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Tuesday, May 28, 2019

North African ancestry in a British Bell Beaker?


A new thesis uploaded to the University of Huddersfield Repository suggests that there might be "Near Eastern/North African ancestry in a Bell Beaker individual from northeastern England" (see here).

If true, this wouldn't be a shocking outcome, but certainly an interesting one. Do any of the British Beakers in the Global25 datasheets show this type of ancestry?

See also...

A Bell Beaker superhighway

The Boscombe Bowmen

Migration of the Bell Beakers—but not from Iberia (Olalde et al. 2018)

200 comments:

Samuel Andrews said...

This seems very unlikely considering out of the couple hundred from Neolithic to Bronze age Spain only two samples have North African ancestry. One is a migrant from North Africa, another had a parent born in North Africa.

It isn't shocking to see a few North African migrants in central-Southern Spain but it would be quite surprising if traders decided to go all the way to Britain.

Also, the fact they put North African & Near Eastern in the same category is a sign they don't know what they're talking about. I'm guessing this claim is the result of false interpretation of DNA results but it would be fascinating if this were true.

Bob Floy said...

This will probably turn out to be a contaminated sample.

Bob Floy said...

Remember the Anglo-Saxons with, what was it, 9% SSA or whatever?

Andrzejewski said...

Maybe that Roman soldier outlier with the so-called “Eastern Mediterranean” characteristics was actually a Beaker?

Davidski said...

That seems rather unlikely, considering that he was decapitated like all of the other gladiators from that Roman burial.

Gaska said...


@Sam said- "It isn't shocking to see a few North African migrants in central-Southern Spain but it would be quite surprising if traders decided to go all the way to Britain"

From the paleolithic to the bronze Age, there are more than 1,200 prehistoric genomes analyzed in Spain, and there are not two cases of people of African descent but 5 or 6,
(including a woman with Mit-Hap U6 in a BB burial with a provoked cranial deformation), which shows that there were also people who crossed the strait in both directions. Also in England there is a case of Mit L haplogroup in the Neolithic.

The important thing is that this shows that the BB culture was like a multinational company that controlled the Neolithic sea routes and traded with ivory ostrich eggs, obsidian, salt, variscite, amber and metals. We have already said that the theory that the pottery traveled alone was silly, the BB migrations to a greater or lesser extent are fully demonstrated. I suppose there will still be someone who thinks that the Bb culture came directly from the Yamnaya culture and that they were recruiting Africans by the way in Hungary, Germany or France

@Bob Floy said-This will probably turn out to be a contaminated sample.

Really? You have to be calm, both the Cheddar man and La Braña, and other WHGs were pretty dark, and an African BB is always something exotic and interesting. I suppose no one would have thought that the British Bbs descended exclusively from the Dutch.

Davidski said...

On a somewhat related note, it seems that I was right when I hypothesized that some Sub-Saharan Africans had rather recent European ancestry. See here...

Population history and genetic adaptation of the Fulani nomads: Inferences from genome-wide data and the lactase persistence trait

And here's my blog post on the topic from last year....

Global distributions of lactase persistence alleles (Liebert et al. 2017)

Samuel Andrews said...

@Gaska,
"The important thing is that this shows that the BB culture was like a multinational company that controlled the Neolithic sea routes and traded with ivory ostrich eggs, obsidian, salt, variscite, amber and metals. We have already said that the theory that the pottery traveled alone was silly"

Bell beaker folk were not traders who controlled trade paths. They were an ethnic group who took over regions (they replaced 90% of previous population of Britain). I suppose it will take a long time for people to understand this. 23andme describes them as "metal smiths" who moved around western Europe looking for jobs in local communities.

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

The Neolithic Britons were descended from Neolithic Iberians so seeing North African ancestry in a group partially descended from them isn't suprising.

Bob Floy said...

@Gaska

"You have to be calm"

Not sure what you mean by this, but if you're assuming that I have a vested interest in the appearance or skin color of some ancient population, you're way off.

"...both the Cheddar man and La Braña, and other WHGs were pretty dark"

What does this have to do with BB?
In any case, I'll be surprised if this claim of a British BB with north African ancestry isn't corrected/abandoned at some point.
We've seen this kind of thing happen many times.

M.H. _82 said...

''The Neolithic Britons were descended from Neolithic Iberians''

But they don't. This is just another error being echoed by some Labs

Leron said...

This definitely puts a new spin on the "black Irish" concept. Most say it was the Spaniards, others hypothesize Phoenician influence, but it could also very well have been coming from North Africans, and it stayed as a folk memory of a "very dark other" since ancient times.

It wouldn't be too difficult of a trek going from Morocco into Britain. If they closely followed the western Iberian coast and then set sail before entering deep into the Bay of Biscany to be carried further north by the Atlantic currents.

The BBs appear to be a little more nuanced than people tend to represent them.

Bob Floy said...

@Leron

"This definitely puts a new spin on the "black Irish" concept. Most say it was the Spaniards, others hypothesize Phoenician influence, but it could also very well have been coming from North Africans, and it stayed as a folk memory of a "very dark other" since ancient times."

Thanks to ancient DNA, and now the knowledge that Yamnaya by and large had dark hair/eyes, we can just remind ourselves that the BB men who established the Irish genetic profile were about 50% Yamnaya in their ancestry, and consider that it probably has something to do with that. You don't see a "black Lithuanian" phenomenon because they have something like 30% WHG, with maybe 15-18% EEF, in fact their WHG/EEF proportions are almost exactly opposite to the Irish. If you look closely, you'll see something similar to the "black Irish" phenomenon in other Yamnaya-heavy ethnic groups who don't have a high WHG content.

So I'm grateful that we don't need goofy stories about the Spanish armada(or north African wanderers) to explain the "black Irish" concept anymore.

Andrzejewski said...

@Davidski "On a somewhat related note, it seems that I was right when I hypothesized that some Sub-Saharan Africans had rather recent European ancestry. See here..."

Except for lactose tolerance, there is something *else* which is indicative of a rather recent European ancestry:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fula_people#GenomicStudies

"A study by Hassan et al. (2008) on the Fulani in Sudan observed a significantly higher occurrence of the West Eurasian haplogroup R1 (53.8%)."

There you go lol :)

Andrzejewski said...

@Bob Floy "If you look closely, you'll see something similar to the "black Irish" phenomenon in other Yamnaya-heavy ethnic groups who don't have a high WHG content."

So it's the WHG and not the Indo-Europeans who are responsible for red-hair, blue/green eyes and light skin?

What a role reversal! Some members of the Thule Society are rolling in their graves by now ;)

Bob Floy said...

@Andre

"Some members of the Thule Society are rolling in their graves by now"

I look forward to the day when we can discuss things like this without Nordicism coming up.

Grizzlor said...

@EURDna
"But they don't. This is just another error being echoed by some Labs"
So science is wrong, it's just contamination etc. when the facts don't match your ideology, great. Seems to be like this blog has been veering towards that direction for quite a while.

Andrzejewski said...

@Bob Floy "I look forward to the day when we can discuss things like this without Nordicism coming up."

By all means! As a member/descendant of an ethnic group persecuted during WWII only second to the Jews in the name of this "racial purity BS", I am actually gloating to see that Poland is one of the countries in CENTRAL Europe (it's not in "Eastern Europe", mind you!) who has one of the highest percentage of a Steppe-derived autosomal DNA. On the other hand, if I go free reign with your theory, then how can you explain that Poland, where 30% is EEF and only 15% comes from the WHG, has one of the highest ratio of blond haired blue eyed people in Europe?

Leron said...

@Bob Floy

Looking at Europe today, it's obvious these immigrant Steppe men had a preference for lighter skinned women. After some generations the majority in Europe fell under various shades of "white", to put it crudely but in what most of the masses understand. However, any entities that appear strikingly "black", even during the early IE expansions would most likely originate recently outside of Europe. I'd only wager on very isolated areas as having people who retained a more ancient darker phenotype. As seems to have been the case in ancient Georgia with the Greek historians mentioning "Ethiopians among the Colchians".

