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Saturday, January 19, 2019

Dutch Beakers: like no other Beakers


In my last two blog posts I tried to explain why the so called Bell Beakers of prehistoric Europe cannot be confidently derived in any significant way from the Yamnaya population of the Carpathian Basin, and are more likely to have been an offshoot, in varying degrees, of the Single Grave or Corded Ware people of the Lower Rhine region (see here and here).

To help drive my message home, below is a series of new Principal Component Analysis (PCA) plots that illustrate the unique position of Dutch Beakers from the Lower Rhine relative to the Corded Ware population of Germany and all the other Beaker groups sampled to date. The relevant datasheet is available here.

The Dutch Beakers don't exactly sit between the Corded Ware and the other Beaker samples, but generally at the apex of their clusters, suggesting to me that they're not a mixture between Corded Ware and one or more of the other Beaker groups, but rather, as per my recent argumentation, a genetically homogeneous, relatively unique and thus long-standing Corded Ware-related population that may have contributed significant gene flow to the other Beaker groups.

Please note also that all of these outcomes can be confirmed with various types of formal statistics. I know this because I've done it.


See also...

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

126 comments:

Matt said...

Autosomally, it's a good argument. (As said before, the archaeology seems so contested and the uniparental picture hard to put a weight on so hard to know what to do with those).

Needs testing with many more Corded Ware samples of course, which should eventually catch any y-dna haplogroup that's rare among known samples.

One thing I would just caution about these samples though (probably raised before) is that they're not very early (other than one) and there aren't very many of them, compared to some of the other sets.

All Beaker samples used by Olalde, ordered by date: https://imgur.com/a/j9TmAK9 (Netherlands samples in bold magenta).

You should see few outliers with smaller sample sizes, and possibly more homogenity in these samples may be at least partly attributable to more time to be admixed into an even distribution.

Autosomally they well could be a good proxy for whichever group admixed into Britain and other Beakers (and this is how Reich lab used them), but they're quite late themselves and aren't themselves plausible as ancestors to the other samples.

Davidski said...

@Matt

Yep, that's why in my last blog post I had a look how well the Dutch and British males securely classified as belonging to R1b-P312 clustered together, and they were basically identical, which agrees very well with archeological data suggesting that British Beakers were the descendants of Dutch Beakers, as well as of the late and post Single Grave and Corded Ware groups from around the Lower Rhine.

A Tentative Reclassification of British Beaker Pottery in the Light of Recent Research

weure said...

@Matt " Autosomally they well could be a good proxy for whichever group admixed into Britain and other Beakers (and this is how Reich lab used them), but they're quite late themselves and aren't themselves plausible as ancestors to the other samples."

Ok, autosomal they could well be, but too late? The point of David is that Dutch Beakers aren't derived of another BB source population but from the Single Grave Culture or the Protruding Foot Beaker Culture, that's from about 2800 BC. I guess that's early enough....

Matt said...

@weure, that may be correct, I think more early samples from Netherlands and more Corded Ware samples and Single Grave samples would help firm it up.

On the homogenity and time and sample size, of course, I am not saying that the heterogenity of Dutch Beakers relative to the sample size is not quite low, but even in Iberia in general you will see more homogenity over time:

https://imgur.com/a/iH81Fq3

As well the Netherlands is a small place compared to the whole British Isles or Iberia and samples also from a single site.

Davidski said...

@Matt

As well the Netherlands is a small place compared to the whole British Isles or Iberia and samples also from a single site.

True, but what if other Dutch Beaker pops show highly heterogeneous genetic origins?

That still leaves the community from Oostwoud-Tuithoorn as an example of a homogeneous group with the type of more westerly Corded Ware-like ancestry that all of the other steppe-admixed Beakers have in varying degrees.

weure said...

@Matt @DavidskiMore diversity may show up. But archeologist are since long time hinting to a connection between SGC/PTB and the Bell Beaker

Prof Kooijmans (1974):
https://www.mupload.nl/img/7x4rnh2hyg.05.30.png

Prof Fokkens:
'Since there appeared to have been a continuous development of Single Grave Beakers into Bell Beakers, and since settlements with Bell Beakers were present in the Netherlands, the Rhine-Meuse delta is seen as one of the regions where the Bell Beaker developed.'

Gaska said...

@ Davidski

I think it's a good job, but certainly the problem is the distance between what I call the outlier of Oostwoud and the rest of Dutch BBs. Right now it seems that the Dutchs are descendants of the British. You also have to bear in mind that some of the British BBs do not have much steppe ancestry and that the migrations to the isles come from several places in continental Europe.

I imagine that if you are defending this in other forums more than one will be taking tranquilizers to assimilate the genetic distance between Hungary and the rest of European BBs. Good luck.

In any case it is to be grateful for the study you have done, many people do nothing and only criticize. This is also data that nobody can refute.

weure said...

@Diego "I think it's a good job, but certainly the problem is the distance between what I call the outlier of Oostwoud and the rest of Dutch BBs."

Oostwoud isn't an outlier to the rest of Dutch SGC/PTB nor to BB. At least not in archeological sense.

There are tree SGC/PTB AND BB hotspots above the Rhine.

1. Most NW( in the Oostwoud area,)= West Frisia

2. Most NE= Drenthe

3. Central= Veluwe

Here the Single Grave situation (Beckerman 2015):
https://www.mupload.nl/img/cplojw9.png

Single Grave and AOO Beakers (Fokkens 2012):
https://www.mupload.nl/img/9c0ttr.png

BB NE Dutch (Drenthe) BB Veluwe (Fokkens 2012)
https://www.mupload.nl/img/7bevtgv7lrrh.png

You see.

Oostwoud is not unique in all the three hotspots the same patterns from SGC/PTB >BB. Drenthe and the Veluwe are even more tied to the whole SGC/PTB area (in NW Germany) than Oostwoud was!

Of course the proof of the pudding is in the eating. More samples are needed.

But until then David has IMO a strong case here!

Gaska said...

@ weure

I read that the problem in the Netherlands is that the salinity of the earth destroys the bones, in fact in Twello there is only the shadow of the skeleton of the person who was buried there. Then it is very difficult to find human remains. When I speak of outlier I do not mean archaeological terms but to the certain fact that after it there is a gap of 300 years in the Netherlands that will be very difficult to fill.

This lack of samples serve to realize that many of the conclusions that have been drawn from the first work of Olalde are very hasty. In France there are hundreds of skeletons of BB burials that could be analyzed and nobody has yet done so.

I agree that it is a strong case, which proves that the further north, the more steppe ancestry, the individuals related to BB culture have. And this is fundamental because the direction of the steppe ancestry increase is not towards the east that would have to be normal if we look for the origin of this culture or for L51/P312 in the Pontic Steppe. steppes.



Gabriel said...

I feel like if this is true then we’re like in the period a lot of people refused to believe R1b wasn’t native to Western Europe and radiated out of the Basque Country. So are Central Asians Basque?

@Diego

Dutch Bell Beakers can’t be derived from British ones, which is not chronologically congruent at all and makes no sense unless they came from what, the moon? It’s the other way around.

Modern Dutch are also mostly derived from later Celtic and especially Germanic migrations from East-Central Europe and Scandinavia, respectively, which is why they’re somewhat similar to the British.

Matt said...

@Davidski, yes, it would leave them like that, but for most samples rather a late or mid-way one in the timeline of Beaker.

@Diego, I think most of the conclusions of Olalde will stand (that Beaker typical R1b is found first with the Northern Beaker people and most plausibly is associated with ancestry from north and east in Iberia, and that there was no sign of a pulse of Iberian Chalcolithic ancestry out from Iberia to accompany Beakers there).

