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Thursday, March 21, 2019

Ancient island hopping in the western Mediterranean (Fernandes et al. 2019 preprint)


Over at bioRxiv at this LINK. Here's the abstract, emphasis is mine:
A series of studies have documented how Steppe pastoralist-related ancestry reached central Europe by at least 2500 BCE, while Iranian farmer-related ancestry was present in Aegean Europe by at least 1900 BCE. However, the spread of these ancestries into the western Mediterranean where they have contributed to many populations living today remains poorly understood. We generated genome-wide ancient DNA from the Balearic Islands, Sicily, and Sardinia, increasing the number of individuals with reported data from these islands from 3 to 52. We obtained data from the oldest skeleton excavated from the Balearic islands (dating to ~2400 BCE), and show that this individual had substantial Steppe pastoralist-derived ancestry; however, later Balearic individuals had less Steppe heritage reflecting geographic heterogeneity or immigration from groups with more European first farmer-related ancestry. In Sicily, Steppe pastoralist ancestry arrived by ~2200 BCE and likely came at least in part from Spain as it was associated with Iberian-specific Y chromosomes. In Sicily, Iranian-related ancestry also arrived by the Middle Bronze Age, thus revealing that this ancestry type, which was ubiquitous in the Aegean by this time, also spread further west prior to the classical period of Greek expansion. In Sardinia, we find no evidence of either eastern ancestry type in the Nuragic Bronze Age, but show that Iranian-related ancestry arrived by at least ~300 BCE and Steppe ancestry arrived by ~300 CE, joined at that time or later by North African ancestry. These results falsify the view that the people of Sardinia are isolated descendants of Europe's first farmers. Instead, our results show that the island's admixture history since the Bronze Age is as complex as that in many other parts of Europe.


Fernandes et al., The Arrival of Steppe and Iranian Related Ancestry in the Islands of the Western Mediterranean, bioRxiv, posted March 21, 2019, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/584714

Update: Another preprint on a similar theme by Marcus et al. has appeared at bioRxiv (see here).

Abstract: Recent ancient DNA studies of western Eurasia have revealed a dynamic history of admixture, with evidence for major migrations during the Neolithic and Bronze Age. The population of the Mediterranean island of Sardinia has been notable in these studies -- Neolithic individuals from mainland Europe cluster more closely with Sardinian individuals than with all other present-day Europeans. The current model to explain this result is that Sardinia received an initial influx of Neolithic ancestry and then remained relatively isolated from expansions in the later Neolithic and Bronze Age that took place in continental Europe. To test this model, we generated genome-wide capture data (approximately 1.2 million variants) for 43 ancient Sardinian individuals spanning the Neolithic through the Bronze Age, including individuals from Sardinia's Nuragic culture, which is known for the construction of numerous large stone towers throughout the island. We analyze these new samples in the context of previously generated genome-wide ancient DNA data from 972 ancient individuals across western Eurasia and whole-genome sequence data from approximately 1,500 modern individuals from Sardinia. The ancient Sardinian individuals show a strong affinity to western Mediterranean Neolithic populations and we infer a high degree of genetic continuity on the island from the Neolithic (around fifth millennium BCE) through the Nuragic period (second millennium BCE). In particular, during the Bronze Age in Sardinia, we do not find significant levels of the "Steppe" ancestry that was spreading in many other parts of Europe at that time. We also characterize subsequent genetic influx between the Nuragic period and the present. We detect novel, modest signals of admixture between 1,000 BCE and present-day, from ancestry sources in the eastern and northern Mediterranean. Within Sardinia, we confirm that populations from the more geographically isolated mountainous provinces have experienced elevated levels of genetic drift and that northern and southwestern regions of the island received more gene flow from outside Sardinia. Overall, our genetic analysis sheds new light on the origin of Neolithic settlement on Sardinia, reinforces models of genetic continuity on the island, and provides enhanced power to detect post-Bronze-Age gene flow. Together, these findings offer a refined demographic model for future medical genetic studies in Sardinia.