Andrzejewski said...

@Leron "As seems to have been the case in ancient Georgia with the Greek historians mentioning "Ethiopians among the Colchians"."

It must've been an exaggeration! Georgians look a tad "Middle Easterners" but they certainly display the Southern European/Mediterranean phenotype, which is no wonder as they are a melange of Anatolian Farmers and Caucasus HG's, courtesy of the Kura Araxes complex. Svans (who have an even higher portion of ANF/EEF ancestry look almost "local" throughout mainland Europe.

Bob Floy said...

@Andre

"On the other hand, if I go free reign with your theory, then how can you explain that Poland, where 30% is EEF and only 15% comes from the WHG, has one of the highest ratio of blond haired blue eyed people in Europe?"

I admit that my idea is, I'll say, *rough*. But it beats the other bullshit that's been spun to explain the "black Irish". In an age where we now have tons of bronze age and neolithic DNA samples, from all over the place, we can dispense with the goofy old wives' tales, I think.

To answer your question about Poland, though, I'd say(tentatively) that it has something to do with it's being smack in the middle of the GAC zone, although I'm pretty sure that Poles have more than 15% WHG on average, that figure sounds way too low.

I'm not Polish but Poland fascinates me, always has.

Andrzejewski said...

@Bob Floy "To answer your question about Poland, though, I'd say(tentatively) that it has something to do with it's being smack in the middle of the GAC zone,"

You mean the same GAC Zone where we've just found a few blog entries ago a whole family where the genetics is more "Southern shifted"?

Andrzejewski said...

Ukraine is a very interesting case: from the last thing I read, it's almost evenly distributed Yamnaya: EEF : WHG as 40% : 30% : 30%. Although it may not be that accurate if we keep in mind that local forager and farmer groups contributed to a significant influence on Yamnaya's ethnogenesis.

Bob Floy said...

Yes, and the same GAC zone where the blonde hair/light skinned/northern Euro phenotype has been found, as well. For some reason, you keep forgetting that both "types" have been found there, and clearly the northern Euro type got a lot of play, because it proliferated greatly.

There are a lot of darker Poles, too. I have Polish in-laws who could pass for Spaniards or Italians, easily, and believe me, they are 100% Polish. In fact, they look an awful lot like the La Brana reconstruction, very swarthy but with blue eyes.

Andrzejewski said...

@Bob Floy "There are a lot of darker Poles, too. I have Polish in-laws who could pass for Spaniards or Italians, easily, and believe me, they are 100% Polish. In fact, they look an awful lot like the La Brana reconstruction, very swarthy but with blue eyes"

Yea, there are LOTS of darker Poles but it's stereotyped that most Poles are lighter. When it comes to who are the Poles' ancestors, I would say it's more likely CWC than GAC due to the sheer fact that Corded Ware, which conquered and assimilated GAC has 75% Steppe ancestry and only 25% Farmer (="GAC").

John Thomas said...

That Fulani result is fascinating.

As David notes, lactase persistence is, in historical terms, a relatively recent innovation. Also, lactase persistence is believed to have originated in northern/central Europe, a region that has never been hypothesised to have been involved in migration to Africa.

weure said...

May be fare fetched but I have E-V22.That’s quite NE African....

Bob Floy said...

@Andre

"When it comes to who are the Poles' ancestors, I would say it's more likely CWC than GAC"

Yes, Poles have more steppe than they do EEF, but, even so, both are their ancestors.CWC contains some EEF, and Poles have more EEF on top of that.

So Poles have ancestry from both of those groups.

Bob Floy said...

@weure

"May be fare fetched but I have E-V22.That’s quite NE African...."

Me too, heh.

weure said...

Ok, place on the Yfull tree?
This is mine:

https://www.yfull.com/tree/E-Y32576/

weure said...

By the way among the Fulani, mentioned by Davidski, E-V22 is about 30%.

ambron said...

Bob

There are already first conclusions from the research of the team from the Biobank Laboratory and the Chair of Anthropology. The researchers suppose that in the case of the population living in Kujawy there was a surprisingly strong genetic continuity, dating back to the time of the first farmers from before 7.5 thousand years.

"It seems that we are dealing with an interesting genetic continuation of the population living in Kujawy from the early Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. These populations as if their roots probably reach the Neolithic and even Mesolithic" - suggests the scientist.

http://naukawpolsce.pap.pl/aktualnosci/news%2C77226%2Cskany-3d-czaszek-i-zbior-starozytnego-dna-trafia-na-informacyjna-platforme-e?fbclid=IwAR3qHULHUQwZcsWQ-NUIJWaA2q0S-ynAzneagHSHaNBxoi_SlCg5V7o4TKo

Perhaps that is why some Poles resemble La Brana...

Bob Floy said...

@wuere

This one.

https://www.yfull.com/tree/E-PH1572/

weure said...

@Bob nice! In your case is there a Jewish connection?

Davidski said...

@Bob & wuere

I'd say that these sorts of recent Levant-specific subclades of E-V22 entered Europe via the Roman Empire and Muslim expansions.

We're likely to see these and other Near Eastern markers in some of the Roman, and especially late Roman, samples from the upcoming papers on the population history of the Italian Peninsula.

M.H. _82 said...

@ Grizzlor

''So science is wrong, it's just contamination etc. when the facts don't match your ideology, great. Seems to be like this blog has been veering towards that direction for quite a while.''

And what's my ideology ?
Much of UK was Neolithicized from France. The uniparentals between Iberian & British farmers are disconcordant; but you'd know that if you hadn't put your foot in your mouth
Some autosomal statisticians simply state that British farmers come from Iberia because (i) lack of French sampling (ii) they hadnt thought too hard about the data (iii) it makes a nice simple punch line

Bob Floy said...

@weure

Southern Italy, Calabria. No known Jewish relatives, and nothing about it in any of my autosomal tests. Typical Calabrian family. I was guessing that it's probably Phoenician, but...

@David

"I'd say that these sorts of recent Levant-specific subclades of E-V22 entered Europe via the Roman Empire and Muslim expansions.
We're likely to see these and other Near Eastern markers in some of the Roman, and especially late Roman, samples from the upcoming papers on the population history of the Italian Peninsula."

And, that's awesome. Thanks, Dave.

weure said...

@Davidski, may be.... but there is in my case no connection with Italians so fare. The genetic impact of the Romans on the Frisians is as big as on the Danes ;) My oldest ancestirs (concerning Y-DNA) came from Wartena in Friesland until 1900 only reachably through waterways....skippers and farmers. Doesn't excluse anything...but not a cosmopolitan population ;) Fact is that there only two known cases of E-V22 in North Dutch population (NE Dutch is about 5/6 million people)

Fanty said...

The amount of blond hair has nothing to do with the amount of WHG or steppe.
I read an article that claimed that 80% of the 6th century bavarians (Germanic people of the Bajuwarian tribe, wich is the name giver to Bavaria) they tested had been light blond. (that haircolor is at 4% in modern Bavarians) with the exception of a couple woman with black hair and some Bulgarian alike DNA that lived in that society for unknown reasons.

That article claimed the scientist had been completely flabbergasted about that ridiculous blondism of the tested group. They would have expected that in Sweden but definately not close to the alps they said.

Bob Floy said...

@ambron

"The researchers suppose that in the case of the population living in Kujawy there was a surprisingly strong genetic continuity, dating back to the time of the first farmers from before 7.5 thousand years."

Thanks, that's really interesting. I had wondered before if their appearance was down to something like that, but thought, "nah". Really cool.

weure said...