But it will be good if we can eventually see models of population replacement in Britain, etc. which use samples which are older than the ones being modelled, rather than samples which are predominantly younger. (As it makes more sense and is more secure in the general case to model younger samples with older ones than vice versa.)

Folker said...

@Diego
Dutch BBs were not descendants of British BBs. I don’t see how you could think solething like that.

George said...


As stated, British and Dutch Beakers are almost identical and are linked to the Rhine Beaker culture.

distance%=0.7217
Beaker_Britain
"Beaker_The_Netherlands" 95.45
"England_N" 4.55

I wonder how much of an effect disease/plague had on an relatively isolated population contributed to the rapid replacement of the British neolithic population by Beaker folk.

As an aside: Mining of tin and gold in Cornwall, by people of "Beaker" heritage lead to trade from Iberia to Scandinavia and formed part of a Channel Bronze Age. Later, in ~1600 BC, gold and tin from Cornwall were used in the Nebra sky disk.

See page 13 of
https://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/BAR1_2008_6_Sheridan_c.pdf
for a discussion on the desire for metal.

This paper also mentions some of the issues accepting a migration of people into Britain vs the indigenous development of Beaker culture in 2008.

Gaska said...


@Folker, Them meee

I am obviously joking, although the truth is that many British BBs are older than those of Oostwoud where all but one belong to the Bronze Age. In any case as they marched to the islands, they could return, or someone can say for sure that there were no round trips ?

@ Matt,

Wait a bit and see the dates of Olalde's new paper, more than one person will have a heart attack. I do not agree with you nor with Olalde, there are evident samples of Iberian migrations to other BB regions

Gabriel said...

Also you can’t look away from the fact British Beakers overlap with Steppe_MLBA and Corded Ware, even more so than the Dutch, though that’s obviously because of more samples, but that tells us something.

epoch said...

@Matt

"and that there was no sign of a pulse of Iberian Chalcolithic ancestry out from Iberia to accompany Beakers there"

Olalde hasn't got any Beaker samples from Brittany, which is also a hotspot for Maritime Beakers and also had communal burials, which seem to point to EEF beakers. RMS2 posted this map on AG with communal BB burials versus single BB burials:

https://anthrogenica.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=28193&d=1509904986

Might be a route to a contact zone there.

Bernard, in the same AG thread stated that the 4 oldest BB samples from France are: Achenheim and Hégenheim from Alsace, Flévy from Lorraine and Blignicourt from Aube.
From those the Alsace beakers are Maritime and the one from Blignicourt, Champagne is AOC. AOC being considered a SGC development by some.

Rich S. said...

The Dutch Model of Bell Beaker origins is that BB evolved out of Corded Ware Single Grave Protruding Foot Beaker (PFB for short). The ancient autosomal dna seems to support that. Now we need some y-dna from PFB, which is a distinct Dutch subset of Single Grave.

epoch said...

@Rich S.

"Now we need some y-dna from PFB, which is a distinct Dutch subset of Single Grave"

That will be a tad troublesome. There aren't any straight forward PFB skeletal remains. There is one male burial from Mienakker, a confirmed CW site, but his burial completely unlike anything like we know. The evidence points to a funeral platform where he was left. The other is a woman. Both are from the same area as Oostwoud.

To the best of my knowledge (which may be based on too old information, mind you) every other burial was in sandy soils, which are acidic and dissolve bones.

Rich S. said...

I guess we have to hope that a good, intact male PFB skeleton turns up.

Ric Hern said...

So what causes people in an area to become homogeneous ? Isolation due to war or other conflict with other groups. Distance from other groups. Culturally different practices and religion. Selfquarantine, Etc. But it all boils down to a survival strategy within an area with many external challenges, I think.

Tesmos said...

@Matt, Davidski and Them meee,

Perhaps a bit off topic, but how similar are the modern Dutch people and Dutch Bell Beakers? Do the modern Dutch look like they are largely derived from the Dutch BB's?

Davidski said...

@Tesmos

Modern Dutch are overall more southern.

Davidski said...

@All

It seems like the most genetically eastern German Beaker in my PCA is the singleton from the Rhineland, not any of the individuals from Bavaria or even the Mittelelbe-Saale area.

Beaker_Central_Rhineland:I5836

Beaker_Central_Mittelelbe-Saale:I0108
Beaker_Central_Mittelelbe-Saale:I0111
Beaker_Central_Mittelelbe-Saale:I0112
Beaker_Central_Mittelelbe-Saale:I0113
Beaker_Central_Mittelelbe-Saale:I0805

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LsHG8vrk0Wn8tqRW82s5baSmI6bAYbTm/view?usp=sharing

Gabriel said...

Could Corded Ware in Alsace be also R1b-rich?

Davidski said...

There's a paper coming, hopefully soon, with lots of Corded Ware and Bell Beaker samples from the Swiss Plateau and nearby parts of Germany. But I don't know what to expect there, because the Swiss Beakers look very mixed compared to the Dutch Beakers.

The abstract is here...

SMBE 2018 abstracts

Gabriel said...

Hopefully the roots of Beakers can be discerned more easily with these samples, especially from Germany.

Davidski said...

@All

Here are a couple of pretty tight qpAdm models for the Dutch Beakers, limited to UDG-treated samples...

Beaker_The_Netherlands
Blatterhole_HG 0.033±0.012
CWC_Germany 0.835±0.019
France_MLN 0.132±0.018

chisq 9.158
tail prob 0.607301
Full output

Beaker_The_Netherlands
Blatterhole_HG 0.036±0.015
CWC_Czech 0.848±0.025
France_MLN 0.116±0.023

chisq 8.205
tail prob 0.694792
Full output

weure said...

@ Davidski 'Modern Dutch are overall more southern.'

Overall yes. But in that there is a distinction between North and South Dutch.

I'm of North Dutch descent. In most admixtures I get pretty Nordic results.

Compared to the Dutch Bell Beaker in my result CWC lost 10% to MLN (in that sense a southwards kind of shift you mentioned). And of course we have the effect of migrations in Bronze and Iron Age.

But still I think there is a Dutch BB= SGC/PFB component in my auDNA.

For 90% Dutch BB?? ;)))

Pen= 0
Fit= 3,13
CWC Germany 74.17
MLN France 21.67
HG Blaterhole 4.17

weure said...

To compare with the Rhineland example Davidski mentioned above: Beaker_Central_Rhineland:I5836

Pen=0
Fit=3,01

CWC Germany 80.83
MLN France 15
Blatterhole 4.17

epoch said...

My idea that there are just two Single Grave Culture samples from the Netherlands appears to be flat out wrong. In 1990 a graveyard on the former island of Schokland (The site is called "P14") was found which yielded skeletal remains of Swifterband, possibly TRB and certainly of SCG, buried with both Protruding Foot Beakers as well as All Over Ornamented beakers. If DNA could successfully be extracted this might be the jackpot.

Picture of one of the SGC burials:
http://www.schoklanddoordeeeuwenheen.nl/graf-P14.htm

Summary in English of the site:
https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/1140316/101772_13.pdf

Gabriel said...

@epoch

We have to tell researchers.

Rich S. said...

It's interesting that the British Beakers appear to be so closely related to the Dutch Beakers. The dental isotopes of the Amesbury Archer indicate that he was probably born and raised in the Alpine region of southern Germany or Switzerland. "The Companion" (I2565 in Olalde et al) was buried just three meters away from the Archer. The two men shared an anomaly in the bones of their feet, which indicates they were closely related. The Companion is thus thought by many to be the Archer's son. The Companion's dental isotopes indicate that during his childhood he was taken or sent for several years to an environment like the one in which the Archer was born and raised.

