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Sunday, July 28, 2019

They mixed up Huns with Tocharians


I don't yet have the genomes from the recent Ning et al. paper on the Iron Age nomads from the Shirenzigou site in the eastern Tian Shan. But I do have most of the previously published data featured in the paper, including the Damgaard et al. 2018 Hun and Saka samples from the western Tian Shan.

After reading the Ning et al. paper between the lines and running a few analyses of my own, it's clear to me that most of the supposedly Tocharian-related Shirenzigou individuals actually share a very close relationship with the Tian Shan Huns, and indeed may have been their ancestors.

For instance, Ning et al. found that a large part of the ancestry of the Shirenzigou ancients could be modeled with the Tian Shan Huns, which was an anachronistic approach because the former are older than the latter. They also found that Ulchi-related ancestry was a key part of the genetic structure of eight out of the ten Shirenzigou individuals, and this likewise appears to be an important part of the genetic structure of the Tian Shan Huns.

Note the strong statistical fits in the Global25/nMonte and qpAdm mixture models below, respectively, which characterize these Huns as a two-way mixture between the Ulchi and the earlier Tian Shan Saka. And keep in mind that the Saka also harbor significant Ulchi-related ancestry.

Hun_Tian_Shan
Saka_Tian_Shan,92
Ulchi,8

distance%=1.2553

Hun_Tian_Shan
Saka_Tian_Shan 0.928±0.009
Ulchi 0.072±0.009

chisq 4.409
tail prob 0.992464
Full output

Moreover, the Shirenzigou males belong to Y-haplogroups Q1a and R1b (two instances of each), and they share the latter with one of the Tian Shan Huns. Judging by the data from the relevant BAM files, it's also possible that the Shirenzigou males share a very rare subclade of R1b with the Hun, defined by the PH155 mutation (see here). The Y-haplogroup assignments for the other Tian Shan Huns end at R and R1, but that's almost certainly due to missing data.

On the other hand, two Tian Shan Sakas belong to Y-haplogroup R1a but none to R1b, which fits with the pattern from currently available ancient DNA that R1a was more common than R1b in Saka-related groups, such as the Scythians and Sarmatians (see here).

This is all very interesting, because the Huns replaced the Saka in the western Tian Shan, and, considering their R1b and excess Ulchi-related ancestry, very likely moved into the region from the direction of Shirenzigou. Indeed, in my opinion a strong argument can now be made that the Iron Age population from the Shirenzigou region took part in the formation of the Hunnic confederacy.

So where does that leave the theory presented by Ning et al. that the Shirenzigou ancients may have been closely related, and perhaps even ancestral, to the Tocharians, simply because they packed a lot of Yamnaya-related and possibly proto-Tocharian Afanasievo ancestry, and were living close to the Tarim Basin, where Tocharian languages were subsequently first attested?

I'm not sure, but I now find it difficult to reconcile this theory with the fact that they were closely related, and probably ancestral, to the Tian Shan Huns. As far as I'm aware, Huns cannot be linked to Tocharians in any meaningful way.

Of course it's possible that different Afanasievo-derived groups were living in the Tarim Basin and surrounds, and, as some merged with new populations pushing into the region from the east and adopted non-Indo-European languages, others retained their Tocharian speech and eventually split into communities speaking Tocharian A, B and apparently also C (see here).

But this has to be demonstrated directly with ancient DNA from archeological sites where Tocharian languages were attested. Till then, I'll keep thinking that Ning et al. wrote a paper about Tocharians that really should've been a paper about Huns.

Here's a famous wall painting of Tocharian princes from the cave of the sixteen sword-bearers in the Tarim Basin, dated to 432–538 AD. They don't look like guys with a lot of Ulchi-related admixture to me, but I might be wrong. Feel free to let me know what you think in the comments below.


Update 08/17/2019: The Shirenzigou nomads are now in my dataset. Below are a few successful and not so successful qpAdm mixture models for them. Note that I tried to use a wide range of relevant "right pops", but also retain a lot of markers, specifically to be able to discriminate between different types of steppe and steppe-derived sources of gene flow (refer to the full output). Admittedly, the Shirenzigou nomads can be modeled with Afanasievo-related ancestry, but...

CHN_Shirenzigou_IA
KAZ_Botai 0.161±0.023
KAZ_Wusun 0.490±0.023
NPL_Mebrak_2125BP 0.349±0.019

chisq 5.793
tail prob 0.926172
Full output

CHN_Shirenzigou_IA
KAZ_Botai 0.143±0.022
NPL_Mebrak_2125BP 0.295±0.019
Saka_Tian_Shan 0.562±0.024

chisq 6.796
tail prob 0.870794
Full output

CHN_Shirenzigou_IA
KAZ_Botai 0.185±0.023
NPL_Mebrak_2125BP 0.428±0.021
RUS_Sintashta_MLBA 0.270±0.026
TJK_Sarazm_En 0.117±0.027

