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Monday, February 4, 2019

The tracer dye


Remember that Wang et al. preprint at bioRxiv on the genetic prehistory of the Greater Caucasus? Well, it's just been published at Nature Communications under a new title: Ancient human genome-wide data from a 3000-year interval in the Caucasus corresponds with eco-geographic regions.

The authors also re-worked a few other parts of the manuscript, including the abstract and figures, but most of it looks pretty much the same as the bioRxiv version from May 2018. It's hard for me to believe that this process took more than half a year, so I'm guessing this is just how long it takes sometimes to get a paper into this journal.

In any case, the supplementary information includes a Peer Review File (see here) with a couple of interesting comments in regards to the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) homeland debate. Emphasis is mine:

Reviewer no 2: This hypothesis about the Caucasus source of Proto-Indo-European has been advanced also for slightly other reasons by David Reich and Kristian Kristiansen, so I think it should be elaborated here by the authors and they should marshall their new results to add whatever support they can. However, this hypothesis should rest on showing a sustained admixture between Maikop and Yamnaya to serve as a bridge to Yamnaya from the Caucasus (because the authors accept Yamnaya as connected to later PIE.) It is difficult to see in the results presented here a sustained gene flow from Maikop into Yamnaya, that would sustain this hypothesis. On lines 410 and 432 the authors preferred to see the Anatolian Farmer genes that appeared in Yamnaya as flowing from southeastern Europe, with a 20% WHG component, not from Maikop, without the WHG component. If most of the c. 15% Anatolian Farmer found in Yamnaya came from the west, it leaves very little room for gene flow into Yamnaya from Maikop. If the 3% WHG that makes the difference between a western and Caucasian source of Anatolian Farmer is strongly supported by their data, that makes a Caucasian origin of PIE less likely because it reduces gene flow from Maikop into the steppes. In fact it suggests that very little south-to-north gene flow occurred during the Maikop period (except into 2 individuals from a distinct, small, local genetic group different from Maikop and Yamnaya). This is puzzling and unexpected, but also it fails to support the bridge that seems to be needed.

Reply: We’re afraid that this might be a misunderstanding. There is indeed very limited gene flow between the Caucasus and the steppe groups (apart from the examples highlighted). However, we have based our PIE-related speculations on the observation that the CHG/Iranian (green) ancestry component is increasing already during the Eneolithic north of the Caucasus. This led us to propose that this might be the actual ‘tracer dye’ of an early PIE spread, which could then also accommodate the spread of PIE south of the mountain range where this ancestry component also rises in frequency resulting in a relatively homogenised dual ancestry (Anatolian + Iranian farming-related ancestry) in Chalcolithic times (see also brown arrow in Figure 2).

A misunderstanding? Perhaps, but my impression from reading both the preprint and paper was that the authors really wanted Maykop to be the source of Indo-European languages on the Pontic-Caspian steppe, even if they didn't spell this out explicitly. So I'm not surprised by the peer reviewer's line of inquiry.

I think what actually happened was that the authors got it in their heads long ago that the PIE homeland was south of the Caucasus, simply because that's what they saw when they looked at the spread, across space and time, of some exceedingly broad and very ancient genome-wide genetic components, especially one such component with roots in the Caucasus and surrounds that was found both in Yamnaya and Hittite samples. And they penciled in Maykop, probably because of archeological data, as the most likely vector for the spread of this potential PIE "tracer dye" onto the steppe.

But obviously that didn't work out once they had a good look at their ancient DNA from the Caucasus, and it seems that they couldn't come up with a coherent alternative theory. Little wonder, considering that their ancient DNA showed a profound genetic differentiation between the Eneolithic/Bronze Age populations of the Caucasus and the Pontic-Caspian steppe, especially in terms of paternal ancestry, which is crucial in linguistics debates.

Whatever. I've already said way too much on this topic, so I'm now moving on. But I'm certainly looking forward to the genotype data from this paper. Analyzing it is going to be a hoot.

See also...

PIE Urheimat poll: two or three options left

Big deal of 2018: Yamnaya not related to Maykop

R-V1636: Eneolithic steppe > Kura-Araxes?

126 comments:

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

If the source of the rise in CHG wasn't from the Caucasus, or at least not Maikop, then where? Process of elimination is pointing east.

Davidski said...

Process of elimination is pointing east.

WTF are you talking about?

Those Eneolithic steppe samples have ancient roots on the steppe. That type of ancestry might date back to the Paleolithic in the steppes between the Black and Caspian seas.

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

Then why the increase in CHG between the Neolithic amd Yamnaya period on the steppe? where is the CHG coming from?

Davidski said...

From within the steppe to other parts of the steppe.

Barca said...

I agree that CHG has ancient roots on the Steppe since there is J2 and small amounts of CHG in mesolithic EHG samples, and ANE in the paleolithic CHG samples themselves, but I am skeptical of a suggestion that there was some CHG source population, that must have been over 50% CHG, living on the steppe and contributing to the rise in CHG ancestry over time. There is no evidence to support that. Likewise we know there is a CHG source population spreading CHG across Eurasia at this time from the Minoan, Levant, and other groups sampled around this time. I don't think this CHG population is related to IE otherwise we'd see IE in the populations it spread to like the ancient Egyptians who were certainly not IE.

Davidski said...

But I am skeptical of a suggestion that there was some CHG source population, that must have been over 50% CHG, living on the steppe and contributing to the rise in CHG ancestry over time.

It's a fact. Those Eneolithic steppe samples are well over 50% CHG or rather something closely related, and they're closely related to Yamnaya, so a population like them contributed to the formation of Yamnaya.

Nothing to be skeptical about.

Drago said...

There’s still something a little unclear- WHG and ANE suffused widely during the LUP and Mesolithic (West <-> east); why is this not the case with CHG (even if trace amounts are detectable ). It is only during the Eneolithic it really begins to rise ..

Matt said...

Per the Yana paper EHG has approx. 20% CHG ancestry. (Following, Steppe_Piedmont would then probably have about 55-66% CHG ancestry, but from composite of different sources over time, some via EHG pathway).

Looking forward to seeing the Caucasus, Steppe_Maykop and the final Steppe_Piedmont placed on PCAs David. Wish we had more samples, and Wang don't think that's forthcoming from the regions they've investigated (reviewers comments).

I'm considering this paper again and have to agree it seems to add some weight to a productive economy in the Yamnaya and CW arising from CHG heavy steppe groups and groups from the west/Ukraine with EEF and WHG related ancestry - not sure I'm so sold on GAC rather than groups which are already genetically closer to Yamnaya though (as so probably contributed more ancestry?). Clearly looks like whatever interactions happened on a basis of most patrilocal continuity on steppe hunter+fisher zone, and then a strong founder effect behind some lineages following transition to a more productive economy that can maintain higher populatin...

Matt said...

Not sure why they've removed the Trypillian outlier female from their sample set in their PCA. Varna outlier is still there. Greek and Ukraine Neolithic outliers also gone.

Ric Hern said...

How accurate is the proposed Spilway between the Black and Caspian Seas which apparently formed after the LGM and dried up around 6000 BC. ?

