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Monday, December 30, 2019

A final note for the year


I feel like I've spent a good part of 2019 banging my head against a thicker than average brick wall.

Much of this feeling is tied to the controversy over the ethnogenesis of the Yamnaya people, and my often futile attempts to explain that their origin cannot be sought in what is now Iran, or, indeed, anywhere outside of Eastern Europe.

This post is my final attempt to lay out the facts in regards to this topic. Next year I'll have better things to do than to argue the bleeding obvious.

Below are two graphs from a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) based on relatively high quality ancient human genotype data from the Caucasus and surrounds. They include two typical Yamnaya individuals from burial sites north of the Caspian Sea. I made the graphs with the Vahaduo Custom PCA tool here. The relevant datasheet can be downloaded here.



Here's what I'm seeing:

- the Yamnaya individuals sit on genetic clines made up of hunter-gatherers native to the Caucasus and various parts of Eastern Europe, including a trio from the southernmost part of the Pontic-Caspian steppe (labeled Steppe_Eneolithic), with whom they form a distinct cluster

- the samples from the Caucasus and the Iranian Plateau form very different clusters, so there's no support here for the ancient Caucasus/Iranian grouping that is often haphazardly invoked in scientific literature

- there's no indication that the Yamnaya and/or Steppe_Eneolithic groups experienced recent gene flow, or, for that matter, any gene flow whatsoever, from what is now Iran.

Of course, analyses based on formal statistics suggest that the Yamnaya population harbors minor western ancestry that is missing in Steppe_Eneolithic. In fact, I was first to argue this point (see here). So let's add a couple of ancient farmers from Western Europe to my PCA to see how they affect the graphs. The relevant datasheet is available here.



Yep, the Yamnaya pair appears to be peeling away very slightly, but deliberately, from the Steppe_Eneolithic individuals towards the part of the plot occupied by the farmers.

Admittedly, I'm no Sherlock Holmes, but even with my fairly average sleuthing abilities, I'm pretty sure I know how the Yamnaya people came to be. They formed largely on the base of a population very much like Steppe_Eneolithic somewhere deep in Eastern Europe, well to the north of the Caucasus, and nowhere near the Iranian Plateau.

See also...

A note on Steppe Maykop

282 comments:

«Oldest   ‹Older   201 – 282 of 282
Andrzejewski said...

@AWood “I'd argue that CWC wasn't even the most significant expansion, Bell Beaker was more influential on the male Y and impact of Europe as a whole, with the exception of far northern and eastern Europe. Many of the lineages found in CWC are minority today, with Scandinavia harbouring the largest share today. (as one would expect)”

Scandinavian are mostly a melange of Beaker and Corded IE’s with a considerable minority of I2a and other Erteboelle, GAC, TRB and other non-IEs.

“There is an argument that Slavic expansion was more impactful genetically, especially when you consider the geography these languages and people cover in Europe today and how quickly it happened. The lack of data for some of these lineages in aDNA should be telling and further prove the point. (ie: I2-M423 Dinaric branches, R1a-M558, M458)”

Slavs are mostly R1a corded derived from their paternal side at least and we know that Beaker and Western Euros pack much more maternal mtDNA from farmers and hunter gatherers than Eastern Europeans.

Gaska said...

@Weure

Houdini? Have you really read Prof H Fokkens?

Background to Beakers-

"it may have become clear the the Lower Rhine Basin was in fact NOT the place of origin of Bell Beakers, because the delta was the traditional habitat of the Vlaardingen Culture"

"Unlike my Dutch colleagues, I take the position here that AOO pottery marks the beginning of major cultural change, and in fact the beginning of what is called the BB culture"

"It is important to observe that when AOO pottery was introduced existing traditions remained intact, that nothing much seems to have changed not in SGC context, nor in Vlaardingen context"

"Personally I don’t believe that there is any evidence to suggest that AOO was earlier than Maritime style, in other words, there is no basis left, for claiming that the origins of either AOO/Maritime Beaker style in the context of the Dutch SGC"

"Even though the exact chronological of these Beaker types is still problematic in general the AOO type marks the cross over to the Bell Beaker type. This is substantiated by the fact that in other regions where the BB tradition has developed, but Single Grave Culture remains absent, the AOO Beaker is present as well.

And I suppose you will know that there is AOO in France, British Isles Spain and Portugal, and of course we don't know anything about the SGC

L Olerud, M Beckerman

"Recent research emphasises the regional variability of the Corded Ware culture, which is not one ‘culture’ or ‘ethnicity’, but more a mosaic of certain novel elements that were adopted in different ways across different regions"

"All-Over-Ornamented Beakers are demonstrated to be contemporaneous with Protruding Foot Beakers, and not intermediate between the Protruding Foot Beakers and Bell Beakers, as often presumed"

Gaska said...

Archi you are the one who has doubted the dating, but if you want to talk about R1b-P312 you would have to know that at the moment it is older in Iberia than in the Netherlands-Regarding how R1b-L51 reached Central Europe I believe the path from the Baltic is better explanation than the path from the steppes-We'll see what happens

weure said...

@Gaska bias bias bias,

Teaching a 'local' geographic lessons?

"it may have become clear the the Lower Rhine Basin was in fact NOT the place of origin of Bell Beakers, because the delta was the traditional habitat of the Vlaardingen Culture"

Indeed and then the rest:
'From this exposé it may have become clear that the Lower-Rhine Basin proper was in fact not the place of origin of Bell Beakers, because the delta was the traditional habitat of the Vlaardingen culture. Interestingly Lanting and Van der Waals emphasised already that their model is in particular valid for the central Netherlands north of the Rhine, the Veluwe region.'

What doe it say not the lower Rhine region, so the region around Rotterdam, Vlaardingen culture (neolithic culture) but the area above the Rhine (google: Veluwe) towards NE Dutch is breeding ground of BB. Aim at the right spot!

The rest is fully according what Davidski has stated, Fokkens summarizes it very shortly:
"One trajectory is already known: that is the Single Grave – Bell Beaker trajectory."

How much 'in your face' is needed for you Gaska....

Gaska said...

@Richard Rocca said-Gaska, the paranoid conspiracy theory always works best who don't like where 100% of the data is pointing. You are not very original in this regard as the biased nutjob Gioiello has been using it for more than a decade.