chisq 11.351
tail prob 0.414345
Full output

CHN_Shirenzigou_IA
KAZ_Botai 0.032±0.027
KAZ_Zevakinskiy_LBA 0.567±0.025
NPL_Mebrak_2125BP 0.401±0.019

chisq 15.157
tail prob 0.232961
Full output

CHN_Shirenzigou_IA
NPL_Mebrak_2125BP 0.452±0.031
RUS_Afanasievo 0.435±0.025
RUS_Okunevo_BA 0.114±0.049

chisq 19.808
tail prob 0.0708003
Full output

CHN_Shirenzigou_IA
NPL_Mebrak_2125BP 0.409±0.031
RUS_Okunevo_BA 0.173±0.050
Yamnaya_RUS_Caucasus 0.418±0.026

chisq 20.453
tail prob 0.0589872
Full output

CHN_Shirenzigou_IA
NPL_Mebrak_2125BP 0.464±0.033
RUS_Okunevo_BA 0.104±0.053
Yamnaya_RUS_Samara 0.432±0.027

chisq 27.189
tail prob 0.0072566
Full output

Both the Wusun and Saka are generally accepted to have been the speakers of Indo-Iranian languages. So it's possible that the Shirenzigou nomads were Indo-Iranian speakers too, or at least derived from such peoples.

Surprisingly, NPL_Mebrak_2125BP was the key to obtaining the best statistical fits. This is a trio of samples, roughly contemporaneous with the Shirenzigou nomads, from a burial site high up in the Himalayas in what is now Nepal (see here).

To be honest, I'm not quite sure why the Himalayan ancients work so well in my models. Perhaps they're just a really good proxy for an Iron Age population from the northern part of the Tibetan Plateau? By the way, most of the Shirenzigou nomads made it into the latest Global25 datasheets (see here).

See also...

Almost everything you ever wanted to know about the Xiaohe-Gumugou cemeteries

The mystery of the Sintashta people

Late PIE ground zero now obvious; location of PIE homeland still uncertain, but...

256 comments:

«Oldest   ‹Older   201 – 256 of 256
a said...

Shaikorth

Yanbulake-Qijia cultures could hold some valuable clues when comparing the regional gravesite the samples were taken from and the 4000+/-YBP R1a samples from ancient Xiaohe-Sintashta-Corded Ware advances in horse wagon technology,copper smelting technology, and 3000BC Donghuishan strains of wheat samples.

EastPole said...

@Davidski
“These Shirenzigou proto-Huns weren't Europeans. They were Central Asians with minimal European admix.

Their R1b subclade is native to Central Asia and had nothing to do with any Tocharians.”

I understand that minimal European admix was from Sintashta not Afanasievo.

I have written about it earlier that there are plenty of Slavic words in Altaic languages. This was for some linguists the main argument for eastern origin of Slavs i.e. that Slavs came from Asia because they were in contact with Turks 2000-1000 BC and Turks originated in Asia.

But it looks like dairy pastoralism on the eastern Eurasian steppe was introduced by Sintashta which is derived from Corded Ware Culture which originated in Poland.

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2018/11/on-spread-of-dairy-pastoralism-to-east.html?showComment=1541590399715#c2591241538550021717


So there is Slavic influence on Tocharian and Turkic languages. Where did it happen?

There is a summary by Koch about IE languages.

Koch links Proto-Tocharian with Afanasievo:

https://html1-f.scribdassets.com/33gp4kyytc74twdz/images/5-95d850e657.jpg

And Balto-Slavic and Indo-Iranian with Corded Ware–>Sintashta–>Andronovo–>Vedic India:

https://html1-f.scribdassets.com/2hs9xqbpz474tzxh/images/26-7606dd61a5.png

Italo-Celto-Germanic languages were the result of Bell Beaker/Corded Ware fusion:
We now know that mass migrations from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe had transformed the populations of Northern and Western Europe by 2000 BC, and that by that time steppe lineages had mostly replaced the Neolithic male ancestry of, for example, Britain, Ireland, and the Iberian Peninsula. We also now know that no comparable genetic upheaval affected the populations of Northern and Western Europe between ~2000 BC and the date when Ancient Germanic and Celtic languages were first attested in these regions. The most economical working hypothesis explaining these findings is that the Indo-European speech that arrived from the steppe in the 3rd millennium BC probably evolved in situ into Germanic and Celtic where we find them at the dawn of written records.

https://www.academia.edu/39961100/Bronze_Age_contact_between_Scandinavia_and_the_Atlantic_West_contact_between_Germanic_and_Celtic

I think that Andronovo tribes were not pure Indo-Iranians but mixed. Some spoke languages closer to Slavic than Indo-Iranian and this explains Slavic influence on Turkic, Tocharian and Indo-Iranian languages and also Slavic links with Germanic, Italic and Celtic languages.
So maybe Slavs by Bronze Age were already an Eurasiatic ethnos spread over large areas of Europe and Asia.

Jack Rusher said...