Marcus et al., Population history from the Neolithic to present on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia: An ancient DNA perspective, bioRxiv, posted March 21, 2019, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/583104

See also...

Open thread: What are the linguistic implications of Olalde et al. 2019?

63 comments:

Samuel Andrews said...

Sardinian late antiquity look like modern Italians as far as I can tell. They were possibly, Roman Italians. I'm surprised they say their 25 modern Sardinians cluster closest to Sardinian late antiquity. Are they using different samples? Are the Sardinian samples typically used from isolated villages?

Samuel Andrews said...

Never mind they use the same Sardinian HGDP samples we're used to seeing.

Gaska said...

In Sicily Steppe ancestry arrived by ~2200 BCE, and likely came at least in part from the west as it was associated with the Iberian-specific Y haplogroup R1b1a1a2a1a2a1 (Z195), thus documenting how Iberia was not just a destination of east-to-west human movement in Europe, but also an important source for west-to-east Steppe ancestry reflux. In Sardinia, we find no convincing evidence of Steppe ancestry in the Bronze Age, but we detect it by ~200-700 CE.

In Iberia, most people buried with artifacts of the Beaker complex had little if any Steppe pastoralist-related ancestry (from here on denoted “Steppe ancestry”), but Beaker cultural practices were adopted by people in Central Europe were in part descended from Steppe pastoralists and then spread this material culture along with Steppe ancestry to northwestern Europe. I

Now you will understand why we said that the markers related to the BB culture in Western Mediterranean (Liguria, Balearic Islands, Morocco, Sicily and Sardinia) and in Central Europe came from Iberia.

Davidski said...

The PCA appears to be skewed by pretty strong projection bias, so keep that in mind.

Ric Hern said...

Well the Arzachena culture certainly had some connection to Southern France and Northwest Iberia....

Ric Hern said...

And the Ozieri Culture who seems to have had some Bull Cult going.....

Drago said...

Cool paper. Was Ibiza IE ?
:)

@ Ric
You’re correct in those link during the 4th millennium and early 3rd; but they shift radically c 2500 BC
The path to Vasconic is post-BB ; Sardinian is EEF-rich product of the Mediterranean Bronze Age
I think it’s clear as day now

Ric Hern said...

Bull vs. Man = Ancient Greece/Crete to Modern Spain/Portugal
Bull vs. Bull = Ancient Celts + Modern Balkans/Portugal
Cow vs. Cow = Alps
Horse vs. Horse = Ancient Scandinavia + Modern Austria ?

The Man vs. Bull certainly looks like a Mediteranian/Southern European Cultural phenomenon...

Ric Hern said...

@ Dragos

Yes, maybe...

Anonymous said...

@Ric Hern Arzachena is around 4000 BC and only the parts of Sardinia by Corsica. I don't think they have samples from that region - which is a shame really.

Drago said...

@ Ric
Are they the same as Majkop motif bulls ?

Kristiina said...

Does this mean that the Sicani language is related to the language of R1b-DF27? All R1b samples (from Buffa-Villafrati and Isnello) seem to be located in the ancient Sicani speaking area (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicani).

The following link to the Sicanian resources is given in Wikipedia: http://multitree.org/codes/sxc

Information on the Sicanian language is very minimal.

In any case, the area of the Bell Beaker culture in Sicily given in this Wikipedia map (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaker_culture#/media/File:Beaker_culture_diffusion.svg) is in line with the R1b samples of this new paper which are from Buffa and Isnello.

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

No I2a1a1 from the Nuragic Civilization? I am shocked. Wow.

Gaska said...

According to Thucydides the Sicani have their origin in Iberia (River Sicanus, Valencia). Obviously there must be a relationship between the Sicanian and the Iberian, because those Df27 are BBs from Spain.

In Sardinia they have not analyzed the deposits related to the BB culture

M León-The proboscidean ivory adornments from the hypogeum of Padru Jossu-The selected ensemble of personal adornments found in the hypogeum of Padru Jossu shows strong typological parallels with other materials unearthed in the European area where the Bell Beaker horizon was developed. The adornments set fit with the Beaker facies of the Mediterranean and Southern Atlantic areas, showing the existence of relations,contacts and interchange between the different Mediterranean areas, and placing the island of Sardinia
as an essential melting pot.

