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Thursday, February 7, 2019

A Bell Beaker superhighway


Below is a density heat map of Bell Beaker pottery finds from a recent paper titled Der Glockenbecher in Europa - eine Karteirung (The mapping of the Bell Beaker in Europe). It's freely available as part of a series of new archeological papers on the Bell Beaker phenomenon at the Journal of Neolithic Archeology (see here).


Particularly eye catching, at least for me, is the trail of high density clusters that runs from the Carpathian Basin to the North Sea, especially in the context of recent online discussions about the potential geographic origins of the non-Iberian, or Yamnaya-related, Beakers with significant steppe ancestry. I'm guessing that this was something of a Beaker superhighway back in the day.

By itself, the heat map is probably very favorable to the rather popular idea nowadays that the Yamnaya-related Beakers originated in the Carpathian Basin. Their ancestors, for instance, may have been Yamnaya groups that arrived from the Pontic-Caspian steppe via the Balkans, and their ethnogenesis may have been sparked by the cultural impulses that were streaming into the region from across Europe, perhaps from as far away as Iberia. The descendants of these early, potentially Yamnaya-derived, Beakers may then have moved en masse to the North Sea region and beyond via the aforementioned superhighway.

However, fortunately, we now also have quite a bit of ancient DNA data to throw into such debates. Note that I added the following labels to the map: Beaker The Netherlands, Beaker Mittelelbe-Saale, Beaker Bohemia, and Beaker Hungary. These are the currently sampled Beaker populations from along the so called superhighway, and you can see how they cluster compared to each other in my Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of ancient West Eurasian genetic variation.


Clearly, what we're dealing with here is not just a series of well settled sites, or a heavily populated trade route, but also a busy migration trail, because of the significant overlap in the PCA between almost all of the Beaker populations.

Interestingly, though, most of the gene flow appears to have gone from the northwest to the southeast, because the Dutch Beakers hardly overlap with the other groups, and arguably form the tightest cluster, suggesting that they're the most genetically homogeneous and unadmixed of these Beakers. Indeed, they're also genetically very similar to the earlier nearby Corded Ware groups from Germany and Scandinavia, so it's unlikely that they derive from recent migrants to Northern Europe. On the other hand, the Hungarian Beakers from the Carpathian Basin are by far the most dispersed of the lot, which certainly means that they're the least genetically homogeneous and probably the most admixed.

Note also that some of them do clearly "pull" towards the Dutch Beakers, suggesting that they might harbor significant ancestry from as far north as the shores of the North Sea.

See also...

The Boscombe Bowmen

Single Grave > Bell Beakers

Dutch Beakers: like no other Beakers

94 comments:

zardos said...

What is your argument against a scenario with a founder population in the North which received Corded Ware admixture, but which Beakers came from Central Europe, the Carparthians ultimately?
Isnt it, in the end, primarily a question of the chronological order of appearance?
Or can you explicitly rule it out by genetic comparisons? I think its still open to debate.

Davidski said...

@zardos

What is your argument against a scenario with a founder population in the North which received Corded Ware admixture, but which Beakers came from Central Europe, the Carparthians ultimately?

The Dutch and British Beakers, especially the P312 males, are the most homogeneous Beakers, and basically just a western extension of the Corded Ware population, with farmer admixture from across Northern Europe.

There's no sign of any other input, especially not recent input, except in some late and low coverage outliers, who might have Maritime Beaker ancestry.

So I'd say that it would be quite a miracle if the Dutch and British Beakers got their P312 from Beaker migrants from the Carpathian Basin, rather than their Single Grave/Corded Ware ancestors, especially considering their Single Grave-like male burial customs, which even included battle axes in some cases.

Isnt it, in the end, primarily a question of the chronological order of appearance? Or can you explicitly rule it out by genetic comparisons? I think its still open to debate.

The debate is still open as far as the Bell Beaker package is concerned, whatever that is exactly, because it's rather clear that the P312-rich northern Beaker population derives from the Lower Rhine region.

Chronology isn't of much help. To quote myself from the Bowmen thread...

There's no point getting into a debate about the earliest Bell Beaker C14 dates, because of a technical issue known as fluctuations in atmospheric C14 fractions, which affects the Bell Beaker period.

This is covered in the Olalde et al. 2018 supplement on page 4, and I'm sure you're aware of it.

As a result, the Bell Beaker culture is roughly dated to 2500-2000 BCE in many parts of Europe, with no Bell Beaker population looking clearly older than any other. And that goes for the Carpathian Basin Bell Beakers too.

Drago said...

@ Davidski
Sure, looking at individual dates (from a DNA study) without context, is not so useful. However, after excluding outliers, putting collated evidence through analysis (e.g. Bayesian) and incorporating stratigraphical context, you'd be on a firmer footing.

Gaska said...

The map is a good approximation regarding the density of ceramic production, not in terms of the number of deposits. That is, in the province of Madrid there are more discoveries because of the large number of highways and buildings built, other provinces have hardly been studied. Regarding the number of findings in the east, the high percentage is mediated because the cemeteries are very large, that is to say, few sites but with many burials. The sense of migration from Germany to Hungary is not a matter for debate, we have already agreed that the Hungarians and Poles are the most mixed of all with relative influence of the steppes. And look at North-West France, we do not have genetic BBs samples in that region (at least I do not know them).

It would be interesting to see that highway map in relation to the great European rivers. The first conclusion is that BB civilization is a culture related to water (seas and rivers).

Davidski said...

Yeah, the Bell Beakers were sailors, that's another reason why they couldn't realistically have come from the Carpathian Basin.

The steppe-admixed Bell Beakers rich in P312 were Corded Ware-derived sailors from the southern coast of the North Sea. In other words, Rhenish Beakers.

The non-steppe admixed Bell Beakers from Iberia were also sailors, but they didn't have as much of an impact on Europe as the Rhenish Beakers.

gj said...

very good summary - thanks!

Gaska said...

It seems incredible that 5000 years ago people had such marine knowledge, even on the high seas. It seems that it was easier to travel by boat or following the rivers than to venture into jungles, forests and mountains full of wild animals and unknown dangers. No doubt they were practical and intelligent people. In the Canary Islands we have found R1b-M269 in Guanche sites 800 years BC. The Tartessians and Phoenicians sailed the western African coasts in the iron age and brought tin from Hibernia and Albion. The Andalusian and Portuguese BBs brought ivory and ostrich eggs from Asia and Africa and amber from Sicily.

Regarding the Iberian influence in other European regions, everything will depend on the sphere of influence of the major cultural centers. It is impossible for the German BBs to arrive in Sicily, but obviously the British islands are closer to them.

According to Olalde there are steppe mixed BBs in Spain from 2,500 BC, along with Non steppe Bbs. Among those Bbs there are also women with high percentages of steppe ancestry. It seems that existed population movements that geneticists have not yet detected. We'll see what happens.

Ric Hern said...

So basically the Elbe, Rhine and Rhone Rivers.

George said...

Hi,

A Middle Bronze Age trade map from 2015 about 1/2 way down the page:
https://www.worldhistory.biz/ancient-history/64373-middle-bronze-age-2000-1600-bc.html

Richard Rocca said...

David, the relevant map from the study is the one from burials. I marked that one up and the one with Yamnaya influences. As you can see, the visual is pretty tempting, but of course the dates don't work (Czech BB is younger than those to the west).

http://www.r1b.org/imgs/Yamnaya_Influences_Bell_Beaker_Burials.png

MOCKBA said...

The red X's (from the regions inside Germany?) aren't properly marked in the legend (gray like Hungarian Beakers). Sorry for a nitpick, but it would be easier to read the PCA if it is fixed

Davidski said...

@MOCKBA

Thanks. Yep, that was a mistake. Now fixed.

George said...

These Bronze Age boats are ideal for river transport of trade goods.

From ~2000BCE, this craft was also possibly capable of crossing the North Sea
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/o3jMHkrlTPiQCNd3TYy8EA
http://www.ferribyboats.co.uk/

Another British Bronze Age Boat ~1500BCE, the Dover boat.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/KqztJvaeRsiZdlDXMAqAEA

Drago said...

Rocca

Dutch BB dayes to 2400 BC
Those burials in Central Europe aren’t BB, be pre-BB and Central European Yamnaya from 3000-2800 BC

@ Davidski
I doubt you even believe your own crap here lol

Richard Rocca said...