I find the obsession with body measurement among some of the regulars a bit tiresome, but will say that my experience of Han vs Mongol "robusticity" is pretty much the opposite Jorge's. I've competed in many different forms of wrestling/grappling over the years, including shuaijiao (indigenous Chinese wrestling) and have trained with Mongolian wrestlers.

Han wrestlers are usually built like this:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fb/fb/2e/fbfb2e3a8253ac5bd8a6c4ef469016a8.jpg

Mongolian ones like this:
https://live.staticflickr.com/3768/19259505284_7cd87a2347_b.jpg

My assumption is that this is mainly down to cultural differences in diet and training methodology, but the Mongolian wrestlers are physically very strong.

Samuel Andrews said...

Mongolians mostly descend from the Lokomotive/Lake Bailkal lineage while Han/Chinese descend from different ancient East Asians. Lokomotive was a distinct group living in Mongolia already 8,000 years ago. So, it isn't hard to believe there's difference in genetic body build between Mongolians & Chinese.

Shaikorth said...

@Onur Dincer
"At least the ones in that study seem to be unreliable given the vastly different results of their two analysis methods for some samples. For example, one sample gets 33% EU, 67% EA in the Multinomial logistic regression average classification method whereas it gets 100% EA in the Naive Bayes (H-W) predicted admixture method. Another example: 67% EA, 33% AF (sic) in the Multinomial logistic regression average classification method and 100% EA in the Naive Bayes (H-W) predicted admixture method"

The markers in the study can distinguish between broad ancestries at continental level using simple clustering. Shown in this paper: https://www.fsigenetics.com/article/S1872-4973(07)00101-9/fulltext

Variation in the paper is mostly down to methods, but when looking at something like Huns if the other method shows high SSA and the other doesn't Occam's razor should be utilized. AIM's aren't totally fixed at continental level. For example the derived variant of rs2572307 is quite unambiguously indicative of SSA ancestry but rs881929 could be interpreted as only mostly East Asian, Europeans have significant frequencies and it's present at low level in all African and South Asian populations of 1000genomes.

The picture we get from the Hungarian preprint is that the Huns in Europe appear to be a mixed population with dark pigmentation, not an unexpected result.

Onur Dincer said...

@Shaikorth

The broad variations we see in the results of the two methods in the Hungarian ancient DNA study may be attributable to the deficiencies in the ancient genomes, so we should be careful there. I am open to any result and have no biases, but until we see results from decently covered genomes I will refrain from making judgements on the genetics of European Huns.

Open Genomes said...

@David

Were you able to use these 1240k SNP files for the 4 Shirenzigou males?

http://open-genomes.org/genomes/Ning%20(2019)/1240k/

Davidski said...

Not enough markers and too much deamination damage to be run in the Global25 and qpAdm. The BAM files would need to be filtered in some way for the latter, and then maybe they'd be OK even with few markers.

Suyindik said...

@Davidski-"There's a new aDNA paper out about a couple of Iron Age Celtic sites in northern France (120–80 BCE, Manche, and 300–100 BCE, Yonne) but the technology used by the authors is relatively basic."

So this means that Iron Age Celtic speakers from France had R1b. Schiffels et al. 2016 showed that Iron Age Celtic speakers from Britain/Hinxton had R1b.

And we know that the Galatians(Celtic speakers) came as far as Turkey in the Iron Age.

Gibbons et al showed that an individual in Late Bronze Age(Early Bronze Age?) Philistine had R1b. Maybe this means that there was a migration movement starting in the 2nd millennium BCE (until the end of the Iron Age) of the ancestors of the Iron Age Celtic speakers(descendants of Central European Bell Beakers, not Iberian Bell Beakers) into the direction of West Asia?

Maybe the R1b that is supposed to be found in Iron Age Italy are of the same Celtic speaker groups that settled in Northern / Central Italy during the Late Bronze Age? And then during the Early Iron Age an elite minor group of Etruscans (with non-R1b) from West Asia migrated into Northern / Central Italy, and they became the minority elite group of the region (while absorbing the majority of Late Bronze Age native Celtic speakers), did they probably have haplogroups G, J, L and T (just like in the Maykop individuals)? And then in the Late Iron Age period(a couple of centuries after the 7nd century BCE) some of the Celtic speakers got absorbed and assimilated by the Etruscans?

Davidski said...

@Suyindik

Too speculative for now.

Etruscans cluster strongly with the Umbri and Sanniti, and all of these groups appear to be mixtures of Bronze Age Central Europeans rich in steppe ancestry and Sardinian-like early farmers.

There's no indication for now that there was any West Asian admixture in this mix. I don't know what their Y-haplogroups were.

Richard Rocca said...

Unpublished steppe samples briefly mentioned by this new paper on PIE:

https://www.academia.edu/39985565/Archaeology_Genetics_and_Language_in_the_Steppes_A_Comment_on_Bomhard

"The ca. 30 additional unpublished individuals from three middle Volga Eneolithic cemeteries, including Khvalynsk, preliminarily show the same admixed EHG/CHG ancestry in varying proportions. Most of the males belonged to Ychromosome haplogroup R1b1a, like almost all Yamnaya males, but Khvalynsk also had some minority Y-chromosome haplogroups (R1a, Q1a, J, I2a2) that do not appear or appear only rarely (I2a2) in Yamnaya graves."