Synome said...

So, when will the researchers at Harvard/MIT/Broad change their minds and open up to pursuing a different angle?

If I was tasked with finding the PIE homeland, I'd devote most of my time to finding the locus on the PC steppe when and where the horse was first domesticated. This is the most plausible single factor that could have driven PIE expansion, and it strongly suggests that we aren't going to find the origin of that expansion south of the steppe.

Having a lack of consensus evidence for steppe ancestry in a handful of bronze age Anatolians is a much smaller theoretical problem than trying to conjure up a way for PIE to be south of the Caucasus to fit a narrative where Hittites aren't steppe descended.

Ric Hern said...

If the spilway did exist and came into existence between 17 or 15 thousand years ago it could be that the earlier minimal contribution of CHG to people moving through the Steppe, came from Kammenaya Balka which maybe got cut of from their relatives to the South by this Spilway.

After the Spilway dried up it left the Southern CHG population open to admixture from the North ?

Andrzejewski said...

Actually I think that ANE-rich CHG in the Caucasus came North —> South from Steppe into Caucasus, including R1b rich populations.

Andrzejewski said...

I’ve read scientific papers claiming to establish a large scale migration from Mesopotamia (Uruk) to the Caucasus, even to say that Maykop might be descendants of Mesopotamian immigrants. Now, there are 3 distinct language families in the Caucasus, and NONE of them bears any traces to Sumerian, itself a language isolate. That by itself would render the Sumeria —> Caucasus —> theory obsolete.

Leron said...

Chalcolithic Anau culture came into the steppe and hence bringing CHG into EHG and WSHG territory. Their descendants who went south were related to Namazga (no steppe). Those who went north contributed CHG to eastern steppe.

The Caucasus is a really good barrier. No IE filtered down for thousands of years until the Cimmerians and those coming from the south usually hung around the piedmont. The eastern Capsian region wasn’t much of a barrier in either direction. And explains how the “weather god holding an axe/hammer and riding a wagon/chariot pulled by bulls/goats” motif made it’s way from the Anatolia to Germany but being relatively absent further west.

Drago said...

@ Matt

“Not sure why they've removed the Trypillian outlier female from their sample set in their PCA. Varna outlier is still there. Greek and Ukraine Neolithic outliers also gone”

Probably will be dealt with further in a future study

Davidski said...

@Leron

There is no evidence of any migration into the Pontic-Caspian steppe from the east during the Eneolithic.

The CHG-heavy steppe Eneolithic groups are native to the steppe between the Black and Caspian seas.

And obviously there were indeed population movements from the steppe south of the Caucasus well before the Cimmerians. That's how R1b ended up in Bronze Age Armenia and Iran. Duh!

Stop making things up and do not ever post here again unless you have a basic understanding of the data.

Davidski said...

@All

I've removed some pointless comments.

Guys, if you want to post here from now on try a little harder.

This is non negotiable.

Andrzejewski said...

You removed my interpretation of the Haak data. I don’t know why it’s pointless.

Davidski said...

@Andrzejewski

Because you keep going on about the three Khvalynsk samples as if these were the only Eneolithic samples available from the steppe.

They're not: we now also have Progress, Sredny Stog II and Vonyuchka.

Davidski said...

@All

I removed a strange comment from banned and possibly mentally unstable commentator Olympus Mons.

The poor chap is so confused that he doesn't even realize that Wang et al. have totally backed up my findings that Yamnaya had European farmer ancestry.

I wrote about it here and this is still current...

Ahead of the pack

Samuel Andrews said...

So, Harvard researchers see no Steppe ancestry in Anatolia EBA/MLBA. But, they see shared "CHG/IranNeo" ancestry in Yamnaya & Anatolia EBA/MLBA. Because, that's the only ancestral link between the two they conclude the original PIEs were CHG/IranNeo.

But, the problem is CHG/IranNeo is an Epipaelolithic signal. It is way older than PIE language. It can exist in both Yamnaya & Anatolia EBA/MLBA for unrelated reasons.

Samuel Andrews said...

Continued......

But, if you look at ancient & modern DNA from the Middle East more closely you see the CHG/IranNeo signal in Yamnaya is not related.

First, CHG ancestry is present in the whole Middle East. CHG spread throughout the Middle East with Georgian-Caucasus Eneolithic like people who also carried lots of Anatolian ancestry. Yamnaya's ancestors on the other hand received a dose of pure CHG with no Anatolian influence.

Second, the CHG/IranNeo ancestry in Anatolia EBA/MLBA also carried Iranian ancestry while Yamnaya's does not. It is mostly Caucasian (CHG+Anatolia) but also carries some IranNeo admix. Anatolia EBA/MLBA also shared Levantie ancestry with Iranian Chalcolithic. Meaning, they could have had ancestry from around Iraq & Iran. Yamnaya didn't have any of this.

Samuel Andrews said...

Continued...

Looking at G25 PCA, it is possible to deconstruct exactly what this CHG/IranNeo signal in west Eurasia is.

Yamnaya's CHG ancestry is not related to the spread of CHG/IranNeo in Middle East & southern Europe. Other parts of West Eurasia received stuff from Maykop-like people, Iran Chalcolithic-like people. Yamnaya did not.

On related note....

IMO, the Middle East is mostly composed of Maykop/Caucasus, Levant neolithic, Iran Neolithic at varying degrees.

Davidski said...

Here's another good exchange from the Peer Review File. It seems like they know that CHG and Iran_N are different, but they sometimes choose not to differentiate them.

Reviewer: To describe the components of ancestry in the same sample, EHG & CHG is used on line 236 (544) and EHG & CHG/Iran on line 238 (549). I understand that Iran Neolithic is largely CHG, so distinguishing between them can be difficult. But CHG should have a clear definition and referent, and be used consistently. If CHG/Iran is used to indicate analyses where CHG could be replaced with Iran Neolithic without changing the result (which seems to be the explanation for lines 236 and 238) then that statistical definition of CHG/Iran should be stated and used consistently. If CHG/Iran is used to indicate CHG & an additional Iran Neolithic ancestry component, then that accretional definition should be stated, or if this accretional definition is never intended, then that should be made clear.

Reply: Thanks for pointing out the inconsistency in describing CHG and Iran-like ancestry. We agree that Iran Neolithic is largely CHG as shown in qualitative analysis such as ADMIXTURE components, but we can still distinguish them quantitatively in qpWave and qpAdm modeling because of the difference in their proportion of “basal Eurasian” ancestry. We have checked the manuscript for consistent use of the terminology and added clarifying statements where an absolute distinction of the two related ancestries is needed.

Angantyr said...

@Ric Hern

The case for the existence of the Manych spillway is very solid, but it dried up long before 6000 BCE. I have seen several dates, but none later than 10000 BCE.

(By the way, how did Wang et al. manage to misplace the 'Manych' label on their Caucasus map and put it on the Sal River? What were the the proofreaders (and peer reviewers) doing?)

ANI EXCAVATOR said...

Some of the reviewers suggest separate publications, one focused on the archaeology crowd, another for the geneticists, in separate publications, which sounds like a good idea.