@Bob, ok that's cleas E-V22 is in the Calabrian area not unique. In Friesland it is for sure. The only Roman thing about these 17th century ancestros was that they were Roman Catholic, but that was in Waretena and a few other tiny villages in that area not unique, either more common (some stubborn Frisians that resist the ruling reformation ;)

So myserious. The only thing I could imagine is that in 1586 there was in Friesland and especially in the village and are my oldest ancerstors came from a devistating raid of the Spanish army. That was in januari 1586 the Spanish army could go it's way because the water was frozen. So in in short time they plundered, murdered and.... raped (local reports: 'they raped the women in front of the eyes of the husbands') in order to demoralize the Frisians. The mercenaries of that army came from the E-V22 strongholds of Southern Europe. So may be...But ok would they accept a child of a rape? (deo volente?)

weure said...

@Fanty, "read an article that claimed that 80% of the 6th century bavarians (Germanic people of the Bajuwarian tribe, wich is the name giver to Bavaria) they tested had been light blond. (that haircolor is at 4% in modern Bavarians."

No wonder these incoming Germanic tribes came from nowadays Northern Germany and were genetically close related to Nordic LNBA (see a previous posting of Davidski). Since LNBA there was a kind of selection pressure in that populatio that promoted genetic traits that cause light features....The indigenous Boi didn't disappear and seen the 4% they wee in the mixture (Germanic suebi/Boi) most probably in the end in the majority.

ambron said...

Bob, my grandfather and his brothers looked like Spanish highwayman or Greek pirates. My father-in-law looks the same. He is from an old (coat-of-arms) Polish kin.

Ric Hern said...

So the earliest European admixture into North Africa in this study was roundabout 3000 years ago. So 1000 BCE. What happened in Iberia during this time ? Was this before Hallstatt Expansion into Spain ?

Ric Hern said...

So if the Euro Related Admixture into the Fulani entered around 2000 years ago and this Type of Lactose Tolerance maybe also are found among the Bantu of Southern Africa, then it basically can pinpoint the Start of Bantu migration more accurately...

weure said...

So besides a "CSI Friesland" 16th century case there is still an option of a much older source..North African ancestry in Bell Beaker (as the Scottish ones may have been derived from the North Dutch ones).

Simon_W said...

@Gaska

"You have to be calm, both the Cheddar man and La Braña, and other WHGs were pretty dark"

Pigmentation simply means nothing in this context. Compare the single item distances between the dark skinned La Braña 2 and various other HGs in the Global25:

"1. CLOSEST SINGLE ITEM DISTANCE%"
SWE_Motala_HG RUS_Samara_HG Levant_Natufian
22.43172 38.56888 53.01534
GEO_CHG IRN_HotuIIIb_Mesolithic CHN_Tianyuan
54.69285 54.80707 57.19346
MAR_Iberomaurusian MWI_Hora_9000BP
63.55680 83.10817

SHG and EHG are closest to WHG, as expected, while North-African and Sub-Saharan HGs are farthest.

Conversely, North/central European EEFs were Sardinian-like, i.e. very Mediterranean, inspite of having appreciable quantities of blond hair and blue eyes.

Bob Floy said...

@weure

"The mercenaries of that army came from the E-V22 strongholds of Southern Europe."

I think your theory makes good sense. E-Y32576 does look out of place in the Netherlands, dosen't it? And E-V22 is strong in Spain.

E-V22 isn't rare in Italy, but E-L674 specifically does seem to be hard to find outside of the Levant and Gulf states, going by y-full.

Simon_W said...

@Andrzejewski

"Maybe that Roman soldier outlier with the so-called “Eastern Mediterranean” characteristics was actually a Beaker?"

He doesn't just have some Near Eastern-like admixture, but appears pure-blooded Bedouin-like. Rather peninsular Arabic than just "Eastern Mediterranean" or Levantine. How could people like him stay pure-blooded in a North Euro environment for thousands of years? Moreover isotopic data suggests he grew up in a dry climate...

Gaska said...

@ Sam said-"Bell beaker folk were not traders who controlled trade paths. They were an ethnic group who took over regions (they replaced 90% of previous population of Britain"

You are very wrong, of course the Bbs were traders, the Spanish archaeologists have proven it many years ago, you have an example with the Sicilian Df27 with Ciempozuelos type pottery that only existed in Iberia. On the other hand it is true that P312 also colonized large regions of Europe such as iberia northern Italy etc, but they were not migrants were already home because they have western origin, the myth of Yamnaya has fallen a long time ago

@Bob floy-I'll be surprised if this claim of a British BB with north African ancestry isn't corrected/abandoned at some point.

All Europeans have to a greater or lesser extent African ancestry, (including the Basques and despite P312 and the Rh-.I guess you will not believe that Britons are Martians, right?

@Bob Floy-"So I'm grateful that we don't need goofy stories about the Spanish armada(or north African wanderers) to explain the "black Irish" concept anymore"

The Black Irish descendants of the Spanish sailors of the Great Armada is an absurd myth that only indicates the low cultural level of the people who think so. First of all because the Irish were so kind to the Spanish shipwreckers that they tortured and killed them (more than 8,000 men). The few survivors were sent to Spain years later (for example Captain Fcº Cuellar) - We will always be grateful to the Irish for this, maxime taking into account that the Navy was not against them but against the English- Secondly because the percentage of blondes and blue eyes in Spain is more than 25%, it is necessary to be very uneducated to think that if an Irishman has black hair it is because he descends from Spaniards.

@Bob Floy-I have Polish in-laws who could pass for Spaniards or Italians,

You need to travel a little more and meet more Spaniards, Italians and French, it seems to me that there are some topics that are absurd.If you look at the England or France football team and the Spanish football team, the Spaniards look Nordic compared to the English.

@EurDna said-But they don't. This is just another error being echoed by some Labs

You should talk to Cassidy or Selina Brace, you could perfectly explain the British genetics in the Neolithic and you will see that it is identical to the Spanish and French as it could not be otherwise thanks to the extension of megalithism


@€urDna-"The uniparentals between Iberian & British farmers are disconcordant"

Ha ha ha you should compare the databases before talking because you're talking nonsense

Bob Floy said...

@ambron

"Bob, my grandfather and his brothers looked like Spanish highwayman or Greek pirates. My father-in-law looks the same. He is from an old (coat-of-arms) Polish kin."

Yes! That's exactly the look. And my people are likewise from a very old and traditional Polish background. It's fascinating, this "black Polish" phenomenon, haha.

Simon_W said...

@weure

"The indigenous Boi didn't disappear and seen the 4% they wee in the mixture (Germanic suebi/Boi) most probably in the end in the majority."

But the Boii lived in Bohemia, not in Bavaria. And Bohemia is the place where the Germanic ancestors of the Baiuvarii, the Marcomanni most of all, came from. So it doesn't look like the Boii kind of survived anywhere, and most of all they didn't make an impact on the Baiuvarii.

Rather I'd say that part of the Gallo-Roman population probably survived in the fortified Roman cities and was gradually assimilated. On top of that there was the exogamy of the Baiuvarii with southeast European wives, as proven by the ancient DNA evidence from early Medieval Bavaria. And finally there may have been population changes caused by the 30 years war, when Bavaria lost more than 33% of its populace.

weure said...

@ Ric So if the Euro Related Admixture into the Fulani entered around 2000 years ago and this Type of Lactose Tolerance maybe also are found among the Bantu of Southern Africa, then it basically can pinpoint the Start of Bantu migration more accurately...

That was exactly what was the message of the FTDNA certticicate of the Big Y test they related it to Bantu migration.

I could see the humour of it, because I has associations with Bantu's in the Frisian clay hahahahhahah ;)

But in the end....who knows.

Gaska said...