FrankN said...

Dave: Your outlook on LBA/IA Italians sounds interesting, and I am certainly looking forward to the respective publication, also with respect to its conclusions about the origin of Etruscans. If they were really native to Central Italy, maybe even showing a good deal of genetic continuity with Remedello, this would have far-reaching linguistic implications.

Otherwise, not every IA inhabitant of France was neccessarily a Celt. SW France spoke Aquitanian, a Paleo-Hispanic language. NE France (beyond Somme and Oise) forms part of the "Nordwestblock" area with "para-Celtic" toponyms that had preserved the initial "p", possibly also some Germanic elements. Even the Ethnonym Parisii around Paris is "para-Celtic".
In the NW, finally settled the Armorican Veneti, whom Ceasar distinguished from surrounding Celts. Those Armorics distinguished by Ceasar also included the Unelli or Venelli from modern Manche. Note that Ven-elli, as (Armorican) Veneti, belongs to the quite widespread class of "Ven-"ethnonyms that seems to have its epicentre around the E. Alps (Veneti, Venostes, Vindelici etc.). [Gozdanovic has written an interesting paper that a/o discusses possible Venetic phonetic substrate in Breton vannetais].

For those Yonne samples, however, Celticity may well be assumed. Sens was the capital of the Senones, who were a major element of the Celtic federation that in the early 4th cBC invaded Italy and 387 BC plundered Rome.

FrankN said...

This is the Gvozdanović paper mentionned in my previous comment:
http://www.jolr.ru/files/%2883%29jlr2012-7%2833-46%29.pdf

Drago said...

So Y-hg J at some point made it on the steppe, but never prevalent, and was not part of the founder effect. Good to see the more Sober dating from Khvalynsk. Would agree about the difficulty of Bomhard's theory. Ultimately, I think Eneolithic network & it's role in PIE, hasn;t been qute unravelled, for which more important western samples are req.

Onur Dincer said...

@JuanRivera

Also nice that Khvalynsk has all five main steppe Y-DNA haplogroups.

I would not call J a main steppe Y-DNA haplogroup. It probably has never been a major Y-DNA haplogroup in any region of the Eurasian steppe.

Drago said...

''Y-DNA J was to be expected in steppe, since it's already present in Mesolithic Karelia. But I didn't think it would ever pop up so soon.''

Yep, good point. Must be a hango-over from Late Paleo, early Mesolithic.

FrankN said...

RR: Unpublished steppe samples briefly mentioned by this new paper on PIE:

https://www.academia.edu/39985565/Archaeology_Genetics_and_Language_in_the_Steppes_A_Comment_on_Bomhard



Thx for the link! From Anthony's abstract (emphasis is mine): "I accept Mallory’s reading of the current consensus that the Yamnaya expansion, beginning about 3000 BC into both Europe and Asia from the Pontic-Caspian steppes, represented the expansion of late PIE languages (after the separation of Anatolian)" [and apparently, If I read Mallory's latest paper on Tocharian (s.a.) correct, also after separation of Tocharian].

Do we see a new consensus forming here? Heggarty, one of the most pronounced advocates of the "Anatolian theory", has recently also proposed a new model, in which PIE is still essentially a "farming language" (albeit in his new model a more easterly one), but where the Steppe was pivotal for disseminating "late PIE" (in his model aside from Anatolian and Tocharian also excluding Graeco-Armenian and Albanian).
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13zABNwM6619mleERGD_DbbgSt_1acjMI/view [p.22-30]

Andrzejewski said...

From Iosif Lazaridis: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/423079v1

So if I read Dr. Lazaridis’ abstract:

1. WHG (=“Villabruna Cluster”) has partial co-ancestry with Dzudzuana/Anatolian Farmers. So overall, the populations were not so distinct...

2. Natufian/Semitic? people in the South Levant were formed when a Dzudzuana-like population was overrun by Iberomausian one (could it explain why Semitic languages are linked to Berber in an ‘Afro-Asiatic’ macro family along with Levant_N and Anatolia_N being 2 district populations along the same clade)?

3. Iran_N and CHG are basically Anatolian/Dzudzuana, but with tons of Ancient North Eurasian admixture.

Am I right or wrong? Or maybe it’s Lazaridis who’s wrong here?

Andrzejewski said...

BTW: I read in some research paper that Anatolian Farmers were quintessentially direct descendants of the Gravetians, or at least their closest relatives. Is it true?

Davidski said...

@Andrzejewski

I read in some research paper that Anatolian Farmers were quintessentially direct descendants of the Gravetians, or at least their closest relatives. Is it true?

You probably misunderstood.

Onur Dincer said...

@Drago

''Y-DNA J was to be expected in steppe, since it's already present in Mesolithic Karelia. But I didn't think it would ever pop up so soon.''

Yep, good point. Must be a hango-over from Late Paleo, early Mesolithic.