The mitochondrial haplogroups in Sardinia also coincide with the Iberians, so Df27 also has to appear

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

Looking at some modern studies on Sicilian Y DNA, they do find a fair chunk of DF27. Makes me excited to see Y-DNA from the Roman Republic, seriously overdue.

bellbeakerblogger said...

William Waldren spent most of his adult life excavating Mallorca and the other islands of early Beakers. Time Team interviews Waldren here concerning a Beaker observatory:

https://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.com/2016/04/crux-in-3rd-millennium-michael-hoskin.html

and another Beaker religious site in Sicily:
https://bellbeakerblogger.blogspot.com/2014/12/new-archaeoastronomical-findings-in.html

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

Iranian related DNA showing up in Sardinia in 300 B.C. independently of Steppe is certainly weird. That's right when the Romans took Sardinia from Carthage. Probably Phoenician DNA, but I really expected Phoenician DNA to look more Arabian like that one oddball Roman Gladiator from Britain.

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

The Y chromosome table in the paper has errors a bunch of errors, mtDNA in the Y chromosome column.

Arza said...

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/583104v1

Population history from the Neolithic to present on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia: An ancient DNA perspective

Marcus et al.

Abstract

Recent ancient DNA studies of western Eurasia have revealed a dynamic history of admixture, with evidence for major migrations during the Neolithic and Bronze Age. The population of the Mediterranean island of Sardinia has been notable in these studies -- Neolithic individuals from mainland Europe cluster more closely with Sardinian individuals than with all other present-day Europeans. The current model to explain this result is that Sardinia received an initial influx of Neolithic ancestry and then remained relatively isolated from expansions in the later Neolithic and Bronze Age that took place in continental Europe. To test this model, we generated genome-wide capture data (approximately 1.2 million variants) for 43 ancient Sardinian individuals spanning the Neolithic through the Bronze Age, including individuals from Sardinia's Nuragic culture, which is known for the construction of numerous large stone towers throughout the island. We analyze these new samples in the context of previously generated genome-wide ancient DNA data from 972 ancient individuals across western Eurasia and whole-genome sequence data from approximately 1,500 modern individuals from Sardinia. The ancient Sardinian individuals show a strong affinity to western Mediterranean Neolithic populations and we infer a high degree of genetic continuity on the island from the Neolithic (around fifth millennium BCE) through the Nuragic period (second millennium BCE). In particular, during the Bronze Age in Sardinia, we do not find significant levels of the "Steppe" ancestry that was spreading in many other parts of Europe at that time. We also characterize subsequent genetic influx between the Nuragic period and the present. We detect novel, modest signals of admixture between 1,000 BCE and present-day, from ancestry sources in the eastern and northern Mediterranean. Within Sardinia, we confirm that populations from the more geographically isolated mountainous provinces have experienced elevated levels of genetic drift and that northern and southwestern regions of the island received more gene flow from outside Sardinia. Overall, our genetic analysis sheds new light on the origin of Neolithic settlement on Sardinia, reinforces models of genetic continuity on the island, and provides enhanced power to detect post-Bronze-Age gene flow. Together, these findings offer a refined demographic model for future medical genetic studies in Sardinia.

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

Only one I2a1a1 from this study and it's from the Early Bronze Age, again NONE from the Nuragic Civilization and there's a lot. Now it's 40% of Sardinian Y. Seems like a later arrival. Remedello on the other hand looks like 100% I2a1a1. I2a1a1 also in a Hungarian Beaker without Steppe Ancestry and a Celtiberian. Interesting little group this one has become.

capra internetensis said...

@Romulus

Man, I2a1b is like 0.2% on Sardinia now, that's a hell of a change. Unless there Y calls are wrong again, of course.