@Ric Hern "So the earliest European admixture into North Africa in this study was roundabout 3000 years ago. So 1000 BCE. What happened in Iberia during this time ? Was this before Hallstatt Expansion into Spain"

I'm sorry to say this Ric, but your knowledge of European genetic prehistory is very scarce

I'll give you an example, there are deposits in Morocco belonging to the Ibero-Maurissian Culture, with Mit-Hap typical of the Iberian Magdalenian (19,000-11,000 BC) for example H1, Magdalenian harpoons from Taforalt (Morocco) have also been found only in Cantabria and Asturias. Then movements of people from Europe to Africa are as old as the history of humanity because you have to take into account that the level of the Mediterranean was much lower than at present and it was even easier to cross the strait- After that there are contacts in the chalcolithic related to the culture of Los Millares and the BB culture with Mit-Hap, typically European (U6 is totally North African and there are currently 1.5% of Spanish women with this haplogroup)

As Olalde has shown in Spain during the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, 100% of men were R1b-P312 and compared to women, a clear genetic continuity has been demonstrated between the Neolithic and the present. So what happened in Spain? Well, absolutely nothing strange, R1b-P312 had more reproductive success and became the almost exclusive lineage of the peninsula No cases of E1b have been found again (1 case in the Neolithic and one in the calcolitic) in the peninsula, until came the Romans (Ampurias-Y-Hap-J), the Goths (who were a mixture of J2, R1b and E1b) and the Moors (E1b) -There are areas in the British Isles, France, Holland, the Balkans, Albania and Italy where there is a higher percentage of E1b than in Spain

Hallstatt expansion in Iberia brought the haplogroup I2a as demonstrated by Olalde in the Celtiberian deposit of La Hoya (Alava)

Bob Floy said...

@Gaska

"All Europeans have to a greater or lesser extent African ancestry, (including the Basques and despite P312 and the Rh-.I guess you will not believe that Britons are Martians, right?"

DID U KNO?
The entire species seems to have originated in, and later migrated from, this place you call "Africa".
Neat, huh?

"You need to travel a little more and meet more Spaniards, Italians and French, it seems to me that there are some topics that are absurd."

In addition to traveling, I live and work in a large cosmopolitan city, and have met many hundreds of people from all over the world. Try making fewer assumptions, it'll help your arguments in the future.

"If you look at the England or France football team and the Spanish football team, the Spaniards look Nordic compared to the English."

Yeah, I've totally never seen an international football game.
Thanks for the suggestions. And you really aren't doing yourself any favors with that comparison, since half of the players in those countries are from Africa or south America, lol.

Simon_W said...

I wouldn't be surprised if the banned user with the Greek mountain in the name now feels vindicated because of this thesis by Katharina Dulias. :D

Gaska said...

@weure "The only thing I could imagine is that in 1586 there was in Friesland and especially in the village and are my oldest ancerstors came from a devistating raid of the Spanish army"

The Spanish Armada in times of the Empire was a mixture of Guipuzcoan, Biscayan, Castilian, Andalusian, Genoese, Neapolitan, Sicilian, Flemish, Milanese, Burgundian, and Catholic Germans ships. EV22 was able to enter the Netherlands with soldiers of any nationality. Likewise, the Tercios of Infantry were Spanish volunteers but also Albanians (great horsemen), Neapolitans, etc.

If you were R1b-Df27 as we are the great majority of the Spaniards I understand that you could think that you descend from Spanish soldiers but being EV22 the most probable thing is that Davidski is right and enter Europe thanks to the Romans


M.H. _82 said...

@ Gaska
You should read more carefully. I outlined that British Neolithics arrived predominantly from France. There is nothing particularly special about Iberia - the wealth of mtDNA lineages you (often mistakenly) refer to is due to the Epicardial Neolithic - and guess what - it also arrived in Italy, & France.
In fact, there seems to have been continual inflow into Iberia even before the BB period.

Gaska said...

@Bob Floy-"And you really aren't doing yourself any favors with that comparison, since half of the players in those countries are from Africa or south America, lol"

Is exactly the same as what happens with the myth of the Black Irish, that is, there may be uneducated people who think that most British, French or Noth-Americans are black because their athletes are also black. You are British and E-V22 (Five centuries ago in Spain we would have burned you at the stake for being a Moor or a Jew) and I am Basque R1b-Df27, do you think I look British, Polish, Nigerian, Spanish or Italian? You have to be very careful with generalizing. My genotype may not correspond to the phenotype and be more black than coal or be more blond than a Swede

It seems that some Poles still have not understood the basic laws of genetics

Gaska said...

@Eurdna

I recommend again to read Cassidy and Brace, sure they can clarify many doubts-I have no special interest in Iberia participating in the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Chalcolithic colonization of the British Isles. In fact (I suppose, just as it happens to the British), we Spaniards do not like very much to be relatives so close to the English, we prefer the Italian French or Greeks and yet the genetics has shown that we are more similar to the British. It is an irony of history and we have to accept it, but we are not going to accept stupid comments like the Black Irish, or the British topics about Southern Europeans.

Bob Floy said...

@Gaska

Right.

"Is exactly the same as what happens with the myth of the Black Irish, that is, there may be uneducated people who think that most British, French or Noth-Americans are black because their athletes are also black. You are British and E-V22 (Five centuries ago in Spain we would have burned you at the stake for being a Moor or a Jew) and I am Basque R1b-Df27, do you think I look British, Polish, Nigerian, Spanish or Italian? You have to be very careful with generalizing. My genotype may not correspond to the phenotype and be more black than coal or be more blond than a Swede. It seems that some Poles still have not understood the basic laws of genetics"

Now, if you think I was claiming that the ethnic British, French, etc., are black, then I really don't know what to say.

You have just assumed that I'm British, Polish(apparently), poorly traveled, and also that I'm making assumptions about you...a meta-assumption. I have not assumed a single thing about you. Nothing.

You project like a machine, dude, it's impressive.

"we would have burned you at the stake for being a Moor or a Jew"

Hahahahahahahahahaha

epoch said...

That Fulani paper is really interesting.

"The first admixture event is dated to 1828 years ago (95% CI: 1517-2138) between a parental populations related to the West African ancestry groups in our dataset (Jola, Gurmantche, Gurunsi and Igbo) and a parental population carrying European ancestry(related to North-Western Europeans (CEU), Iberians (IBS), British (GBR), Tuscans (TSI), and Czech&Slovaks (CS) in our dataset)."

You'd almost think Vandals were involved. They had a very tumultuous relationship with local Moorish tribes but after Belisarius conquered Africa some Vandal uprisings were joined by Moors:

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

Most of Vandals eventually were absorbed in the local population, wiki states.

Maybe some of these crossed the desert.

epoch said...

Another quote:

"However, when both Europeans and North Africans are included in the admixture graph models, a model that assumes that European ancestry is first admixed into North African ancestry and then introduced into the Fulani (Figure S11 C) is significant (Z-score = 0.926), whereas the model where Europeans directly mixed with West Africans to produce the Fulani is not significant (Figure S11 D)."

Ric Hern said...

@ Gaska

And I said: " IN THIS STUDY". Please Read Carefully before going on a Rampage....

Garvan said...

The Irish Neolithic may show genetic connections to Spain, but the Neolithic ancestry in Bronze age migrants is likely from central Europe, and we don’t know how much, if any, of the old ancestry survived in modern Irish. Probably very little.

The WHG admixture is distinctive in the early farmers from Spain and central Europe, so one day we will have enough good data to know.

Gaska said...

@Bob Floy said-There are a lot of darker Poles, too. I have Polish in-laws who could pass for Spaniards or Italians, easily, and believe me, they are 100% Polish"

What do you want me to think by reading a phrase like this?-There are people who will never learn, they do not realize that they use old racist clichés like "dark Poles are very similar to the Spaniards and the Italians"- What can I say? I only can advise you to travel a little more in Europe, because Spain and Italy are also the countries in the world with the most places declared World Heritage. This way you will realize that not all southern Europeans are swarthy and have brown eyes.