Not necessarily. It may have come from the CHG ancestors of Khvalynsk. Certainly that is a higher probability, Khvalynsk is closer in time to the main mixing period between EHG and CHG than Yamnaya is and thus preserves more of the genetic variation (including haplogroups) from that period.

Andrzejewski said...

@Onur Dincer “Not necessarily. It may have come from the CHG ancestors of Khvalynsk. Certainly that is a higher probability, Khvalynsk is closer in time to the main mixing period between EHG and CHG than Yamnaya is and thus preserves more of the genetic variation (including haplogroups) from that period.”

That’s what I think, although from Khvalynsk to Yamnaya CHG ratio jumped from 30% to 50%. And on top of it, I have always contended that Khvalynsk Culture was created when CHG-rich Piedmont Eneolithic usurped Samara HG and inserted different clades of R1b compared to Samara ones but also adding some minor contribution from Ukraine_Eneolithic (R1a1, Sredny Stog) along the way

Drago said...

@ Onur

''Not necessarily. It may have come from the CHG ancestors of Khvalynsk''

I mean some Y-DNA J was probably kicking around eastern Europe / near the steppe, somewhere.

Drago said...

@ Andrewzjewski

''After reading the Yana paper recently I’m more of the persuasion that both EHG (from AG3) and CHG (from Yana) are cousin populations; ''

That's an odd conclusion.

Onur Dincer said...

@Andrzejewski

That’s what I think, although from Khvalynsk to Yamnaya CHG ratio jumped from 30% to 50%. And on top of it, I have always contended that Khvalynsk Culture was created when CHG-rich Piedmont Eneolithic usurped Samara HG and inserted different clades of R1b compared to Samara ones but also adding some minor contribution from Ukraine_Eneolithic (R1a1, Sredny Stog) along the way

Your estimate of CHG ancestry in Khvalynsk is based on the three published Khvalynsk individuals, two of them have about 30% CHG as you say, but one of them has Yamnaya levels of CHG. Besides, there are now many unpublished Khvalynsk samples, we do not know their CHG ratio yet, this is what Anthony says on that issue in his paper:

"The ca. 30 additional unpublished individuals from three middle Volga Eneolithic cemeteries, including Khvalynsk, preliminarily show the same admixed EHG/CHG ancestry in varying proportions."

Varying proportions, so there is probably great variation in CHG ratio in those samples, in line with the closeness in time to the main period of EHG-CHG mixing. Let's wait for the publication of their results.

Drago said...

@ Onur

'' two of them have about 30% CHG as you say,

Not really. The 2 lesser have more like 10-15 Percent, and the greater one has ~30%

Synome said...

In the new paper, David Anthony states that he thinks Khvalynsk is the best candidate for the origin of PIE. I'm inclined to agree with him.

Khvalynsk also has the oldest horse remains buried with humans. I'll bet this is at or near the epicenter of horse domestication that could have driven the PIE expansion. I think the pieces fit.

Onur Dincer said...

@Drago

Not really. The 2 lesser have more like 10-15 Percent, and the greater one has ~30%

Again from Anthony's paper:

"The proportion of CHG in the Wang et al. (2018) bar graphs is about 20-30% in two individuals, substantially less CHG than in Yamnaya; but the third Khvalynsk individual had more than 50% CHG, like Yamnaya."

Andrzejewski said...

@Synome “
In the new paper, David Anthony states that he thinks Khvalynsk is the best candidate for the origin of PIE. I'm inclined to agree with him.”

That’s what I was thinking for the last year or so! Piedmony_Eneolithic was in all likelihood the source of CHG in Khvalynsk, and something is telling me that they brought a very basic pre-Hittite-split PIE with guttural sounds like other Caucasus-based languages (Anatolian was the only branch to retain them). Migrants from Piedmont were rich in CHG, and therefore Samara transitioning into Khvalynsk was tantamount to an upheaval with an utter changeover in culture.

Now, either of the two scenarios below took place:

1. Piedmont_Eneolithic spread in a pincer movement into Ukraine and Khvalynsk at once, thereby ushering in a common culture, language and ethnos over the substrate cultures (Sredny Stog I and Samara HG, respectively); or,

2. Piedmont migrants arrived in Khvalynsk, and a later secondary migration westbound into what used to be Ukraine_Neolithic/Bug Dniester/Dnieper Dontets stomping ground, ushering in a abrupt transition from non-IE Sredny Stog I into an Indo-European SS II.

Andrzejewski said...

But it explains why both EHG and CHG had lots of ANE, whereas Yamnaya was ~50% ANE

Davidski said...

@Andrzejewski

There's no evidence that Piedmont Eneolithic was native to the Piedmont steppe, as opposed to being a new population that was created via the movement of a more EHG-rich Kurgan population from the Don-Caspian steppe both south into the Piedmont steppe and north into the Samara steppe.

And your theory about R1a1 sounds like total BS, because there's no evidence that the most important subclade of R1a, R1a-M417, was found where it suddenly showed up in Sredny Stog II, in an individual rich in Yamnaya-like ancestry.