Dragos,

No shit Sherlock, that's why I put "Yamnaya Influences" and not Bell Beaker. And did you even read the line where I said that the dates don't work?

Davidski said...

@Richard Rocca

I think a much bigger problem than any dates are the genetic ancestry and head shape of the earliest Rhenish and German Beakers; they're basically western Corded Ware people with brachycephalic skulls.

But I don't doubt that there was some Hungarian Yamnaya influence on Beakers as far west as parts of Germany. As you know, Z2103 has already popped up in Hungarian and Polish Beakers, and I think we might see it eventually in German Beakers, when enough of them are sampled.

Davidski said...

@Dragos

The consensus will soon be that Beakers moved into the Carpathian Basin from the west, bringing with them Corded Ware-derived steppe ancestry and also brachycephalic skulls.

I'm sure you've seen this video already, but in any case...

Kiss et al. 2018

Gaska said...

@Richard Rocca- Is a pleasure to talk to you. I can imagine earthquakes in other forums.

No smart person who has prestige in this world of genetics can deny the evidence. Of course Hungarians and Poles are more recent than Germans (they have always been a kind of outliers of the BB culture) and their mitochondrial haplogroups are a mixture of Germans, some from the steppes and some from Iberia (although some people do not want to accept it).

I do not forget some friends that I have left in anthrogenica. Once you told me that I always behaved like a gentleman, so we still have an appointment in Barcelona to talk friendly about genetics

Italy's new paper promises strong emotions.

Drago said...

@ Davidski
Nope
As I explained to you, Kiss’s ideas stem from the old adage that BB originated in Iberia; nothing to do with the Ductch BB founder effect which you’re misconstruing into an origin myth

Of course, neither are correct

Davidski said...

@Dragos

Nope, Kiss doesn't say anything about Iberia but talks about Bell Beakers bringing Corded Ware-derived steppe ancestry into the Carpathian Basin.

She also talks about the brachycephalic skulls of the Bell Beakers which are new to the Carpathian Basin and different from those of Yamnaya.

This of course fits very well with the Dutch model for Bell Beaker origins, at least for northern Beakers, because the Dutch Beakers are genetically just a western Corded Ware population, and the first Beaker-type skulls are found in the Lower Rhine region.

You should read the parts of the Olalde et al. 2018 supplement that pertain to Hungarian Beakers. They were written by people who specialize in this area of study, and they clearly see the Hungarian Beakers as intrusive to the region from the west.

Anonymous said...

Seeing as it appears geneticists actually read this blog - which is great by the way - I'll just raise this point: why is R1b-L51 assumed to have come from the Steppe? Sparing the archaeology pointing towards a Western Middle Eastern source of the proto-Bell Beaker package, we still definitely have R1b-M269 in EARLY Chalcolithic Iberia (ATP3), and Bell Beaker sample I1388 (~2300 BCE) has virtually no Steppe AND carries R1b-L151. This sample, from Southern France, was found in a cave, and clearly not related to the main spread of Beaker folk across Europe post-Corded Ware. Also, there's the whole brachycephaly point - the closest parallels are with the Gaudo culture in Southern Italy, further pointing towards a spread of proto-Bell Beakers across the Mediterranean along with metallurgy and warlike elites. And on the topic of looking at cranial forms, it's absolutely fascinating that in areas associated with Bell Beaker-Corded Ware interaction (i.e. all the Steppe Beakers) we see a mixture of brachycephaly and dolichocephaly, with much less mesocephaly than should be expected. The brachycephalic skulls tend to be males, and the dolichocephalic skulls females, pointing towards male BB + female CWC hybridisation. Towards the later period of the EBA this situation seems to have resolved, with Beaker successor cultures possessing a more mesocephalic-dolichocephalic form.

In Iberia, as seen from the mostly I2 Megalithic types, the skulls are mostly dolichocephalic - with the very rare examples of brachycephaly. However, if Bell Beaker folk were a warlike metallurgical elite, you wouldn't expect them to make up a large proportion of the Iberia population. In fact, from looking at R1b-L51 subclades, R1b-L51 carriers must have been very low in population up until the early 3rd millennium BCE, when the population explodes (this was when Bell Beakers first made it to the Rhône-Rhine region).

I think much more attention needs to be paid to the Rhineland and Rhône before the arrival of Corded Ware. Hopefully the upcoming paper on Late Neolithic Switzerland will provide some of the answers. In any case, both R1b-L51 and brachycephaly seems very unlikely to have come from Eastern Europe.

Sonic Reducer said...

Could the central European beaker hot spots coincide with an ancient Amber trade route?

Drago said...

@ Davidski

“You should read the parts of the Olalde et al. 2018 supplement that pertain to Hungarian Beakers.”

Well I have; but (no offence) Olalde et al do not offer a streamlined or contextual Synthesis of all the data.
Indeed in the paper, they clearly state they do not take any particular stance on BB “origins”.

I will also suggest that instead of relying on the supplemental section in the back of an aDNA paper , read the original articles by the specialists you mention . Read the articles by Enredy, and you will she she outlines that the BB Csepel settlements are older in the southern zone than in the north (Danube Bend, lower Austria) . Clearly, this it at odds with a northwestern entry

Drago said...

Quoting from Endrodi -

“The earlier published C 14 dates of the Hungarian Bell Beaker Csepel Group Raczky et al 1992 , and the data from the Budakalász cemetery 2550 1900 BC, Czene 2011 and the Albertfalva 2470 2050 BC and the Szigeszentmiklós Fels Ãœrgehegyi d l sites 2500 -2200 BC, Patay 2009: 224 date the Csepel Group to 2820 - 2100/1900 BC.
However, the data show divergences between the northern and southern zones of the Bell Beaker Csepel group. The data from Csepel Island Szigetcsép and Csepel Háros range
between 2820 and 2136 BC, those from the northern sites outside Csepel Island between 2550 and 1900 BC.””

Gaska said...


@Sonic Reducer "Could the central European beaker hot spots coincide with an ancient Amber trade route?

As far as we know, the first amber objects in Sicily date from the beginning of the 4th millennium cal. and they become common in the Bronze Age (Cultraro, 2007).Contacts and regional circuits in the Sicilian area are also known since the Neolithic. Specifically, obsidian exchanges are known that link Sicily with Sardinia and Tunisia (Tykot et al., 2013). The island of Pantelleria, located between the coasts of Tunisia and Sicily, seems to have been the main source of supply of obsidian from North Africa and has also been documented in Sicily and Italy (Tykot, 1995, Tykot et al., 2013).

We can verify that the arrival of Sicilian amber (SIMETITE) in the Iberian Peninsula started in the 4th Millennium BC at least, and that it was likely integrated in broader Mediterranean exchange networks that intensified during the 3rd Millennium BC, as attested to by amber finds as well as other exotic materials.After an apparent decline in the use of amber, Baltic succinite appears to replace Sicilian simetite in the Iberian Peninsula in the second half of the 2nd Millennium BC, as evidenced by the analysis of Quinta do Marcelo and other sites;

What do you think the BBs did in Sicily ?, among other things get amber.

Regarding the Center of Europe it is very easy to find out the commercial routes if the archaeologists analyze the amber of the deposits. The characteristic spectrum of Baltic amber is very well known, and it is very different from Sicilian or Iberian amber. I do not know any study about this in other European countries.Its FTIR spectrum is characterised by a strong absorption peak at 1160±1150 cm-1 preceded by a horizontal band between 1250 and 1180 cm-1 ±the so-called `Baltic shoulder'



Samuel Andrews said...

@Euxeinos,
"Seeing as it appears geneticists actually read this blog - which is great by the way - I'll just raise this point: why is R1b-L51 assumed to have come from the Steppe?"

Let's first look at Iberia. Ancient DNA proves its R1b is from the north.

The oldest R1b L151 Bell Beaker samples in Iberia all carry 20-30% Steppe ancestry. In the Bronze age, Steppe ancestry infected the whole peninsula & R1b L151 reached "100%" frequency. Not only do, Bronze age Iberians have Steppe ancestry but they also carry Globular Amphora/Funnel Beaker farmer ancestry confirming their R1b came from northern Europe & specifically from people similar to Netherlands Bell beaker.