Dear Magic Rocca, I think you need a break, you seem obsessed with that gentleman you mentioned so much-You can only argue with the great French mathematician Mademoiselle Anglesqueville or with the sad and self conscious Portuguese Ruderico, that is to say with people who are able to send 10,000 likes to be named moderators of anthrogenica and enjoy their minute of glory saying nonsense-Enjoy your friends, but think that the longer you are with them the more prestige you will lose and finally your contribution to the world of genetics will be reduced to talk about Mr Gioiello-Of course, you can always have a beer with Mr Stevens, Mr Hulan, or Mr Jdean, without a doubt, true experts of the European Chalcolithic who deserve the recognition of the international scientific community for their contribution to the knowledge of European genetics.

Richard Rocca said...

@Gaska, nobody cares for your long drivel about conspiracies. Your long winded trolling is still trolling.

Matt said...

Off topic from current discussion and thread, was using Vahaduo's web runner on G25 data to pull off a more up to date set of estimates of ancestry proportions in modern European populations. Running on 16x cycles.

Was quite surprised to find that Vahaduo had quite a strong distinction in terms of pulling off EuroMN+Yamnaya for Western European populations, vs more variable combinations of Yamnaya+EHG and BarcinN+IronGates from SE and NE Europe - https://imgur.com/a/a0HM7CS (stacked charts sorted by different component, and trying GAC and IberiaCA as Europe MN component, which doesn't really change things).

I suppose in a sense that's not really surprising, but I though that the old nMonte experiments did not tend to come to such a clear conclusion, and it seems quite distinct even between populations who seem quite close in their proportions of very anciently split ancestry. (G25 does have a drift dimension splitting apart Baltic BA ancestry from its "sources", however I didn't think this would lead to some favouring IronGates+Barcin combinations over IronGates+MN European, but evidently it does.)

Bob Floy said...

"Unetice is from the Scythians"

What planet are we on?

Davidski said...

@Matt

You've got a couple of issues affecting your analysis.

The Balto-Slavic and Uralic specific drift dimensions in the Global25 are causing the algorithm to reach for more complicated solutions to improve (and overfit) the statistical fits for these populations.

You're also lacking proximate hunter-gatherer groups for both the Northeast Euros and Northwest Euros.

LTU_Narva can probably work well for Balto-Slavs, but I'm not sure what can be used for the latter, considering the lack of hunter-gatherers from southern Scandinavia and surrounds in the Global25.

Davidski said...

@All

Interesting new paper on kurgans here. Does anyone know what the differences between the Kura-Araxes and LBA/IA kurgans in West Asia might represent? Perhaps the arrival of Indo-Europeans from the steppe, considering the presence of horse and snake remains in the later single grave kurgans?

Abstract: The Ganja Region Kurgan Archaeological Project (GaRKAP) is a joint Azero-Italian project that aims at investigating the spread of the tradition of burying the dead in large funerary chambers covered with circular tumuli-that is, kurgans-in the southern Caucasus during a period ranging from the fourth to the first millennium BCE. It is in this region that large numbers of kurgans, dating to the Early Bronze Age (that is, the Kura-Araxes period) through to the Iron Age, have been identified. In particular, the funerary tumuli dated to the Kura-Araxes period reveal a common mortuary custom of multiple human depositions inside a large chamber that is burnt at the conclusion of ritual practices; the Late Bronze/ Early Iron Age burials, on the other hand, are smaller in size and usually present single or double human depositions, furnished with bronze objects and, in some circumstances, the skeletal remains of equids. This paper will present the results of the first season of the archaeological work performed in western Azerbaijan, in the Ganja-Gazakh region. More specifically, it is focused on) the city of Ganja, where a series of Late Bronze/Early Iron Age kurgans are located, and) the steppe of Uzun Rama, along the valley of a creek affluent of the Kura River in the Goranboy district, which is marked by the presence of large kurgans dated to the late fourth millennium BCE and characterised by collective burials.

Laneri et al., GaRKAP 2018: The first season of the Azero-Italian Ganja Region Kurgan Archaeological Project in Western Azerbaijan, https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02409061

CrM said...

@Davidski

"Does anyone know what the differences between the Kura-Araxes and LBA/IA kurgans in West Asia might represent?"

KAC started egalitarian, but you still had rich "royal tomb" within the expanded KAC territories in EBA, see Arslantepe.
Martkopi and later Trialeti culture brought what it seems a social change in South Caucasus with the appearance of Kurgans that had a lot of sophisticated grave goods. Overall this is nothing new in the Caucasus, since Maykop Kurgans were often just as rich of not richer, but Trialeti culture corresponds with the appearance of Steppe-rich Arm_MBA samples.

Matt said...

Hmm... I don't quite think you get it, I'm interested in why, just using generic MN European and Yamnaya/CW Early ref, and generic Barcin and Iron Gates HG / EHG references, some populations would show preferences for the combined "stabilised" MN+CA forms and some for the subset components. I don't think adding loschbour and Narva (and removing MN European) would result in neat phenomena where West Europe prefers loschbour+Barcin and East Narva+Barcin (and would be uninformative of the interesting pattern). Ah well.

Davidski said...

@Matt

I do get it. You created an overfitted model that maximizes steppe ancestry in Western Europeans and minimizes it in Eastern Europeans.

It's not a difficult thing to achieve with Global25/Vahaduo/nMonte, because like all methods, it has its advantages and disadvantages.

I can also break up the steppe ancestry in Western Europeans by throwing in enough of the right hunter-gatherer and farmer reference samples, although admittedly this is easier to achieve with Eastern Europeans.

But what I'm not sure of is the point of this exercise? Are you really wanting to find the precise levels of steppe ancestry in these populations? It doesn't seem like it, but if you were, then duh, you'd be focusing on a small number of the most sensible and proximate reference samples.

old europe said...


@ Rob

Another paper that perfectly matches the genetic profile of Sredni Stog and reinforces Kotova's view of the western origin of this culture and the well know thesis of Manzura. Pivotal in this paper the reference to the warrior knight or warrior priest ( REX) which perfectly fit what we know of later historically attested IE populations.