So maybe the entire Rhine Basin from Switzerland to the Netherlands was used as a sort of super highway by these people. It certainly was a zone in which Corded Ware and Bell Beaker overlapped.

Gabriel said...

And possibly the Bell Beaker homeland, which would also make the Corded Ware homeland theirs too.

Ric Hern said...

@ Them meee

Wasn't the Corded Ware Homeland in Poland ?

Gabriel said...

@Ric Hern

Most likely, but that's kind of what I meant.

Rich S. said...

The ultimate Corded Ware homeland was the Pontic-Caspian steppe.

epoch said...

@Them meee

One of the advisors and co-writers of the Olalde Bell Beaker paper is Harry Fokkens, who is a moderate proponent of the Dutch Origin hypothesis. He is a professor at Leiden. It's inconceivable he doesn't know about this site.

Update: The samples seem very damaged and soft. This article in Dutch describes them. There are a lot of teeth found, though.

https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/1140308/101768_09.pdf

Gabriel said...

@Rich S.

They still most likely expanded from somewhere in Poland or western Ukraine, but yes, they are recent arrivals from the steppe, possibly displaced by Yamnaya. The amount of people who deny a Corded Ware or steppe origin for R1a-M417 or R1b-M269, though, is kind of sad.

Samuel Andrews said...

Anybody aware one of the British Beakers clusters with CWC_Germany? I2417, has R1b L21, and clusters with CWC_Germany. He's one of the most important Beaker samples.

How'd that happen? Why does he have more Steppe than other British Beakers. He's sort of low coverage but he is in G25.

Also, there was an abstract of an upcoming thesis with ancient DNA from France that says one of their Beaker genomes clusters with CWC_Germany.

weure said...

@rich the single grave/protruding foott beakers are related to for exempel the Danish SGC, the origin is not Swiss but more northeastwards, it was concentrated on the North European plain.

See
https://goo.gl/images/HcpMmY

Gabriel said...

@Samuel Andrews

Exactly what I pointed out

I'm pretty sure there was a Polish Beaker that was autosomally like Corded Ware, too.

Davidski said...

I don't think there are any Polish Beakers that overlap strongly with Corded Ware samples, unless we're talking about those on the edge of the Corded Ware cluster.

The most steppe admixed and Corded Ware-like Beakers are from The Netherlands and Britain, as well as one from the Rhine area in Germany.

I think this can be explained by less mixing between the Single Grave people and Neolithic farmers in the Lower Rhine area than in other parts of the Corded Ware complex, maybe because much of the land in this area wasn't very fertile and so less densely populated by farmers?

Thus, when the Rhine Beakers expanded in all directions, they took their high levels of steppe ancestry directly to Britain, and also increased the levels of steppe ancestry in many parts of the late and former Corded Ware complex, even as far east as Poland, where there was a lot of mixing between the Corded Ware people and farmers.

You can see these processes reflected in the PCA that I posted, because the British Beakers are almost identical to the Dutch Beakers, while the Polish Beakers form a cline that runs from the Dutch Beakers to Neolithic farmers.

The claim that Dutch and British Beakers have more steppe ancestry because there was a migration of Yamnaya people with R1b-L51 to Western Europe is BS. It'll never be confirmed with ancient DNA, because it never happened. In fact, what happened was that Beakers from Western Europe with R1b-L51 moved east into the Carpathian Basin and mixed with Yamnaya groups there.

The Yamnaya expansion basically stopped at the Tisza River in Hungary; west of the Tisza there were just cultures and populations with some Yamnaya influence and ancestry, like Mako and Vucedol, hence the R1b-Z2103 in that one Vucedol sample.

Gaska said...


@ Davidski- "The claim that Dutch and British Beakers have more steppe ancestry because there was a migration of Yamnaya people with R1b-L51 to Western Europe is BS. It'll never be confirmed with ancient DNA, because it never happened. In fact, what happened was that Beakers from Western Europe with R1b-L51 moved east into the Carpathian Basin and mixed with Yamnaya groups there" "The Yamnaya expansion basically stopped at the Tisza River in Hungary; west of the Tisza there were just cultures and populations with some Yamnaya influence and ancestry, like Mako and Vucedol, hence the R1b-Z2103 in that one Vucedol sample"

Those words are going to produce an earthquake but you're absolutely right.

DELENDA EST YAMNAYA

Davidski said...

@Diego

Those words are going to produce an earthquake but you're absolutely right.

Maybe in some quarters, but none of what I said changes the overall picture, which has now been described broadly but clearly in several major ancient DNA papers.

In other words, R1b-L51 isn't native to Western Europe; it arrived there with migrations from the steppe. And the fact that its main expansion point was probably the Lower Rhine region obviously doesn't change this.

Gaska said...

It is obvious that if the CWC has 75% of steppe ancestry and the BBC has lower percentages, it does not make any sense to bring more CHG from the steppes. There was already enough in Europe even from the Neolithic.

It seems to me that more than one is going to have to explain how they have REICHED certain conclusions.

Davidski said...

The Dutch and British Beakers have exactly the amounts of steppe ancestry expected under the model that their immediate ancestors were the most westerly Corded Ware people.

Steppe ancestry goes from almost 60% in West Frisian Beakers to just over 70% in Central German Corded Ware, and to around 90% in early Baltic Corded Ware.

Female exogamy between the West Frisian Beakers and German Corded Ware can't realistically explain the ~60% of steppe ancestry in the West Frisian Beakers.

It's actually much more likely that R1b-L51 will turn up in Hungarian Yamnaya than in any pre-Corded Ware Western European groups. Although that won't change anything I said.

Rich S. said...

@weure

But British Beakers are closely related to Dutch Beakers, and the Amesbury Archer's dental isotopes indicate he was born and raised in the Alpine region of South Germany or Switzerland.

Gabriel said...

What steppe group is most likely to be ancestral to Corded Ware?

Samuel Andrews said...

@Them mee, all

Seriously, I put together a thorough Bell Beaker reference. Every continental sample is included. There's no room for speculation anyway. I don't know why it takes so long for views to utilize stuff like this.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kGSHlyGZn9h9uJo_nF0k53Kjj5ZSYI4MiA-JC0B32tE/edit#gid=0

Davidski said...

By the way, I'm sure that once Northwestern Europe and Britain became linked to the Beaker network there were people from many parts of the Beaker realm migrating there. So I wouldn't be surprised to see Beaker remains turn up in Britain that seem to have origins as far away as Iberia, Poland or Hungary.

Davidski said...

@Them meee

Maybe Sredny Stog II, but it might end up being one of the Pit/Ochre grave (Repin or Yamnaya) groups.

Matt said...

@Sam, yeah, I think that's an interesting point that there are some few samples among the Brit Beakers who are very slightly outside the Dutch Beaker range (though really not by very much).

Combine that with the Dutch Beakers being predominantly later than the rest of their "Beaker Outside Iberia" (and really just all Beaker) set, and them having (not for want of trying I'd guess) relatively few samples in the interval 4700 - 4300 BP*. (Their British samples really peak after 4300 when Wikipdia describes "Beakers arrived in Britain around 4500 BP, declined in use around 4200–4100 BCE"). This does make me wonder if there isn't a possibility for the incoming groups to be a little steppe richer than the Dutch Beaker reference and a little more like CWG and then absorbed Neolithic women a little more.