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

There was a ton of R1b1b in the Sardinian Neolithic all the way to the Nuragic. It's apparently super old there as there are even examples of R2 from Sardinia. Probably related to Villabruna, Iron Gates HGs, Germany Neolithic HGs, Latvian HGs, and those Neolithic Iberian R1bs. There sure was a lot of R1b in Europe prior to the Bronze age.

Drago said...

I2a1b seems to be widely pan-Neolithic; whilst I-M26 more specific Cu-BA spread

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

Where's that crackpot Gioello with the Italian R1b origin story?

Nuragic seems associated with J2b2a1 which wasn't there prior to it. That's interesting considering that the place J2b2 seems to peak is Greece, out of anywhere in the world. Also taking into consideration the Tholoi found in Greece and Sardinia.

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

https://cache.eupedia.com/images/content/Haplogroup-J2b.gif


@Dragos

The oldest M26 I can see comes from Motala Sweden 5800 B.C.
Second to that is Portuguese Neolithic in the Pre-Beaker culture 3635 B.C. but that is almost contemporaneous to the closest M26 Remedello sample at 3483 B.C.


AWood said...

I could be misremembering, but I recall that I2-M26 peaked (in modern) in the less accessible regions of Sardinia, which would infer this branch may have escaped the Y repopulation events this island most certainly had since it was first colonized. Arriving at 35% may simply be due to the lack of mate selection and avoiding Iron Age colonization. What's even more interesting is that R-V88 was one of the main, if not the main Neolithic lineage of the island, and has been reduced to mediocre levels today. Wonder why they were building all the forts? To fend off the east Mediterranean settlers? Another tidbit is that R-V88 may have been linked to the Cardial expansion, including in Sardinia, which might suggest it was a unsampled Balkan group of foragers who arrived in the northern Levant before adapting to farming. This could also explain the incidence of R-V88 throughout countries like Jordan, Palestine/Israel, Egypt, and Libya. However, a hop from Sicily in antiquity may be just as easy an explanation.

AWood said...

@Romulus,

Am I looking at something different? Page 5 only has a few different haplogroups in the aDNA. Out of 25 men, R-V88 is represented in 10 of them (40%!).
The paper suggests R-V88 was a European HG turned farmer with the EEF expansion. To be specific, this is just one early lineage that dates to the Epigravettian period. For all intents and purposes, M269+ is related to the arrival of Yamnaya ancestry in Europe in the period of 3000BC - 2500BC from the PC Steppe. Every paper on the topic within the last few years suggests this after hundreds of male samples.

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

@AWood

In the supplemental material

Drago said...

@ Romulus
According to Mathieson 2018; there aren’t any M26 in Motala
One of them might be I2a1a2 (the line of Bichon & one of the Zvejnieki)

Matt said...

@Romulus: see http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2013/08/new-papers-on-human-y-chromosome.html - "Explosive" growth of I2a1a1; this "southwest European" lineage attains its maximum in Sardinia and looks like a clear founder effect. It should definitely be visible in the ancient DNA record of the island.

Explosive time depth for I2a1a1 in Sardinia looks about the same as R1b1a1a2-M269 for Europe as a whole.

(Off topic but again this confirms the story that the expansion of R1b1a1a2-M269, R1a-Z282 in Europe and R1b-V88 in Africa and later I1 in Europe is a social process story, not a selective advantage as some oddballs have proposed, as we see the same process occurring in widely unrelated lineages in different places in the CA-EBA).

Gaska said...

This week is being very intense and after two years will serve to put the debate in place. One of the biggest news is to confirm the antiquity of Df27 in Sicily and Iberia

I8561- Isnello (2.272 BC)- HapY-R1b-Df27-Z195- MitHap-K1b1+16093
I3123- Buffa (2.165 BC)- Hap Y- R1b-Df27-Z195- Mit Hap-U8b1/b1
VAD001- Valdescusa (1.741 BC)- Hap Y-R1b-Df27-Z225- Mit-Hap-U5b1
I3397- Lloma de Betxí (1.741 BC)- HapY-R1b-Df27-Z195- Mit Hap-K1a2/b
Esp005- Cueva de los Lagos (1.700 BC)- HapY-R1b-DF27-ZZ12- Mit Hap- K1a
I3320- Els Estrets-El Racó de la Rata (200 BC)- Hap Y-R1b-Df27-Z225- Mit Hap-I1

We also have two other cases in Iberia that are Df27 almost certainly (I6539 Humanejos (2.325 BC) I5665/RISE911 (2.133 BC), and another 10 cases of Z225 in chalcolithic and Bronze Age Iberia (with SNP calls downstream Z225). It is clear that the great majority of subclades of this haplogroup will have their origin in Iberia. Its non-existence in the chalcolithic and the Bronze Age in the British islands makes impossible for it to have an European-Central origin.