I'm just waiting of news of horse domestication between the Dneper and the Danube and it will be game over.

https://www.academia.edu/41287512/Attack_and_defence_New_evidence_for_Trypillia-Steppe_interaction_in_the_valley_of_the_Southern_Bug_River_Central_Ukraine_


The above-mentioned social processes formed a part of the general trend that affected the Balkans,the Carpathian Basin, Ukraine and Moldova as well as the Central Europe in the second half of the V millennia BC and was called “eneolithization” by S.Kadrow [Kadrow 2015]. He explains it by “the ad-aptation of the ‘patriarchal’ ethos (warrior-knightor warrior-priest)”. While several other social inter-pretations were proposed, S. Kadrow ʼs model corresponds well with the surrounding of villages by palisades and with the wide distribution of menʼs most common weapon – arrows and bows.Eneolithization expanded well beyond the Cucuteni-Trypillia zone, penetrating deep east-wards into the Pontic Steppe. Mobile herders of Seredny Stog were “eneolitized” along with their early farming contemporaries. I. Manzura sup-posed that the ideological standards were imposedon the Steppe population in the course of coloni-zation following the “frontier model” [Zvelebil,Rowley-Conwy 1984; Manzura 2005]. The Southern Bug valley is a corridor linking the Steppe and Forest-Steppe zones. The abundant resourcesof the river attracted people of various cultural backgrounds for millennia [Tovkailo 2014]. It is a natural interaction zone and vivid relations took place there between the dwellers of the settlementsof Sabatynivka 1 type and mobile steppe groups. However, the exclusive military character of these contacts is very doubtful. The bearers of sedentary and mobile ways of life were equally involved in the general process of creation of a new society of fully Eneolithic type.

Anonymous said...

@old europe "Another paper that perfectly matches the genetic profile of Sredni Stog and reinforces Kotova's view of the western origin of this culture and the well know thesis of Manzura."

Kotova proved that this culture originates only from the eastern from the Don, and has always denied its western origin.
Manzora is never right commonly.

Andrzejewski said...

@Davidski @AuckeS “KAC started egalitarian, but you still had rich "royal tomb" within the expanded KAC territories in EBA, see Arslantepe.
Martkopi and later Trialeti culture brought what it seems a social change in South Caucasus with the appearance of Kurgans that had a lot of sophisticated grave goods. Overall this is nothing new in the Caucasus, since Maykop Kurgans were often just as rich of not richer, but Trialeti culture corresponds with the appearance of Steppe-rich Arm_MBA samples.”

Stuff like that is akin to giving ammunition to the Reich school in favor of a South Caspian home of the PIE...

Kurgans in Eastern Europe predates ones in the Caucasus

Rob said...

@ Old Europe

''Another paper that perfectly matches the genetic profile of Sredni Stog''

I see S/S was a network of sites; so its genetically incorporating often diverse groups.
But the key cog in this were Hunter-gatherer groups from the Tisza-Dniester region'

BTW, as Im sure you know, what Kotova actually states is

''The transition from the Neolithic to Eneolithic in the Eastern European steppe was connected with the intensive contacts of people of the Azov-Dnieper, Low Don, Pricaspiy, Samara, Orlovka and Sredniy Stog cultures with the Balkan population and first with the Hamangia culture. The results of these contacts were some imports: adornments from copper, cornelian, marine shells and pots in the steppe sites and plates from the bone
and nacre, pendants from teeth of red deer in the Hamangia graves. The Hamangia influence in the burial rites of the steppe population was very important and caused to use stone in graves and above them, pits with alcove, new adornments of burial clothes. The strongest impact we have fixed for the population in northern area of the Sea of Azov, where the radical changes in the burial rite and the formation of a new Sredniy Stog culture took
place. It was connected with the adoption of new religious elements connected with the formation of the centre of steppe metal working. ''


We need more Eneolithic steppe samples to fully characterise the processes.

AWood said...

@Andrzejewski

I don't have a doubt that some of the eastern Corded Ware group probably had successors in M458+ rich Slavic speakers, in particular the more eastern ones, but they haven't been found in ancient DNA to the best of my knowledge. Certainly the excavations have been mostly around Germany and the Baltic. My point is that the CWC we have in parts of central Europe and Germany, for example, tend to lean on the variants found in modern Scandinavia, such as L664, or maybe L448 (I don't recall if this last one was found) These are largely found in Scandinavia today, and the frequency drops drastically as you head south. I'm certainly not an expert on the R1a branches, and I know quite a few aDNA results were undefined after Z645+. P312+ superceded this region apparently during the so-called Beaker Phase. Now, all that remains to be confirmed is the relationship, if any, between Beaker and CWC.

Anonymous said...

'The transition from the Neolithic to Eneolithic in the Eastern European steppe was connected with the intensive contacts of people of the Azov-Dnieper, Low Don, Pricaspiy, Samara, Orlovka and Sredniy Stog cultures with the Balkan population and first with the Hamangia culture. The results of these contacts were some imports: adornments from copper, cornelian, marine shells and pots in the steppe sites and plates from the bone and nacre, pendants from teeth of red deer in the Hamangia graves. The Hamangia influence in the burial rites of the steppe population was very important and caused to use stone in graves and above them, pits with alcove, new adornments of burial clothes. The strongest impact we have fixed for the population in northern area of the Sea of Azov, where the radical changes in the burial rite and the formation of a new Sredniy Stog culture took place. It was connected with the adoption of new religious elements connected with the formation of the centre of steppe metal working. ''

It does not mean in any way that someone moved to the northern Azov region from the Balkans, because it is proved that this population of Hamangia was half way came of the population of the north-east of the Steppe, there are burial sites of typical steppians, that is, eneolitization here took place within the close steppe population through trade contacts of relatives. Within the Balkan-Carpathian metallurgical province, the direction of trade contacts has always been the same, with trader men from the steppe going to the Balkans, not vice versa. Actually, it was always known, as Eneolitic and metallurgy spread to the steppe from the Balkans, but it was only a trade exchange.

Slumbery said...

@Arza

I could not find I5037 and I5042 in the current G25 data-set I just opened from Eurogenes, so I can't talk about them, but otherwise all G25 samples associated with Unetice plot solidly in the Germanic range in Davidski's North European PCA. Unetice is probably too old for this to be anywhere near decisive, but still. Unetice samples do not seem to be particularly Slavic in G25 based nMontes either.