The state of the field is extremely confused and extremely basic connections and theoretical assumptions (e.g. connection between ancient DNA populations, speech communities, and archaeological assemblages) are not stated clearly, nor explained in any publication. Methods of deduction and constraints imposed on the inferences about ancient social processes (e.g. if two populations are next to each other or have admixture with each other, then contact between the hypothesized linguistic communities we associate with them should have occurred, and the converse also) are not stated explicitly, or justified. Connections between ancient populations and moderns, and the connection of "population" with modern "ethnic groups" is not defined. As a result people like Romila Thapar can cast aspersions on the power of genetics to tell us about things like caste and population history (which she seems to see as a kind of ethnic history) and linguists alternatively switch between "everything fits with the prevailing theory!!!" and "genetics tells us nothing about linguistics, I'm still absolutely confident despite lack of genetic support!!" which is blatantly contradictory. At some point a publication detailing the constrained relationships and interconnections between linguistics, archaeology, genetics and ancient social processes is probably necessary.

ANI EXCAVATOR said...

E.g. for the Maykop, how can we explain the simultaneous occurrence of two extremely divergent populations using a single archaeological complex with little admixture? People were always talking about Maykop influences from Mesopotamia and Central Asia, which the genetics seems to support (c.f. Iran Chalcolithic and Anatolia Chalcolithic ancestry in Maykop in the best model, and Botai-like ancestry up to 35% in the Steppe Maykop, but also not exactly Botai-like because the ANE:ENA ratio is off with too much ANE, so maybe from the Caspian?). But then why does the central asian influence hit the steppe maykop only and the mesopotamian influence hit the foothills only? Answering these questions will take a lot of collaboration and close work between people familiar with both types of data.

Then again the dating of admixture in the Steppe Maykop outlier dates to 50 gens ago, i.e. its not immediate. Maybe the Maykop group had a genetic cline within it, and this may be yet another example where sampling is an issue and the assumption of homogeneous population = archaeological complex is completely wrong.

Ric Hern said...

@ Angantyr

Thanks for the clarification. So there existed a relative significant barrier until 10 000 BCE.

Drago said...

“the assumption of homogeneous population = archaeological complex is completely wrong.”

It’s not wrong . It’s dependent on which archaeological complex we are talking about
Steppe Majkop and (regular) Majkop has long been distinguished even before aDNA

Al Bundy said...

They don't mention Maikop in their response to the comment so it's not Maikop, or they thought it was but Davidski's and others' analyses changed their minds.I think the focus on Maykop is misplaced.

Davidski said...

The Maykop thing obviously didn't work out. So they currently don't have a detailed theory; they just have their tracer dye theory.

Gabriel said...

As long as we don't have to deal with the immobilist rhetoric that archaeologists have been in love with for so damn long and twist the genetic data, which obviously shows migrations everywhere, and turn it into immobilist crap, then we're good.

Anonymous said...

@Davidski Do they have data from the Eastern Caucasus? If so, they may have just ruled Maykop out, and not something else Caucasian. Kudos to being proved right though!

Davidski said...

It took me about 5 minutes to write up that blog post, because I couldn't be bothered going over all of this sh*t again, but what I should have added is how gene flow from south of the Caucasus is played up in these papers, while gene flow from the steppe to the south is almost totally ignored. Think about it...

- Armenia_EBA has R1b (of course, R1b is native to the steppe not to Armenia)

- Hajji Firuz has R1b (again, R1b is native to the steppe not to Iran)

- Armenia_ChL has obvious genome-wide steppe ancestry dating to the likely early PIE era

- and I'm pretty sure that those southern Eneolithic steppe samples can be used to successfully model Anatolia_ChL (how did no one bother to check this in a paper that touches on the PIE debate?)

Gabriel said...

And I don't want to imply that all migrations were big or that people were constantly migrating everywhere to the point there was no continuity or stability ever...

Or that we still face problems (like the whole CHG > steppe thing that's being discussed here)...

I'm just reallytired of absolute and unrelenting immobilism, to put it lightly.

Davidski said...

Do they have data from the Eastern Caucasus? If so, they may have just ruled Maykop out, and not something else Caucasian.

Yeah, there are Kura-Araxes samples in the paper from Velikent, Dagestan. They look like Maykop samples, except probably with more EHG admix.

They can't be ancestral to Yamnaya because they have way too much direct Anatolian ancestry.

Anonymous said...

@Davidski Right, a Y DNA J1. So it looks like, unless M269 is being super-stealthy/systematically not published in anticipation of some groundbreaking paper, M269's Urheimat is with Repin (it isn't with Khvalynsk, and Repin fits best). Southern Repin would have enough CHG too, so I'm not sure why they still believe in a Southern homeland for IE. Any ideas? Maybe they are actually holding back data?

Anonymous said...

By Urheimat, I mean location of tmrca by the way - M269 obviously predates Repin.

Davidski said...

They're not holding back any data in favor of a southern PIE homeland.

If they had such data, like R1a-M417 or R1b-M269 from Iran or Armenia, then you'd know about it by now because it'd be all over the science media.

This is all they've got.

Anonymous said...

But with all respect, surely they know all your arguments, so why (given they must also know what they're doing) do they persist with a Southern origin of IE? Is it really as stupid as "No EHG in Hittite"? How do they distinguish between WHG+ANE and EHG anyway, as Hittite definitely would have had WHG and ANE

K33 said...

[i]ANI EXCAVATOR: Botai-like ancestry up to 35% in the Steppe Maykop, but also not exactly Botai-like because the ANE:ENA ratio is off with too much ANE, so maybe from the Caspian?). But then why does the central asian influence hit the steppe maykop only and the mesopotamian influence hit the foothills only?[/i]

The heavy ANE ancestry in Steppe Maykop (outside of the typical EHG packaging) was a huge surprise to me too, but I think we need to remember how much of a genetic/linguistic sink the Caucusus are. I mean, to this day this tiny region contains the entire extant living range of three primary language families, plus Turkic (Nogay, Azeri), Mongolic (Kalmyk) and three separate branches of Indo-European speakers (Iranic, Slavic, and Armenian). And there's of course massive genetic variation jumping from say, Kalmyks, to Chechens, to Armenians.

The earliest samples west of the Urals we have that show significant ANE admix are:
EHG (Sidelkino 9300 BC),
CHG (Satsurblia 11,000 BC), and
Iran_N (9,100 BC)

But the UP Sunghir, Kostenki, and Dzudzuana guys (25,000-35,000 BC) don't have ANE ancestry. So it must have rolled into western Eurasia sometime between 25,000 and 12,000 BC.

ANE+WHG= EHG
ANE+WHG+Basal+ENA = CHG/Iran_N (CHG with a higher ANE/Basal ratio)

The mountains of the Caucasus probably allowed for much more sustained barriers to admixture with neighboring tribes. I wouldn't be surprised at all if a population with Steppe Maykop-like levels of ANE was living for thousands of years right next to CHG and/or Anatolian-dominant peoples over in the adjacent mountain valleys.

The alternative, of course, is that it came from a more proximate source like Botai...