@Bob Floy-"Now, if you think I was claiming that the ethnic British, French, etc., are black, then I really don't know what to say"

I am telling you that it is so stupid to think that the Black Irish are descendants of Spaniards as to think that the British are black because all their athletes are black. That's all


@Bob Floy-"You have just assumed that I'm British, Polish(apparently), poorly traveled, and also that I'm making assumptions about you...a meta-assumption. I have not assumed a single thing about you. Nothing"

I have assumed that you are apparently named Bob, that you live in a cosmopolitan city, that you think that all southern Europeans are swarthy and have brown eyes, that you are E-V22 and that for you, it's funny to think that if you had lived in Spain or in the Spanish Empire 500 years ago you will have been burned at the stake for having African, Moorish or Jewish blood

And of course you are making assumptions about me, because I'm Basque and Spaniard and you think that I have to have a certain physical appearance-This is also stupid, it's like I think you have to be short, swarthy, and that you have dark eyes and curly hair because you're E-V22- Please stop using racial topics when you refer to the Spaniards, Frenchs, Greeks, Italians etc.

The comment about the Poles was for our friend Andrzejewski that despite all the documentation sent to him, he still thinks that the Yamnaya riders are the ones who brought to maniland europe the blonde hair, the blue eyes and the clear skin. Fascinating

Ric Hern said...

I was thinking the same thing...Heheheeh. However I think there could have been interesting debates between him and our Iberian friends...Circus Maximus...

Gaska said...

@Garvan aid-"The Irish Neolithic may show genetic connections to Spain, but the Neolithic ancestry in Bronze age migrants is likely from central Europe, and we don’t know how much, if any, of the old ancestry survived in modern Irish. Probably very little"

The Neolithic population of Western Europe was very uniform (genetically and culturally speaking), only with different percentages of WHG, that is to say, to distinguish the origin of the Neolithic emigrants in the British islands you have to look for typical/ exclusive Mit-Haps of certain regions, because in another way, it would be very difficult to determine its origin. So far the databases tell us that the British and Irish Neolithic Mit Haps are very similar to the Spanish, but nevertheless we have the problem that France and Italy are little studied countries genetically speaking compared to Spain, and then it is likely that when new papers are published, the origin of the Britons is not Iberian but French, Italian, German or Greek

I do not care, but I guess the Irish will want to know their origins

andrew said...

I agree that this is unsurprising. There were Punic maritime trade with Britain for centuries with Punic mariners mostly confined to coastal enclaves. An occasional Punic-BB individual in Britain would be expected. The North Africans may have been key to the BB maritime trade routes.

Gaska said...

@ic Hern- "Circus Maximus"

If it could be fun, the bad thing is that this way of thinking has produced great misfortunes in Europe and we must be very careful. The Basques are also guilty because some of us have been carried away by nationalist and racist feelings (purity of the Basque race, Rh-, R1bDf27...)- Violence and racism has been a shame for my people and we should never forget it

Vinitharya said...

Sometimes what genetic traits are exhibited are purely random. My DNA is predominantly British Isles, the closest ancient sample to me genetically on Mytrueancestry.com was Bell Beaker Scotland, 2150 BC (A R1a Bell Beaker? Carlos would have a stroke.), but some are thrown off by my darker phenotype, which has a clear origin; my great-grandfather, whom I was named after, both of his parents were born in Palazzo Adriano, Sicily. I surmise this Bell Beaker guy was merely from Spain, and he had African ancestry because, guess what, the north tip of Africa is not that far from southern Spain. (and yes that picture is of me)

weure said...

@Bob "I think your theory makes good sense. E-Y32576 does look out of place in the Netherlands, dosen't it?"

Indeed Dodo Y-DNA in the North Dutch case. No connection with the other E-V22 (ok in the end yes, but that's 8000 YBP or so).

@Gaska the Spanish army is indeed a conglomerate, but Naples (and soutwards, Sicily, Andalusia and Asturias are E-V22 hotspots (In European sense). According to the classic work of Parker this were the recruiments places in the early phase of the Dutch liberation war.

Gaska said...

@weure-but Naples (and soutwards, Sicily, Andalusia and Asturias are E-V22 hotspots (In European sense).

I do not know the data of E1b-V22 in Naples but I do know the ones of Asturias, thanks to a work published by Porf Antonio Pardiñas in 2.012

R1b-P312-64,50%- R1a-3,28%- I2-10,38%, G2a-1.09%, Q-M242-2,18%, T-1,09%, J1-M267-1,64%
J2-M272-3,82%, E1b-12,02%

The geneticist who did the work divided haplogroup E1b into Neolithic markers (that is, documented in Spain in the cardial culture)- E1bV13-3,27%, E1b-V22-1,64%, E1b-V12-1,09%

and "North-African-Bereber markers"-E-M183-5,46% E-M34-0,55%- surprising fact because Asturias was never occupied by the Moors and from there the Reconquista began- I suppose it will be resettlements after the defeat of the Moors and the expulsion of the Jews

Regarding E1b-V22 you will see that its percentage is very low (1,64%), then I guess you'll have to find another explanation for the origin of your haplogroup in the Netherlands (Romans, Neapolitan sailors, soldiers of the Tercios, modern migrations), certainly does not seem to have an Asturian origin

And regarding Andalucia recently a doctoral thesis on the genetics of the ancient kingdom of Granada (Western Andalucia) and on the province of Huelva (Eastern Andalucia) has been published and the results are very similar to Asturias- Huelva-E1b-v22-1,37%/Granada E1b-V22-0%, then I do not know where you see those hotspots




Andrzejewski said...

Kinda cool I agree. I am quite certain that all groups including WHG (Motala), EEF (GAC) and Steppe IEs had a range of skin, hair she eye color akin to the varieties found today within extant European groups, and attempting to attribute them to a certain group would be almost impossible. Although I’d have to admit that I was taken aback by surprise to realize that non-IE Basque and Etruscans had the same amount Steppe component as IE speakers, that one came from left field...

Andrzejewski said...

Yes, but Bantu don’t have R1b, Fulani do

weure said...

@Gaska I could not pin point them exactly. I only know that it’s not a recent immigration, because due to test of distant cousins it is at least since the 18th century in the family. The oldest ancestors carried names like Fokke and Haye no remincensies of South European background or whatsoever.

Andrzejewski said...

You contradict yourself: on one hand you assert that we can’t judge your phenotype by your genotype, and then your turn around and tell Floy that “five centuries ago he’d be burnt at the stake as either a Jew or a Moor”, as if HIS E-V22 is visible and discernible on the outside...

weure said...

@Gaska according to my info.

by Voskarides (2016): “E-V22 and E-M34 are common in the Southern Levant, Sicily, Algeria, and in Egypt and rare in Europe. These lineages, like J2b-M205, could mirror a Pottery Neolithic movement to Cyprus from the Southern Levant (Pearson R 2 coefficient of correlation of E- M34 to longitude: 0.164, p = 0.003)” On of the earliest spread to the Mediterranean is the the so called Impressed (or Cordial) Ware (7000-5500 ybp). The spread to the Mediterranean could be in several waves up until the so called Phoenicians (3500-2500 ybp).

The spread is responsible for percentages Morocco (Jew 8%, Arabs 7,3%), Istanbul 5,7 %, Sicily 4,6 %, Asturia 4,6%, Southern Spain 3,2%.

weure said...

@Simon, the Boi where also present in Bavaria.

And the German wiki mentions a Elbgerman background:
"In der aktuellen Diskussion werden die Bajuwaren von manchen mit einer elbgermanischen Fundgruppe identifiziert, die nach den bedeutendsten Fundorten ihrer Brandgräberfelder und der besonderen Keramik als Friedenhain-Prestovice bezeichnet wird. Das Siedlungsgebiet dieser Gruppe erstreckte sich von Neuburg an der Donau bis nach Passau. Neben den elbgermanischen und romanischen Siedlern, deren Einfluss sich im Salzburger Land und in Tirol bis ins 7. Jahrhundert hinein nachweisen lässt, gilt diese Gruppe als eine weitere Keimzelle der späteren Baiovarii.[7]

The G25 PCA plots them very close to my family so typically NW Germanic (not 'Bohemenian Germanic")

Andrzejewski said...