Also there is the linguistic observation that Balto-Slavic has specific ties to Indo-Iranian and that does not comply very well with such a western homeland.

Vladimir said...

And unless in the work " Population genomics of Eurasia of the bronze age» Morten E. Allentoft, Martin Sikora, [ ... ] 2015, Y-chromosome haplogroups were not determined? There are in fact many samples of Unetice culture.
DNA sequence alignments are available from the European Nucleotide Archive (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena) under accession number PRJEB9021

Rob said...

@ Archi

I precisely said trade; but of course we do know there was movement of some individuals too; in both directions; but the first/ important one was from west.
Try harder to be more accurate/ UpToDate with your claims in future; because they’re often easily contradicted

Anonymous said...

@Rob "I precisely said trade"

No, you haven't said it.

"Try harder to be more accurate/ UpToDate with your claims in future; because they’re often easily contradicted"

I've never once written a contradictory statement. Not once, don't compare with yourself. I always accurate, you are never.


Rob said...

@ Archi

Someone who can neither speak English properly, nor Man enough to be honest should not claim to speak for what others say. Morever, neither Haemangia nor the Azov shoreline are east of the Don.
So you're wrong on every count

Davidski said...

@All

I can't access this, but it seems to be a paper arguing against the idea that the North Caucasus was depopulated during the Neolithic. Of course, as per my blog post, the idea that the Eneolithic populations of the North Caucasus are derived from local Neolithic and even Mesolithic groups has support from ancient DNA.

The article discusses the issues of the Neolithic of the North Caucasus. The case of the “Neolithic hiatus” in the North Caucasus has arisen due to the controversy of criteria for distinguishing the Neolithic, the scarcity and incompleteness of archaeological sources of the Early Holocene for this region combined with the lack of a sufficient number of radiocarbon dates and poor knowledge of the issue. However, a reference to the Neolithic materials of neighbouring regions including the Northern Pontic, the Crimea, the Azov littoral, the Northern Caspian and Central Asia along with the study of stone tool collections suggest that some of the materials that were previously interpreted as late Mesolithic or Eneolithic can be attributed to the Neolithic.

The Neolithic of the North Caucasus revisited

A said...

where did the Indo-European cattle come from?

Anonymous said...

@Rob "Morever, neither Haemangia nor the Azov shoreline are east of the Don.
So you're wrong on every count"

You're the one who's wrong on all counts, I wrote that Kotova claimed Sredniy Stog is from the eastern, from the Don. And this is north of Azov.
I'm right, you're wrong about everything and every time.

Anonymous said...

@Davidski

Neolithic in the Caucasus, especially in the north and west, is a very conventional concept; there was practically none. Mesolithic was there for a very long time, until other regions had the Eneolithic, and then very short both Neolithic and Eneolithic conditionally, which brought the aliens and immediately came the Bronze Age.

vAsiSTha said...

Dali_EBA 2800-2600bce is interesting. The location is hardly 400km west of the Kuchean area (in the Aksu river region) of Tarim basin where Tocharian was supposedly spoken.

Narsimhan paper says Dali_eba is 78% Botai + 22% Geoksyur_EN, havent tested it yet but looks legit from the PCA plot.

vAsiSTha said...

Are there any more 4th and 3rd mill bce samples from east kazakhstan and tarim areas?

Davidski said...

Botai, Dali_EBA and other similar groups went extinct. You know, like the dodo.

Although minor ancestry of this type later shows up in the Huns.

weure said...

@Rob, regarding the remark about language aimed at Archi IMO for an international public this norm 'Someone who can neither speak English properly' is pretty hautain (not that's not English ;) IMO you must tolerate here more regarding the language then in your own homeland... of course this is relative (because when it's totally rubbish this disturbs the communication). So please stay on topic and not on precise use of language. Thanks!

Ric Hern said...

@ A

If the Ukraine is relevant to Indo-European then they probably got their cattle from Romania/Hungary. Don't know if the Podolic Cattle like the Ukrainian Grey, Romanian Grey and Hungarian Grey are descendants of the original Steppe Cattle which spread from the Balkans but it kind of looks that way.

However it looks like Indo-European peoples did not migrate very far with these cattle but rather replenished their herds with cattle that they found in Central Europe.

But yes some Ancient DNA results from Cattle of Russia and Ukraine will be appreciated...

Ric Hern said...

@ A

What is interesting is the history of Polled cattle. Apparently polled cattle in Europe originated in Slovakia and Germany...and ended up in Britain/Ireland the Netherlands and Scandinavia. So some Indo-European people could have picked up some of these polled cattle on their way Westwards...

Anonymous said...

Rob said... "of course we do know there was movement of some individuals too; in both directions; but the first/ important one was from west."

You do not know this, that's for sure. There was no one from the west. The Balkanians had absolutely nothing to do in the steppe. There was nothing at all to trade with the steppes; all that the steppes could offer was animals, but the Balkans had their own and no one from them can drive the herds across the steppe, surrounded by hostile tribes of strangers. Only the steppe inhabitants could drive the herds and the only product that they could offer from the steppes was the high-quality Donetsk flint, despite the fact that there was a flint in the Balkans, but the Balkans also bought Donetsk flint, but it was not so mined that the Balkans would get it or go after it somewhere, they had their own deposits at their side. But it was precisely this that determined that it was the Donetsk region that became the leader in Eneolitization, they had the only things that could be sold in the Balkans for copper, while others had not.

vAsiSTha said...

@davidski

whats the theory on why proto-tocharian is so distant from indo-iranian inspite of its close proximity to the supposed birthplace of indo-iranian ie - andronovo culture?

Matt said...

Davidski: Eh no, sorry, thats off base. I'm not really interested in the steppe ancestry proportion. It's fairly arbitrary to obssess about the proportion of SteppeEBA... (Why not Khvalynsk or some subset of them, for ex, in which case the proportion would fit better in East Europe? (Judging by fits with higher EHG ratio than Yamnaya covers). SteppeEBA was a short lived combination of populations in flux, where the preceding steppe had more EHG and the slightly later more Anatolian. Not some idealised reference point for all time and even at the time groups were probably about with varying EHG. I don't care about small differences in Yamnaya_Samara level.)

