from West Asia. Since the LGM we don't detect any inflow in Eastern Europe or nearby areas until Epipaleolithic (proto-Uralics) and Neolithic times. So the essence of EHG should be Eastern Gravettian (Epigravettian after all those millennia of independent evolution), maybe with the addition of proto-Uralic stuff, as suggested by the presence of mtDNA C in Karelia.
Now, we must not forget that Mal'ta is also a Gravettian site and therefore we should expect proto-EHG genetic influence in them. Much as in Europe, in Altai we see two cultural layers: (1) an Early UP "Aurignacoid" one (originating in South or West Asia) and (2) a secondary Gravettian one, which does come from Europe, Eastern Europe.
An intriguing detail in Günter, Valdiosera et al. was that they detected what seems to be an arrow of admixture from pre-Motala into Ma1 and not the other way around. This seems to imply that at least a good deal of EHG and SHG Ma1-affinity is not owed to E→W migrations but to W→E ones, namely Gravettian. This also fits well with the fact that proto-Amerindians carried not Y-DNA R but Q1 to East Asia and America (also mtDNA X2, unknown to exist in Europe before the Neolithic). So to me it seems that Ma1 is a mix of the first Altai layer (proto-Amerindian) and the second one from Eastern Europe (Gravettian) and that imagining a Siberia→Eastern Europe migration as you do (other than proto-Uralics) is probably wrong, what we have in fact is a Gravettian Europe→Siberia migration confusing things.
Don't worry about it for now Maju, you'll see what I mean when more ancient genomes come in from the steppe and taiga.
Maju
How is Mal'ta "Gravettian"?
It didn't extend beyond Europe . The idea that there was a Gravettian in Siberia was abandoned decades ago
He's stuck in 1970s literature.
Sorry that I have not noticed, Rob. Not even after your undocumented claim.
@David
Don't worry about it for now Maju, you'll see what I mean when more ancient genomes come in from the steppe and taiga.
David, do you have some private info about the unpublished results of some ancient genomes from the Steppe and taiga?
@Maju
http://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com.tr/2013/05/dutch-single-or-dual-population.html?showComment=1446533053162#c5154655235980559527
Maju, you are equating me to Nazi skinheads just because I occasionally use the racial categories such as Caucasoid, Mongoloid, etc. when talking about genetics (Dienekes occasionally uses them too when talking about genetics). This is repulsive. I am a respectable genetics researcher who deals specifically with the genetics of Anatolia, the Balkans and the Caucasus. I have one FTDNA project and one Facebook group on the genetics of those regions. You can ask me to Paul Conroy, he will tell you what genetics research I am into and what language I use. I have over 1000 members in my Facebook group from all over the world and none has complained about my language so far. I am sure you will not complain about it either if you join my Facebook group. In fact, you are invited to join my Facebook group and see it for yourself. I will send you its link by email if you are interested.
Sorry David, since Maju deletes my comments on his blog I had to reply to his defamatory insults against me there somewhere else.
I deleted your comment, Onur, because you were banned from my blog long ago (and you are still unapologetic about the causes of that ban). No more comments on my side on this matter.
@Davidski
"My view until proven wrong is that ANE survived the Ice Age in Western Siberia, which was mostly ice free, to eventually become EHG."
Look. We know that some ANE people survived the last ice age in Beringia (and they weren't alone). That has to be true.
And parts of Eastern Siberia weren't that much different in terms of climate. So why couldn't EHG people move east and then back west?
We know they didn't admix with the Southern Eurasians very much, or it would be very obvious in their genomes.
If this east and then back west history were true, and if EHG language really developed into proto-IE, then we might expect the closest languages to proto-IE to be Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages. But there doesn't seem to be any evidence for that. Or is there?
@Maju
I deleted your comment, Onur, because you were banned from my blog long ago (and you are still unapologetic about the causes of that ban). No more comments on my side on this matter.
Maju, if there is someone who should apologize it is you. You are the one portraying me like Nazis just because I occasionally use terms such as Caucasoid, Mongoloid, etc. when speaking about genetics. I could sue you for your wrongfulness and damages against me, but I do not want to waste my time and energy with that.