The Y-haplogroups in that region were always more commonly R1b and I2, and none of these samples had Yamnaya-like ancestry.

Drago said...

@ Onur

First of all, you had no clue that hg J was already present in eastern Europe during the Mesolithic (Popovo, Karelia)

Then you parot Anthony's claims (which provide no evidence or calculations; or is perhaps simply confused)


Khvalynsk_Eneolithic:I0433
EHG 84%
CHG 11.4%
Barcin_N 3.1%
West_Siberia_N:I1960 1.5%
Levant_N 0%
WHG 0%
Iron_Gates_HG 0%
Iran_N 0%

Distance 4.1204%

Khvalynsk_Eneolithic:I0122
EHG 81.8%
CHG 16.4%
Barcin_N 1.8%
Levant_N 0%
WHG 0%
Iron_Gates_HG 0%
Iran_N 0%
West_Siberia_N:I1960 0%

Distance 3.6238%

And this is very similar to what Davidski got with apADMN


Please learn some basics

Drago said...

@ Synome

“In the new paper, David Anthony states that he thinks Khvalynsk is the best candidate for the origin of PIE. I'm inclined to agree with him.”

And rather unconvincingly,
IE cultures already existed by 5th Mill BC, and Khvalynsk does not seem part of that world.
It is only much later that its descendants became incorporated in

Andrzejewski said...

@Davidski “And your theory about R1a1 sounds like total BS, because there's no evidence that the most important subclade of R1a, R1a-M417, was found where it suddenly showed up in Sredny Stog II, in an individual rich in Yamnaya-like ancestry.

The Y-haplogroups in that region were always more commonly R1b and I2, and none of these samples had Yamnaya-like ancestry.”

The transition from SS I into SS 2 fascinates and mesmerizes me. Maybe that’s the key we were all seeking to unlock the mystery of the emergence of PIE. I tend to agree with @Drago very narrowly, ie that the agricultural terminology in PIE onward arrived via the Cucuteni Tripolye from the West.

I still suspect that once we find out what exactly happened between Samara and Khvalynsk on one hand, and between Sredny Stog 1 and 2 then we might discover who the *original” Indo-Europeans were.

Onur Dincer said...

@Drago

First of all, you had no clue that hg J was already present in eastern Europe during the Mesolithic (Popovo, Karelia)

Who said I had no clue? I just did not give it (a single EHG-rich sample from Karelia) the importance you gave.

Then you parot Anthony's claims (which provide no evidence or calculations; or is perhaps simply confused)


Khvalynsk_Eneolithic:I0433
EHG 84%
CHG 11.4%
Barcin_N 3.1%
West_Siberia_N:I1960 1.5%
Levant_N 0%
WHG 0%
Iron_Gates_HG 0%
Iran_N 0%

Distance 4.1204%

Khvalynsk_Eneolithic:I0122
EHG 81.8%
CHG 16.4%
Barcin_N 1.8%
Levant_N 0%
WHG 0%
Iron_Gates_HG 0%
Iran_N 0%
West_Siberia_N:I1960 0%

Distance 3.6238%

And this is very similar to what Davidski got with apADMN


Please learn some basics


Different analysis methods give different results. We cannot treat all results from different analyses comparable in all respects. Anthony is basing his estimations on the analysis of Wang et al. 2018. Davidski's apADMN analysis also gives similar results for the CHG-rich Khvalynsk sample and Yamnaya:

Samara_Eneolithic:I0434
Anatolia_Chalcolithic 0.195±0.200
Caucasus_HG 0.238±0.192
Eastern_HG 0.567±0.076
chisq 10.965 tail_prob 0.446237

Yamnaya_Samara:I0429 (3339-2917 calBCE)
Anatolia_Chalcolithic 0.190±0.063
Caucasus_HG 0.277±0.056
Eastern_HG 0.533±0.034
chisq 11.732 tail_prob 0.38412

Which parallels the results of the analysis in Wang et al. 2018 regardless of the differences in the absolute values of CHG in both analyses.

When Andrzejewski wrote "although from Khvalynsk to Yamnaya CHG ratio jumped from 30% to 50%" he probably based it on the results of Wang et al. 2018, so my answer was also based on them, but then you objected to the absolute values confusingly without specifying based on what analysis. You can disagree with the absolute values in the Wang et al. 2018 analysis, but that does not negate the validity of the relative values, the CHG-rich Khvalynsk individual is Yamnaya-like in CHG ratio no matter which analysis you look at.

Andrzejewski said...

Bronze Age Couple Excavated in Kazakhstan https://www.archaeology.org/news/7870-190801-kazakhstan-bronze-age-couple

Must be Sintashta

Davidski said...

@All

Interestingly, and I hate to be the one to put on the R1a supporter cap here, but the one and only link specifically between the ancient steppe and an Indo-European-speaking people cited by Anthony is this on page 16...