Probably not by any huge amount though. All fairly small potatoes in the grand scheme of things.

*Reich's presentation of their dated British samples here, where I've added an annotation to make clearer where their data really begins and also begins to shows that stability over time: https://i.imgur.com/wfj0AX2.png

Gaska said...

If the Dutch BBs have not inherited their steppe ancestry because of a migration from Yamnaya, and at the same time L51 is not a native of Western Europe, what you mean is that the migrations occurred much earlier - Sredni Stog, Khvalinsk - because obviously Maykop has nothing to do with the Indo-European expansions. Now you only need someone to find L51 in the steppes before 3.300 BC. You need proof.

I do not know if people know that a very important branch of the WHG was R1b-P297, that is, totally Western, how do you think this autosomal component came to the steppes?

Gaska said...

How will you find L51 coming from the steppes in Hungarian Yamnaya, if there is no L51 in Yamnaya? L51 could only have arrived there from Germany.

And not necessarily from the CWC but from any of the German Neolithic cultures.

Rich S. said...

Those Latvian P297s lived several thousand years after the mrca of P297, so they aren't the source of later M269>L23. Besides, even if they were, their descendants had plenty of time to arrive on the steppe to be in on the genesis of PIE.

There are a couple of good sized rivers that flow out of Russia and across Latvia to drain into the Baltic. Not hard to imagine hunter-gatherers using such river valleys to travel in search of game.

Rich S. said...

@Diego

Don't let the fact that no R1b-M269 of any kind, let alone L51, has turned up in Neolithic Europe stop you, or the fact that it has never turned up without steppe dna. Never mind that it is missing from Europe west of the steppe until about 2500 BC, and that's about the time Indo-European languages and culture showed up, as well. Don't let the fact that when L51 does finally show up, it does so in the steppe-derived cultures Kurgan Bell Beaker and Proto-Nagyrev bother you either.

Davidski said...

@Matt

I'm skeptical that earlier West Frisian Beakers had more steppe ancestry than those that were sampled, because the earliest of these individuals actually has slightly more forager than steppe ancestry than the West Frisian Beaker average.

So I think that the extra steppe shift among some of the British Beakers can be explained by the fact that they didn't emigrate to Britain from West Frisia, but rather from further east, including from what is now northwest Germany.

Gaska said...

@Rich S

Your way of expressing is very familiar, and reminds me, an old friend I used to discuss in Anthrogenica.

I suppose you do not intend to make anyone believe that the Western Latvian hunter-gatherers came to the Baltic countries sailing from Russia. Remember that they have 70% WHG and that it is absolutely impossible for them to come from the east. Sooner or later it will be shown that they or similar populations of the Balkans were the ones that brought R1b to the steppes. If you are interested, you should check the mitochondrial haplogroups of the Latvians and compare them with those of Samara and remember that the Russians are younger than the former.

Delenda Est Yamnaya my friend. As we have been saying for a long time,

1-in Yamnaya there are only Z2013 and I2a and only reached the Hungarian plains. Everything else is the result of the imagination of people who prefer to believe in myths rather than in scientific realities.

2-BB culture has its origin in Iberia and has nothing to do neither materially nor culturally nor genetically with the Yamnaya culture.

3-R1b-L51 is key in this story. Because it has never been found or will be found in the steppes. The later the people in admitting it, the more serious their error will be.

Here we are talking about the Dutch BBs, and it is true that they have the highest percentage of steppe ancestry, but unless another miracle occurs and L51 appears in the CWC, the truth is that this autosomal component can be explained by the exogamy of groups of Western P312 with CW women. When I say Westerners I also include the Alps and Bavaria. Probably the German Neolithic cultures are the solution, because the Swiss BBs have their origin in Iberia.

I do not know how long it will take Harvard to rectify, but surely they end up apologizing.



Ric Hern said...

I just need to see how Suvorovo samples from Decea Muresului looks like to be completely convinced that L51 originated and migrated North of the Carpathians and maybe just somewhere North of Ukraine Neolithic along the Dnieper River towards the Baltics...

Drago said...

@ Diego
How do you suppose that, according to your senario, of all the hunter-gatherer lineages around Germany & the Rhine (all the various I2's, R1b-V88s, R1b-P297s, etc that were around), it just so happened that it was L51 which expanded, and it happens to share an MRCA with Yamanayan Z2013 over & above all the others ?

Gaska said...


@Dragos

I do not know exactly what happened in other parts of Europe, but the truth is that;

1.- I2a is a lineage of hunter-gatherers (WHG) that spread throughout Europe, including the British Isles. In Spain it is documented from the mesolithic in all cultures Megalithism-BBC, Bronze Age. Currently represents 6-7% of the population. It was not extinguished with the arrival of R1b as Reich says.Remember also that there is I2a in BB burials (Spain, Great Britain and Hungary)

2.- R1b-V88 is a Neolithic lineage (5000 BC) that survived untik the BB culture(Cerdanyola del Vallés 2.450 BC), then disappears

3- Other lineages of European hunter gatherers such as C1a2 and H disappeared from Iberia without a trace.

The situation throughout Western Europe (Germany, France) was very similar to Spain. Bearing in mind that we have gatherer hunters R1b754/P297 throughout Europe since the Gravettian, L51/L11 could arise in Germany, the Baltic Countries or the Balkans. If they had survived in Latvia, this would be a good explanation for Davidski's theory, because they could have joined the Baltic CWC and from there spread throughout the continent.

Romania and the Danube (Iron Gates) is full of R1b hunter-gatherers throughout the mesolithic 9,000-6,000 BC, then it is another possibility

Simply R1b-P312 had much more reproductive success than the other descendants of hunter-gatherers. I believe that only R1a came from the steppes (CWC).


Remember the TMRCA of R1b-M269 (4,400 BC), L23 (4,100 BC) and L51 (3,700 BC).
The delayed (4,300 AC) TMRCA of R1b-M269, compared to the TMRCA of R1b-P297 (11,300 BC), means a vey very very .. slow growth of the hunter-gatherer lineages P297 and then a very rapid expansion up to L51. I think finding L51* is going to be a very difficult task because was formed-4.200 BC, then we have only 500 years to find him.

The lineages of European mesolithic hunter-gatherers recovered strength at the end of the Neolithic. reaching a significant density of mitochondrial haplogroups derived from U5 and H. These lineages recolonized much of Europe from 4000 BC


Folker said...

@Diego
R1bV88 is a WHG haplogroup found in all Southern Europe.
As said previously, a least one subclade of I2 (S12195) has been part of Steppe ethnogenesis.
What are the odds that L51 brother subclade can be found in the Steppe with immediate ancestors without L51 having the same origin, with P312 and U106 always found with Steppe autosomal ancestry?
You should stop focusing too much on uniparentaux markers.

Rich S. said...

Wherever you go, you always find at least one guy still grieving the loss of the Franco-Cantabrian LGM Refuge and trying to herd R1b-M269 back into it, or as close to it as possible.

Gaska said...


@Folker

R1bV88 is a WHG haplogroup found in all Southern Europe.
As said previously, a least one subclade of I2 (S12195) has been part of Steppe ethnogenesis.
What are the odds that L51 brother subclade can be found in the Steppe with immediate ancestors without L51 having the same origin, with P312 and U106 always found with Steppe autosomal ancestry?
You should stop focusing too much on uniparentaux markers.