@Karl
If this east and then back west history were true, and if EHG language really developed into proto-IE, then we might expect the closest languages to proto-IE to be Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages. But there doesn't seem to be any evidence for that. Or is there?
Not necessarily, Karl. If there was an eastern movement of ANE or EHG due to the extreme conditions of the LGM, probably the Proto-Uralic people or their ancestors too would then be somewhere in Eastern Siberia and in a closer region to Proto-Indo-Europeans or their ancestors than the Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan people or their ancestors were.
@Onur,
"Maju, if there is someone who should apologize it is you. You are the one portraying me like Nazis just because I occasionally use terms such as Caucasoid, Mongoloid, etc."
I agree. Too much censorship can lead people to censor for no good reason.
@Mike
Central Asia was mostly a horrible desert during the LGM, though, so I'm not sure it is actually a better refuge candidate than Southern Siberia. But then pretty much everywhere sucked during the LGM.
@Karl
Trolling aside, one of the Karelian Mesolithic people had mitochondrial C1f, an excellent candidate for back-migration from Beringia. EHGs are also slightly closer to East Asians than MA-1 is, and equidistant with MA-1 to Amerindians despite their greater WHG affinity. So a minor Beringian contribution could actually make sense.
@capra
"Trolling aside, one of the Karelian Mesolithic people had mitochondrial C1f, an excellent candidate for back-migration from Beringia. EHGs are also slightly closer to East Asians than MA-1 is, and equidistant with MA-1 to Amerindians despite their greater WHG affinity. So a minor Beringian contribution could actually make sense."
I wasn't actually trolling. I think this is a very sensible history. And besides the clear genetic evidence, there are several independent linguistic studies suggesting such a connection as well.
@capra,
" EHGs are also slightly closer to East Asians than MA-1 is, and equidistant with MA-1 to Amerindians despite their greater WHG affinity."
Native Americans are equally close to EHG and MA1. EHG is not equally close to MA1 and Native Americans.
@Karl
Not that I think you're serious either about what you wrote, but since you mentioned the language contacts (PIE with Chukchi-Kamchatkan) and the Nostratic subject is mentioned often in relation to the Indo-Uralic languages, I'd recommend this book, freely available, that at least has a good theoretical approach to the Nostratic language family (with up to date information and reasonable dates, places, dispersion, etc...):
https://archive.org/details/BomhardAComprehensiveIntroductionToNostraticComparativeLinguistics
Most people here might be interested in the chapter (13) about the homelands and dispersion, from page 239 (in the PDF is page 265). An interesting read. (And it does place the PIE homeland in the Pontic-Caspian steppe, and explains its contacts with Uralic, Altaic, Chukchi-Kamchatkan,...)
Capra
You're correct - most of Central Asia was an arid, cold place and even worse in the Holocene. But the Altai has an unbroken sequence of microblade development. According to Google this is part of Central Asia, but we can call it south Siberia ; whatever. I'm sure similar finds might come forth when Palaeolithic research in areas to the south east picks up- in sheltered mico-climates. We know such microblades appeared in EE and the east Caspian region too by the Mesolithic.
Beringia is rich in nutrients and would have hosted high biodiversity in the coastal area. It would be a superior place compared to land locked siberia and central asian deserts.
Yes, away from the ocean it was probably very difficult to find refuge during the LGM. But ANE did survive somewhere. The South Caspian was about the best place around from a climatic point of view:
"The clear message especially from the T106EH5 simulation is that warm-loving summer-green trees could have survived mainly in Spain but also in Greece in agreement with findings of pollen or charcoal during the LGM. Southern Italy is also suggested by the models as a possible refugium for warm-loving summer-green trees, but no reliable sites with palaeo-data were available to validate it. The importance of the southern coasts of the Caspian and Black Seas for the survival during the LGM already shown by LA2007 is confirmed also when using the more advanced model T106EH5."