Another great news are, the impossibility of linking R1b-P312 with the IE, and the antiquity of this haplogroup in Iberia (2,500 BC).

By the way, the paper about islands of Western Mediterranean, gives us another case of R1b-P312 in the Talayotic culture of the Balearic Islands (860 BC), with which 100% of the cultures of the Iberian Bronze Age were R1b-P312 .

Aniasi said...

I'm going to stick my head out here, but might it be possible that either a) this steppe lineage was not IE speaking or b) that they left prior to the cultural changes that allowed IE people to impose their language and culture on other groups?

Leron said...

Aniasi: The Euskaro-Caucasian hypothesis matches with the first scenario. The 'steppe = IE always' idea is too much of a simplification. The original proto-IE branch might have originally come from a West Siberian leaning population and transferred over to a distantly related steppe group along with horse and cart technology.

Samuel Andrews said...

This study demonstrates how modelling west Eurasians has become very complicated. What, demonstrates this best is their most approximate model for recent Near Eastern ancestry is Iran neolithic. Obviously a pure Iran Neolithic population was not involved in any migration in west Meditereaen. Actually, the Near Eastern source of this admixture might have been as little as 30% iran-Neolithic.

The phrase "Iranian-related" can be miss leading. It might miss lead some researchers who reference this study to think there was migration from Iran that far west. The ancestry modelling in this study is poor. With chalcolithic-Bronze age samples from Iran, Caucasus, Anatolia, Levant this study could have done a much better job.

Samuel Andrews said...

@JuanRivera,
But Basque have no recent Mediterranean ancestry. "East Mediterranean" admixture entered Iberia in historical times but did not affect Basque.

Ric Hern said...

So the Iranian ancestry spread due to King Darius the Great's Persian expansion into the Balkans etc...?

Samuel Andrews said...

Modern Greeks are much closer to south Slavs than to Classical Greeks/Myceneans. From, what I can tell they can fit as 70% Romanian/30% Greek. Just a thought.

Ryan said...

Romanians aren't Slavs.

Andrzejewski said...

@Leron "Aniasi: The Euskaro-Caucasian hypothesis matches with the first scenario. The 'steppe = IE always' idea is too much of a simplification. The original proto-IE branch might have originally come from a West Siberian leaning population and transferred over to a distantly related steppe group along with horse and cart technology."

So PIE = an EHG language, CHG spoke a Proto-Basque?

Matt said...

@Davidski, btw, any possibility of getting the samples from https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2018.2288 - "A western route of prehistoric human migration from Africa into the Iberian Peninsula"? Just more Iberians, but I'd like to see if COV20126 matches autosomally with the other Bronze Age samples (he's MBA at 1637 BCE) as he's G2a (in the paper, as I recall, some said I2).

Also having a quick look at the G25 samples again from Olalde 2019 (new ones), reprocessing through G25 slight suggestion that there may be slightly raised steppe ancestry in I4229 and I3485, though they'd still be intermediate the lowest steppe admixed BA cluster (Iberia Southwest BA) and the Iberian CA no steppe samples.

See: https://imgur.com/a/QDkHQWG

I4229 has a late date relative to the other SW_Iberia_CA samples he's grouped with (2336–2063 BCE vs dates that are more typically 2700-2300 BCE in the SW_Iberia_CA), and Bell Beaker cultural attribution (per Olalde 2019's supplement), so maybe not impossible that shows slight introduction of steppe ancestry.