You can still theorize R1b L151 did not enter western Europe from the Steppe. But it is impossible to postulate R1b L151 arrived in Iberia before Steppe ancestry arrived in Iberia. This puts a huge whole in any theory of a non-Steppe origin of R1b L151. Iberia has to be taken out of every theory.

"However, if Bell Beaker folk were a warlike metallurgical elite, you wouldn't expect them to make up a large proportion of the Iberia population."

That's the thing. What, bell beaker DNA shows is the R1b L151 folk were not quite people who kept to themselves. They made a big presence wherever they went. They replaced 90% of gene pool in Britain, 40% of the gene pool in Iberia. Also, they weren't an elite. They were a population.

"R1b-M269 in EARLY Chalcolithic Iberia (ATP3), and Bell Beaker sample I1388 (~2300 BCE) has virtually no Steppe AND carries R1b-L151. This sample, from Southern France, was found in a cave, and clearly not related to the main spread of Beaker folk across Europe post-Corded Ware"

There is no confirmed R1b M269 in Chalcolithic Iberia. ATP3 is a low coverage sample. Plus, as I said, ancient DNA confirms without a shadow of a doubt Iberia's R1b is from the north. There's enough reason to doubt a claim of R1b M269 in Iberia before the Bronze age explosion of R1b L151 & Steppe ancestry there.

I1388 has 15% Steppe ancestry aka 25-30% Rhine Beaker-like ancestry. But He's only one sample. The dozens of R1b L151 carriers with 40-60% Steppe ancestry outweigh a single sample. I1388 can easily explained as 75% local French farmer, 25% Beaker.

"Also, there's the whole brachycephaly point - the closest parallels are with the Gaudo culture in Southern Italy, further pointing towards a spread of proto-Bell Beakers across the Mediterranean along with metallurgy and warlike elites"

No Beakers have ancestry from southern Italy. Rhine Bell beaker is a Globular Amphora/Funnel beaker+Steppe mix. There's no room for anything else.

Davidski said...

@Dragos

Those dates are not evidence that Bell Beakers came from the Carpathian Basin. They're just broad estimates.

You know this as well as I do.

Gaska said...

@Euxeinos pontos

The individual (I1388) is a young male of about 24 years of age. It was associated with a fragment of a Bell Beaker vessel. The decoration is made by a combination of horizontal bands and radial elements including ladder and lattice patterns. This type of incised-printed decoration points to regional Bell Beakers, specifically to the group from the Rhone-Provence of a recent phase. I guess everyone knows what Lemercier says about the origin of this Rhone-Provence Group. The radiocarbon date from this skeleton is:

I1388/9-Grave1: 2456–2135 calBCE (2.295 BC) - Male- R1b-L151. Mit-H

I do not know the percentage of steppe ancestry of this sample, but if it has some blood from the steppes, it has to come from its father, not from its mother, because H is very frequent in Spain and France since the Magdalenian. Nor have I ever seen H in the CWC however it is a very common haplogroup on the BBC

Spain- Los Cercados, Mucientes, Valladolid-2.590 BC
Hungary-Kobylisy, BBC-2.250 BC
France-Marlen sur Barnes, BBC-2.294 BC
France- Mondelange, BBC-2.150 BC
The Netherlands-Oostwoud, BBC-2.096 BC
England- Amesbury Down, BBC-2.044 BC

Regarding brachycephaly, the main focus in Europe is the Alps, of that we have no doubt




Samuel Andrews said...

@Euxeinos,

https://www.yfull.com/tree/R1b/
https://www.yfull.com/tree/R1a/

Y DNA structure is the final thing that confirms STeppe origin for both R1b M269 & R1a M417. Both R1b M269 & R1a M417 are massive founder effects. Their trees show rapid expansions from 4000 until 2000 BC.

It is impossible for R1b M269 to be native to both western Europe & Yamnaya. Yamnaya had no western European ancestry, neolithic western Europe had no Yamnaya ancestry. R1b m269 is a young clade.

How could R1b M269 exist in two unrelated populations with no recent common ancestry? How could R1b M269 be native to western Europe if it first appears alongside high levels of Yamnaya ancestry?

Gaska said...

@ Samuel Andrews

We have to wait to see what are the last sites studied by Olalde. They have already advanced dates close to 2,500 BC for P312 and both men and women with steppe ancestry.

Obviously, by land, everything has to reach Iberia from the North. In Spain, some haplogroups identical to the cultures of Michelsberg, Baalberge, the Polish Neolithic and the CWc have been documented. There are documented female migrations throughout the chalcolithic. At any time during the first half of the third millennium BC the steppe ancestry could enter.

We will see what happens with L51 and P312, at the moment its origin is German and more specifically Saxony. While there are no older cases that can not be discussed because they are scientific data.


"Rhine Bell beaker is a Globular Amphora/Funnel beaker+Steppe mix"

Be careful there are some mitochondrial haplogroups of the CWC in the Rhenish BBs (specifically from Esperstedt), maybe that explains something of their steppe ancestry.

Gaska said...

@Samuel Andrews-"How could R1b M269 exist in two unrelated populations with no recent common ancestry? How could R1b M269 be native to western Europe if it first appears alongside high levels of Yamnaya ancestry?

I believe that nobody has spoken of the origin of M269 but anyway, R1b is from the Paleolithic a haplogroup clearly linked to the WHG. And everyone knows that EHG has a part of WHG. If you compare the mitochondrial haplogroups of the Latvian hunter-gatherers R1bP297 with the Ukrainians of Derevika and other sites you will notice the relationship between WHG and EHG- ERGO-Related Populations. Keep in mind that steppe cultures are descended from those mesolithic hunter-gatherers.

You also know that both Villabruna and the Myron cluster have percentages of ANE, right? - Ergo-Related Populations

R1bP297/M269/L23 could go to Ukraine where it ended up being Z2103, and could go west to end up being L51. Who knows?

Davidski said...

@Diego

The oldest L51 and P312 are in Beaker samples from Germany, The Netherlands and Britain with significant levels of steppe ancestry, often with very high levels of steppe ancestry, and no signs of any recent ancestry from outside of Northern Europe.

Samples with L51 and P312 from other regions generally have lower levels of steppe ancestry, and often they look recently mixed.

There are a lot of these sorts of samples available now, so the trend is very robust. You would need a miracle to overturn this trend and show that L51 didn't arrive in Northern Europe from the steppe, and that it didn't then expand to other regions of Europe from Northern Europe.

Miracles do happen sometimes, but you might want to be less vocal when waiting for your miracle, because these lamentations of yours won't make you look very clever when this miracle doesn't happen.

Drago said...

@ Davidski
You’d be advised to pay attention and absorb
These aren’t random datings- but robust comparanda based on hundreds of well dated cemeteries in the Carpathian basin; as well as stratigraphic relations
Note that South BB Csepel is overlaid by Nagyrév culture c.2400 BC. The same happens further north from c. 2200 BC.
Hence why I’m yammering on about BB migrating out of CE to the west. There’s no coincidence as to why BB north groups appear in Netherlands, France and UK all c 2400 BC.

Gabriel said...

@Euxeinos Pontos

The significant amounts of steppe ancestry in Beakers and modern Europeans and presence of R1b-M269 in Yamnaya make it clear female exogamy with Corded Ware is not the source of steppe ancestry in Beakers.

That’s unless R1b-M269 is from farmers and the levels of exogamy were so high that their component got diluted to 10%, but if you think brachycephaly originated in these mythical Beaker farmers and and left a huge impact on the cranial form of later Beaker-derived peoples, as if the male impact was actually fairly large then how do you explain the fact these highly brachycephalic Beakers straight-up resembled Corded Ware so much?

Davidski said...

@Dragos

I hate repeating myself, but if I have to...

There's no point getting into a debate about the earliest Bell Beaker C14 dates, because of a technical issue known as fluctuations in atmospheric C14 fractions, which affects the Bell Beaker period.

This is covered in the Olalde et al. 2018 supplement on page 4, and I'm sure you're aware of it.

Bogdan said...

Nail through wood single strike.
Absolute beautiful and timely lead blog post...Superb!

Bogdan said...

By lead blog post, I mean article/topic/content @ Davidski. Exceptional...

Samuel Andrews said...

The sneak peak on ancient Roman/Latium DNA is fascinating.