I'm really interested in why there is such a clean split between MN European ancestry in some and none in others. It's fairly geographical and doesn't just reflect underlying deeper proportions. Why does NE Europe in vahaduo take Barcin+alotHG rather than GAC+alittleHG, when the two possibilities are placed in competition? G25 incorporates Baltic BA drift, OK, but why does that specifically make East Europe more averse to taking GAC+alittleHG compared to Barcin+alotHG?

I did run again with WHG and Narva in as source as suggested. This did make Narva the only source East Europe need from Western HGs, but no group preferred Barcin+WHG, and all West Europeans stuck with the MN European group (GAC) while East Europe took none of it. Barcharts : https://imgur.com/a/oh5cWxD

Ryan said...

@A - where did the Indo-European cattle come from?

They came from the Cowcasus.

:D

vAsiSTha said...

@ryan
ROFL :)

Slumbery said...

@Matt

I also noticed this when I compared Slavic samples to Germanic ones to see where does scy303 fit.

I just trow there one possible, but not very fleshed-out or solid explanation. Let's call it a thought experiment.

The ancient Balto-Slav population developed locally, near the actual Steppe with the fusion of a relatively WHG rich Ukrainian Steppe population + CT. Then they absorbed HG-s in the forest zone. They had hardly any actual GAC ancestry. In other words, they are not really (EEF + WHG) + Yamnaya (the classic bare-bone GAC + Steppe model), more like EEF + (Yamnaya + WHG) + WHG/EHG.

At the other hand the root NW European population might have "steppe" ancestry from a group that had less local admixture near the steppe, so moved out _relatively_ unadmixed and got the bulk of their EEF and WHG ancestry in there, from the descendants of the TRB horizon and GAC proper. In other words they were closer to the classic (EEF + WHG) + Yamnaya model (although it was surely not his simple, but relatively closer anyway.)
They are harder to split up, because the population of the TRB horizon and its successors was a somewhat homogeneous pre-existing EEF + WHG mixture.

Davidski said...

@Matt

Eh no, sorry, thats off base. I'm not really interested in the steppe ancestry proportion.

I didn't actually say that you were, but never mind.

G25 incorporates Baltic BA drift, OK, but why does that specifically make East Europe more averse to taking GAC+alittleHG compared to Barcin+alotHG?

It doesn't just incorporate Baltic BA drift, it incorporates all sorts of details that define modern East Euro genetic structure.

This makes it more difficult to model East European ancestry unless you have the perfect reference samples, and it looks like we don't have them yet. Maybe we'll never have them to model East European ancestry as neatly as West European ancestry.

The worst affected are probably the Uralic groups from around the Urals, like the Mari, Mansi and Udmurts.

I could have corrected this problem when designing the G25, but didn't, because I wanted to see if the right reference samples eventually came along. If and when they do, they should be very informative about the origins of Eastern European and West Siberian ethnic groups.

Rob said...

@ Archie

''You do not know this, that's for sure''

Maybe you don't, but that's not surprising. We have data of slight WHG shift & EEF arriving in Dnieper ; and obviously this is from the west.
As I said, its HGs (I2a2a1b) from Tisza-Dniester region; so you and others here (e.g. Sam) keep claiming that it means EEF from Balkans must mean you're a bit simple

Rob said...

@ Davidski


I can't obtain that article you linked about the Caucasus, I even tried to pay ..
Heres another one, however. ''The new data on the Neolithic of the North-Western Caucasus from Mezmaiskaya cave''

The evidence for settlement is patchy, that's the issue; not a ''complete absence''.
The other issue, c.f. Leonovas suggestions is that stone implements aren't super sensitive for chronology. E.g. late paleolithic bullet cores were still being used in Neolithic

Anyhow, future research might uncover more data; but it seems not unreasonable to perceive some sort of interaction between 'Meso-neolithic' EHG & CHG groups but as to the exact circumstances, they are still tbd

Tetris said...

@Matt

Globular Amphora doesn't work for modern East Europeans, but if you try with something like HUN_ALPc_I_MN it may work better. The Romanian Mesolithic sample also works well as HG.

Rob said...

@ Weure
This is actually an English speaking forum ; some kind of basic standards are required
But in your haste to virtue signal you’ve largely missed the point

Anonymous said...

@Rob "Maybe you don't, but that's not surprising."

Obviously you do not know. The WHG part of the Dnieper-Donets culture was not from the Balkan Neolithic society. The EEF later came from the Tripolians who spread to the Dnieper, from the exchange of women, which is well described by Kotova. But how do you can know that. You say a lot, but always incorrectly.


Rob said...

@ Archie

“The WHG part of the Dnieper-Donets culture was not from the Balkan Neolithic society

Lol clap clap genius WHG aren’t from Neolithic
So for the 4th time; Tizsa- Dniester network ; but far closer to Balkan Neolithic than the Volga
If you can’t speak English; don’t post ; or at least get Azrat to translate for you

Anonymous said...

Rob said...
" Lol clap clap genius WHG aren’t from Neolithic
So for the 4th time; Tizsa- Dniester network
If you can’t speak English; don’t post ; or at least get Azrat to translate for you "{}

You don’t write English at all, you just mumble. Your phrases are loud and meaningless and they are not written for people and not in English. You don’t even know how to read.

Andrzejewski said...

@Davidski “Although minor ancestry of this type later shows up in the Huns.“

Is that the source of Hap Q in Huns?

Andrzejewski said...

@Mardi @Matt @Archi @Rob “Globular Amphora doesn't work for modern East Europeans, but if you try with something like HUN_ALPc_I_MN it may work better. The Romanian Mesolithic sample also works well as HG.”

Of course, because Poles are NOT from GAC at all: their EEF farmer component is largely from CT expanding to the East and mixing with Steppe groups, their HG WHG is from Baltic HG/Narva. The myth that @Samuel Andrews propagated regarding the alleged centrality of GAC to the creation of Indo-European groups is nothing more than it, a sheer myth. Farmers in Poles and Balkan Slavs are clearly from Cucuteni not Globular, which are much less WHG-saturated, and the I2a1a in Germanics stems from TRB/Funnelbeaker mixing with indigenous Erteboelle.

Rob said...

Proto-Slavs expanded much too late for any sweeping claims of GAC vs whatever else ancestry . I’m not really following that discussion tbh

Gabriel said...