1-I was talking about the data we have in Spain and V88 is only documented at the beginning of the Neolithic in Els Trocs (Bisaurri, Huesca, Pyrenees). Obviously it did not arrive from Anatolia, then its origin is in the WHG
2-The hunter-gatherers were throughout Europe including I2
3- For obvious migrations. You know where the oldest subclades of Z2103 are?
4-How I2 came to the Yamnaya culture?
5- I think you should stop focusing in autosomal DNA. It is useful for some things but it has its limitations when it comes to finding the origin of the Y and mitochondrial haplogroups
6-Do not forget that women also count when it comes to transmitting autosomal components.

@Rich-"Wherever you go, you always find at least one guy still grieving the loss of the Franco-Cantabrian LGM Refuge and trying to herd R1b-M269 back into it, or as close to it as possible"

1-P312 is western, you have come to say that you are convinced of its origin in the steppes. I hope you recognize your mistakes. The Franco-Cantabrian refuge is a possibility, because there are also some mitochondrial haplogroups that from there spread throughout Europe (No one who knows anything about genetics can deny this evidence)
2-Do not forget Italy and Villabruna. Many people think that western hunter gatherers expanded from there. It is enough to deny things without having scientific arguments.
3-Nor do you have to forget France and its Neolithic cultures, we will find the solution soon.
4-The neolithic relationship between the British Isles and Iberia is so evident that the later connections between the two BB regions are also logical.
5-Iberian migrations to certain settlements in North Africa, the Balearic Islands, Sicily, Sardinia, Liguria, Aquitaine, Occitania, Switzerland, Brittany, Ireland and the British Isles are also evident. There is enough evidence to prove it.
6-Migrations from Germany to the rest of the regions are also evident.

@Matt "This does make me wonder if there isn't a possibility for the incoming groups to be a little steppe richer than the Dutch Beaker reference and a little more like CWG and then absorbed Neolithic women a little more. Probably not by any huge amount though. All fairly small potatoes in the grand scheme of things

1- At first we thought that the Iberian migration to the isles was greater because there are some identical mitochondrial BB haplogroups between the two regions. However after consulting European databases we have verified that some of them did not migrate from continental Europe (Spain, France, Netherlands) in the calcolithic but in the Neolithic. That means that some women from the isles mixed with R1b men. The British neolithic blood did not extinguish completely as some say.

Gaska said...


Look at X2b+226

Iberia-Cerdañola del Vallés-Chalcolitic BB culture-2.550 BC
Verdelha Cave-Chalcolithic BB culture- 2.500 BC

Morocco-Kehf el Baroud Cave, Casablanca- BB culture- 2.700-2.600 BC

Germany.Haunstetten, Germany BBC 2.025 BC

England- Carsington Pasture, BB culture 2.088 BC

Only a blind man could not see the origin and direction of female migrations. However we have checked that X2b+226 it is also in the English Neolithic (or Scottish). This means that in the case of England, we can not assure an Iberian migration of X2b + 226, but in the rest of the regions yes, because neither in Morocco nor in Germany has that haplogroup previously been found.

You already have a mitochondrial haplogroup that contributed to reduce the steppe ancestry of the first English BBs.


Kristiina said...

@David My questions are not about Bell Beakers but Corded Ware. I would like to know who are those most WHG-like samples marked in lighter green (=post-steppe herder expansion Europe) to the left from the Dutch Beakers.

And where would the Estonian Corded Ware sit?

Have you added the polish samples from this paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6173765/)? They are the first Corded Ware males with yDNA I2a2a.

Folker said...

@Diego
It would be very funny if you weren’t serious. Obviously, following you is meaning than less than 1% of your DNA is saying more about your ancestry than 99%. Either you are trying to make us laugh, either you don’t really understand what you are talking about. The second option seems more likely given your arguments about uniparental markers. You should perhaps take a good look on samples sheets, especially Ukrainian ones.

Gabriel said...

@Diego

the truth is that this autosomal component can be explained by the exogamy of groups of Western P312 with CW women.

Hahahahahaha... okay, let me read that again.

So up is down or what? mtDNA screams female-mediated farmer ancestry, not the other way around, and Y-DNA, even more loudly, that it came from the steppes, with R1b-L151's cousins found in the steppes as well as steppe-derived populations, including, yes, Yamnaya, while R1b-L151's presence in Western Europe is fully associated with the arrival of steppe ancestry and its presence is always associated with steppe ancestry.

@Rich S.

It is sad to see how many people keep mentioning how Irish people are Basque or something because Stephen Oppenheimer and Bryan Sykes said so long ago. At least it seems that this fad is fading, but they're still out there.

Ric Hern said...

@ Diego

Where precisely is the Gravettian R1b samples you mentioned ? I don't know of any.

epoch said...

@Ric Hern

"I just need to see how Suvorovo samples from Decea Muresului looks like"

Are there Suvorovo samples tested? Are you sure?

Ric Hern said...

@ epoch

What I meant was, if they one day can find and test some of those...So hopefully.

Gaska said...

@ Ric

Villabruna R1b (12.000 BC)is Epigravettian (21.000-10.000 BC)

Gabriel said...

Villabruna is Mesolithic and several millennia older than all steppe-derived R1b-M269 samples, so any time between his existence and the Late Neolithic there could have been massive demographic changes, and there were, so he's not a good argument for a strong presence of R1b in Neolithic Western Europe when by then most people belonged to either I2 or G2a.

Samuel Andrews said...

@btw,

Why hasn't anyone acknowledged that SHG is obviously an EHG female/WHG male mixed population? Their mtDNA is all EHG (U5a, U4a, U2e1), their Y DNA is all WHG (I2). Its dent on the idea somehow ANE is more manly.

Also, 99% of R1a/R1b Kurgan lineages died out. And there's a big presence of Steppe mtDNA in Bell Beaker, Andronovo, Corded Ware. There's also a lot of Steppe mtDNA in modern Tajik (the purest Iranians, 40% Andronovo origin). I hope people don't get the wrong impression of degree of sex bias admixture between Kurgan & farmer peoples.

Most ancient cultures couldn't withstand onslaught of Kurgan invasion. If, R1b P312+ Beaker teleported to Middle East I bet they would have done the same thing they did in western Europe. Kurgan cultures had some kind of really effective social institution that gave a ruling family exclusive access to females or at least to sons (maybe sons of other men were killed).

Conquest of Kurgan cultures, doesn't somehow mean Neolithic farmer men were weak. Power Kurgan families killed off other Kurgan families just as effectively as they did to farmers.

weure said...

Archeologist Prof. Harry Fokkens:

“Since its chronological basis was beyond dispute, the implications became an irrefutable truth: in the Netherlands there was a continuous development from Single Grave Culture Beakers to Bell Beakers.”

David has delivered the genetic proof.

See:

https://www.academia.edu/5507545/Background_to_Dutch_Beakers

Gaska said...


@weure

It gives me the impression that either you have not read the paper or you have not understood anything of what Fokkens says

Gaska said...


Vlaardingen and SGC were neolithic societies that did not know copper, only the Atlantic commercial exchanges brought the AOO and the Maritime style to these cultures together with the flint daggers from Grand Pressigny.

By the way the Lower Rhine is not the origin of anything because it was part of the territory of the Vlaardingen culture. Archeologically the transition between the SGC and the BBC is something totally absurd. The innovations came from the south despite the fact that many people do not want to see it. All the theory of Lanting about the transition between the SGC and the BBC was absolutely debunked with the dating of C14 of Joao Cardoso in Portugal and Galicia. People should stop denying the obvious because it is ridiculous to have to discuss these issues.

Gaska said...