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/50276032_A_comparison_of_climate_simulations_for_the_Last_Glacial_Maximum_with_three_different_versions_of_the_ECHAM_model_and_implications_for_summer-green_tree_refugia
And for evidence of human activity there are those stone tools at Aq Kupruk (North Afghanistan). The stone head sculpture is dated at around 18-20K YBP, so people did survive there.
@Krefter
I agree. Too much censorship can lead people to censor for no good reason.
Yes. The racial terms such as Caucasoid, Mongoloid, etc. were already popular before Nazis. They had no effect on the genocides of Nazis. Jews, despite being Caucasoid, became victims of the Nazi genocides.
@Rob
You're correct - most of Central Asia was an arid, cold place and even worse in the Holocene. But the Altai has an unbroken sequence of microblade development.
Even during the LGM? If so, then the Altai area might have been a significant refugium for the ANE people during the LGM.
Haha. Land locked Siberia?
Holy shit, Postneo and Alberto are at it again. Now for another reality check.
Radiocarbon dating evidence of fluvio-lacustrine sediments has confirmed the existence of a single giant freshwater lake covering most of the West Siberian Plain at around the time of the Last Glacial Maximum. Stretching some 1500 km from north to south, and a similar distance east to west at its widest points, at its maximum extent it would have had a surface area at least twice that of the Caspian Sea.
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/lake.html
Yes, the Giant Lake scenario is very interesting.
Unfortunately, the project faded away and hasn't been concluded. Whilst an interesting hypothesis, that's all it is at the moment - an interesting hypothesis.
Just curious what is the neanderthal introgression level for south indians(ASI)? .
Rob,
Well, that's very interesting, but in fact there were giant freshwater lakes all over Siberia during the LGM.
Huge Ice-age lakes in Russia
https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CC8QFjACahUKEwielJ38_ffIAhUGOKYKHZ4gC2E&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.folk.uib.no%2Fngljm%2FPDF_files%2FMangerud-et-al01.pdf&usg=AFQjCNGJ9_h26BjzZNLhitP6UX4SgQgiug&sig2=SgeiGFBqcGQng_1xZcV1nQ&bvm=bv.106674449,d.dGY
See that's possibly why WHG were separated from EHG long enough to form different clades.
Flowers used to grow in Siberia.
Ancient plant brought back to life after being buried by squirrels in Siberian permafrost more than 30,000 years ago
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2103936/Ancient-plant-brought-life-buried-squirrels-Siberian-permafrost-30-000-years-ago.html#ixzz3qZgaGRRT
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Also lions found in Siberia.
Ancient Cave Lion Cubs Found in Russian Permafrost
http://news.discovery.com/animals/ancient-cave-lion-cubs-found-in-russian-permafrost-151027.htm
Dave
Thanks for the links. Let's hope they clarify further the palaeogeography of ice age Europe .
But isn't the EHG Clade formed primarily due to new, eastern admixure rather than 'separation' from WHG ?
Indeed Siberia had huge lakes (most of the time the surface was frozen, logically) around the LGM: (map, source and more good maps of the ice age). Not sure what their effect was but most probably it was quite different than that of the (mostly not frozen) sea, with its temperating climate effect (not working as today in the North Atlantic because the conveyor was very much weakened, of course, but no reason to think it was not working in the North Pacific).
One of the huge Obi-Irtish basin lake effects was surely to limit the interaction between Central Siberia and West Siberia/Eastern Europe. But that was in the LGM, in other periods the routes would have been more accessible.
The consideration of Siberia as "land-locked" is anyhow correct (lakes are not seas) and in any case it had a clear continental type of climate: very cold most of the year and rather dry. It was dryness what impeded the accumulation of a snow/ice sheet but the permafrost line of the LGM, which I have already mentioned reached as far south as Budapest and Beijing, made the whole territory extremely hostile to human inhabitation around the LGM.
Nice map Maju
Looks like the giant lake in the Yansei-Ob wouldn't explain EHG because it's well east of EHG samples from samara and Karelia . It probably separated ENA from the rest (?)
So are people saying that even though there were herds of giant meat larders criss-crossing this region there were no hunters?