But it is disappointing it appears the authors unwiselly sampled lots of foreigners who aren't representative of most people who lived in Latium at that time. And I don't see an attempt in the presentation to identify populations or migrations.

It is also disappointing there's a gap between 1700 and 700bc. That's the period Indo European languages entered. Italians in 700bc have Steppe admix but that won't be enough to convince all the annoying naysayers in academia about where the IE language in Italy came from.

Early Rome (700-200bc) samples are all North Italian or South Italian-like. The Near Eastern & Aegean samples appear after Rome became a Mediterranean empire. The best guess is the North Italian-like ones represent ethnic Latins/Romans & the south Italian-like represent conquered people from southern Italy.

John Thomas said...

David,

Any chance of a post on those recent ancient Italian findings?

Many thanks.

Gabriel said...

South Italian people have steppe ancestry. It’s not like they said Sardinian-like.

Drago said...

@ Sam
1000-900 BC is the proto-Villanovan period, a/w entry of Etruscans .
Data from Etruria will be very interesting .

Gabriel said...

Etruscans will end up with steppe ancestry. Not sure if they will resemble modern Tuscans later on.

Bob said...

@ Davidski
Another great article.
Just been reading the interesting Journal of Neolithic Archaeology papers. The paper by Simonsen on Sunken Longhouses in Jutland argues for continuity of settlement from the Single Grave Neolithic through the Bell Beaker late Neolithic.

Just an observation to throw into the mix (with no personal agenda attached).
Denmark is on area where there is a co-incidence of Funnel-Beaker, Globular Amphora, Single Grave, Corded Ware and pre-Beaker brachycephaly.


(I understand and like your convincing arguments for the Dutch homogeneous core v Mittelelbe-Saale etc.... but with more data that picture could still change?)

Drago said...

@ Themmeee
Yes there might be several moves into Italy
Can’t wait for the paper

Andrzejewski said...

@Davidski "I think a much bigger problem than any dates are the genetic ancestry and head shape of the earliest Rhenish and German Beakers; they're basically western Corded Ware people with brachycephalic skulls."

Would you attribute the brachycephalic skull shapes contrary to the Yamnaya/CWC dolichocephalic ones as a contribution of a Rhine/Rhone original population which was an admixed EEF with rich WHG substrate? Would you attribute brachycephaly to WHG Cro Magnon?

Andrzejewski said...

@Euxeinos Pontos I'm asking you the same question: would brachycephaly come from an assimilated EEF population from the vicinity/proximity of the Rhine/Rhone Dutch Beaker area like Davidski has pointed out, but due to a strong WHG Cro-Magnon? Do modern Euros with brachycephaly attribute their wide faces to WHG rather than later migrations?

Andrzejewski said...

@Samuel Andrews Well, you answered well to @Diego. So it seems that Basques cannot be natives to Spain, probably some obscure Balkanic origin. Or even a non-IE Globular Amphora/Funnel Beaker language.

Basically all the findings you posted point that the Yamnaya ancestry in modern Europeans has been thoroughly diluted to a minority. But that's not what modern Northern and Central Europeans currently show (50%-60% Kurgan ancestry).

Andrzejewski said...

Regarding the Levant_N samples in ancient Italians, it's known that Levant_N has 50% Anatolia_N, and that Anatolia_N has 25% - 30%. Now, Greeks have up to 30% E1b1b + lots of J1/J2, whether it came from Hellenic post-Alexander conquest of the Levant or even prior to that, either Phoenician and other Semitic traders, to a wave of CHG-rich Anatolian populations in the 4th millenium BC or a combination of some aforementioned factors.

The East Mediterranean population found in so many "Roman" samples must've been by-and-large assimilated into the Italian population via intermarriage etc. Just as Germanic and Saracene, Viking and French settlers or raiders did later on during medieval times.

By any chance, "Romans" were nothing but a ruling elite from Latium. The population of Northern Italy largely came from the Gauls and later the Longobards, replacing any Italic population.

And there was a large discontinuity in Tuscany between medieval samples (thought of belonging to the descendants of the Etruscans) and modern Tuscan populations (close to other Northern Italians).

Andrzejewski said...

@All An interesting idea: it seems as though all the ancient and modern known IE languages are either offshoots of the Corded-Ware (mostly Balto-Slavic branch) or Bell Beaker (NW IE). Furthermore, Indo-Iranian branch ALSO came from Corded-Ware Culture and its derivatives instead of a pure Yamnaya/Steppe/Kurgan origin.

So, what if the reconstructed "Proto-Indo-European" that is presumed to be the language spoken by Yamnaya or related tribes was NOT the language of Kurgan pastoralists, but actually the language of the "Corded Ware"?

Then maybe Yamnaya and other Steppe groups spoke a MUCH EARLIER version of PIE than reconstructed by linguists?

Andrzejewski said...

@Them meee

"South Italian people have steppe ancestry. It’s not like they said Sardinian-like."

Sardinians have 15% Steppe Kurgan admixture, or even 20%.

Samuel Andrews said...

Sardinians have 5% Steppe ancestry.

Mouthful said...

@Andrzejewski
"Sardinians have 15% Steppe Kurgan admixture, or even 20%."


No they don't, they're a population with one of the lowest steppe ancestry in Europe if not the lowest.

Gabriel said...

I think Andrzejewski mistook Sicilians for Sardinians. The same thing happened to me for a moment so I get it.

Davidski said...

@Bob Kenyon

I understand and like your convincing arguments for the Dutch homogeneous core v Mittelelbe-Saale etc.... but with more data that picture could still change?

Considering the similarity between the British and Dutch Beakers, and how strong the Single Grave cultural influences are among these Beakers, I don't think the picture will change.

At this point we'd need a major curveball in the ancient DNA data for things to change.

Davidski said...

@Andrzejewski

Would you attribute the brachycephalic skull shapes contrary to the Yamnaya/CWC dolichocephalic ones as a contribution of a Rhine/Rhone original population which was an admixed EEF with rich WHG substrate? Would you attribute brachycephaly to WHG Cro Magnon?

Head shape is a complex trait, so it's difficult to attribute it to a specific ancient source.

But Beaker-like skulls have been recovered from pre-Beaker sites in the southern North Sea region, so this type of skull might be derived in part or whole from forager populations in that area.

Andrzejewski said...

I am intrigued also by the contribution of the forager Ertebolle Culture in the creation of the Germanic and Nordic ethnos. I believe the transformation from LBK into TRB necessitated a 25% WHG admixture in contemporary Southern Germany/Austria. However the Ertebolle had a complementary economic role to play with TRB/LBK and later on both of these cultures formed the Funnelbeaker, just as FB transformed into Globular Amphora and then the latter "kurganized" into Corded Ware.

Davidski said...

@Andrzejewski

I am intrigued also by the contribution of the forager Ertebolle Culture in the creation of the Germanic and Nordic ethnos. I believe the transformation from LBK into TRB necessitated a 25% WHG admixture in contemporary Southern Germany/Austria.

I'm pretty sure that this happened in southern Scandinavia. And I don't think that TRB was derived mostly from LBK, but rather from Atlantic fringe farmers.

Davidski said...

@mickeydodds1

Any chance of a post on those recent ancient Italian findings?

I'll have to wait for the paper, which is apparently coming in a couple of months (which is academic speak for six to twelve months).

The reason being that I'll probably get trolled here by some unsavory types, including already banned commentators, if I make claims that I can't back up with quotes and figures from the paper.

Andrzejewski said...

Damgaard et. al 2018

Explains the divergence between ANE in Yamnaya v. Okunevo and Botai:

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/suppl/2018/05/08/science.aar7711.DC1/aar7711_de_Barros_Damgaard_SM.pdf

According to his samples, Yamnaya is 54% CHC (close to KK1), 46% Sidelkino (EHG) like.

Davidski said...

@Andrzejewski

The models for Yamnaya and the CHG in Yamnaya in Damgaard et al. are wrong, because the authors weren't aware of the fact that Yamnaya was around 10% Middle Neolithic European farmer.

They should've paid a lot more attention to this blog...

Ahead of the pack

a said...

Has anyone decided to compare Hungary Bell Beaker I7287 with Poland Bell Beaker Sambrozec I14253?

Davidski said...