Could it be that Southern Europeans are also different from Central and Northern Europeans partially because they are descended from Cordial Pottery people, who not only took a westbound maritime route from Greece all the way to Spain, but also because they contain much more of a Levant_N ancestry vis-a-vis Anatolia_N one?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardium_pottery

Andrzejewski said...

“So the first Cardial settlers in the Adriatic may have come directly from the Levant. Of course it might equally well have come directly from North Africa, and impressed pottery also appears in Egypt. Along the East Mediterranean coast impressed ware has been found in North Syria, Palestine and Lebanon.[9]

Cardial and Epicardial fossils that were analysed for ancient DNA were found to carry the rare mtDNA (maternal) basal haplogroup N*, supporting an early Neolithic maritime colonization of Mainland Europe through Cyprus and the Aegean Islands by Near-Eastern farmers.”

That might (or might not) explain the E1b prevalence in Greece, Italy, the Balkans and elsewhere, Floy’s E-V22 Haplogroup, and the rather nowadays-rare-although-still-existent mtDNA N within European populations (obviously a Neolithic contribution).

weure said...

@Epoch

Hassan (2008):

'The distribution of E-M78 subclades among Sudanese is shown in Table 2. Only two chromosomes fell under the paragroup E-M78*. E-V65 and E-V13 were com- pletely absent in the samples analyzed, whereas the other subclades were relatively common. E-V12* accounts for 19.3% and is widely distributed among Su- danese. E-V32 (51.8%) is by far the most common sub- clades among Sudanese. It has the highest frequency among populations of western Sudan and Beja. E-V22 accounts for 27.2% and its highest frequency appears to be among Fulani, but it is also common in Nilo-Saharan speaking groups.'

bellbeakerblogger said...

It'll be interesting if this Beaker was buried with an EBA Food Vessel.

If you see Frank's comment in Marauder Mesetans Take Booty, we discussed the origins of Food Vessels briefly.
There is some disagreement about the stylistic origin of Food Vessels which may combine several features. One proposed decades ago is that they incorporate features from the Spanish Meseta
Savory, 1978:
"Some Iberian Influences on the Copper Age pottery of the Irish Channel Area"
http://dialnet.unirioja.es/descarga/articulo/2691162.pdf

In addition to this, Food Vessels share many similarities with the native Peterborough Ware, which isn't geographically impossible for an expansive group within the borderlands and Ireland.

All about Food Vessels by Neil Wilkin
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=11&ved=2ahUKEwit1YfO-sDiAhVtplkKHWQvDoAQFjAKegQIBRAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fetheses.bham.ac.uk%2F5192%2F1%2FWilkin14PhD_Redacted.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1B3AYNvYKA-0tc2yvuHxeg

I can't imagine a large migration from the Meseta to the Irish Sea since DF27 is not well represented in the Isles. It's also possible that this individual came through Portugal or Southern Spain directly to Northeastern England. Whatever subgroup this individual belonged to, he must have been a rather recent immigrant, and as far as directionality, that's the only reservation I would have about a connection between a fraction of Mesetan profiles becoming a fraction of FV Beakers in the Irish Sea somehow ending up Northumberland or Durham. Of course the speed of migration may be why he wasn't leveled out yet.

Simon_W said...

@weure

The Boii were a migrating tribe, they also had a branch in northern Italy. Their original homeland is not known for sure, it may have been Germany between the Rhine, Danube and Main. But after the Italian Boii had been defeated by the Romans, their remaining free hotspot was Bohemia afaik, whose name is derived from them, IIRC. Later on the Elbe Germanic Marcomanni migrated into Bohemia from the West, possibly assimilating some of the Boii, but afterwards Bohemia and Moravia were Germanic.

Indeed the Baiuvarii belong to the Elbe Germanic branch, but Elbe Germanic tribes were not confined to the river Elbe, they were also located in Bohemia, among other things. The Friedenhain-Prestovice culture you mentioned is attested in Bohemia and Bavaria, but while it ends to show up in Bohemia in the early 5th century, it expanded along the Danube eastwards into Upper Austria and westwards into Swabia. Hence it's indeed an excellent candidate for the early Baiuvarii and shows that what I said is correct.

You say the Baiuvarii don't plot close to Bohemian Germanics. But there are no samples of Bohemian Germanics in the Global25! So you can't know this. :D To the contrary, I would argue the position of the Baiuvarii shows that the Bohemian Germanics were typically northwest Germanic.

I have modeled the Baiuvarii as a mix between Nordic Bronze Age and Hallstatt, and I obtained:

distance%=3.0476

DEU_Medieval

Nordic_BA, 65.4
CZE_Hallstatt_Bylany:DA111, 34.6

That model makes plenty of sense IMHO, because I view the Nordic Bronze Age as the pre-proto-Germanic nucleus. It might have received some Hallstatt admixture with the beginning of the Iron Age, but on the other hand, the early West Germanic Jastorf culture expanded southwards into previously Hallstatt land, probably assimilating some of the Hallstatt Celts. In any case, the Bohemian Hallstatt Celt DA111 is typically Celtic and West European in David's North European PCA, there's nothing eastern about him. So the early proto-West Germanics probably encountered the same type of admixture in the Benelux countries, in central Germany and in Bohemia. The Marcomanni may have picked up some admixture from the Boii when they entered Bohemia, but they may have picked up a little of the same admixture at an earlier time.

So I wasn't quite correct: The Boii may indeed have influenced the Baiuvarii. But my main point stands, because this didn't happen after our DEU_Medieval samples are attested in Bavaria, it happened long before. And any additional Celtic admixture the Baiuvarii picked up later on, after our samples lived, must have been largely from the remaining Gallo-Roman populace south of the Danube, which is derived from other Celtic tribes, like the Vindelici, the Alauni, the Sevaces and the Ambisontes.

weure said...

@Simon what I tried to make clear is that the Bavarian samples are linked to the Nordic LNBA genetic cluster (is the basic germanic cluster) just as my family does. So my assumption is that these Germanic tribes went in the early middle ages to Bavaria. Not before.

I think that the North Dutch above the Rhine are connected with this cluster, the south Dutch, West Germans, Belgium and Northern France may have been touched by this LNBA cluster but are in essence more resembling the Bavarian kind of mix (Germanic and Hallstatt kind of mixture).

Simon_W said...

@Andrzejewski

"Could it be that Southern Europeans are also different from Central and Northern Europeans partially because they are descended from Cordial Pottery people, who not only took a westbound maritime route from Greece all the way to Spain, but also because they contain much more of a Levant_N ancestry vis-a-vis Anatolia_N one?"

The early Cardial Pottery culture from Croatia shows no trace of Levantine admixture in the Global25:

[1] "distance%=2.9133"

HRV_Cardial_N

Anatolia_Barcin_N,98.8
WHG,1.2
Levant_Natufian,0
Levant_PPNB,0
Levant_PPNC,0

For comparison an early cultural group of the Danubian stream of farmers, Starcevo from Hungary:

[1] "distance%=2.8675"

HUN_Starcevo_N

Anatolia_Barcin_N,99.3
WHG,0.7
Levant_Natufian,0
Levant_PPNB,0
Levant_PPNC,0

Their results are very similar, both have very low WHG and no Levant.

Gaska said...