H. Fokkens- "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 Ducht SGC"

The introduction of AOO and French flint knives show that in the entire Netherlands relations with Atlantic exchange networks had developed. Given the possible sources of BB cooper in Spain and Portugal, that might mean that the stage is being set for the introduction of cooper in the early Bell Beaker period, even though the first copper knives are only introduced in Late Bell Beaker context



Davidski said...

@Kristiina

I would like to know who are those most WHG-like samples marked in lighter green (=post-steppe herder expansion Europe) to the left from the Dutch Beakers.

Baltic_BA from Latvia and Lithuania.

And where would the Estonian Corded Ware sit?

Within the German Corded Ware cluster, along with most of the Lithuanian Corded Ware samples. You can explore the datasheet that I used with any number of programs, including PAST.

PCA datasheet

Past 3.x - the Past of the Future

Have you added the polish samples from this paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6173765/)? They are the first Corded Ware males with yDNA I2a2a.

Those are shotgun sequences, which I don't find very useful, unless I really need to have them because they represent a unique population.

But these Corded Ware samples are fairly typical. The only unusual thing about them is their Y-haplogroup, which they obviously got from their acculturated farmer paternal ancestor.

I already have a Corded Ware sample like that in my dataset, except he's of totally unadmixed farmer origin, which I think makes him more useful.

Awesome substructure within Czech Corded Ware

Davidski said...

@Diego

H. Fokkens- "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".

That's fine. But the ancient DNA strongly suggests that this was just a cultural change, and that the Dutch Beaker males with R1b-P312 are of local Single Grave origin.

Samuel Andrews said...

@Kritianna,

Btw, this should be helpful. It's my attempt to get ancient scores for west Eurasians. They have a bigger effect than ethnic/regional drift in the G25 PCA.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1_jr6EMoG_1eFm1x8hltNHW2bE5A0lW9N7XDjCU_jO_k/edit#gid=0

I found better models & will update soon. I think the consensus at this blog is, Finns are a combination of....

In European-wide variation, it looks like Finns are set apart by excess WHG ancestry (from Narva), ANE-rich Siberian ancestry (mediated via Saami), and low Anatolian/farmer ancestry.

Drago said...

NB the man from Villabruna dates c. 14000 cal BP, & therefor is Late Palaeolithic.

@weure
Fokkens doesn’t seem to be defending the Dutch hypothesis in that article. He speaks of clear cultural change

Arza said...

@ Davidski
But these Corded Ware samples are fairly typical.

Are you sure that we are looking at the same PCA?

N47 and N49 potentially cluster with Baltic BA.
N22 and N42 are potential sources of very specific WHG ancestry in Baltic BA, Welzin, Hungary BA I1504/BR2, Varna outlier and Balto-Slavs.

These samples may be crucial for Eastern Europe.

Arza said...

^^^
PCA overlay: https://i.postimg.cc/d3bMcRVx/WHGrich-CWCPoland.jpg

Davidski said...

@Arza

Neither N47 nor N49 would cluster with Baltic_BA, and neither N22 nor N42 are potential sources of very specific WHG in Baltic_BA.

If you want to see what a Corded Ware sample with a lot of WHG ancestry looks like, then check out CWC_Germany I1540.

And if you'd like to see what a Corded Ware sample with a lot of Balto-Slavic-specific forager admixture and genetic drift (that Baltic_BA also have a lot of) looks like, then check out CWC_Baltic Spiginas2.

Matt said...

In case anyone's interested, to add to the chronological listing of sample from Olalde, I've added a few columns to give proportions of Beaker_The_Netherlands ancestry, using Olalde's data table (for Brits) and 4mix results on G25 (for other samples): https://imgur.com/a/wW1vLou

Lot of gaps but lots just aren't in G25 or Olalde's table (doesn't mean there's anything special about them compared to those that are).

The y calls are Olalde's and so probably kind of out of date.

(4mix also kind of maxes at 1 for any ancestry, so some of the samples which are richer in steppe ancestry than the Beaker_Netherlands average get normed to 1).

Arza said...

@ Davidski

It's obvious that they are either Spiginas2-like or I1540-like. But the question is how do you know how they would plot on e.g. sixth dimension of DoHA without adding them to your spreadsheets?

Neither N47 nor N49 would cluster with Baltic_BA

N47 literally sits on top of Baltic_BA (RISE598 I guess) sample in their PCA. But higher dimensions from your spreadsheets are the key here.

And if you're so sure that they are I1540-like - where does that specific WHG responsible for what you call ethnic-specific drift comes from?

Davidski said...

@Arza

And if you're so sure that they are I1540-like - where does that specific WHG responsible for what you call ethnic-specific drift comes from?

I don't know where it comes from exactly, but it significantly affects Spiginas2, which means that in the East Baltic it dates back to the late Corded Ware period at least.

Indeed, I expect N47 and N49 to be very similar to I1540. In other words, Corded Ware individuals with excess WHG, and nothing particularly Balto-Slavic about them.

Do the Poland_BA samples show any hints of Balto-Slavic-specific drift like Spiginas2? If not, then this type of ancestry didn't yet exist in Poland as late as the Bronze Age.

Gabriel said...

Was there a massive expansion out of the East Baltic southwards that gave rise to the proto-Balto-Slavs? I'm confused now.

Samuel Andrews said...

WHG-rich Corded Ware+Western Yamnaya=Rhine Beaker?

Romulus the I2a L233+ Proto Balto-Slav, layer of Corded Ware Women said...

So how did L51 get into Single Grave Culture, and where does SGC originate? Sredny-Stog?

Davidski said...

@Them meee

The Baltic_BA samples belong to this culture, which is derived from various Eastern European Corded Ware groups and generally accepted to be directly ancestral to Balto-Slavs.

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

So Baltic_BA might not actually be native to the East Baltic region, at least not in part, even though the assumption made in the Mittnik et al. paper was that it was a direct offshoot of the local Corded Ware culture.

Davidski said...

@Samuel Andrews

WHG-rich Corded Ware+Western Yamnaya=Rhine Beaker?

What the hell would Western Yamnaya be doing in the Rhine region?

Samuel Andrews said...

@Davidski,

I'm trying to figure out how R1b entered Single grave (if it ever did). R1b L51* in Hungary_BA with no Beaker ancestry could mean R1b L51* existed in Western Yamnaya. If it existed in western Yamnaya, I don't see how R1b L151 could be of Corded Ware origin. Or maybe, it entered predecessor of Corded Ware on the PC Steppe.

Davidski said...

@Samuel Andrews

You're assuming that this Hungary_BA R1b-L51* isn't of Beaker origin based on your own models of autosomal DNA, but this doesn't really mean that it's not of Beaker origin, especially because...

The assemblages of the settlement and cemetery in Szigetszentmiklós-ÃœdülÅ‘sor prove that the infiltration of the Bell Beaker Complex is a reality at the end of the EBA l/a (end of the Makó phase), and it must have preceded the development of the Nagyrév culture in the area nearby Budapest. People of the Bell Beaker Complex merged into the local inhabitants gradually. This integrating process already began in the EBA II/a – this period is contemporary with the early phase of the Nagyrév culture, with Somogyvár-Vinkovci II, CÅ‚opice-Veselé, Nyírség and Óbéba- Pitvaros cultures 259.

Olalde et al. 2018 supp info page 135

And even if R1b-L51* existed in Western Yamnaya, and it may well have, this wouldn't mean that Single Grave clans in the Lower Rhine weren't rich in R1b-P312.

People are still talking about those two instances of I2 in Corded Ware as something amazing, but when I saw those results I just went meh and moved on since.