@Andrzejewski

Are you suggesting that Balto-Slavs come from Potapovka? Or that Western Europeans and Bell Beakers do not share ancestry with CWC?

Anonymous said...

@Andrzejewski
I don’t know what it think there is, but your assumption of a special connection between the Balto-Slavs and Tripolye does not make sense. It is just a fantasy.
Narva is always closer than the Globular Amphora to all northern Europeans.

D-stats

= Mbuti.DG Lithuanian Lithuania_EMN_Narva Poland_GAC.SG -0.03317 -10.4
= Mbuti.DG Russian Lithuania_EMN_Narva Poland_GAC.SG -0.02806 -8.9
= Mbuti.DG Polish.DG Lithuania_EMN_Narva Poland_GAC.SG -0.02596 -5.5
= Mbuti.DG Ukrainian Lithuania_EMN_Narva Poland_GAC.SG -0.02354 -7.2
= Mbuti.DG CEU.SG Lithuania_EMN_Narva Poland_GAC.SG -0.01793 -6.0
= Mbuti.DG English Lithuania_EMN_Narva Poland_GAC.SG -0.01750 -5.6
= Mbuti.DG French Lithuania_EMN_Narva Poland_GAC.SG -0.01195 -4.0

= Mbuti.DG Estonia_EMN_Narva Lithuania_EMN_Narva Poland_GAC.SG -0.12001 -21.9
= Mbuti.DG Poland_TRB.SG Lithuania_EMN_Narva Poland_GAC.SG 0.00766 1.8
= Mbuti.DG Sweden_TRB_MN.SG Lithuania_EMN_Narva Poland_GAC.SG 0.00336 0.6

= Mbuti.DG Russian.DG Poland_TRB.SG Poland_GAC.SG -0.00259 -0.6
= Mbuti.DG Ukrainian Poland_TRB.SG Poland_GAC.SG 0.00000 0.0
= Mbuti.DG Polish.DG Poland_TRB.SG Poland_GAC.SG -0.00268 -0.6
= Mbuti.DG Lithuanian Poland_TRB.SG Poland_GAC.SG 0.00131 0.4
= Mbuti.DG French Poland_TRB.SG Poland_GAC.SG -0.00005 -0.0
= Mbuti.DG English Poland_TRB.SG Poland_GAC.SG 0.00023 0.1
= Mbuti.DG CEU.SG Poland_TRB.SG Poland_GAC.SG 0.00090 0.3

Davidski said...

@Archi

D-stats like that won't tell you whether Balto-Slavs have any Trypillian ancestry.

All you're seeing there is that Narva is a more attractive option for them, and there are two main reasons for this:

- D-stats tend to pick out samples that have less complex ancestry so that they sit on the extreme of the mixture cline, or something like that (for a more technical explanation see Nick Patterson's comment HERE)

- Balto-Slavs have a lot of hunter-gatherer ancestry and most of this is Narva-related.

Anonymous said...

@Davidski "- Balto-Slavs have a lot of hunter-gatherer ancestry and most of this is Narva-related."

D-stats: "Narva is always closer than the Globular Amphora to all northern Europeans."

"- D-stats tend to pick out samples that have less complex ancestry"

Why complex? It is simple distance D4 (scaled F4). It doesn't choose anything.


"D-stats like that won't tell you whether Balto-Slavs have any Trypillian ancestry."

I’m talking about a completely unsubstantiated Andrzejewski's assumption, which is just pure fantasy.

Samuel Andrews said...

@Davidski, And Unetice doesn't have Balto-Slav drift. So, I don't know how currently published Unetice could be your guys direct ancestor. Maybe, some Unetice were. Some Unetice had R1b some R1a, maybe most had R1a. The extra hunter gatherer admix in Balto-Slavs was picked up in Baltic States, where Unetice lived. So.....

Samuel Andrews said...

Where Unetice *never* lived....

Samuel Andrews said...

@Andre,
"@Samuel Andrews propagated regarding the alleged centrality of GAC to the creation of Indo-European groups"

I never said that. What, I've been saying is GAC is the main farmer group Corded Ware admixed with. There is lots of H1b1, H1b2 in Balto-Slavs today. Both have been found in GAC. Looks like a direct link. Also GAC's very specific Y Chromsome I2a2a1b2 is found at low frequences in Germany today. So, looks like GAC contributed to a lot of modern Europeans.

Andrzejewski said...

@Archi “I’m talking about a completely unsubstantiated Andrzejewski's assumption, which is just pure fantasy.”

I’ve never said that. I think it was Rob.

@Sam The shift from Unetice to Hallstatt involved a Scythian-like elite infusion from the Steppe

Andrzejewski said...

@Samuel “I never said that. What, I've been saying is GAC is the main farmer group Corded Ware admixed with. There is lots of H1b1, H1b2 in Balto-Slavs today. Both have been found in GAC. Looks like a direct link. Also GAC's very specific Y Chromsome I2a2a1b2 is found at low frequences in Germany today. So, looks like GAC contributed to a lot of modern Europeans.”

I do remember that you had posted a guest commentary in 2017 in which you attributed blond hair and other Nordic traits so admired by some 1930s Germans as representing the “purest” of Steppe PIEs to West Asian derived Anatolian Farmers via Globular Amphorae Culture, all the way to modern Northern Euros. You alluded to the GAC allegedly being the “ur-blondisch” and even contrasted that with Yamnaya, who were presumed to be darker pigmented than previously. Turns out that many GAC members and families found slaughtered in mass graves had dark pigmentation while populations closest to the “pure” PIE ideal such as Norwegians (50%) have a much lighter pigmentation than Southern Europeans.

Davidski said...

@Andrzejewski

Stick to discussing the data.

Rob said...

@ Andrze

No I didn’t say anything about Slavs; you guys aren’t anywhere near ready for that


Btw you can’t remember what you just said 30 seconds ago? (because Poles are NOT from GAC at all: their EEF farmer component is largely from CT expanding to the East)

Arza said...

@ Rob
No I didn’t say anything about Slavs; you guys aren’t anywhere near ready for that

Of course we are ready. Tell us everything!

Rob said...

@ Arza
Well you cracked it already , didn’t you say ?

Arza said...

Please?
I'm interested in your opinion.

Aram said...