@Bbblogger

Frank is partially right, because Ciempozuelos style bears similarities to Schönfeld Group pottery from the Magdeburg area, however, with respect to antiquity, a recent Portuguese study claims that there is Ciempozuelos pottery north of the Duero between 2,750 and 2,600 BC- As most of R1b-P312 in Spain between 2,500 and 2,100 are related to Ciempozuelos pottery and at the moment, they are almost all Mesetan Marauders (8/9), except one case in Asturias (2,375 BC) and Spanish archaeologists think it is a style of Iberian origin (it has also been found in Sicily, Sardinia, southern France and Italy), it is strange that some invaders adopted the style of the invaded. In other words, we still have many doubts about both the chronology of pottery and its origin and influences-

I've already told you that Humanejos's book is spectacular and it seems that at the moment the only discontinuity in the site is the sudden appearance of R1b-P312 (and Bb pottery-2.480 BC), which seems to be fully integrated into the Pre-BB Iberian chalcolithic customs (burials, grave goods, weapons, copper..) Pre- BB Chalcolithic tombs (3.000-2.500 BC) have hardly been analyzed, and there are more than 100 skeletons from that era. I hope someone analyze them

Regarding how an African BB came to the Isles, I think it has nothing strange, in Humanejos we have one E1b and a woman U6 in BB burials. Possibly the Bbs exchanged products and also people (women-exogamy). I think the important thing is to think that the BB migrations to the British islands have more of one origin in mainland europe (not only the mouth of the river Rhine), but also the Alps, Brittany, Portugal and even why not? the north of Africa.
Fitzpatrick and other British archaeologists have always spoken of the similarity of gold ornaments, copper work, tombs etc between Iberia and Ireland/England-In any case, these African outliers did not leave genetic traces in the Bronze Age, nor in the Iberian Peninsula nor in the islands-


Andrzejewski said...

@weure "@Simon what I tried to make clear is that the Bavarian samples are linked to the Nordic LNBA genetic cluster (is the basic germanic cluster) just as my family does. So my assumption is that these Germanic tribes went in the early middle ages to Bavaria. Not before.

I think that the North Dutch above the Rhine are connected with this cluster, the south Dutch, West Germans, Belgium and Northern France may have been touched by this LNBA cluster but are in essence more resembling the Bavarian kind of mix (Germanic and Hallstatt kind of mixture)."

Isn't it the area where the Bell Beakers are supposed to have formed? If it's indeed confirmed that the Single Grave Culture has turned into Dutch Beaker more or less in the Northern Rhine area and spread from there, then there is a very tight connection between Beaker Culture origins and the NBA. Therefore it could even be said that Proto-Germanics are kinda the original Beakers who remained "in situ".

AWood said...

The EEF, R1b-V88 Sardinian like people of Italy could have crossed into Libya during the Neolithic period and carried the Lactase Persistance (European) type gene. I believe they were herders, and some of the Fulani groups are herders, but some are more sedentary. I would anticipate the carriers of European type of LCT are the pastoralist ones, but this would need to be demonstrated with data. As we already know, EEF had light skin, and some Egyptian pictographs demonstrate some settled peoples of north Africa as having white skin.

epoch said...

@Gaska

"The Neolithic population of Western Europe was very uniform (genetically and culturally speaking), only with different percentages of WHG"

Not just percentages, also the amount of Magdalenian they muster. That varies, and can even be traced in Polish GAC. Loschbour and Kunda have it as well. I may be why some models see an Iberian link to the North Eastern EEFs.

epoch said...

@AWood

The (partly) NW European ancestry they found in Fulani was tracked to roughly 1800 years ago +/- 300 years. I can't think of anything but Vandals to bring that. It is on - and only a tad over - the tail end of one of the error bars.

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

Blogger EurDNA said...
''The Neolithic Britons were descended from Neolithic Iberians''

But they don't. This is just another error being echoed by some Labs


We find overwhelming
support for agriculture being introduced by incoming continental farmers, with small
and geographically structured levels of additional hunter-gatherer introgression. We
find genetic affinity between British and Iberian Neolithic populations indicating that
British Neolithic people derived much of their ancestry from Anatolian farmers who
originally followed the Mediterranean route of dispersal and likely entered Britain from
northwestern mainland Europe.



https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2018/02/18/267443.full.pdf

Simon_W said...

@weure

So, you think the Hallstatt-like component I discovered in the Baiuvarii with my Global25 model is a fluke and they were just pure, unadmixed Proto-Germanics? Well, not sure why nMonte would do such a thing. It would have modelled them as 100% Nordic_BA, if that was truly closer to their Global25 position along all dimensions. You could argue that the Nordic_BA samples are by chance too northern and not completely typical for the Nordic_BA, but I doubt this. But let's test it quickly, by replacing the (chronologically more sensible) Nordic_BA in my model with the Nordic_LN:

[1] "distance%=3.139"

DEU_Medieval

Nordic_LN,58.1
CZE_Hallstatt_Bylany:DA111,41.9

The fit is slightly worse and the Hallstatt part even bigger. So, no, it doesn't look to me as though the Baiuvarii were straight from the Nordic_LNBA.

Moreover Germania libera during late antiquity was packed with Germanic tribes, it makes complete sense that they were rather similar to each other, no matter if in Bohemia or in northern Germany. So there's no necessity to regard the Baiuvarii as late arrivals from the North, rather than being derived from the Marcomanni.

weure said...

@Simon, no I think the Boi were Hallstatt like (kind of Bavarian Beaker + ;)
The incoming Germans were much more Nordic LNBA (NW Beaker +:) related, the Boi not.
See this PCA:
https://www.mupload.nl/img/t2gyx3hiy9d.png

Simon_W said...

It looks like the Levantine, Natufian-related admixture spread to Southern Europe rather late. The Minoans didn't have it:

distance%=2.0287

GRC_Minoan_Lassithi

Barcin_N, 58.7
Anatolia_EBA_Isparta, 29.8
Anatolia_EBA_Ovaoren, 11.5
Levant_Natufian, 0

The Sicilian Beaker didn't have it either:

distance%=5.2989

Beaker_Sicily_no_steppe

Barcin_N, 62.4
Anatolia_EBA_Ovaoren, 19.6
Anatolia_EBA_Isparta, 8.2
Yamnaya_Samara, 5.5
WHG, 3.8
Ganj_Dareh_N, 0.5
Levant_Natufian, 0

The upcoming Italian paper will reportedly show that it first showed up in Italy in the Iron Age. Phoenicians are probably an important source. And maybe those who were responsible for the Orientalizing style in parts of central and northern Italy, whoever These were. And maybe some Sea Peoples as well? And then, importantly, the migration in the Roman Empire, no doubt, which linked the Levant and Southern Europe with a common culture and language.

Simon_W said...

@weure

What "no"? :D Sure as hell the Boii were Hallstatt-like and the Germanic tribes much more Nordic_LNBA, which the Boii lacked. I never said otherwise.

Simon_W said...

@andrew

"I agree that this is unsurprising. There were Punic maritime trade with Britain for centuries with Punic mariners mostly confined to coastal enclaves. An occasional Punic-BB individual in Britain would be expected. "

I think there's the problem that the historically attested Phoenician/Punic expansion didn't take place at the end of the 3rd Millennium BC, but much later, during the Iron Age. So a Punic-BB contact is far from self-evident.

Simon_W said...

According to the Romans (Velleius Paterculus), the oldest Phoenician colonies in Northern Africa (Utica) and Spain (Gades) date to about 1100 BC. But archaeologically a Phoenician presence in these places is only attested from 800 BC onwards.

weure said...

@Andrrzejewski

Isn't it the area where the Bell Beakers are supposed to have formed? If it's indeed confirmed that the Single Grave Culture has turned into Dutch Beaker more or less in the Northern Rhine area and spread from there, then there is a very tight connection between Beaker Culture origins and the NBA. Therefore it could even be said that Proto-Germanics are kinda the original Beakers who remained "in situ".

No it's like Lithuania isn't the same as Poland....the Bell Beaker hotspots were mainly in North Dutch (above the Rhine just like SGC was mainly there and not below) and NW Germany (nowadays Niedersachsen), not in nowadays West Germany, South Dutch and Belgium....see:

https://www.mupload.nl/img/fjwg3pmnq.png

@Simon
When Medieval Germany plots so close to Nordic LNBA and a North Dutch how steady is the Hallstatt component in the Germanic Bavarian samples?

weure said...

@Andr.
And an add this the Single Grave Cuture area, that's North Dutch and NW Germany and Denmark, not West Germany, South Dutch, Belgium and Northern France.

https://www.mupload.nl/img/mgsosop.37.52.png

I believe in the theory of Davidski SGC>BB because of the overlapping pictures!