@a

[1] "distance%=2.1159"

Beaker_Hungary:I2787

Yamnaya_Samara,56.4
Beaker_The_Netherlands,33
Barcin_N,10.6


[1] "distance%=2.7392"

Beaker_Poland:I4253

Beaker_The_Netherlands,47.8
Barcin_N,24.4
Yamnaya_Samara,23.4
WHG,4.4


Compared to Bavarian and Czech Beakers rich in P312...

[1] "distance%=0.6602"

Beaker_Bavaria

Beaker_The_Netherlands,71.4
Barcin_N,21.8
Yamnaya_Samara,3.8
WHG,3

[1] "distance%=0.8125"

Beaker_Czech

Beaker_The_Netherlands,75
Barcin_N,19
WHG,3.6
Yamnaya_Samara,2.4

a said...

http://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.com/2017/06/samborzec-beakers-from-maopolska-poland.html
Bell beaker Poland--

Thursday, June 29, 2017
Samborzec Beakers from Małopolska, Poland (Olalde et al, 2017)
Polish Bell Beakers can be divided into three distinct, relational clusters most likely reflecting their places of origin. Czebreszuk and Szmyt outline these groups in "Bell Beakers and the Cultural Milieu of North European Plain".


Beaker groups compared with Corded Ware within Poland- short type skulls,height etc......


Get this book in print▼

Front Cover
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The Bell Beaker Transition in Europe: Mobility and local evolution during ...
edited by Maria Pilar Prieto Martínez, Laure Salanova

https://books.google.ca/books?id=AANDCwAAQBAJ&pg=PT31&lpg=PT31&dq=obelica+parietal&source=bl&ots=mIpzICgVAQ&sig=AqP0Q93M8Trb-rdGUF_HvMSWVtA&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=obelica%20parietal&f=false

Anonymous said...

Could somebody analyse the Polish Bell Beaker I4251? I don't have any means at the moment, but this early brachycephalic sample actually may be the key to everything (perhaps). Apparently half of him is very Basque-like, similar to I1388.

Andrzejewski said...

@Davidski it does seem like, however, that according to Damgaard 2018 ancient Eurasian Steppe's eastern swaths were inhabited by lots of Paleo-Siberian tribes with Ancient North Eurasian heritage and some distant affinity to American Indians: Botai, Okunevo, etc.

I wonder if the Ruan Ruan are somewhat related to this ethnogenesis:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/24856936/Vovin_Istanbul10_yeni.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1549729125&Signature=7aQOTwSneQYZl9ptultcUO7H1Wg%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DVovin_Istanbul10_yeni.pdf

The Xiongnu had a Yenisseyan element (parts of the Hunnish confederation), so perhaps Ruan-Ruan, Okunevo, Yenisseyan and Xiongnu had some common Paleo-Siberian genetic and linguistic element to it.

I wonder what happened to the Okunevo and Botai in light of the Bronze Age Steppe Kurgan pastoralist spread of the Western Eurasian Steppe.

Gaska said...


@Andrzejewski @Samuel Andrews Well, you answered well to @Diego. So it seems that Basques cannot be natives to Spain, probably some obscure Balkanic origin. Or even a non-IE Globular Amphora/Funnel Beaker language.

Really? There are almost as many theories about the origin of Basques as people who participate in these forums.

The euzkera is a Neolithic language, not Indo-European, but even this is discussed by many linguists. The oldest testimonies of the euzkera are not in Spain but in France, because the Aquitanians also spoke Basque. I have already said many times that the fact that R1b is absolutely majority in the Basque Country and also in Spain, can be explained by the racial policy of the Hispanic Monarchy. 83% of Basques (Df27) descend from a single man who lived 4,500-4,000 years ago, in the Pyrenees region. We don't have Balkan origin, that does not make any sense. What does make sense is an Anatolian origin of language linked to the migrations of Neolithic farmers (remember the genetic and linguistic similarity between Sardinians and Basques). Or perhaps an even older origin linked to the Iberian Paleolithic (the percentage of mitochondrial haplogroup U5b/H/H1/H3 in Spain and France is very high, which means an evident genetic continuity).

Gaska said...

Regarding brachycephaly, everyone has to take into account that their appearance also depends on weather conditions. Anthropologists always say that the greater the height, the greater the dolichocephaly. In many European neolithic sites, dolichocephalic and brachycephalic skulls appear mixed, which does not seem to be a hallmark of any particular region, except in very high mountainous environments. Alps fundamentally, but also Pyrenees.

However, the brachycephaly in many Bbs is evident, but this in my opinion reinforces more the hypothesis that this physical character had its origin in German, Swiss or French regions near the Alps.

Andrzejewski said...

@Diego So that's where you are wrong: Basques are NOT derived or descended from La Brana, not even partly.

While Sardinians are 5% Steppe Kurgan ancestry, Basques are 25%-30% aDNA from the Steppes.

According to a study that Davidski has recently posted, even the Farmer/WHG portion comes from some Rhine-area or North Sea-area Beaker or something, and is not native to Spain.

By any chance, 90% of British Megalith Stonehenge builders and almost all of the male lines in Spain were exterminated somehow by the Bell Beaker Dutch invasion 4,500 YBP.

I don't have all the mechanism in place.

But whatever it is, it was proven that Basque has zero affinity or similarity to any Aegean based Anatolia_N language, nor does it have any similarities to Raetian-Etruscan. So even before the Kurgan invasion (shout out to Gimbutas and Anthony), Aquitanian/Basque/Vasconic was most likely an isolate.

Andrzejewski said...

@All And maybe it's a revolutionary theory here, that the reconstructed "late-PIE" is none other than the putative Corded Ware dialect, post-Tocharian post-Anatolian. Which means that Yamnaya or Sredny Stog II may have spoken a much earlier dialect.

a said...

comparing earlier Corded Ware runs with Poland/Hungary
[1] "distance%=2.1159"

Beaker_Hungary:I2787

Yamnaya_Samara,56.4
Beaker_The_Netherlands,33
Barcin_N,10.6


[1] "distance%=2.7392"

Beaker_Poland:I4253

Beaker_The_Netherlands,47.8
Barcin_N,24.4
Yamnaya_Samara,23.4
WHG,4.4


Compared to Bavarian and Czech Beakers rich in P312...

[1] "distance%=0.6602"

Beaker_Bavaria

Beaker_The_Netherlands,71.4
Barcin_N,21.8
Yamnaya_Samara,3.8
WHG,3

[1] "distance%=0.8125"

Beaker_Czech

Beaker_The_Netherlands,75
Barcin_N,19
WHG,3.6
Yamnaya_Samara,2.4

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2018/03/on-origin-of-steppe-ancestry-in-beaker.html


Barcin_N (Neolithic farmers from western Anatolia)
Blatterhole_HG (HG-like Middle Neolithic sample from Germany)
Koros_HG (HG-like Early Neolithic sample from Hungary)
Narva_Lithuania (late HGs from the southern Baltic)
Ukraine_Mesolithic (HGs from the North Pontic steppe)
Yamnaya_Samara (Bronze Age herders from the eastern end of the Pontic-Caspian steppe)

First up, the Corded Ware Culture (CWC) people, grouped into five sub-populations, based on geography and chronology:

[1] distance%=2.7491

CWC_Baltic_early

Yamnaya_Samara,81.6
Ukraine_Mesolithic,11.6
Barcin_N,6.8

[1] distance%=2.815

CWC_Baltic

Yamnaya_Samara,43.2
Barcin_N,23.6
Ukraine_Mesolithic,21
Narva_Lithuania,12.2

[1] distance%=1.9983

CWC_Czech

Yamnaya_Samara,61.2
Barcin_N,21.2
Ukraine_Mesolithic,11
Blatterhole_HG,6.6

[1] distance%=2.9738

CWC_Germany

Yamnaya_Samara,64.8
Barcin_N,19.6
Blatterhole_HG,11.8
Narva_Lithuania,2
Ukraine_Mesolithic,1.8

[1] distance%=3.2783

CWC_Sweden

Yamnaya_Samara,60.8
Barcin_N,26.2
Blatterhole_HG,10
Narva_Lithuania,3


[1] distance%=3.0892

Beaker_Britain

Yamnaya_Samara,52.8
Barcin_N,26.8
Blatterhole_HG,17.6
Ukraine_Mesolithic,2.8

[1] distance%=2.3366

Beaker_Central_Europe

Yamnaya_Samara,43.4
Barcin_N,37.2
Blatterhole_HG,16
Ukraine_Mesolithic,3.4

[1] distance%=3.0011

Beaker_The_Netherlands

Yamnaya_Samara,55.4
Barcin_N,24.6
Blatterhole_HG,16.4
Ukraine_Mesolithic,3.6


[1] distance%=1.9191

Beaker_Hungary

Barcin_N,49
Yamnaya_Samara,31.8
Narva_Lithuania,11.4
Blatterhole_HG,6
Ukraine_Mesolithic,1.8

[1] distance%=4.9659

Beaker_Hungary_no_steppe

Barcin_N,76.2
Blatterhole_HG,23.8

[1] distance%=2.4992

Beaker_Hungary_outlier

Yamnaya_Samara,76
Barcin_N,19
Koros_HG,4.4
Blatterhole_HG,0.6

Gaska said...