Davidski

I want to get a good model for Kets. But I can't get low distance even after adding a lot off ancient pops. What is Your opinion. Why is it so? The same for Nganassan.
Target: Ket
Distance: 8.9985% / 0.08998464
40.0 RUS_Baikal_EBA
25.8 RUS_Baikal_N
11.8 RUS_Samara_HG
10.4 RUS_Karelia_HG
6.0 Anatolia_Tepecik_Ciftlik_N
5.0 RUS_Tyumen_HG
1.0 KAZ_Botai
0.0 Baltic_EST_Narva
0.0 Corded_Ware_Baltic
0.0 Han
0.0 IRN_Seh_Gabi_C
0.0 IRN_Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2
0.0 IRN_Tepe_Hissar_C
0.0 Kura-Araxes_ARM_Talin
0.0 NPL_Chokhopani_2700BP
0.0 RUS_Afanasievo
0.0 RUS_AfontovaGora3
0.0 RUS_Devils_Gate_Cave_N
0.0 RUS_Kolyma_Meso
0.0 RUS_Progress_En
0.0 RUS_Sintashta_MLBA


Target: Nganassan
Distance: 18.1448% / 0.18144846
99.8 RUS_Baikal_EBA
0.2 RUS_Devils_Gate_Cave_N
0.0 Anatolia_Tepecik_Ciftlik_N
0.0 Baltic_EST_Narva
0.0 Corded_Ware_Baltic
0.0 Han
0.0 IRN_Seh_Gabi_C
0.0 IRN_Shahr_I_Sokhta_BA2
0.0 IRN_Tepe_Hissar_C
0.0 KAZ_Botai
0.0 Kura-Araxes_ARM_Talin
0.0 NPL_Chokhopani_2700BP
0.0 RUS_Afanasievo
0.0 RUS_AfontovaGora3
0.0 RUS_Baikal_N
0.0 RUS_Karelia_HG
0.0 RUS_Kolyma_Meso
0.0 RUS_Progress_En
0.0 RUS_Samara_HG
0.0 RUS_Sintashta_MLBA
0.0 RUS_Tyumen_HG

Ryan said...

@Aram - I'd be the problem is we just don't have the right ancient samples yet.

For the Kets I'd highly suspect their original homeland is somewhere under the Bering Sea too so... yah.

weure said...

'L51 probably moved out of the steppe or forest steppe into Central Europe north of the Carpathians with early Corded Ware groups.

That's what all of the evidence that we have is showing, including the L51 in the published and as yet unpublished Corded Ware samples, as well as the significant Globular Amphora and TRB ancestry in early Bell Beakers.

The eastern cultural traits of the Bell Beakers can be explained by their heavy contacts with groups from the Danube region and the Balkans. I talked about this here:

https://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2019/10/the-balkan-connection.html"
No matter what any us is hoping to see, we'll all have to eventually accept reality, and that reality is looking like what I just described.'

Indeed. In add you proved that the 'Dutch model' is most likely.
See also for example R1b L21, it's no coincidence to me that this peaks nowadays in one of the old hotspots of the BB: the Veluwe, see the deep red zone in about the middle of the country.
https://www.mupload.nl/img/t1mztobvm6un.07.47.png

They also spread the 'stigma' of the BB the planocciputal steephead, mostly along the men of the BB. according to Gerhardt (1976) this is most probably due to a kind of endogamy along the BB. This steephead became in decline after the BB, but still is visable in for example the Dutch population (I'm one of those).


Matt said...

@Mardi, yes, ALPc works well and other Hungarian samples of that type. Barplots with that included: https://imgur.com/a/9NLMQB6

(These also include the use of Early CWC from the Baltic average, I4629 and Plinkaigalis242 the earliest samples. That has subtly more EHG, so wipes out extra EHG for East Europe if that was some complaint and in any case fits better for most populations in this panel with no need for Yamnaya_Samara.)

vAsiSTha said...

@davidski said "Botai, Dali_EBA and other similar groups went extinct. You know, like the dodo."

Hehe, i know you dont test or choose to ignore hypotheses which you don't like. Dali_EBA lived on in Dali_MLBA.

Dali_MLBA
Oy_Dzhaylau_MLBA - 0.832 +- 0.026
Dali_EBA - 0.168 +- 0.026
chisq 15.15 tail prob 0.1757
Result file



Davidski said...

@vAsiSTha

Dali_EBA lived on in Dali_MLBA.

Minor Dali_EBA admix from a few stragglers persisted for a while.

So yeah, obviously you've got a very strong hypothesis there for the appearance of Tocharian languages in the Tarim Basin. Or not.

vAsiSTha said...

Now to the much more interesting question of the source of the steppe ancestry in Swat Valley IA (SPGT).

InPe + Steppe_mlba is a massive fail. Narsimhan paper has p-values 0.003 and 0.006 for left pops (SPGT, Western_steppe_mlba/central_steppe_mlba, Onge). He makes it pass and justifies it using statistical gimmickry (Bonferroni correction).

That model also does not answer 3 very pertinent questions
1. Are we supposed to believe that Sintashta_mlba like population jumped over BMAC without mixing and came into swat?
2. Why so much dearth of R1a in swat if sintashta_mlba was 100pc R1a?
3. Where did the Levant y haplogroup E1b1b1b2 (2nd highest freq in swat) come from?

I think i have the answer.

In the qpAdm i have removed 1 sample from the Indus periphery 11 because it is an outlier. I8728 from SiS dated 2500-2600bce has a huge amount of AASI compared to the 10 others. This person likely was a migrant from the comparatively southern (but still bordering pakistan) region of Gujarat and surrounds.

Armenia_MBA are 4 samples from 1900-1200bce. 1 of which is E1b1b1b2a.
Molaly_LBA is from east Kazakshtan close to Tarim basin and Dali area, arch dated to 1400-1000bce. Its ancestry is unique, steppe_mlba shifted towards Shamanka_N (east asian), minor Botai and heavily towards south asia.
SPGT - 85 samples from Swat valley IA

SPGT
InPe - 0.597+-0.022
Armenia_MBA - 0.124 +-0.020
Molaly_LBA - 0.279 +-0.028
chisq 12.64 tail prob 0.244
Output file

Sintashta_MLBA instead of Molaly_LBA is a big fail with p-value in power of e-5.
Output file

Oy_Dzhaylau_MLBA is from the east Kazakh area. It is also a big fail in place of Molaly.
Output file

Dali_MBA instead of Molaly gives p-value of 0.037, better than the above 2.
Output file

It is clear that SPGT requires some east asian (Shamanka_N related) as well as Botai related ancestry, which Molaly provides.