@Rob: The lake is to the West of the two ANE samples so nope. What you call ENA (East North Asian?) is nearly indifferent from other East Asian and for what I can gather from archaeology and genetics should have coalesced in SE Asia and/or South China, expanding northwards about the same time as the Western expansion into the Neanderlands (early UP) and meeting with the proto-Amerindian branch of these around Mongolia, Manchuria and even parts of North "China proper" since c. 30 Ka BP. One needs the archaeological understanding, in this case the eastward moving UP or "mode 4" trail, to make the puzzle fit together, genetic data alone is not enough.
My reconstruction is that (barring the problematic Ust Ishim issue):
1. Siberia was first colonized within the Western-oriented migrational drive of the early UP. Some of these "First Siberians" migrated East via Mongolia, Gansu, etc., meeting with East Asian peoples who were migrating from further South. After the admixture process, they headed to Beringia, where they were probably around the LGM, migrating to America soon afterwards (documented in North America since c. 17 Ka and in South America since c. 15 Ka ago).
2. The left-behind peoples east of Lake Baikal were at the very least influenced (possibly admixed too) before the LGM by Eastern European Gravettian. Those are Mal'ta and Afontova (i.e. "ANE"). These and other Asian left-behinds of the eastward migration leading to the Native American founder effects are important components of modern Siberian populations, maybe also of Central Asian ones, European ones (with more doubts since I saw Günther's Motala→Mal'ta arrow of admixture), etc. Particularly of those that can't be fit in the Uralic or Altaic expansion processes, i.e the catch-all category "Paleosiberians".
3. After the LGM peoples of East Asian origins carrying the patrilineage N1 (and mtDNA C at least, maybe A too but not yet D, which seems Altaic and is not detected before the Bronze Age) became specialized in the Siberian landscape, which was probably semi-empty because of the extreme cold of the LGM, and migrated Westward through it, while hunting reindeer and fishing salmon. These are culturally ancestral to modern day Uralics (although obviously massive admixture has happened in Europe particularly).
This is the basic schematics of Paleolithic Siberian (archaic Homo excluded) as I understand it. Some minor details may be lost of course, for example possible back-migrations of Native Americans, suggested as partly ancestral to Kets, etc.
Maju
The Ob and Yansei are east of the Volga and the Baltic . Have a look at the map again, or indeed , any map
@Grey: the question is when exactly were those "herds of giant meat larders" in most of Siberia. The LGM was very harsh for all, even very adapted animals, and the Ice Age is not all equal: there was a pre-LGM period, a coldest and harshest LGM phase and a gradually warming post-LGM one, roughly speaking.
My impression is that (1) there were hunters, notably in the southern belt, in the pre-LGM period, people of Western stock initially, later admixed at least East of Lake Baikal, (2) that Siberia became semi-empty around the LGM (some refuges of course persisted as shown by Mal'ta → Afontova continuity through the coldest spell and also by Native Americans in probably Beringia and nearby coastal lands) and (3) a more vigorous post-LGM colonization that was clearly led by proto-Uralics.
Flowers may have existed but in what chronology and also in what season? Obviously only in very brief summer periods, what did the peoples do the rest of the year? Flowers also exist in the driest deserts but they just do not 99% of the time - and humans can't hibernate. One thing is for sure: Ice Age Siberia was no paradise but an extreme environment allowing for only low densities of the toughest and most specialized peoples.
@Rob: West of Angara and Baikal, where Mal'ta and Afontova lived. I think you're misreading what I said, right?
Maju
I was replying to *Dave's* comment about the giant lake separating EHG and WHG. I was merely stating the obvious fact that the giant lake is in fact east of our EHG samples (ie in Karelia and samara) - thus it is not the reason for their divergence.
It might well be the main reason for their divergence if their ancestors migrated west only after the waters receded and Eastern Europe became more habitable.
If you mean the ANE part of EHG which admixed with WHG, then yes, its certainly a reasonable explanation.
@Rob: "I was replying to *Dave's* comment"...
Maybe but you clearly wrote my nickname: "Maju". So I got confused.
...