@Diego So that's where you are wrong: Basques are NOT derived or descended from La Brana, not even partly.

The Braña is a typical European WHG with haplogroup Y C1a2 and Mit Hap- U5b. While C1a became extinct in Europe thousands of years ago, U5b is one of the most frequent mitochondrial haplogroups in contemporary Basques and Spaniards. So saying that we do not have blood from the WHG does not make any sense (at least in our maternal lineages)

"While Sardinians are 5% Steppe Kurgan ancestry, Basques are 25%-30% aDNA from the Steppes"

I do not know the percentage of the Sardinians, regarding the Basques, you know that the proportions depends on the algorithms and comparisons you make or use. In any case, it is inferior to that data that you have given. Steppe ancestry also has a component of WHG (through EHG), and early Neolithic farmer (Cucuteni, Balkans, Anatolia, Caucasus...)

"According to a study that Davidski has recently posted, even the Farmer/WHG portion comes from some Rhine-area or North Sea-area Beaker or something, and is not native to Spain".

The proportions of the different Neolithic cultures of European farmers are very difficult to distinguish because genetically are all very similar (they share both male and female haplogroups)

"By any chance, 90% of British Megalith Stonehenge builders and almost all of the male lines in Spain were exterminated somehow by the Bell Beaker Dutch invasion 4,500 YBP"

That is one of the biggest nonsense geneticists have said lately. Haplogroup I2a / I2b, linked throughout Europe to Western hunter-gatherers, is documented in Spain since the Mesolithic, and represents more than 6% of current Spaniards (5.5% Basque). The same happens with G2, which reaches similar proportions at present, even higher in some regions. Can you explain how someone can say "almost of the male lines in Spain...."

The term invasion does not make sense, we have spoken many times of this subject, there was neither invasion nor violence, but a progressive replacement of male lineages, which occurred fundamentally during the second millennium

"But whatever it is, it was proven that Basque has zero affinity or similarity to any Aegean based Anatolia_N language, nor does it have any similarities to Raetian-Etruscan. So even before the Kurgan invasion (shout out to Gimbutas and Anthony), Aquitanian/Basque/Vasconic was most likely an isolate"

Isolate now, never in antiquity. Euzkera was spoken in Aquitaine, Navarra and Alto Aragón, the rest of the Pyrenees and western Spain spoke Iberian that was certainly related to Basque, and in the south of the peninsula spoke Tartessian, (another non-Indo-European language). That is to say at the time of the Romans all Spaniards and Portuguese were mostly R1b-P312, and yet some P312 spoke Indo-European languages ​​(Celtiberian and Lusitanian) and other P312 spoke Basque, Iberian and Tartessian. How can someone talk about conquests, invasions, etc. The linguists do not agree on the origins of Basque, but I think it does not matter, the important thing is to determine its antiquity and that is also very difficult, except because there are words like ax (Aizkora), which are related to stone and never to cooper, then that means that the oldest Basques or their ancestors did not know the metals

In any case, you seem too concerned about the Basques,you should know that Navarre, Aquitaine and the current Basque Country are the regions of Spain and France where the smallest number of findings of the BB culture have been located.


jeanlohizun said...

I'm just going to drop this right here:

"The transition from a foraging subsistence strategy to a sedentary farming society is arguably the greatest innovation in human history. Some modern-day groups—specifically the Basques—have been argued to be a remnant population that connect back to the Paleolithic. We present, to our knowledge, the first genome-wide sequence data from eight individuals associated with archaeological remains from farming cultures in the El Portalón cave (Atapuerca, Spain). These individuals emerged from the same group of people as other Early European farmers, and they mixed with local hunter–gatherers on their way to Iberia. The El Portalón individuals showed the greatest genetic affinity to Basques, which suggests that Basques and their language may be linked with the spread of agriculture across Europe."

https://www.pnas.org/content/112/38/11917

Also, there is a difference between Basques deriving 50-60% of their blood from Central European Beakers, who themselves share derive some blood from GAC Farmers, and they not being native to Iberia. They are the most similar modern day Iberians to the Iberian Farmers, and they do not derive any ancestry from the Balkans for at least 7000 years. They also do have a big chunck 30% of Hunter Gatherer blood. In fact, GAC is a better fit as their farmer ancestry because it has a higher rate of WHG than the farmers from Iberia sequenced to date.

jeanlohizun said...

Here are some fits for Basques:

[1] "distance%=2.7245"

Basque_Spanish

Globular_Amphora,45.4
Iberia_ChL,29.8
Yamnaya_Ukraine,24.8
Blatterhole_HG,0
Clovis,0
Ethiopia_4500BP,0
Iberomaurusian,0
Malawi_Fingira_2500BP,0
South_Africa_2000BP,0
Tanzania_Luxmanda_3000BP,0
Yoruba,0
Anatolia_ChL,0
Armenia_ChL,0

[1] "distance%=2.9483"

Basque_French

Globular_Amphora,63.1
Yamnaya_Ukraine,24.4
Iberia_ChL,12
Armenia_ChL,0.5
Blatterhole_HG,0
Clovis,0
Ethiopia_4500BP,0
Iberomaurusian,0
Malawi_Fingira_2500BP,0
South_Africa_2000BP,0
Tanzania_Luxmanda_3000BP,0
Yoruba,0
Anatolia_ChL,0


[1] "distance%=3.2615"

Spanish_Pais_Vasco

Globular_Amphora,67.2
Yamnaya_Ukraine,23.2
Iberia_ChL,5.9
Armenia_ChL,3.7
Blatterhole_HG,0
Clovis,0
Ethiopia_4500BP,0
Iberomaurusian,0
Malawi_Fingira_2500BP,0
South_Africa_2000BP,0
Tanzania_Luxmanda_3000BP,0
Yoruba,0
Anatolia_ChL,0

Beaker from Iberia and France and Britain for Comparison

[1] "distance%=3.0546"

Beaker_Iberia:I5665

Globular_Amphora,55.8
Iberia_ChL,15.7
Armenia_ChL,10.2
Blatterhole_HG,8.3
Yamnaya_Ukraine,8.3
Clovis,1.7
Ethiopia_4500BP,0
Iberomaurusian,0
Malawi_Fingira_2500BP,0
South_Africa_2000BP,0
Tanzania_Luxmanda_3000BP,0
Yoruba,0
Anatolia_ChL,0

[1] "distance%=1.9437"

Beaker_Southern_France

Globular_Amphora,60.7
Yamnaya_Samara,31.4
Iberia_ChL,7.9
Blatterhole_HG,0
Clovis,0
Ethiopia_4500BP,0
Iberomaurusian,0
Malawi_Fingira_2500BP,0
South_Africa_2000BP,0
Tanzania_Luxmanda_3000BP,0
Yoruba,0

[1] "distance%=1.9496"

Beaker_Britain

Yamnaya_Samara,54.9
Globular_Amphora,38.9
Blatterhole_HG,6.2
Clovis,0
Ethiopia_4500BP,0
Iberia_ChL,0
Iberomaurusian,0
Malawi_Fingira_2500BP,0
South_Africa_2000BP,0
Tanzania_Luxmanda_3000BP,0
Yoruba,0


Gaska said...

Euxeinos Pontos said..."Could somebody analyse the Polish Bell Beaker I4251? I don't have any means at the moment, but this early brachycephalic sample actually may be the key to everything (perhaps). Apparently half of him is very Basque-like, similar to I1388."

When you say that half of it seems Basque, do you mean H1 (Mit-Hap), R1b-P312, its autosomal components?