His Y-chromosome haplogroup was R1a-Z93, similar to the later Sintashta culture and to South Asian Indo-Aryans, and he is the earliest known sample to show the genetic adaptation to lactase persistence (I3910-T).

Hehehe.

rozenblatt said...

So since they don't publish these 30+ samples, I guess they go to a new big paper? I hope it's something about formation of Yamnaya/Corded Ware/(Kurgan)Bell Beaker. Anthony's paper seem to hint at formation of Yamnaya, I hope there will be similar investigation at Corded Ware.

Davidski said...

@rozenfag

It seems to me that Anthony is saying that those ~30 new Eneolithic steppe samples will be in the "forthcoming Naramsimhan et al." paper.

Andrzejewski said...

I’d love to have R1a1 to be the first IE speakers but somehow it seems as if the R1b dudes further east on the Volga-Don started the “Kurganist revolution”.

Andrzejewski said...

As far as Narasimhan goes, I’m happy that he confirmed that Andronovo invading India had a very negligible amount of either Botai or BMAC, or to put it in his words, they “did not contribute significantly to South Asian populations”

Drago said...

Onur

“Samara_Eneolithic:I0434
Anatolia_Chalcolithic 0.195±0.200
Caucasus_HG 0.238±0.192
Eastern_HG 0.567±0.076””

Anatolia chalcolithic ?

Onur; you have no clue.

Onur Dincer said...

@Drago

“Samara_Eneolithic:I0434
Anatolia_Chalcolithic 0.195±0.200
Caucasus_HG 0.238±0.192
Eastern_HG 0.567±0.076””

Anatolia chalcolithic ?

Onur; you have no clue.


It is Davidski's analysis, not mine. More importantly, Anatolia_Chalcolithic has significant CHG admixture, which means Caucasus_HG represents only part of the CHG in the individuals tested in that analysis.

EastPole said...

@Davidski

“It seems to me that Anthony is saying that those ~30 new Eneolithic steppe samples will be in the "forthcoming Naramsimhan et al." paper.”

I think Anthony made a typo, should be “Narasimhan et al.” not “Naramsimhan et al.”

Drago said...

Onur

“Samara_Eneolithic:I0434
Anatolia_Chalcolithic 0.195±0.200
Caucasus_HG 0.238±0.192
Eastern_HG 0.567±0.076””


You have just shown that I0434 has ~ 20% CHG; whilst one of the lightest CHG Yamnaya individuals has at least 10% more
Moreover; you have also unknowingly just demonstrated that the remaining Khvalynsk individuals (at present) have even less CHG; and not anything near Yamnaya level ; as per original point

In essence ; you have just proven that you’re a clown; in 7 posts ; when I could have made that point in 1

Onur Dincer said...

@Drago

You have just shown that I0434 has ~ 20% CHG; whilst one of the lightest CHG Yamnaya individuals has at least 10% more

Like I said, Anatolia_Chalcolithic has significant CHG ancestry, which indicates that Caucasus_HG represents only a part of CHG ancestry, even though most of it, in that analysis. You are now distorting the numbers by turning a 4% difference (at most) to more than 10%.

Moreover; you have also unknowingly just demonstrated that the remaining Khvalynsk individuals (at present) have even less CHG; and not anything near Yamnaya level ; as per original point

It was already my point. Please re-read my statement:

"Your estimate of CHG ancestry in Khvalynsk is based on the three published Khvalynsk individuals, two of them have about 30% CHG as you say, but one of them has Yamnaya levels of CHG."

I say "one of them," not "all of them."

In essence ; you have just proven that you’re a clown; in 7 posts ; when I could have made that point in 1

I was not even discussing with you, then you joined the discussion and very soon began to make ad hominems. Despite this, I have been civil and elaborative to you throughout our discussion. If you want to bicker, I can do that too, but this is not a suitable place for that.

Matt said...

@Rocca, some degree of variability in y-haplogroups in Khvalynsk cemetaries is quite interesting. Presuming "they" (and presuming a shared culture) are ancestral to Yamnaya suggests that R1b1a in Yamnaya is a combination of a patrilocal bias against movement/fitness, combined with a founder effect in Yamnaya which happened to involve the most frequent group in that population (as you would expect!).

Corded Ware may be a slightly different story where a R1a haplo group that was less frequent in the main trunk of ancestry of Corded Ware (presuming Khvalynsk to represent that) became more frequent due to mixing at frontiers with EHG groups or something?

I'm interested to know what level of variability is seem in these cemetaries, and the direction and form of it. And also what are the hap Js - very divergent old J, or young Js that don't split too deeply in time from those frequent in South Caucasian populations? The presence of Q also will re-contextualize its presence in Steppe Maykop.