@David: Your speculated E→W migration is based on which archaeological data? I dare say that none. Genetically speaking EHG people are way too similar to WHG ones (both contrast in PC1) vs West Asia particularly, i.e. both are clearly Paleoeuropean and in most cases it's difficult to discern one from the other unless due care is taken, such as using samples from both populations or accounting for Ma1-affinity (what is called, somewhat confusingly, "ANE").
On the other hand there are at least two pieces of evidence that rather suggest a pre-LGM W→E migration from Eastern Europe to Central Siberia: (1) the striking Gravettian affinities of Mal'ta culture and (2) the arrow that appears in Günther & Valdiosera's TreeMix tests (from pre-Motala but good enough, as Motala are clearly intermediate between EHG and WHG).
Do we have any sort of TreeMix result that shows an arrow from Ma1 to EHG? I.e. something that contradicts these facts and supports your hypothesis? AFAIK we do not (but correct me if I'm wrong, please) and that means that ANE is just a ghost of EHG, nothing else, at least in what affects Europe (in Asia may be different and in America it definitely is different, as it must be pre-Gravettian).
@davidski Haha. Land locked Siberia?
Actually I have brought up the case of the caspian seals long ago in your blog. these are arctic animals who got stuck in the caspian.
Its not just about having a water body. Not all water bodies are equal. shallow ice sheets cannot be compared to the Berring sea where there is an upwelling of nutrients. Animals like the Stellars sea cow would be easy pickings for humans. And these are just representative of the large biomass that can be sustained in such areas.
In siberia there was megafauna and grassland of course but I think it would at a smaller scale than in coastal areas.
You're not making any sense.
EHG came from the east, not from the south, because formal stats show a close relationship between EHG and Amerindians, as close as between MA1 and Amerindians.
So there aren't many options really, because Central Asia was not only arid and hostile, but blocked off from the Bering region by a series of massive frozen lakes running from the Altai to the Kamchatka Peninsula.
Europe was blocked off by massive lakes and glaciers. So EHG probably developed in the narrow strip of dry land just north of the aforementioned frozen lakes, and lived off the unfrozen freshwater lakes located south of the glaciers.
I guess that the South Caspian Mesolithic genomes being sequenced by the Pinhasi team will give us some clue about this. Maybe indeed those samples are related to Near Eastern populations and not to ANE (it's just my speculation that they could be ANE based on peripheral evidence, but we should know soon).
In Haak et al. they already speculated about why could EHG be equally close to Native Americans as MA-1 is. And IIRC, the best hypothesis was increased shared drift on one hand, but dilution of ANE because of WHG admixture? (I would have to go back to check about that). In any case, it seems also that Afontova Gora shares more drift with Native Americans than MA-1. I don't know how significant it is (maybe some D-stats could help there), but these findings seem to suggest that the ANE population that made it to the Americas was not a pre-LGM MA-1 derived one that stayed in the Bering Strait during the LGM. Rather it would suggest a post-LGM arrival of an ANE population from further west, more related to Afontova Gora. It would be interesting to know more about this.
I have no IBS sharing stats for Afontova Gora, but I did notice something peculiar when looking at Samara_HG and Karelia_HG (from stats made by David a while back). Comparing 220 populations, normalizing in %, with Masai as the baseline (0%) and in both cases Estonian as the one with most sharing (100%), the difference with most populations are within the reasonable range (+/-5% or so), but a few of them have a lot more sharing with Samara_HG than with Karelia_HG (Mixe +15%, Karitiana +25%, Papuan and Surui +29%):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-ITcSW9aIGrptizH9tS5bKg-AGciBIpMyf7GChhIt40/edit?usp=sharing
I don't know if it means something or it's just statistical errors of some kind, maybe D-stats could also help to determine if there is any significant difference or not.
Krefter,
Can you please give me your basal R1a SNP list of Iran etc?. :)
Gravettian extends no further east than the Kostenki group. We've moved beyond the Eurocentric way of seeing Gravettian in Siberia or Solutrean in Americans. I'll post several papers later.
Davidski
"Europe was blocked off by massive lakes and glaciers."