Arza said...

@ Davidski
Do the Poland_BA samples show any hints of Balto-Slavic-specific drift like Spiginas2?

Off course.

G25 scaled avg

Poland_BA:I6579
CWC_Czech 61.4%
Baltic_BA 21.2%
Baltic_HG 10.8%
Globular_Amphora 6.6%

Distance 2.0954%


So Baltic_BA might not actually be native to the East Baltic region

Almost for sure they aren't native to the East Baltic as we have WHG samples from that area and they don't work as a WHG source for Baltic_BA.
In the preprint of Mittnik et al. there was an attempt to model Baltic_BA in qpWave as a two-way CWC-Narva mixture. It has failed.

The only place IMHO where this kind of WHG could survive is Belarus and NE Poland. That's why any WHG-rich sample from vicinity of this area is that important.

Davidski said...

@Arza

I'm not seeing what you're seeing. Poland was still Beaker country at the time, although, as my model suggests, it's possible that this type of influence was seeping into the region via the Trzciniec culture and/or related expansions.

Still, if that's all there was of this signal during the Bronze Age there, then there's little chance you'd see it during the Corded Ware period in Poland, especially considering that it's also very weak in most of the Corded Ware samples from the East Baltic.

[1] "distance%=1.6608"

Poland_BA

Beaker_The_Netherlands,88.2
Baltic_BA,11.8

Arza said...

It should be "of course", of course. Damn typo.

@ Davidski

Poland_BA:I6537 is close to Bell Beakers, so yes, Poland was at least partly beakerish at that time. But Beakers were intrusive from the SW. Classic CWC on the other hand was intrusive from the SE direction. Both groups came from areas dominated by steppe-EEF combo.

But these plain CWC or Beaker-like samples say absolutely nothing about NE Poland or Belarus as they lack any local substrate from Kuyavia and beyond, where (as Fernandes et al. have showed) expansion of EEF lost its momentum and a lot of WHG ancestry has survived.

If it's regular WHG (I1540-type)... well, we need to look further East. But if it's Spiginas2-type... we are seeing birth of the Baltic_BA/Trzciniec Culture.

Drago said...

There were hunter-gatherers living in Poland as late as 3000 BC, even later (sites individually carbon-dated).


@ Davidski
Is that last model mean to symbolise something ?
The BB influence in Poland was variable. In the SW you have actual migration of BB groups from Moravia. In the north, the local CWC , GAC etc show BB influences, syncretic groups (Like Iwno culture; Rzucewo group). Trziniec emerged out of these confluences

Davidski said...

Yeah, it's meant to symbolize that there was very little Balto-Slavic-specific drift in Poland during the Bronze Age, and that the people there were more like Beakers from the Lower Rhine than the proto- or para-Balts from the East Baltic.

So like I said, there's no way that this type of genetic drift was significant in any Polish Corded Ware populations.

But if anyone wants to prove me wrong, then go ahead. I won't go out of my way to prove you right, because sooner or later more samples from Poland will be released and then we'll see.

Samuel Andrews said...

Poland BA clusters with Czech EBA & Unetice. Wonder if they are all the same ethnic group. They all cluster with Rhine Bell Beaker not Bavaria/Czech Beaker.

Drago said...

@ Davidski
Thanks for clarifying- but I’m still somewhat confused. Was your debate with Arza as to whether polish BA are on the path -> Baltic-Slavic ?

Davidski said...

Yes, and I don't think they are, at least not in any obvious way.

weure said...

@Dragos yes indeed the ‘pots’ changed the ‘people’ stayed the same....and were SGC derived....

Drago said...

@ Davidski

Yes I agree (I was referring to something rather different, it seems).
Curiously, some component of shared ancestry with Polish-BA type populations is stronger in Scandinavians than West Slavs.

ambron said...

David, are today's West Slavs a mix of Netherlands BB and Baltic BA? This is how it results from your PCA. Such a mixture must have already occurred in the Bronze Age. This is shown by the warriors from Welzin. The horizon of the Lusatian culture was a good place for such mixing. What do you think?

Kristiina said...

@ David Thank you!

I read on Anthrogenica that we may get Fatyanovo samples in the future:
"Scientists will study the DNA of the remains of the Bronze Age culture found in the Moscow region. The necropolis of Fatian culture was discovered during the preparation for the construction of a private school in Istrinsky district."

https://tass.ru/moskovskaya-oblast/6005725

This is very important information in order to understand the genetic variation of Corded ware cultures.

Davidski said...

@ambron

Maybe to some degree, but I think this mixture process was going on for ages, well into the Medieval period, except the people mixing had different ethnicities, like Bell Beakers and Trzciniec or Germanics and Slavs, etc.

This is too complex to be reduced to a theory around the Lusatian culture.

Matt said...

On the possibility of Balto-Slavic drift linked (to try and put it) CW in Poland, would say it wouldn't be unprecedented as there are some samples that show up well before the Baltic_BA or late Corded Ware that look to have a specific shared drift with Baltic_BA.

If you reprocess Global 25, some couple Central European and Hungarian Beakers closer to Baltic_ BA on the Baltic_BA dimension that to other Beakers. See: https://imgur.com/a/vB0jtBK.

I3528/GEN85/Grave276: 2559–2301 calBCE (3931±31 BP, DeA-11507) - Male - Y: G2a2a1a2a1 - Hungary

I5025/RISE567/F0523/A0766/gr. 8 - Female - U5b2c - 2500–1900 BCE - Czech Republic

I guess the probability that these extra samples in Arza's linked paper would is not so high when you consider the frequency of samples that have so far, and it's more probable that they are as David expects them to be.

Hard to explain this pattern in the existing "Balto-Slav linked" outliers in the Beaker sets, as there's nothing obvious setting them apart in terms of time (unless they're misdated!). (Similar to why it's not clear to me why Iberia atp016 is so extreme in dimensions linked to Iberians and probably just an artefact).

Also noticed some few of the latest Bronze Age samples in the linked paper are supposed to be Trzciniec.

ambron said...

David, thank you for your answer. And did you try to see how the modeling of today's Poles would be as Netherlands BB and Baltic BA? Just like you did with Poland BA. Blood ties (biological origin) are more interesting than language.

Davidski said...

@ambron

The fit isn't that great, which means that something is missing.

[1] "distance%=4.1977"

Polish

Beaker_The_Netherlands,59.8
Baltic_BA,40.2

Adding the early Slav from Bohemia fixes things up.

[1] "distance%=2.0238"

Polish

Slavic_Bohemia,67.6
Baltic_BA,22.6
Beaker_The_Netherlands,9.8

ambron said...

David, thank you! It looks very interesting!

Arza said...

@ Matt
it wouldn't be unprecedented as there are some samples that show up well before the Baltic_BA or late Corded Ware that look to have a specific shared drift with Baltic_BA.

In fact on your plot everything besides maybe EEF shares that drift with Baltic_BA.

Without that "drift" there would be no EHG, no Yamnaya, no Iron Gates etc.
That "drift" is an admixture from a different kind of WHG, something that should be labelled as a "real EHG" or maybe UHG.

EHG/Latvia_MN is intermediate between UHG and ANE.
Iron_Gates between UHG and WHG.
Baltic_BA between UHG and CWC_Baltic_early/Sredny_Stog.
RISE568 seems to be between UHG and CHG (crazy, I know).