There are only two other samples at Cova De Moura where he's sampled from, those are dated at 3700–2200 BCE, so he's pretty later than them, and certainly in the overlap of entry of steppe ancestry (the "caesura"). On the other hand he's I2a.

This site was described in Olalde 2017 as follows with: "The natural cave of Cova da Moura (Torres Vedras, Portugal) was discovered in 1930, with excavations undertaken in 1932 and in 1939 . This cave was used as collective burial place between 3700 and 2200 BCE (Middle Neolithic to the Copper Age), according to the results of seven radiocarbon dates obtained on human bones. The human remains were found commingled and fragmented. The study of the human remains performed by Ana Maria Silva indicated a minimum number of 90 individuals, both sexes, and 15 non-adults. In terms of material culture, Cova da Moura is by far the richest burial known in the region. Grave goods include limestone and bone idols, green stone pendants, gold artefacts, engraved slate plaques, bone, ivory, and variscite rabbit figurines, beads, and pre-Beaker and Beaker ceramics. Further studies of this bone assemblage include isotopic analysis for dietary inferences and mobility, as well as nonmetric dental traits to assess populations affinities"

(Alberto seemed to finger him as having 10% Steppe_EMBA ancestry with nMonte in a throwaway comment back in 2018, for whatever that's worth, although that seems high - http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2018/03/on-origin-of-steppe-ancestry-in-beaker.html).

(Most other non-R1bM269 males in the overlap look like they have too lame coverage to G25 and check I6622, I6587, I6543, I6542, I8048, I8142, I6608. Only other male in the crossover period is I6604, who looks less close to steppe than average, if anything).

I3485 is a "30-40-year-old female who was buried with two ivory buttons and who had a marine diet, suggesting a non-local origin" at site of Castillejo del Bonete (marine diet suggests non-local because the site is heavily inland).

None of this changes the big picture of course, even if right, but seemed like it might be of interest to someone.

(Olalde's PCA looks pretty compressed but I do wonder if the 4 Iberian non-Steppe Copper Age samples who touch the edge of the Bronze Age distribution are unusually transitional samples in any way - https://imgur.com/a/s58qLNB).

Davidski said...

@JuanRivera

But are slavicized.

Romanians are slavicized how? They have some Slavic admix, but still speak a Romance language.

@Matt

I can shoot off an e-mail but can't promise anything. Anyway, those samples are shotgun sequences, and often it's just best to stick to the higher quality capture data.

Matt said...

Ah, thought so, cheers for having a look at it anyway.

Samuel Andrews said...

Genetically speaking Romanians are basically south Slavs similar to Bulgarians. I'd estimate 50% Ukrainian/Polish-like. Fact mainstream Greeks have distance of @3.0 to Romanians but @6.5 to classical Greeks (from Spain) indicates they're mostly descended from Balkan Slavs.

Andrzejewski said...

@Dragos Your argument is a perfect one to sort out the mess relating to the whole concept of an "elite dominance" v. a mass displacement: the Romans ruled over the Dacians/Thracians and their language shifted to a Romance one. Then mere centuries later a large Slavic invasion swarming the land have transformed the language and even more so - the ethnogenesis of the Romanian nation, albeit the Slavs assimilated en masse into the native population.

Modern Greece, being mostly Slavicized according to the samples and the distance between Modern Greeks towards Modern Romanians being half that of between Mycenaeans and Modern Hellenes only showcases how mass assimilation of invaders plays out differently at different times and different places.

The Hungarians being 200,000 number forcing a language shift on 10X its population size is another case in point.

Andrzejewski said...

@Juan Rivera

Would you agree now that in light of what @Leron said: "Aniasi: The Euskaro-Caucasian hypothesis matches with the first scenario. The 'steppe = IE always' idea is too much of a simplification. The original proto-IE branch might have originally come from a West Siberian leaning population and transferred over to a distantly related steppe group along with horse and cart technology", that PIE arose among the West Siberian/EHG Steppe nomads and that Proto-Basque is a relic of CHG in its pure form?

Would you classify Kartvelian/"Georgian language" as an ANF language or a CHG one?