Among the BBs analyzed by Olalde, there are other cases that are very interesting.
Szigetzentmiklós Bell Beaker with ZERO steppe ancestry, grave 49, I2741- Iberia-Southwest-CA-48.44%, It seems Spaniard right?

Beaker Northern Italy- I2478/Tomb1-B: (2.065 BC)-Haplogroup Y- R1b-P312. Mit-K1a2/a- Iberia South-West-35,4%

Ancestry heterogeneity in Haut-Rhin (France) - In Table S2 we show that BK-France-Heg (Hégenheim-1392/13- Female-Mit-H1+152, 2.654 BC), and BK-France-HAR (two individuals excavated a few kilometres from Hégenheim I1390/11- R1b-P312.-Mit-X2b4a (2.432 BC) - I1389/10- R1b-P312-Mit-X2b4a, 2.373 BC) are not symmetrically related to ancient West Eurasians. Populations from the Steppe such as EHG (Z=6.1) or Steppe-EBA (Z=6.5) share more alleles with BK-France-HAR than with BK-France-Heg, documenting very different population affinities in individuals excavated from nearby sites.

BB Spain Virgazal-I5665- Haplogroup Y- R1b-P312 Mit- K1a24/a (2.133 BC)

Olalde modeled BK-Spain-Bur 2 as mixture of Steppe-EBA, Anatolia N, and WHG- That means- BUR2 (I5665-I0461-I0462)-0,230 0,041, 0,559 0,041 0,211 0,019 0,022- So the Steppe-EBA component in BUR2- 23% (+-) 4,1%. If they modeled them as a mixture of Steppe/Iberian-MN/ MN-WHG - Iberian MN has a higher percentage of WHG than Anatolia-Neolithic.

nMonte: Moreover when you try to model I5665 as a mixture of Steppe-EBA/Anatolia-Neolithic (Barcin)/ Yamnaya, the fits fails on. Distance-5,4081- Barcin-N (62,2%), WHG (21,8%), Yamnaya-Samara-(8,8%), Armenia-EBA (3,2%), Tepecik-Ciftlik-N (2,8%), Levant-N (1%), Shahr-ISokhta-Ba3 (0,2%).





Andrzejewski said...

@Diego "That is one of the biggest nonsense geneticists have said lately. Haplogroup I2a / I2b, linked throughout Europe to Western hunter-gatherers, is documented in Spain since the Mesolithic, and represents more than 6% of current Spaniards (5.5% Basque). The same happens with G2, which reaches similar proportions at present, even higher in some regions. Can you explain how someone can say "almost of the male lines in Spain...."

5.5%? You must be kidding me! It's a little more than a background noise. What happened to the 100% WHG in La Brana? You know, I think the Moorish and Jewish components (7%-8% and 11%, respectively) are much higher than WHG.

And the I2a must have come with the Germanic Swabians and especially Visigoths. 12%-15% of current Spaniards have Germanic admixture.

G is essentially non-existent in Western Europe, although the farmer originated mtdNA H with its assorted subclades consists up to 45% of the population of Europe, including far eastern europe, 25%-30% in the Caucasus, and 20% in the Levant.

Andrzejewski said...

@jeanlohizun "Also, there is a difference between Basques deriving 50-60% of their blood from Central European Beakers, who themselves share derive some blood from GAC Farmers, and they not being native to Iberia. They are the most similar modern day Iberians to the Iberian Farmers, and they do not derive any ancestry from the Balkans for at least 7000 years. They also do have a big chunk 30% of Hunter Gatherer blood. In fact, GAC is a better fit as their farmer ancestry because it has a higher rate of WHG than the farmers from Iberia sequenced to date."

1. Your 30% ratio of WHG is 6x higher than that of @Diego's.

2. By any means, you admitted that the WHG came with the GAC farmers of Central Europe and not from local La Brana-type WHG, which must've become extinct at some point in (pre)history.

3. You admit that Basques with their 70% farmer majority component came with GAC. So Basque must be related to some ancient extinct Central European language, not to any EEF/WHG language ever spoken in Iberia.

4. Are Iberian and Basque related?

Gaska said...

Andrzejewski said.

Vasconia- Spain Basque Country
R1b-87,00
I1- 0,5
I2-5,0
G2-1,5
Q-0,5
J2-2,5
J1-0,5
E1b-2,50


What you think of the Moors, the Jews and the WHG in Spain is your problem, it does not seem that your knowledge about Spanish genetics is enough for your opinions to be taken into consideration.

Germans, Swabians and Goths in Spain are R1b-U106, R1a, and I1 (Total-4-5%)
Neolithic farmers- G2--Spain (3%). Inexistent?

To say that H is a Mit-Hap related to the farmers of Anatolia does not make sense either.I guess you'll know what the Magdalenian is

+ La Pasiega Cave (Puente Viesgo, Cantabria) - (16.200-15.740 BC). The cave has archaeological remains from the Solutrean and early Cantabrian Magdalenian times.
Important cave paintings. Hap.Mitocondrial-H.

+ La Chora Cave (San Pantaleón de Aras, Cantabria). (6.360 BC). The dating of 8.360 + -80 b.p. (GrN- 20961) was obtained by a sample taken in the mesolithic level. Haplogroup Mitochondrial- H6

You should look in the databases that you manage before speaking without knowing what you are saying.





Andrzejewski said...

@Diego Maybe you could better explain the contradictions in the datasets than @jeanlohizun:

"@jeanlohizun "Also, there is a difference between Basques deriving 50-60% of their blood from Central European Beakers, who themselves share derive some blood from GAC Farmers, and they not being native to Iberia. They are the most similar modern day Iberians to the Iberian Farmers, and they do not derive any ancestry from the Balkans for at least 7000 years. They also do have a big chunk 30% of Hunter Gatherer blood. In fact, GAC is a better fit as their farmer ancestry because it has a higher rate of WHG than the farmers from Iberia sequenced to date."

To which I replied that his ratio of WHG is 6x higher than yours.

But, it was him who posted that data. What do you have to say to either refute/rebut or corroborate his findings? He asserts that the Farmer + WHG in Iberia originate in GAC...

This is not a chess championship. I merely want to understand the history and ethnogenetics of Europe.

Davidski said...

@EastPole

Please don't link to articles on Yamnaya from that Science source. This is the second one that is blatantly factually incorrect.

Gaska said...


@Andrzejewski-

I hope that @jeanlohizun has time to explain some genetics to you, because you seem to have not been able to interpret the data that he has sent.

If you want to understand the history and ethnogenetics of Europe, the first thing you should know is that the Sephardic Jews have relatively high percentages of R1b and the Ashenazis of R1a, because they were hundreds of years in Europe. The Catholic Kings expelled the Jews from Spain, not for racial reasons but religious, political and economic. At a time when Spain was confronted with the North African Moors and the Turks, they could not afford to have hypothetical enemies in our territory.

Davidski said...

@Diego

R1a-M417 comes from the Eastern European steppes, but the vast majority of R1a-M417 in Ashkenazi Jews is a specific kind of R1a-M417 that isn't from Eastern Europe but from West Asia. See here...

Near Eastern origin of Ashkenazi Levite R1a

And the R1b in Sephardic Jews is from around the Mediterranean, including also from the Near East, even though some of it does ultimately also come from the Eastern European steppes.

EastPole said...

@Davidski

“Please don't link to articles on Yamnaya from that Science source. This is the second one that is blatantly factually incorrect.”


Yes, I know that herders based in western Asia’s steppe grasslands didn’t mingle and occasionally mate with nearby farmers in southeastern Europe. Western Asia’s steppe and southeastern Europe are not nearby but far away.
But I thought that you would find David Anthony’s opinion that” Indo-European precursor languages originated among steppe herders” and not in Maykop interesting. I am sure Anthony meant Eastern European steppe and not Western Asia’s steppe.

Davidski said...

@EastPole

I left a comment...

This article is factually incorrect!

The Yamnaya horizon was entirely located within the Pontic-Caspian steppe in Ukraine and surrounds, which is in Eastern Europe not in Asia.

Eastern Europe is north of the Caucasus and west of the Urals, and that is where the Yamnaya people lived.

This is basic geography.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe

Andrzejewski said...