Ric Hern said...

How about Iran Neolithic being descendants from a migration to the South East by CHG from the Lower Don ?

Ric Hern said...

So during the Late Upper Paleolithic a migration from Imereti to the Lower Don and maybe as far as the Crimea. Then a back migration and a migration to the Southeast after 10 000 BCE ending up in Iran...

Ric Hern said...

@ Lenny

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2016/05/villabruna-cluster-near-eastern-migrants.html?m=1

When you look at Villabruna then you see that ANE already reached Northeast Italy 12 000 BCE. So ANE had to be earlier near the Urals. My guess is +-17 000 BCE they passed the Urals into Europe.

Ric Hern said...

And maybe R1b formed around the time when ANE met Dzudzuana related people in the Lower Don area..

Folker said...

@Unknown
They tried to prove a South of Caucasus origin of PIE in studying Caucasus ancient genomes. They were sure it will prove their point. But they didn't find anything. The Peer Review file is quite clear about what they expected and how they are dealing with their results: hence the "tracer dye" (no sustainable admixture from South of Caucasus, but some very teneous admixture could be find, so it is a revelating trace of the diffusion of PIE).
Moreover, they are twitching some results in their narrative: their relative similarities of Mt haplogroups between Steppe and Caucasus are in fact extremely limited. The subclades are different. And you should study differences between Yamnaya and Steppe Maykop, which is not done properly. So they tried to increase the similarities by staying on a general level.
Their results are extremely important, but their conclusions don't deserve any consideration.

Ric Hern said...

Another reason why CHG didn't mix significantly with Steppe people until Repin/Yamnaya could be because of Animal migration. Animals use specific routes and usually migrate in a semi oval fashion. Hunter Gatherers usually followed this migration or had a seasonal settlement along this route. It could be that the Spillway between the Black and Caspian Seas created Animal migration patterns which confined them South of the Manych Spillway and therefore the bulk of CHG and ANE populations never crossed paths until after the Spillway dried up. Or if the Spillway was not a significant barrier for humans at least it could have been for Animals Hunted...

epoch said...

@Folker

One thing though: The paper is well written, because the results are properly separated from the conclusions, which is why we are able to draw different conclusions from their results.

@Dragos

"Steppe Majkop and (regular) Majkop has long been distinguished even before aDNA"

I am very interested in articles about that. What was the idea that the relationship was? And why was it considered to be one cultural horizon?

Davidski said...

@Ric

Another reason why CHG didn't mix significantly with Steppe people until Repin/Yamnaya could be because of Animal migration.

The earliest EHG samples have some CHG admix, and those Yamnaya-like but CHG-heavy samples from Progress and Vonyuchka date to over 4,000 BCE, so Yamnaya-like populations on the steppe may predate Yamnaya by several thousand years and date back to the Mesolithic.

Ric Hern said...

@ Davidski

Yes and ANE was in the Steppe at least since 17 000 BCE. and mixed with CHG related people. After that the Spillway formed maybe confining some CHG Heavy people to the area South of the Spillway until around 10 000 BCE.

Drago said...

@ Epoch

Quickly - Chernykh (the ''metallurgical provinces'' pioneer) had outlined these sub-groups (later also outlined by Shishilina). I suspect their differentiation was largely geogrpahical (Majkop itself in the foothils, steppe Majkop in the open lands).
That they're distinctive populations is the breakthrough here.


Not discussed clearly in the paper is that the prorgession of ''cultures'' in the Nth Caucasus steppe, which is as follows:

1) ''Eneolithic steppe'' (pred. EHG/CHG)
2) ''Steppe Majkop''
3) Yamnaya
4) Catacomb

Hence we can understand the diffusion of EHG/ CHG more widely across the Eneolithic steppe - it was dispersed by, or vacated due to other pressures, and were succeeded by Steppe Majkop - who were distinctive groups, Q1a, and ? vassals of Majkop (propper).

In turn, steppe Majkop were the intermediaries between Majkop & proto-Yamnaya groups (Repin, Konstantinovka, etc), a system which lasted for 800+ years.
With the demise of Majkop, the area become once again reclaimed by north-steppe groups (Catacomb, etc). So we have a failry dynamic situation.

Ric Hern said...

@ Davidski

And maybe because certain patterns formed North and South during this isolation period the diffusion of CHG heavy ancestry was slow until around the 5th Millennium when more radical expansion took place from the Don-Caspian area.

Davidski said...

Mobility increased with the advent and more frequent use of wagons, and population densities were probably much higher in the southern steppes, so as the steppe populations homogenized genetically, EHG levels dropped.

Samuel Andrews said...

I updated my West Eurasia index. The results have changed a lot.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LPWAEC3dbAEDu8aBAAcxIOa5CQjuflt0f0cvhCpZ_ME/edit#gid=0

I'm very confident in the accuracy of the results. A pure strain of Anatolian was isolated looking at Balkan_N & Iberia_N. Barcin_N fits as 89% Anatolian. Because of this Anatolian numbers in Middle East go way down.

Turkey only has 30% Anatolian. In comparison English have 36%. Anatolian is highest in Spain & Italy at about 48-50%.

Thanks, to GAC/TRB DNA, it is obvious all HG ancestry includes ANE. So, Euro HG numbers went up & Yamnaya went down.

Looks like Middle East is mostly Levant_N, Caucasus_N, Iran_N at varying proportions.

a said...

@Samuel Andrews said...
"I updated my West Eurasia index. The results have changed a lot."
Does this update include the 26 0000 Basal samples from Dzudzuana, Georgia- I would think they would be close to the region of tracer movement?

Gaska said...

Wang is using the same argument regarding the origin of the PIE, which other geneticists use to justify the expansion of the Indo-European language in Europe, ie the autosomal components of different cultures. Everyone knows that depending on what you compare, everything can be much more Yamnaya (or Maykop etc ..) like what it really is. The expansion of eastern components (including CHG) throughout Europe began to occur with the first truly great prehistoric migration, ie the Anatolian farmers. What language did these farmers speak? Any language related to Basque? Pre-Anatolian? - PIE? I suppose some language would speak, no? Do any of you know? The dispersion of the Anatolian farmers throughout Europe was broad enough to allow the same language to be spoken throughout the territory. The strong relationship of Sardinians/Italians and Basques/Spaniards in general with the Anatolian farmers is evident.

I believe that Reich can not maintain an origin of IE in the south Caucasus and continue to think of steppe migrations as the key factor for expansion of this language, simply because the genetic relationship between Maykop and Yamnaya is very weak (much more than what all those who longed to find L51 at least in Maykop thought). However, the problem of the uniparental and autosomal markers of hittites, will be able to be solved in the future with more genetic analyzes. They are modern enough to have their origin in the Balkans.

As they say in my village "You can not pretend to be in church and ring the bells"

Ric Hern said...

I think what many people forget is the basic principles of cattle breeding. When you use a Brahman Bull on Hereford cows and their Male offspring on pure Hereford cows etc. Eventually you will see that all look like Herefords but the Male Line will have a Brahman paternal line. So Autosomally they will be Herefords.