Were the mammoth whose bones show up in places like Britain different from the ones to the east of these lakes?
If not then there was no barrier.
And if herds of mammoth wandered east and west along those northern plains between Britain and America then I don't see why people wouldn't have followed them.
Is it possible that EHG broke away from WHG specifically because they moved onto the northern plain to hunt the megafauna, wandered all the way to Siberia and beyond and then wandered back again?
@Nirj,
"Can you please give me your basal R1a SNP list of Iran etc?. :)"
http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?5633-Basal-clades-of-hg-R
@David:
"EHG came from the east, not from the south, because formal stats show a close relationship between EHG and Amerindians, as close as between MA1 and Amerindians".
Not sure, I don't have all the data, but I do know that Ma1 is much closer to Native Americans than to Eastern Europeans. You may be partly right though.
"... Central Asia was not only arid and hostile, but blocked off from the Bering region by a series of massive frozen lakes running from the Altai to the Kamchatka Peninsula".
Uh? First there is a belt of greener higher lands in the Eastern part of Central Asia that was (and is) all the time available for habitation. Second can you document that Ice Age Central Asia was "arid and hostile"? I have yet to read such a paleo-climatic study but I'm sure it'd be a worthy read. But most importantly: why do you say that the lakes are blocking Central Asia from NE Asia? I don't see that at all: if anything the lakes made difficult (not "block") the movements between Central Asia and Central Siberia on one side and Europe on the other.
In any case we track the migration from Central Asia (Altai, and prior to that probably Uzbekistan) to East Asia via Mongolia and Gansu, i.e. via the south of Lake Baikal, by merely following the expansion of "mode 4" (UP blade tech) towards the East. If you need some bibliography, I think I have a couple of good links bookmarked on the matter. The effect of that migration was still apparent in the Y-DNA of Bronze Age North Chinese, which in some cases was all Q (today it is much more diluted) and is still apparent among the Altaian people.
"So EHG probably developed in the narrow strip of dry land just north of the aforementioned frozen lakes"...
Uh? Have you looked at the map I posted? North of the glacial lakes there was a massive ice dam, part of the Artic-Scandinavian ice sheet. Migrations must have happened south of the glacial lake, near the source of the Irtish and Obi rivers which fed it. There was also a more westerly canal allowing the lake to drain to a much larger Aral Sea, which in turn drained to an enlarged Caspian Sea by another canal in modern West Turkmenistan. These canals and the shores of said inner seas were no doubt inhabitable even in locally dry conditions. Uzbekistan also was according to all the available evidence, I know of a prehistorian who believes that it is Uzbekistan the very origin of the Upper Paleolithic, although IMO it's arguable.
I'm shocked by your extreme "Hyperboreanism", really.
@ Maju:
"I'm shocked by your extreme "Hyperboreanism", really."
What's the 'shock' actually all about?
During the last 20 years there's been a series of discoveries from paleolithic Eurasia, of sites proving settlements from highly adapted, arctic humans - between 120.00 and 24.000 years ago. The sites are numerous and spread in a large 'crescent', from northern Spain - via France, Brittain, Germany/Balkan, Denmark, Sweden and Finland to the arctic Russia, from the Kara Ocean to eastern Siberia.
Since the onset of the LGM the eastern parts of these, genetically related populations starts to disappaear. In the better climate-zones - along the Atlantic facade - they do survive the LGM, though- Between the Older and the Younger Dryas they still exist, as a late Solutrean/Magdalenien string - on the Brittish and around Danish Islands, known as Cresswell- and Hamburg-cultures.
The last remains seem to vain after the Alleroed interstadial, though, as the Younger Dryas is accompanied by lethal debrie fom earth-quakes in western Europe. Though - we do know that some epi-paleolithic society DID survive the Younger Dryas too - on the shores between Ahrensburg, Lyngby and Scania, 12.900 - 12.100 yrs BP.
AFAIK there are NO other sites proven to have existed within this highly peculiar millennia, when the deepest plunge in climate on record (with about 15 degree Celsius)is known to have happened.