Drago said...

Some points
- Sam, 70% is a big overestimate for Slavic admixture in Greece. That’s because your using Romanians; which are predominantly pre-Slavic ancestry; thus slot in nicely in nMonte runs
- in terms of medieval Northerner admixture in the Balkans, raw percentages would be 50% in Slovenians; 30% central Balkans (Romanians, Serbs Bulgarians; northern Greeks.).
- ^ these figures in turn are probably underestimates, because the Slavs arriving into the Balkans might have already been slightly south- shifted
- Hungarian & Magyars: it is often assumed numebered tens of thousands; & were probably a diverse confederacy using Uralic as a LF
The size of the populations they encountered; what languages they spoke , etc is not very well known at present

Samuel Andrews said...

@Dragos, agreed.

Ric Hern said...

What is particularly interesting for me is the Migration Map of Steppe Ancestry.....Yellow Line Through Poland and Germany and Splitting +- along the Rhine....apparently the Rhine was a significant barrier since Neolithic times...

Aram said...

+They are rumours that we will have Y dna of early Hungarian conquerors. And we will see haplogroup N there.

Aram said...

Migrations do not always occur from Near East/Caucasus toward Europe. There is a archaelogical theory that Dolmens in Caucasus were introduced from Europe. From the north west of Black sea. What is needed is to have early Dolmen samples and more Y dna.
There are some genetic hints that such a migration occured.

Aram said...

I should add that this info about Hungarians comes from Molgen.

George Okromchedlishvili said...

@Aram - my pet theory is that Abkhaz-Adyghe language family came to NW Caucasus from Crimea. The descriptions of Tavr that preceeded Scythians there match well the hypothetical ancestors/relatives of modern NW Caucasians.

Andrzejewski said...

@ George Okromchedlishvili "@Aram - my pet theory is that Abkhaz-Adyghe language family came to NW Caucasus from Crimea. The descriptions of Tavr that preceeded Scythians there match well the hypothetical ancestors/relatives of modern NW Caucasians."

How exactly?

Andrzejewski said...

@Aram "They are rumours that we will have Y dna of early Hungarian conquerors. And we will see haplogroup N there."

There were 10 tribes, 7 of whom were Uralic, 3 were Turkic and close to Khazarians (Kabars). The ruling elite was bilingual and Arpad and his descendants' names were Turkic. Some of the Kabar tribes were Khazar converts to Judaism.

Andrzejewski said...

Would Abkhaz-Adyghe be a farmer language, George?

Matt said...

@Davidski, had a chance to have a quick look at the extended Iberian dataset on your datasheet for the West Eurasia PCA from your last post.

Looking in higher dimensions that load heavily on Iberia, non-overlappingness of Basques and Iberia_IA populations pretty apparent like you say! E.g : https://imgur.com/a/1L3Aa8I

Even more so in PCA reprocessed form: https://imgur.com/a/CXtJPq7
Empuries1 pretty close to French and lesser extent English (more so than Basques are, any rate)...

Looks like Basque drift plays a part in these PCA that is not so apparent in IA/BA?

Davidski said...

@Matt

Yes, that PCA is affected by drift more than the Global25, but it's been noted here that Empuries1 seems to show an upswing of steppe ancestry and might be in some part made up of Celts from Gaul, which makes sense based on the period and geography.

Matt said...

Yeah, to be clear I agree both are true, that Empuries1 is both closer to the cosmopolitan population of France today (and presumably Gallic France) than other BA/IA on the general Steppe->EEF vectors and on specific drift relating to present day Basque, and this is intuitive.

Ebizur said...

Andrzejewski said,

"There were 10 tribes, 7 of whom were Uralic, 3 were Turkic and close to Khazarians (Kabars). The ruling elite was bilingual and Arpad and his descendants' names were Turkic. Some of the Kabar tribes were Khazar converts to Judaism."

The Wikipedia entry for "Árpád" claims that "[h]is name derived from the Hungarian word for barley, árpa, which is of Turkic origin," but that does not make much sense to me. Why would he be named after a grain? More importantly, what is the origin of the /-d/ at the end of his name?