This is basically what happened to R1b in Villabruna. R1 migrated from East of the Urals to the West and along the way the ANE got diluted....etc.

epoch said...

@Ric Hern

"When you look at Villabruna then you see that ANE already reached Northeast Italy 12 000 BCE. So ANE had to be earlier near the Urals. My guess is +-17 000 BCE they passed the Urals into Europe."

Both Afontova Gora (+/- 17.000 BCE) as Mal'ta (24.000) showed ANE were mainly mammoth hunters. There is a cave with mammoth wall paintings all over it in the Urals dated roughly 14/15.000 BCE. Kapova Cave. It's 200 km east from Samara. Could very well be the last mammoths from Europe.

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2016/05/following-mammoth-herds.html
https://www.donsmaps.com/kapova.html

Ric Hern said...

@ epoch

Yes my thoughts exactly...

Gaska said...


Ric- Cruciani et al, 2.010 found Basal R1b1-L278* lineage in five cases- 3 Italians, 1 West Asian, 1 East Asian (), which point to a potential ancestral migration into Europe. Then we have Villabruna-ANE- 7,16%, ASE- 0,52%, WHG-89,88%, East-Eurasian-0,97%, West African- 0,36%, East-African- 1,12%,EEF-x Then (not far from Villabruna), Epipaleoilithic hunter gatherer Iboussieres R1b-P297, (WHG) Then the Latvian Mesolithic hunter-gatherers R1b-P297- 70% WHG/30% EHG. And then all Europe plagued with R1b V88 (iron Gates, Romania, Germany, Spain ...) and some doubtful cases until Kromsdorf R1b-M343

With your example on the cows you mean that Villabruna could be the ancestor of all the R1b in Europe, independently of its autosomal component (which evidently changes continuously depending on the miscegenation of people)?.

Remember also that the culture of the catacombs (Z2013) has clearly Western influences.

Ric Hern said...

@ Diego

Nope I did not say that Villabruna was ancestral to all R1bs in Europe. With Afontova Gora,Mal'ta Buret, and Yana we clearly see from where the Ancestors of R1 came....Not from the West.

Ric Hern said...

If Late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic samples around the Urals and the Don-Caspian Steppe does not show any R1b then maybe I will shift to the possibility of a Romanian/Balkan origin...

AWood said...

@Blas,

No doubt that the earliest, mostly extinct branches of R1b were Epigravettian in Europe. However, there is no evidence that M269 was deep into western Europe, I can't believe you're still fighting this after dozens of new male genomes from the Neolithic in Spain and GAC who are all I2 or G2/H. The latest evidence places M269+ in Neolithic Ukraine, and nothing supports it west of there any earlier. This is still classified as geographic steppe and certainly EHG. Your beloved Basque are modeled more EHG than they are WHG, I'm certain of it.

Gaska said...


@Ric- And because you can not consider an Italian or Latvian origin when Latvian hunter-gatherers are mostly P297 from 7,000 BC to at least 4,000 BC. These Latvians are older than any R1b ​​in the steppes and they are WHG (70%). Do you realize that you have R1b out of the steppes at 4,000 BC without a drop of blood related to the steppe ancestry?

@Wood- You can show that those branches became extinct? Surely you would do the international scientific community a favor.

Nobody has said that R1b-M269 is Western, what is clear, is that P312 is absolutely Western, and probably also L51.We already have P312 in Iberia 2,500 Bc (according to the new Olalde's paper), and with that we are already more than satisfied. Has anyone found something similar in the steppes?

Of course the Basques are more Neolithic farmers (like sardinians) but we also have an important WHG component and very little steppe ancestry, which is a true miracle considering our 93% R1b

Do not fool yourself, the steppes are a puzzle of autosomic components, and uniparental markers, the closest thing to M269 that you will find there is Z2013 / Z2015. To pretend that with that genetic composition the steppes filled Europe with R1b-L51 and its descendants does not make any sense unless there was a massive founder effect. The origin and the path have to be different.

Open Genomes said...

@David

When are we getting these Wang et al. samples in Global25?

Open Genomes said...

We do have data from the East Caucasus:

Kura-Araxes VEK001 and VEK009 from Velikent, Dagestan, both J1-Z1842, which today is modal in Dagestan, and in some populations and studies reaches a level of 100% frequency.

The East Caucasus Dagestani language-speaking population doesn't seem to have autosomally changed much from these ancient Kura-Araxes individuals.

While we don't see any "Eastern" influence in the Steppe at all, we do see something interesting among the very likely Amorite Middle Bronze Age and later J1-Z2324 and J2a1-M205 individuals from the Northern Levant (Sidon) and Egypt:

There is what appears to be both a strong post-Chalcolithic northern "Kura-Araxes-like" ancestral component, as well as something related to BMAC. The Amorites clearly migrated from the north, and seem to have originally been non-Semitic (perhaps Hurrian) speakers, who adopted an East Semitic (Eblaite-like) language and modified it to become proto-Central Semitic. (This can be seen among Amorite names in the Ebla tablets.)

The Indo-Iranian Mitanni arrived around 1600 BCE, at the start of the Late Bronze Age, but we we don't see this kind of Steppe ancestry in Late Bronze Age Sidon, or in later Egypt.

I would expect to see this strong "northern, Kura-Araxes-like" Amorite influence in Mesopotamia too after the Amorite colonization in 2034 BCE.

Everyone seems to have forgotten the direct influence of the Anatolian Neolithic in the Near East. This started after the Levantine Neolithic, and Kura-Araxes itself in Global25 may be as high as 55% Anatolian Neolithic.

The raw data from Wang et al. from more Kura-Araxes samples will provide us with a big clue about what went on in the Bronze Age Near East, and also for Bronze Age Anatolia, the Aegean, and later (post-Classical Italy). Was it the Greeks, Phoenicians, and/or the later Romans who spread CHG-like ancestry around the Mediterranean, even reaching Sardinia?

Alexander said...

Fascinating!

R1a1 in Chalcolithic Spain! See I6629 Hume 3A, 146154
Suppl.2 to this paper

It is challenging which subclade?

Davidski said...

@Alexander

It's an error. That table is full of errors.

Alexander said...

And which haplogroup and subclade is it actually?

Davidski said...

It's only listed as F in Olalde et al. 2018, probably because this sample is low coverage and has a lot of missing data.

John Thomas said...

'Turkey only has 30% Anatolian'.

- So where the Hell did 'Turkish' Anatolian go?

Alexander said...

But may it be an update from 2018? Or no update was made definitely?

Samuel Andrews said...

@Diego,

Are you Basque?

Davidski said...

@Alexander

It's not an update. You should look at the original results from the cited papers, because the algorithm they used for this datasheet produces wrong calls for low coverage data.

Alexander said...

Thanks a lot!

and what are other mistakes in the table of the same algotithm?

Davidski said...

Too many to list here.

Samuel Andrews said...

@Mikey,
"So where the Hell did 'Turkish' Anatolian go?"

A big reason is they have 15-30% Central Asian Turkic ancestry.

Gaska said...

@ Samuel Andrews- Yes, My paternal lineage is from Valdegobia, Province of Alava, Basque Country, Spain.