At this time there were NO populations left in north-eastern Eurasia - or in central Europe. As far as we know there were none in Grece, Italy or Spain, either...
Since the discoveries at the Finnish "Wolf Cave" and the Russian Mamontaya Kurija, both made in the 1990's, there's been an ongoing discussion about who colonized the European Arctic - before and after the Younger Dryas.
[i]The implication that the far northern tier of Eurasia was occupied very early by modern humans is another piece of evidence consistent with the idea that the first modern Europeans came from the far north. This hypothesis proposes that the features that people spread into the Palearctic as a rather specialized adaptation, and may have exploited a niche available to highly mobile, long-limbed, and culturally sophisticated people. Ultimately, the eastern extreme of this population may have moved into Beringia and further to the New World.[/i]
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/early_modern/arctic/pavlov_2001_arctic_europe.html
@Batman:
The "shock" is about the fact that north of the Obi-Irtish lake there was only a massive ice sheet. Nobody could live there, exactly the same they don't live in most of Greenland (outside of the coastal pockets) or in Antarctica.
As for all the rest you say, you are talking of already at the end of the last glacial period, c. 12,000 years ago. You are talking of frontier populations that occupied the most extreme niches as the ice melted and climate improved, people who were necessarily immigrants from further south. "Arctic Spain" is a ridiculous idea even in the extreme circumstances of the LGM but Britain offers a better glimpse of what happened in the coldest strip south of the ice sheet: inhabitation was intermittent and unstable and the island seems to have been settled several times only to be deserted again when climate worsened (the Creswellian that you mention is just another instance of failed settlement). South Sweden was only inhabited upon the end of the glacial period: as in Scotland, Denmark, Norway, etc. we have learned that people settled in very early but in any case already in the Epipaleolithic (Holocene) period. North Germany (Hamburgian-Ahrensburgian) shows signs of more or less continuous inhabitation since a bit earlier but that is just 13.5 Ka calBP. Presence further North was only possible in summer at the oldest dates, although it did set the foundations of Epipaleolithic colonization no doubt.
Otherwise, excepted the still undocumented but effectively certain occupation of parts of Beringia and some late Neanderthals of the Komi Republic (long before the LGM in any case), the limit of known human inhabitation in Eurasia seems to be at 57º N (Ust-Ishim), 56º N (Sunghir), 53º N (Mal'ta) and 51º N (Altai sites).
"At this time there were NO populations left in north-eastern Eurasia - or in central Europe. As far as we know there were none in Grece, Italy or Spain, either..."
In "Spain" not either? Sorry but there are many many sites in the Cantabrian strip showing continuous inhabitation, for example Santimamiñe has a continuous record from the Mousterian to the Iron Age. Much of the same can be said for "Southern France" (Mas d'Azil, Isturitz, etc.) and many other places. AFAIK there is no discontinuity between Magdalenian and Epi-Magdalenian anywhere. As for Italy and Greece, I'd have to check but I don't really expect you to be right, same for other areas, as you have yourself mentioned re. North Germany.
In any case it does not make any sense whatsoever that people survived the cold spell of the Younger Dryas in the North and not in the much more benevolent South. The only words I can find to describe such idea are preposterous, outlandish, ridiculous...
The likely scenario is that the two groups split from each other as populations migrated north through the caucauses. (The maykop is rooted in iran) Indian admixure probably occured later through trade in the maykop.
Agreed. The likely scenario is that the two groups split from each other as populations migrated north through the caucauses. (The maykop is rooted in iran) Indian admixure probably occured later through trade in the maykop.
No r1a originated in iran.
Except ultra rare forms of early r1b exclusive to iran.
No one gives a shit about ultra rare forms of R1b or R1a.
Welcome to 2016, almost 2017, where ancient DNA rules.
We have very little data from ancient DNA to establish a reliable picture of histoyr. However, what is unquestionably clear with ancient DNA, if it wasn't before, is that the Lower Caucuses and North West Iran had a large genetic and cultural influence on Steppe populations.
Holy shit, how do you still not get this.
No one from Iran migrated to the steppe during the Bronze Age.
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