You refer a lot to the Globular Amphora as a vital mix in the puzzle of creating Corded-Ware and BB IE speakers, but what about the role the Cucuteni Tripolye Culture was supposed to play in the Indo-Europeanization of the Balkans? This civilization didn't just disappear, did it?

Davidski said...

@Andrzejewski

You refer a lot to the Globular Amphora as a vital mix in the puzzle of creating Corded-Ware and BB IE speakers, but what about the role the Cucuteni Tripolye Culture was supposed to play in the Indo-Europeanization of the Balkans? This civilization didn't just disappear, did it?

Cucuteni Tripolye and/or Varna probably contributed some gene flow to Sredny Stog, Khvalynsk, Repin and thus also to Yamnaya and Corded Ware.

But this doesn't mean that they had any hand in the Indo-Europeanization of the Balkans, because it's unlikely that they spoke the same languages as the steppe herders.

And yeah, they may well have basically disappeared, with the plague possibly being one of the main factors.

Europe's ancient proto-cities may have been ravaged by the plague

Gabriel said...

Is what Andrzejewski said about Spaniards being more recently Middle Eastern than WHG and getting their farmer ancestry from GAC correct or even possible?

the dude said...

One Yamnaya group was brachycephalic. The group at the west bank of the mouth of the Volga as it reaches the Caspian. A very arid area not far north of the NE Caucuses.

jeanlohizun said...

@Andrzejewski

Here is the correlation matrix for the populations that appear in the previous estimates.

[1] "distance%=2.7245"

Basque_Spanish

Globular_Amphora,45.4
Iberia_ChL,29.8
Yamnaya_Ukraine,24.8
Blatterhole_HG,0
Clovis,0
Ethiopia_4500BP,0
Iberomaurusian,0
Malawi_Fingira_2500BP,0
South_Africa_2000BP,0
Tanzania_Luxmanda_3000BP,0
Yoruba,0
Anatolia_ChL,0
Armenia_ChL,0

[1] "CORRELATION OF ADMIXTURE POPULATIONS"
Iberia_ChL Yamnaya_Ukraine Globular_Amphora
Iberia_ChL 1.00 0.15 0.99
Yamnaya_Ukraine 0.15 1.00 0.22
Globular_Amphora 0.99 0.22 1.00

Notice how Globular_Amphora is 99% correlated with Iberia_Chl? See what happens when I introduced other Iberian Middle Neolithic and Chalcolithic populations into the mix.

[1] "distance%=2.4874"

Basque_Spanish

Iberia_Central_CA,31.2
Yamnaya_Ukraine,28.9
Iberia_Southwest_CA,26.1
Globular_Amphora,13.6
Blatterhole_HG,0.2
Clovis,0
Ethiopia_4500BP,0
Iberia_ChL,0
Iberomaurusian,0
Malawi_Fingira_2500BP,0
South_Africa_2000BP,0
Tanzania_Luxmanda_3000BP,0
Yoruba,0
Anatolia_ChL,0
Armenia_ChL,0
Iberia_MN,0
Iberia_N,0

[1] "CORRELATION OF ADMIXTURE POPULATIONS"
Blatterhole_HG Yamnaya_Ukraine Globular_Amphora
Blatterhole_HG 1.00 0.45 0.61
Yamnaya_Ukraine 0.45 1.00 0.22
Globular_Amphora 0.61 0.22 1.00
Iberia_Central_CA 0.59 0.12 0.99
Iberia_Southwest_CA 0.56 0.09 0.98
Iberia_Central_CA Iberia_Southwest_CA
Blatterhole_HG 0.59 0.56
Yamnaya_Ukraine 0.12 0.09
Globular_Amphora 0.99 0.98
Iberia_Central_CA 1.00 0.99
Iberia_Southwest_CA 0.99 1.00

Notice how Globular_Amphora is a minority component now; even lower than Yamnaya_Ukraine? But this model is overfit; because we have 3 components namely Globular_Amphora; Iberia_Central_CA and Iberia_Southwest_CA that are highly correlated.

jeanlohizun said...

One way to try to solve the issue is to eliminate 2 and leave 1 and see which one gives the lowest distance.

[1] "distance%=2.9265"

Basque_Spanish

Globular_Amphora,77.6
Yamnaya_Ukraine,21.8
Clovis,0.4
Blatterhole_HG,0.2
Ethiopia_4500BP,0
Iberomaurusian,0
Malawi_Fingira_2500BP,0
South_Africa_2000BP,0
Tanzania_Luxmanda_3000BP,0
Yoruba,0
Anatolia_ChL,0
Armenia_ChL,0

[1] "distance%=2.8158"

Basque_Spanish

Iberia_Central_CA,68.8
Yamnaya_Ukraine,30.4
Armenia_ChL,0.8
Blatterhole_HG,0
Clovis,0
Ethiopia_4500BP,0
Iberomaurusian,0
Malawi_Fingira_2500BP,0
South_Africa_2000BP,0
Tanzania_Luxmanda_3000BP,0
Yoruba,0
Anatolia_ChL,0

[1] "distance%=2.9757"

Basque_Spanish

Iberia_Southwest_CA,67.8
Yamnaya_Ukraine,29.8
Blatterhole_HG,2.4
Clovis,0
Ethiopia_4500BP,0
Iberomaurusian,0
Malawi_Fingira_2500BP,0
South_Africa_2000BP,0
Tanzania_Luxmanda_3000BP,0
Yoruba,0
Anatolia_ChL,0
Armenia_ChL,0

[1] "distance%=3.1257"

Basque_Spanish

Iberia_ChL,70.5
Yamnaya_Ukraine,28.2
Armenia_ChL,1.3
Blatterhole_HG,0
Clovis,0
Ethiopia_4500BP,0
Iberomaurusian,0
Malawi_Fingira_2500BP,0
South_Africa_2000BP,0
Tanzania_Luxmanda_3000BP,0
Yoruba,0
Anatolia_ChL,0

Thus we see in terms of single farmer populations; the best fit is Iberia_Central_CA at 68.8% with a "distance%=2.8158". Now; if we allow for overfitting then you can see that the best fit is not the one with only GAC and Iberia_Chl but this one:


[1] "distance%=2.4874"

Basque_Spanish

Iberia_Central_CA,31.2
Yamnaya_Ukraine,28.9
Iberia_Southwest_CA,26.1
Globular_Amphora,13.6
Blatterhole_HG,0.2
Clovis,0
Ethiopia_4500BP,0
Iberia_ChL,0
Iberomaurusian,0
Malawi_Fingira_2500BP,0
South_Africa_2000BP,0
Tanzania_Luxmanda_3000BP,0
Yoruba,0
Anatolia_ChL,0
Armenia_ChL,0
Iberia_MN,0
Iberia_N,0

In this fit GAC is merely 13.6% whereas Yamnaya_Ukraine is more than double that at 28.9%. The native Iberian Copper age components account for 57.3% of the estimate. Therefore; there is no GAC majority as you were thinking my previous post implied it. If you are wondering whether GAC is mediated via Rhenish Beaker ancestry; take a look at this:

[1] "distance%=1.868"

Basque_Spanish

Beaker_The_Netherlands,46.2
Iberia_Central_CA,27.2
Iberia_Southwest_CA,24.3
Anatolia_ChL,2.3
Blatterhole_HG,0
Clovis,0
Ethiopia_4500BP,0
Iberia_ChL,0
Iberomaurusian,0
Malawi_Fingira_2500BP,0
South_Africa_2000BP,0
Tanzania_Luxmanda_3000BP,0
Yamnaya_Ukraine,0
Yoruba,0
Beaker_Central_Europe,0
Beaker_Hungary,0
Globular_Amphora,0
Armenia_ChL,0
Iberia_MN,0

I rest my case.

Ric Hern said...

Are we there yet ?

Ric Hern said...

Did someone switch of the lights cause it's very quiet here ?

Joe Flood said...

Just a trade map as far as I'm aware . If there was trade to be had, the Beakers were in it, and the Amber Trail was one of the most favoured routes.

Davidski said...

@Joe Flood

Just a trade map as far as I'm aware.

Obviously not, since people with the same type of ancestry as the Rhenish Beakers rapidly expanded all over the Beaker complex.

This could only have happened via migration.

Ric Hern said...

How close is the Beaker Netherlands to the Hallstatt_Bylany samples compared to Hungary Bell Beakers ?