Drago said...

Is genotype out yet ?

Davidski said...

Feel free to ask the authors...

wang [at] xmu.edu.cn

haak [at] shh.mpg.de

krause [at] shh.mpg.de

svend.hansen [at] dainst.de

Andrzejewski said...

@Open Genome

So, when you say "BMAC related population" do you mean Iran_N? After all, it seems as if Dravidians, BMAC and Elamites share this component of Iran farmers?

What's the ratio of Anatolia_N among ancient and modern Middle Easterners? (EEF among modern Europeans range between 30% - 40%).

Andrzejewski said...

Also, from what you wrote is wasn't really clear whether Kura-Araxes (Hurrians) were mainly CHG or Anatolia_N.

Gabriel said...

@Andrzejewski

Everyone seems to have forgotten the direct influence of the Anatolian Neolithic in the Near East. This started after the Levantine Neolithic, and Kura-Araxes itself in Global25 may be as high as 55% Anatolian Neolithic.

Samuel Andrews said...

Kura-Araxes/Armenia EBA in G25 is about 27% Anatolian aka 30% Barcin_N (Barcin is 90%).

Samuel Andrews said...

Has anybody considered Anatolians played a key role in early farming in Near East? This would explain why Levant Neolithic is almost 50% Anatolian.

Gabriel said...

@Samuel Andrews

If that’s true, is it possible farming first started in Anatolia?

PF said...

The earliest direct evidence of farming is in and around the Levant, not Anatolia.

It's also complicated from the genetics perspective. Gene flow went both ways for a long time -- well predating farming. For example, Levant_N has Anatolia_N on top of Natufian, but Anatolia_N itself has Levant_N, increasingly so over time. Anyways Natufians already were farming and don't have any Anatolian (unless you believe they are literally something like Anatolia_HG + Iberomaurusian!).

Personally I'm pausing thinking more about it until the Anatolia_HG and Dzudzuana genomes are published...

alobrix said...

@Davidski

May I ask you a technical question?

"What programs do you use to extract the PCA of Global25?"

Matt said...

In case anyone's interested, while we await for processing of data from paper to Global25, a few simulation samples based on the proportions from the best fitting models from the paper:

In a reprocessed PCA: https://i.imgur.com/6qMRp4S.png

(Red Stars: Caucasus Simulations, Blue Dots: Armenian ancient, Aqua Dot: CHG, Black Dots: Eneolithic Steppe, Dark Gray Dots: Khvalysnk, Yellow Dot: Yamnaya_Kalymkia, Purple Dots: Steppe Maykop Simulations, Red Dots: Ukraine Eneolithic. Other colour scheme as per standard G25.).

Data Values: https://pastebin.com/eMqa0tpJ

Be cool to see how accurate their models are and how close to the real populations they are. Caucasus populations based on their models look like Armenia_EBA, but closer to CHG in dimensions splitting Iran+CHG, while Steppe_Maykop should be closer to later steppe populations than Dali_EBA is (but no necessary or fit improving element of contribution to them).

Samuel Andrews said...

@PF,
". Gene flow went both ways for a long time -- well predating farming. For example, Levant_N has Anatolia_N on top of Natufian, but Anatolia_N itself has Levant_N, increasingly so over time."

There was a big movement from Anatolia>Levant but no counterpart going in the other direction. Levant_N had 45% Anatolian ancestry. Tepecik_Ciftlik_N has 9% Natufian which translates to 18% Levant_N. The farmers who went to Europe had basically no Levant ancestry. Admixture didn't go in both directions equally.

I'm not claiming the first farmers were Anatolian. I'm claiming somehow the Anatolian ancestry in Levant_N is because of early farming.

Open Genomes said...

@Samuel Andrews

Absolutely the "Anatolians" played they key role in early farming in the Near East. Crops like emmer wheat (and later, bread wheat) and domesticated animals were first domesticated / bred by the Anatolian Neolithic Farmers.

However, this did not take place in Central Anatolia, which only became Neolithicized as a result of migration after around 10200 ybp. The previous population of Central Anatolian Hunter-Gatherers was much more akin to WHGs than the later Anatolian Neolithic population.

The foundation of the Early Neolithic took place in the region between the Middle Euphrates and Khabur rivers in southeastern Turkey and northern Syria, starting about 13,000 ybp, in places like Tell Qaramel 25 km north of Aleppo in Syria, and Çayönü, 40 km northwest of Diyarbakr in southeastern Turkey.

A map of the earliest domestication of animals and crops in the Fertile Crescent

Map of early Neolithic sites in northern Syria and southeastern Anatolia

Chad said...

Anatolian farmers are about 75% Boncuklu, and 25% Levant N.

Drago said...

@ OG

“The previous population of Central Anatolian Hunter-Gatherers was much more akin to WHGs than the later Anatolian Neolithic population.“

Not really “much more”; but slightly so ; and this related to distant affinities rather than directly via WHG (Mesolithic) time frame .

They are some nice images, b.t.w.

Michalis Moriopoulos said...

Sorry to be off-topic, but since it's big news, Anthrogenica poster Ryukendo reported on the Hannah Moots' presentation on Central Italian autosomal genetics from the Paleolithic to the Renaissance, including Roman era genomes:

https://anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?8066-DISCUSSION-THREAD-FOR-quot-Genetic-Genealogy-and-Ancient-DNA-in-the-News-quot&p=545077&viewfull=1#post545077

It's about damn time!

Davidski said...

IRON AGE TO REPUBLICAN PERIOD (700-20BC)

...EHG appears, Levant N appears for the first time, sporadic and inhomogeneous distribution, Iran_N increases further.

IMPERIAL PERIOD

...Long tail stretching from central cluster to Syrians and Iraqi Jews...Iran_N increases further, Levant N again sporadic and inhomogeneous.


LOL

I've got a feeling that a lynching party from Italic roots will arrive there shortly to deal with RK.

Michalis Moriopoulos said...

Get out the popcorn!

Drago said...

Good post Mike, thanks
Such a complex history, as expected cf northwest Europe
It’s intriguing the Bronze Age didn’t see the expected Steppe migrations
Was BB just an epiphenomenon in Italy ?

Samuel Andrews said...

All the samples are from around Rome.

Steppe admix not present in 1700bc. So, I guess it must arrived with Italic languages. It arrived in large numbers because modern Romans have around 23% Yamnaya ancestry.

Some samples from early Rome period cluster with North Italy, some with South Italy. Then most samples in Imperial period are East Mediterranean or Levantie (who were they?). Later Roman era samples cluster with South Italy as if they are a mixture between older inhabitants & Near Eastern immigrants. This is very confusing.

Hopefully, paper does a good attempt to make sense of data not only list where samples cluster. Who is an immigrant, who represents settled population. Where did the changes overtime originate.

Using G25, Cypriot is consistently the best proxy for Mediterranean ancestry in Italy. Cypriot carries a mixture of ancient Levant & Anatolian ancestry.