In summation:
1. Armenia_MBA type ancestry came to Swat between 1900-1200bce, likely in the early half of 2nd mill bce. Brought the Levant E1b1b1b2 y haplogroup to Swat.
2. Next, Molaly type LBA steppe ancestry came to Swat through inner asian mountain corridor post 1500bce. This is the reason why BMAC has little admixture from the steppe, as latest bmac samples in Narsimhan paper are only till 1300-1400bce. This ancestry likely brought the couple of Q1a and Q1b samples we see in SPGT.
3. The idea that Sintashta-MLBA type people jumped over BMAC and into Swat is BS.

Davidski said...

New paper at the EJHG on the ancestry of different Jewish groups...

High-resolution inference of genetic relationships among Jewish populations

Nothing really new in it though, and the dataset isn't available.

Aram said...

Davidski

The LBA IA in that region of Azerbaijan is called Khojali-Kedabek culture. It has other names. It is somewhat poorly defined culture with little literature in English.
Here is a link on a Russian wiki page.
https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ходжалы-кедабекская_культура

Whatever their identity was they were overrun by Scythians. My pet theory is ( and not only mine ) that Alans formed in that region of Azerbaijan from Scythians that came from Central Asia. We have ancient DNA of Alans and they are quite Southern. That region is also called Aran which can become Alan.

----
According to some legends and ancient sources, such as Movses Kagankatvatsi, (Albanian) Arran or Arhan[7] was the name of the legendary founder of Caucasian Albania, who in some versions was son of Noah's son Yafet (Japheth) and also, possibly the eponym of the ancient Caucasian Albanians (Aghvan),[8] and/or the Iranian tribe known as Alans (Alani)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arran_(Caucasus)

Aram said...

Additionaly NEC people were present in that region. The LBA-IA culture called Kayakent-Kharachoy was almost certainly their culture.It was more northern than the Khojaly- Kedabek culture which had that equid burials.
Again a Russian link

https://bigenc.ru/archeology/text/2054944

Later in that territory a Caucasian Albania kingdom appears while more Southern regions of modern Azerbaijan become Iranian/Persian and Armenian.

Matt said...

Quick PAST3 tip/hack for doing projected PCA using reprocessed Global25 data (if you wanted to do it in that software rather than Vahaduo).

To make a projected PCA, first define the group you want as the "Source" for the projection as in a single Group, while the projected samples are each in their own groups (e.g. 1,2,3,4,5,n): https://imgur.com/a/7T6crHG
(the red dots are the source for the projection, the black crosses are the projected samples).

Then select PCA and select the "Within Group" option before computing : https://imgur.com/a/FR3nWb2

That will give you a reprocessed projected PCA, in which the Source are the basis for projection (because you've "tricked" PAST3 into defining it's PCA only by the only set for which there is Within Group variation).

Example here that I've kind of tried to set up to complement my above Vahaduo runs on this thread (version with and without proximal North African component): https://imgur.com/a/TxX8h1w.

Seems to a OK-ish job of lining up directions of present day genetic differentiation which can be defined in ancient terms.

Full PAST3 input data datasheet in case you want to test: https://pastebin.com/JGemdqgu

Full PAST3 output datasheet: https://pastebin.com/t0MZEvgB

Anonymous said...

@Davidski @all

In datasets, there are data sets marked .DG and .SG and simply without these marks. Which is best to use .DG or .SG or simply ? For example, what is better Mbuti or Mbuti.DG?

Davidski said...

@Archi

It seems to me that all of the samples marked with DG are diploid genome sequences, which means they're very high quality samples and the best ones to use.

I think SG stands for shotgun genome, so these samples are going to be of variable quality.

If you can help it, you should probably avoid running formal stats analyses with the SG samples, and instead use the DG samples and those sequenced with the SNP capture method that produces pseudo-haploid sequences especially designed for formal stats.

vAsiSTha said...

Mallick Nature 2016 has .DG samples which are of data type "shotgun data with diploid genotype calls"

So i dont think SG stands for shotgun, DG should stand for diploid genotype.

Matt said...

@Arza, possibly may be of interest to you.

Used proportions from Vahaduo and present-day and ancient populations to estimate extra-HG ancestor for Balto-Slavic populations (basically assume everything else is well represented and, then solve the missing Balto-Slavic HG variable, and slightly adjust for overshooting).

Pastebin: https://pastebin.com/6mjMTAay

(The simulated "average" and 5 simulated individuals).

Seems to have the right properties of being extremely opposed to El_Miron, ITA_Grotta_Continenza_Meso, Iberia_Northwest_Meso and Iberian ancient farmers, while being at the right place on the WSHG-WHG cline as well, and present day clines. See if it ever gets validated by adna or not.

(Note on that simulation is I was suprised you actually have to include very large numbers of present day individuals to avoid subtle spurious correlations).

Arza said...

@ Matt
It looks really good. Here is how it plots on the North Euro PCA:
https://i.postimg.cc/VvcQ0qg2/BHG.png

As you can see this thing is very real as it sits more or less at the cross-section of 3 clines (AG3-EHG, Villabruna-Iron_Gates, CWC-Baltic_BA).

Matt said...

@arza, cheers. Probably still going to be imperfect as a reference, but seems reasonably plausible that such a population existed rather than this signal being a product of drift that only happened once a Narva like HG population with no detectable differences from the populations we know mixed with an early Corded Ware population *then* drifted. I still wonder if such a population could have been (not from doubting that it is possible but just because no clear sign of it yet showing up other than in later samples where the drift explanation is plausible). Maybe one day soon we will get an actual sample that matches the general prediction or something. (Of course I think it would be cooler to have another slightly differently evolving HG population than is distinctive in today's terms rather than just late, intense drift, but it will be what it will be!).

(Some distance comparison plots using this SIM and G25 data - https://imgur.com/a/yELL3bB . It is fairly symmetrically related to populations "should" be a clade with and assymetrically related to other populations would not be expected to be a clade to).

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