Just replicate this PCA in PAST and you'll see (and hopefully believe):
https://i.postimg.cc/q42FssRV/G25-Baltic-BA-reprocessed.png

In other words the special thing about Baltic_BA is not the sole presence of this admixture, but a fact, that bulk of it is not mediated by EHG/Iron_Gates, but rather comes from a direct admixture from some relic UHG population.

Now we need to find them.

PS here are coordinates of an UHG ghost for the West Eurasian PCA if you want to see how it would behave on different reprocessed plots:

UHG,-0.096684615384615,0.000946153846154,0.038307692307692,-0.013323076923077,0.0135,-0.059984615384615,-0.0368,-0.008238461538462,-0.025523076923077

@ Dragos
polish BA are on the path -> Baltic-Slavic

On my side it was rather about pinpointing the area, where "WHG" responsible for the so called Balto-Slavic drift has survived. Adding any WHG-related sample to the multidimensional PCA is crucial here, as on the common PC1/PC2 PCA for West Eurasia it will look like an ordinary WHG, because if you look at such plot, you are looking at internal WHG cline that is perpendicular to the screen, see here:

https://i.postimg.cc/mTH7zj2C/UHG-West-Eurasian-PCA.png

Gabriel said...

What is the most likely area where this Balto-Slavic drift appeared then, Belarus? Many suggest Trzciniec as having partly Polish roots.

Also I think modern west Slavs have Beaker ancestry but most of it comes from later Celts and Germanics, most of their ancestry is still from Trzciniec but also later.

Mouthful said...

@Davidski

As far as I'm aware none of the samples labelled Baltic_BA from Mittnik paper and those sites Turlojiske and Baltic_BA are associated with Trzciniec culture also none of them with the exception of Turlojiske5 fit the time frame of Trzciniec culture. So I don't think labeling them as Trzciniec culture from semantic point of view is correct.

Andrzejewski said...

@All I was inspired by @Kristiina's comment earlier in the thread re: Fayatonova Culture. I was reading and wading through Hakkinen et al papers and it occured to me that maybe the linguistic drift from PIE -> Proto-Baltic-Slavic is due to a substrate of non-IE non-Uralic substrate (EHG, UHG, WHG?) similar to either Kunda, Narva and/or Volosovo Cultures?

https://www.sgr.fi/sust/sust264/sust264_parpola.pdf

Matt said...

@Arza, looking at the coordinates you've given, it seems like it's imaginable for a sample like that to show up, and there are maybe some appealing advantages over a "more drift" model for Baltic_BA and the other outliers (like the Beaker outliers), where it's not so clear to me whether more drift explains things very.

I'm not sure though - it hasn't been found so far and I'm not sure where else they could show up from.

Matt said...

@Arza, had a quick look at that ghost, one thing I noticed is that it doesn't quite treat the most outgroup like populations as a clade compared to WHG like populations. It might actually benefit from being less... exaggerated in position relative to Baltic_BA and CHG, and slightly further away along the extension of the WHG->Iron_Gates_HG->Baltic_BA path.

The reason is that pushing it to the same position as WHG in dimensions 1 and 2 and then having further drift in higher dimensions seems to make it be too extreme against those southeastern populations to be a clade and comes out further from se populations than WHG does.

Not a knock against the concept and no big itself assuming what you're trying to do, though I'm still pretty circumspect about if this will actually turn up. Good luck.

Grey said...

Them meee said...
"Villabruna is Mesolithic and several millennia older than all steppe-derived R1b-M269 samples, so any time between his existence and the Late Neolithic there could have been massive demographic changes, and there were, so he's not a good argument for a strong presence of R1b in Neolithic Western Europe when by then most people belonged to either I2 or G2a."

right but if R1 is originally from the steppe Villabruna shows that some of it got to the coast before the farmer expansion - although as you say for that ancestry to be significant in the chalcolithic it would have had to survive the farmer expansion somehow - which to me implies they would have needed to live on terrain unsuitable for the farmers and marshy terrain around the mouths of rivers sounds like a plausible candidate for that kind of refuge terrain so personally i don't think it's impossible for there to have been R1b populations lurking in terrain like that in specific spots around the med/atlantic/baltic coasts.

However 1) it's hard to imagine a scenario where a refuge population living in a swamp could then expand so dramatically and 2) if it were true they were from a steppe population who arrived on the coast long before the farmer expansion you'd think that would be enough time for their version of steppe ancestry to differ somewhat from the yamnaya version.

Matt said...

@Arza, I had a go at "cooking" up a ghost for the WestEurasia9 that meets your specificiations (IronGate=X+WHG,BalticBA=X+CordedWare,EHG=X+ANE). Basically using regression equations and simple cline extension.

If you'd like to try:
UHGDummy,-0.0889,0.0116,0.0392,-0.0229,0.0187,-0.0538,-0.0214,0.001,-0.0157

The only bit I couldn't get to totally work would be EHG as purely X+ANE, as any cline extension of ANE->EHG seems to get to the wrong place in dimensions that map CW->BalticBA cline.

My one seems to behave more like a west shifted sister of Ukraine_N1 and less like a sister of WHG+IronGates clade, compared to yours. Has statistical properties of being fairly close to RomaniaHG in dimensions PC1 v PC2 (overall east vs west within West Eurasia) and then closer to Ukraine_N1 and Baltic_BA cline extension in some higher dimensions.

Not tested with nMonte at all, so may not work well in that.

Matt said...

@Arza, few graphics comparing your and my dummy "Baltic_BA_UHG": https://imgur.com/a/Aju0pdH

Very similar, main difference being in the dimension 7, my one being slightly extreme in some dimensions and so having shorter distances overall, and a slight tilt of mine to CHG (which seems reasonably plausible given the Steppe_Eneolithic genepool, Ukraine_N1 showing some similar low level admix and time of admix). Not that I'm saying my one is definitive or anything!

Mouthful said...

@Matt, Arza

What is that supposed UHG composition something between EHG's/WHG's and someomne else on top too? Sorry for asking this seems a bit complex

Matt said...

@Mouthful, the idea is that they are roughly somewhere on a cline involving WHG:EHG/ANE:CHG, but drifting separately for some deep time in history, which is the main idea Arza is proposing - that the unique drift that Baltic_BA has, and which some samples show up before Baltic_BA, is not due to drift in Baltic_BA rather than the HG population that contributed to them.

Arza's model and mine differ slightly in where exactly to place this hypothetical population on WHG:EHG/ANE:CHG clines, and there is a range of possible positions outside either of those, but both would agree vastly closest to WHG out of EHG:ANE:CHG, on these clines.

Matt said...

Arza used a West Eurasia 9 datasheet to simulate, and I had a try at the same. If you want to pay with a scaled G25 version, there's the following:

Balto-Slavic_HG_Theory_Model,
0.13435,0.132802,0.151768,0.150882,0.091973,
0.051397,0.025361,0.035563,0.022204,-0.060695,
-0.00248,-0.037296,0.058591,0.069986,-0.042533,
0.000901,0.01179,-0.002196,-0.001908,0.01483,
0.008257,-0.010191,0.003355,-0.060778,0.00471

(each comma separated value is G25 scaled PC 1-25)

Matt said...

@Arza, one more point I thought about regarding the idea of a Balto-Slavic unique HG idea: you might want to look at the correlation within Baltic_BA between how much "Balto-Slavic drift" a sample has, and how it's positioned on a cline between Baltic Corded Ware and HG.

If the same samples that are HG shifted are also "Balto-Slavic drift" shifted, then it's probable that the source is the same, a HG population with specific drift. But if it's the opposite and they're uncorrelated, then its likely that the drift and extra HG admixture are separate phenomena.

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