"IMPERIAL PERIOD
Dense cluster centroid between Greeks, Cypriots, South Italians/Sicilians, and Syrians, closest to Sicilians. Long tail stretching from central cluster to Syrians and Iraqi Jews. Couple of Northern-shifted samples overlapping N Italy, France, Spain.
Iran_N increases further, Levant N again sporadic and inhomogeneous.

LATE ANTIQUITY
Tight cluster centroid in S Italy, in the same place as in the previous period. Southern tail to Middle East disappears. N Italian, Northern European and NW European outliers exist.

AFTER
Resemble modern central Italians."

???? Why so many East Mediterranean & Levant samples dating Imperial Rome.

Samuel Andrews said...

@Dragos,

How will you rationalize Steppe admixture in remains associated with early Italic speakers?

Arch Hades said...

So I was looking over the data from Mathieson et al. 2017.

We have Latvian Hunter-Gatherers which are dated latest to 5100 BC and they are are WHG like. We have Ukraine Neolithic which is dated latest to 5,200 BC and they are EHG-WHG hybrids. If we also go pool those steppe samples with the data from Haak 2015 where the Samara region was pure EHG circa 5500 BC. We are looking at the CHG component entering the steppe and diluting the native ancestry there some time after 5,000 BC. This is obviously the tracer dye all the geneticists are hollering about. So in my opinion there's no reason to say this expansion happened out of the Caucasus during the Epipaleolithic.

Drago said...

@ Sam

“How will you rationalize Steppe admixture in remains associated with early Italic speakers?”

Who would you classify early italic speakers, & with what archaeological culture do you link them. You speak as if you know when italic arrived for sure , and I’m not sure we do.

According to the (English-speaking) blogo-sphere perspective, BB represented the arrival of R1b, steppe rich, Italic speakers
This doesn’t seem to pan out from the glimpse (but too early to say)

Was R1b indeed a WHG marker ??

Davidski said...

@Arch Hades

We are looking at the CHG component entering the steppe and diluting the native ancestry there some time after 5,000 BC.

Nope. That sounds like total BS. Are you sure you're not in denial?

As per latest estimates, EHG might well have double figure admixture levels of CHG. And it's extremely unlikely that those CHG-heavy Eneolithic steppe individuals from the North Caucasus steppes are derived from recent migrants to the region.

So it looks like a CHG-heavy, Anatolian-poor forager group lived on the steppes just north of the Caucasus since the Mesolithic, and it mixed with EHG groups very early to form a population of foragers very similar to the much later Yamnaya.

CHG groups elsewhere, all the way from eastern Anatolia to Central Asia, mixed with Anatolian farmers well before 4,000 BCE. So it's unlikely that someone brought CHG to the steppe after 5,000 BCE, because they'd bring Anatolian admixture with them, which is lacking in the above mentioned Eneolithic steppe samples.

Davidski said...

@Dragos

Quit trolling.

You know as well as anyone here that Italian Bell Beakers have been sampled, and some already published, and they have significant levels of steppe ancestry.

Drago said...

Yes it entered, but didn’t seem to propagate
Learn what an “epiphenomenon” is before you accuse of trolling

John Thomas said...

Concerning the Italian genomes.

It's all a Moot point ;)

Davidski said...

@Dragos

Yes it entered, but didn’t seem to propagate
Learn what an “epiphenomenon” is before you accuse of trolling


Beakers occupied much of Northern and Central Italy and even made it all the way to Sicily, along with their steppe ancestry, and they stayed there for a while. How is that not propagating?

The densities of Beaker finds across many parts of Italy are high enough.

http://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.com/2019/02/ceramic-beaker-census-bilger-2018.html

Arch Hades said...

If we are saying that Meoslithic EHGs have some small traces of CHG..well yes it seems that way based on various ADMIXTURE analysis that I've seen. But that's not even a sign of any significant admixture event, more like a simple isolation by distance genetic cline.

The point I was trying to make is the steppe after 5,000 BC looks very very different than the EHGs or EHG-WHG samples that preceded it. If EHGs represent 10 on a scale and CHGs represent 0. Then the steppe goes from a 10 before 5,000 BC to down to a 5-6 some time after. Just look at the huge differences for the Ukraine.

We don't have any data from the extreme Southern steppe just north of the Caucasus during the Mesolithic at this point. But it does look like the foragers a bit to the North in the Ukraine and in the Samara region had their ancestry significantly diluted after 5,100 BC.



Also, regarding the Italian stuff. Wasnt the Sicilian beaker lacking Steppe ancestry unlike the Northern Beaekers? I figure steppe ancestry doesn't enter Sicily till very late...maybe even 1st came with Greek colonization.

Davidski said...

@Arch Hades

The point I was trying to make is the steppe after 5,000 BC looks very very different than the EHGs or EHG-WHG samples that preceded it.

Which steppe? The North Pontic Steppe or the Caspian Steppe? How about the Don Steppe or the North Caucasus steppe?

Can you give us a detailed breakdown based on current sampling, and provide some convincing evidence that the CHG-rich Eneolithic steppe population living just north of the Caucasus wasn't derived entirely from local Mesolithic foragers?

I can bet you that they were, because I can't see a source population for these kinds of people outside of the steppe around 5,000 BCE.

Drago said...

@ Davidski
You know that I know that BB was fairly widespread in Italy ; and we know that it dates , 25-2000 BC there

So I’m simply making preliminary remarks based on this interesting snippet

1) c.f Atlantic Europe - where the BB phenomenon is assoc with massive introgression of steppe ancestry - this seems absent in Italy (apart from some samples individuals in the north)

2) even in northern Italy , the BB leaves little lasting cultural legacy , and I quote “the (succeeding) Polada culture seems clearly different and distinguishable from the BB one; something conformed by the evidence that a BB vase has never been found in a Polada context..”
Again, this contrasts with the Atlantic where BB continues linearly with the EBA groups.

Gaska said...

Mamma mia, the Italians are truly interesting people (not so bored genetically speaking as Spain) Rome at the time of the Empire came to have more than one million inhabitants with emigrants from all parts of the Empire, autosomal components from all over the known world had to enter Italy at that time.

Regarding the BB and the steppe ancestry, you have to remember that the Western Mediterranean was within the sphere of influence of Iberia, therefore, it is normal that the Bbs of Sicily, Sardinia, Liguria, and the French Mediterranean coast had very little steppe ancestry simply because they resemble the Iberian BBs. In addition, the BBC is so old that at first it was not related to P312 but to I2a and G2a. Maybe the Anglo-Saxon vision is right to relate the BBC with R1b-P312, metallurgy....., because that's what happened in the British Isles, but this happened 300 years after starting this culture.
The autosome Italian components simply confirm that the BB culture was a kind of civilization with two major centers of expansion, Iberia and Germany. This is basically what Lemercier said in his last paper.

Open Genomes said...

Here's a restricted Global25 nMonte for sample I1635, Kura-Araxes from Armenia, 2619-2465 calBCE, likely also R-V1636:

Bronze Age and earlier ancestry composition of sample: I1635 Population: Armenia_EBA Bronze Age Caucasus

It looks like here that this individual has a small amount of Steppe ancestry, and another more distant Tepe Hissar-related ancestral component that is different than Western Iran Seh Gabi Chalcolithic.