Other points on Anthony:

1) Seems Anthony is conflating CHG and IranN too much in his paper. (E.g. his lengthy discourse of this form: CHG in the steppes 6000-4000 BC - The variety of CHG that constituted more than half of Yamnaya ancestry could have been the Mesolithic/Early Neolithic variety, like Hotu Cave or Kotias Cave, not yet admixed with Anatolian Farmer ancestry. If the CHG element in Yamnaya came from a non-admixed CHG population of this kind, they could have walked into the steppes from northwestern Iran/Azerbaijan at any time before about 5000 BC—before admixture with Anatolian Farmers began. The easiest path into the steppes from the Caucasus skirts the eastern end of the North Caucasus ridge, where there is a level plain between the mountains and the Caspian Sea. No such plain exists at the western end of the mountain range, where mountains plunge into the Black Sea.). But this is following wider academia I suppose.

2) Some of the talk of CHG "appearing" in the steppe is also difficult to define after the Yana paper models EHG as necessarily having some increase in CHG (explaining greater Basal Eurasian ancestry in EHG than WHG and AG3), but then surely there is no greater increase between the earliest (9300 BCE) and latest EHG samples .

3) Another point: Is Anthony correct when he refers to: Like the Mesolithic and Neolithic populations here, the Eneolithic populations of Dnieper-Donets II type seem to have limited their mating network to the rich, strategic region they occupied, centered on the Rapids. The absence of CHG shows that they did not mate frequently if at all with the people of the Volga steppes, a surprising but undeniable discovery. based on the samples that we have? I think there may be a signal of some displacement towards the south and towards CHG in Ukraine N in some of the Fst values which I have seen.

4) "Around 95% of the southeastern European farmer population tested had no steppe relatives over a period of 1500 years. They must have actively avoided marriage with steppe people, a rule broken only among the elite towards the end of the Eneolithic." - Is there much evidence is there that any of this is associated with "the elite"? I can't think of much in the ancient dna.

Anthony claims that 3 SE European Copper Age with steppe ancestry are particularly elite but this seems like a rather dubious claim as I can remember from the supplements, though he at least admits that the “golden man’ at Varna was the most dubiously possessed of steppe ancestry in any quantity (even though this is probably the opposite of what he would've liked to be true), leaving his claim hinging mainly on two samples.

5) The Trypillian outlier I1927, ca. 3619-2936 BC would be useful to discuss, though Wang 2018 have not published much about him.

Bob Floy said...

@OD

"I just did not give it (a single EHG-rich sample from Karelia) the importance you gave"

Yeah, a Mesolithic EHG living near the Artcic circle carrying Y-haplogroup J isn't important, you're right.

Onur Dincer said...

@Bob Floy

Yeah, a Mesolithic EHG living near the Artcic circle carrying Y-haplogroup J isn't important, you're right.

Statistically (when taking into account all EHG-rich ancient individuals) yes.

Davidski said...

@Matt

Corded Ware may be a slightly different story where a R1a haplo group that was less frequent in the main trunk of ancestry of Corded Ware (presuming Khvalynsk to represent that) became more frequent due to mixing at frontiers with EHG groups or something?

Strange comment, considering that Corded Ware R1a is basically just R1a-M417, which is still a very young subclade at the time, and unlikely to have been common, or even present, in EHG populations.

Drago said...

@ Onur

It doesn't really matter who you originally adressed this too.

You suggested that ''two of them have about 30% CHG'' and have so far been unable to back this contention, and are outwardly dishonest.

Onur Dincer said...

@Drago

It doesn't really matter who you originally adressed this too.

You suggested that ''two of them have about 30% CHG'' and have so far been unable to back this contention, and are outwardly dishonest.


I already wrote detailed replies to you on that topic, but you chose to ignore what I stated and do personal attacks. What I would advise to you is to re-read my comments and contemplate on the statements with an objective mind.

Matt said...

@Davidski, not really suggesting the clade that went through a huge founder effect was in EHG populations, but the immediate ancestor may have been. Or at low frequency in the populations at Khvalynsk cemeteries either really.

I'm thinking a bit of how I2 can go to high frequencies in frontier EEF with comparatively little whole autosome introgression, or I1 in Scandinavian-Germanic populations or N in Balts. Could have been like, or could have not been like that! Pure speculation.

Davidski said...

@Matt

You're still not making any sense.

If R1a rose in frequency in proto-CWC groups by being incorporated from frontier hunter-gatherer groups, who carried a wide range of now rare or extinct R1a clades, then today we wouldn't be seeing a star-like founder effect in the R1a-M417 phylogeny dating to the immediate pre-CWC period.

Matt said...

@Davidski, yes, that's probably correct given I6261 actually.

Ganesh Atan said...

@Jorge Escalante

The paper you cited "Keyser-Tracqui, C., Crubézy, E. & Ludes, B. Nuclear and Mitochondrial DNA Analysis of a 2,000-Year-Old Necropolis in the Egyin Gol Valley of Mongolia. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 73, 247–260 (2003)" has clearly stated the following,

"A majority (89%) of the Xiongnu sequences can be classified as belonging to an Asian haplogroup (A, B4b, C, D4, D5 or D5a, or F1b), and nearly 11% belong to European haplogroups (U2, U5a1a, and J1)."

Still you did not mention the paper which states that Xiongnu were 60% R1a. The above paper is about mtDna which you cited.

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