I suppose it could be from Turkic *alp ad "hero[ic]/warrior/brave name/fame" if one would allow a sound change from */l/ > /r/.

Unknown said...

For everyone speculating that Proto-Basque could be a CHG language. We should remember that is the precisely the Admixture component that is sometimes missing, or much reduced, in ancient BA Iberian samples and in modern day Basques. This is a point Maju also made in a post last year if you want to check out the chart.

I guess this could be the algorithm assigning that component to their elevated EEF, but it's worth pointing it out, as many other samples do show it clearly.

If one were to speculate this would leave Basque as either an EEF or a HG language.

The Sardinia study just published would give support o the EEF hypothesis. It showed how ancient Sardinians match Iberian CA and farmers, so it could explain the supposed links between Nugaric and Basque. Although I do agree that such a turnover in Iberia in the BA is unlikely not to have resulted in a language shift as well.

Davidski said...

@Adrian T

There's no real attempt to link the Basque language to the CHG genetic component here.

Some of the commentators are just very confused in regards to this matter, that's all.

Bogdan said...

Diego: the western Mediterranean has a decent cyclonic current, that will more or less naturally take you from North Sicily up Italian coast / Tyrrhenian Sea then NW past S.France and S down the Spanish Coast to the Cabo de Gate point, not far from Los Millares. From there the straight/Almería/Oran front will naturally push you right down to North Africa and along the Coast until you get to the Sicily channel.

On a crude sail craft with rudimentary skills you can hug the coast from Italy to Spain in about 7-10 days or so. It’s more problematic and much longer to get back via the same route. There is however the Ibiza channel / Balearic front that you can take to whip right in to Majorca / Balearic Islands.... From there however, it’s a bit dead in the water to get to Sardinia unless you have very good skills and or very favorable winds. (ie. with a rudimentary craft).

My point is this: it is completely logical to assume some Chalcolithic “copper age” Iberian supermen were early colonizers of the Balearic Islands riding the Balearic front and back. But much beyond? I doubt it. Especially considering at roughly same time there are likely more advanced peoples coming from the EAST (and via land, NE) that are more fully IN the Bronze Age...


Bogdan said...

To better understand the more homogeneous Celtic / Atlantic “fringe” during BA and why these peoples are key to current debate, what you need to do is study a topographical and geological-mineral map of Europe, with clear outline of river directional flow with major tributaries.

Now, invert that map counter-clockwise 90 degrees, so that Ireland and Iberian Atlantic coast are southernmost, with heartland of Europe and the Med to the ‘psuedo’ North...

In this perspective, the major European mineral Tin-cassiterite deposits (crucial to quality bronze production) are left to right in Cornwall, Brittany, Galicia, with massive deposits of Copper, Gold and Silver located just a bit further inland Iberian coast furthest right...

all of this area is accessible by trade with rudimentary level seafaring.

From Cornwall it’s a natural straight shot to the Low Countries either through channel or the Seine, from Brittany the main route is Loire, or further down coast to Garonne, to the area of modern day Toulouse (which is nearly an ancient Panama Canal / isthmus short hop to Narbo, completely cutting off the Iberian Peninsula).....

On the Iberian Atlantic coast, remember that with exception of a small (rather irrelevant) pit stop at the Bilbao estuary, most of the North Spanish coast / Bay of Biscay is uncongenial to seafaring trade...

From Iberian Atlantic Coast you have the Minho, Douro, the mighty Tagus, Sado, and further on the Guadiaro, Guardalquivir with all its riches and exceptional control to hinterland resources..

From this skewed South to North perspective, notice the natural geological breaks relative to natural movement of trade and upper headwater areas, these are also natural cultural and potentially linguistic barriers...

Why skew the map? Because it is necessary to upset your viewpoint (apple cart), may help you better understand how natural it was for the Atlantic peoples to be more or less homogeneous, of same / similar culture, how these people became powerful in the BA to the early IA, with such influence to trade, culture, language and influence....

Aram said...

George

Your theory is possible.