Chalcolithic and earlier ancestry composition of sample: I1635 Population: Armenia_EBA Bronze Age Caucasus

Here I2327, the Hajji Firuz "Chalcolithic outler" shows up at 13.0%. Tepe Hissar also remains separately at 7.6%

Neolithic and earlier ancestry composition of sample: I1635 Population: Armenia_EBA Bronze Age Caucasus

Using Neolithic and earlier samples only and excluding Europe itself, I1635 is 45.0% Anatoliand Neolithic, 34.6% CHG (Kotias), Iran Neolithic (Seh Gabi Late Neolithic) 16.2%, West Siberia Neolithic 3.4%, and negligible 0.8% of Levant Neolithic (outside the already present admixture in Tepecik Ciftlik and Barcin).

This extra Siberian must represent some additional ANE that wasn't already present in CHG.

Gaska said...

Regarding the date of entry of CHG into the steppes, it is obvious that the autosomal components did not enter as the influenza virus,but that they have to be linked to uniparental markers. Haplogroup Y linked to CHG is J, true ?. I think that has never been seen in the steppes, ergo, this autosomal component could only enter through maternal lineages. When ?, we only have to check the mitochondrial haplogroups of the steppes from the mesolithic, there are enough data to work with.

And be careful, because the different cultures of the steppes have ostensible differences in terms of their mitochondrial haplogroups, at first they were haplogroups related basically with hunter-gatherers both western and oriental, which explains that EHG has a proportion of WHG, but later Haplogroups of Cucuteni and the Balkans appear. There are also some subclades typical of the steppes and others of the South Caucasus. However, this does not mean that the PIE originated in the south of the Caucasus because the genetic contribution of other cultures might not be important enough to change the social and cultural structure of the steppes.

Wang has shot himself in his foot and now has the problem of trying to prove when that genetic relationship occurred. I sincerely believe that the expansion was the other way around, although certain autosomal aspects are certainly disconcerting.

Anonymous said...

@Open Genomes That additional ANE point suggests that there was a separate CHG-like population nearby with additional ANE, presumably due to a migration of some form of R1b (or theoretically even as far back as R1, certainly looking at basal subclades suggests this but such methodologies have flaws) into Northern West Asia a long time ago. That would explain the EHG-like auDNA and mtDNA in some of the very early samples from East of the fertile crescent.

Leron said...

How can we make sense of the BB data and the stuff RK reported? It seems like the south/eastern-like people in Italy conquered the BB folk, pushed them north and didn’t integrate with them, hence the lack of steppe in all the Italy samples RK summarized.

PF said...

@Samuel @Open Genomes

Ahh, Open Genomes beat me to the reply. I was going to say something very similar. Yes, the interaction that existed between Anatolia <--> Levant prior to the Neolithic was probably accentuated by agriculture.

We are sorely missing genomes from the area in between... the area that Open Genomes alluded to. As I complained before, it's really too bad it's a worn-torn hellhole where you can't do any archeology. I'd venture that at the very beginning of the Neolithic we'd see populations somewhat similar to Levant_N but with a higher Anatolia:Levant ratio. To take a more specific guess, perhaps the most northerly Natufians admixed with Anatolia_HG like populations in Syria, and that population, and/or it's decedents, went on to spread out in concentric directions.

Btw, Tepecik has more Natufian than you mention (at least using G25/nMonte scaled pops):

"distance%=4.3733"

Boncuklu_N,78.6
Natufian,14.4
CHG,4.8
Hotu_HG,2.2


"distance%=3.4756"

Boncuklu_N,63
Levant_N,29.6
CHG,4
Hotu_HG,3.4

Drago said...

@ Leron

BB certainly seem to have been “culturally evicted” from Hungary and Central Europe, which explains why they ended up with such numbers in Atlantic Europe . But in Hungary they appear to have been demographically assimilated (in Nagyrév 2400 BC & Unetice, resp)
The steppe ancestry in Italy might have arrived from Central Europe during LBA ?

Davidski said...

@All

Dragos: BB certainly seem to have been “culturally evicted” from Hungary and Central Europe, which explains why they ended up with such numbers in Atlantic Europe.

LOL

Obviously, steppe admixed Bell Beakers in Atlantic Europe derive from Northern Europe, not from the Carpathian Basin.

This is clear from ancient DNA and archeology.

Drago said...

Let’s look at the BB set then
- tanged copper daggers - Yamnaya
- wrist guards - Densest concentration Moravia
- earliest N-S inhumations : Zone of S Poland, Moravia ; Hungary
- the Lockenringe - Yamnaya

Cf Northern Europe pre-2400BC ; battle axes; no wrist guards; No copper

CWC was evicted by BB; BB moved out of CE because it was pushed out by Nagyrév and the Unetice .

It’s all rather Simple, Dave. The dynamics of life, koombaya, etc

Davidski said...

@Dragos

Maybe you're conflating the Bell Beaker cultural package, which isn't defined precisely anyway, with a specific kind of Bell Beaker people?

This specific kind of Bell Beaker people, rich in P312 and with a very particular physique, were the descendants of Single Grave people and they migrated out of the Lower Rhine region.

There's no way in hell that they came from the Carpathian Basin. They moved into the Carpathian Basin.

If you think that the Bell Beaker cultural package, or at least parts of it, came from the Carpathian Basin, then whatever, but you sound totally crazy when you claim that Bell Beakers moved en masse from there to Western Europe.

Obviously, the steppe admixed Bell Beakers that showed up in Iberia and surrounds came from Northern Europe, and they moved there via France and Atlantic maritime routes.

Try not to sound too crazy when posting here. OK?

Drago said...

Davidski

Iberian (''north''-) BB probably came via southern France, not the Atlantic coast. For the latter, you'd expect L21 in Iberian Beaker, like in the Netherlands and Britain, and I'd doubt that's the case.

''There's no way in hell that they came from the Carpathian Basin. They moved into the Carpathian Basin.

If you think that the Bell Beaker cultural package, or at least parts of it, came from the Carpathian Basin, then whatever, but you sound totally crazy when you claim that Bell Beakers moved en masse from there to Western Europe''

I might be nuts but I'm not crazy. Not en masse or sudden, but a gradual shifting along a network ?
Genetically, I think people might think it means Vucedol when one suggests a Yamnaya-Hungary role in BB genesis, and that's not necessarily the case.

Ric Hern said...

@ Dragos

Okay, so which Culture do you have in mind ?

Drago said...

Btw Davidski
Did you know we have a SGC sample already ??
That Polish CWC from Kujavia is, by definition, SGC.
It was I2a2..)

Drago said...

@ Ric
What about south Poland as an important zone ?

Ric Hern said...

@ Dragos

Was that not early Corded Ware territory ?

Anonymous said...

I updated my West Eurasia index. The results have changed a lot.

https://www.thesawingtools.com/

I'm very confident in the accuracy of the results. A pure strain of Anatolian was isolated looking at Balkan_N & Iberia_N. Barcin_N fits as 89% Anatolian. Because of this Anatolian numbers in Middle East go way down.