Suyindik said...

@Davidski
Between 24 and 25 may, I shared my analysis on the origin of the Bell Beaker culture, the connection between the North African, Iberian and Italian(Sicily and North) Bell Beakers at http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2019/05/who-were-people-of-nordic-bronze-age.html?commentPage=2 .

Quite interesting to see a description like "identifies possible Near Eastern/North African ancestry in a Bell Beaker individual from northeastern England" in the provided thesis. Where you able to download the thesis, or is it restricted?

This finding is probably showing that there were two types of Bell Beakers:

1. The proto Bell Beakers from Iberia, whom are the same group as contemporary(maybe even earlier: mid-4th and beginning of the 3rd Millennium BC) Morocco(North Africa and maybe other West Asian regions) and Italian regions(Sicily and North Italy). These Iberian Bell Beakers were descendants of the EEF. The language of this group in Italy could be the language of the Etruscans. This group were probably the ones that brought the ideas of the Bell Beaker culture into the Bronze Age Central / Western European regions.

2. The Bell Beakers from Central / Western Europe, are descendants of the Corded Ware culture, whom eventually came from the Steppe. At around 2000 BCE they expanded to the South European regions, mixing in some places and replacing in some places, the existing populations. The language of this group in Italy could be the language of the Italics. Maybe the Late Bronze Age was when the Italic tribes became majority in Central / Northern Italy, but then in the Iron Age the Etruscan tribes settled in these Italic regions, mixing with Italic tribes and in some places slowly replacing them?

P.S.: Quite funny to see people who post comments like "This will probably turn out to be a contaminated sample". I mean are you guys even interested in science? How can science be done with minds like that?

Ric Hern said...

Yes, however I was thinking more about Fulani influencing and or maybe displacing some Bantu groups in Western Africa, kickstarting their migration towards Central and Eastern Africa around 2000 years ago and eventually Southern Africa.

Bob Floy said...

@Gaska

"pain and Italy are also the countries in the world with the most places declared World Heritage. This way you will realize that not all southern Europeans are swarthy and have brown eyes."

And, again, I never said or implied any such thing, you're dreaming shit up as you go along. It's a fact that southern Europeans *commonly* are darker than northern Europeans, and everyone knows that. Dumb thing to argue about.

" am telling you that it is so stupid to think that the Black Irish are descendants of Spaniards as to think that the British are black because all their athletes are black. "

I was arguing that the "black Irish" did NOT have anything to do with Spain. That was the whole point of my comment. Your analogy about the British would make no sense either way, though.

"for you, it's funny to think that if you had lived in Spain or in the Spanish Empire 500 years ago you will have been burned at the stake for having African, Moorish or Jewish blood"

So, now YOU are assuming that I look like a Moor or a Jew because of my Y-DNA.

"you are making assumptions about me, because I'm Basque and Spaniard"

Again, I have made no assumptions about you whatsoever, nor do I think that all Basques look the same, but it's clear to me now that something is wrong with you mentally. That's not an assumption, it can be inferred from evidence. You nationalist types are all the same, you see yourselves everywhere you look. Boring and tedious.

"The comment about the Poles was for our friend Andrzejewski..."

Andrzejewski is a lot less confused than you are. You're the guy who thinks that P-312 is native to western Europe, right? Yeah, that's dumb. Don't quit your day job.

PF said...

@Simon_W

The Levantine ancestry is hidden in the Anatolian samples you used for modeling.

"distance%=2.8362"

Anatolia_EBA

Boncuklu_N,38.8
Levant_N,31
Hotu_HG,15.2
CHG,15

I think it's clear that Minoans / early Greeks / etc. had Levant-related ancestry, maybe as early as the Neolithic, derived from farmers that already showed increased Levantine (and CHG/Iran) such as Tepecik.

This is separate from whatever Levantine-related ancestry that may have arrived later, but it does need to be accounted for when making predictions about historical movements like ones concerning Phoenicians.

Andrzejewski said...

@PF “
@Simon_W

The Levantine ancestry is hidden in the Anatolian samples you used for modeling.

"distance%=2.8362"

Anatolia_EBA

Boncuklu_N,38.8
Levant_N,31
Hotu_HG,15.2
CHG,15

I think it's clear that Minoans / early Greeks / etc. had Levant-related ancestry, maybe as early as the Neolithic, derived from farmers that already showed increased Levantine (and CHG/Iran) such as Tepecik.

This is separate from whatever Levantine-related ancestry that may have arrived later, but it does need to be accounted for when making predictions about historical movements like ones concerning Phoenicians.”

Can it be that the Anatolian Farmers who moved north up the Danube are less Levant_N admixed than the Cardial Pottery ones?

Gaska said...

@Suyindik said- "The Bell Beakers from Central/Western Europe, are descendants of the Corded Ware culture, whom eventually came from the Steppe. At around 2000 BCE they expanded to the South European regions

The oldest BB P312 in Spain is dated in 2.434 BC, 500 years before of what you are saying (Olalde, 2.019) in fact only one case of R1b-P312 in Europe (Osterhofen in Germany) is older than that individual

@Bob Floy-"southern Europeans *commonly* are darker than northern Europeans

That's because of the sun, that is, the environmental conditions (not because they are genetically whiter).

@Bob Floy "So, now YOU are assuming that I look like a Moor or a Jew because of my Y-DNA"

That is precisely the opposite of what I was saying, that is, you can have a certain genotype and your phenotype does not correspond to the supposed origin of the genotype - E1b-V22 is clearly African, although it probably entered Europe (at least in Spain) with Neolithic migrations, and yet you can seem completely Nordic after 2000 years in Sweden (or maybe only after two or three generations) - The Holy Inquisition did not burn Jews or Moors solely because of their physical appearance, but mainly because political, economic and religious motives- That is to say, it would be more probable that someone was hung for being an English heretic than for having African blood

@Bob Floy-You're the guy who thinks the P-312 is native to Western Europe, right? Yes, that's silly. Do not give up your daily work.

That is what many Spanish geneticists think, and they have published good works about it and of course for me they are more reliable than foreign geneticists. So everyone loses their time as they want, there are some who have been looking for L51 in the steppes for years and still continue to do so

M.H. _82 said...

@ ROmulus
Mass copy-pasting & bolding like a turkey doesn't make you correct.

''We caution that our results should not be interpreted as showing the Iberian Neolithic-related
ancestry in British Neolithic people derives from migrants whose ancestors lived in Iberia, as
we do not have ancient DNA data from yet unidentified source populations — possibly
located in southern France — that were ancestral to both Iberian and British farmers.
Available Middle Neolithic Iberian individuals are too late to represent the source population
for early British farmers, and there is no archaeological evidence for direct immigration from
Iberia14. The lack of genome-wide data from Neolithic northern France, Belgium and the
Netherlands means that it is not currently possible to identify proximal continental source
populations. '

Early Iberian farmers are G2a, E1b, R1b-V88.
Such uniparentals are missing in Neolithic Britons, who are predominantly I2a2a1a

Andrzejewski said...

@EurDNA “Early Iberian farmers are G2a, E1b, R1b-V88.
Such uniparentals are missing in Neolithic Britons, who are predominantly I2a2a1a”

Same as GAC, right?

Gaska said...

@Simon-W said. "It looks like the Levantine, Natufian-related admixture spread to Southern Europe rather late"

+ Late Pleistocene human genome suggests a local origin for the first farmers of central Anatolia- Michael Feldman (2.019)

AAF derive most of their ancestry (89.7 ± 3.9%) from a population related to AHG (Anatolian Hunter gatherers)

The AAF gene pool still constitutes more than 3/4 of the ancestry of ACF 2000 years later (78.7 ± 3.5%) with additional ancestry well modeled by the Neolithic Levantines (χ2p = 0.115) but not by the Neolithic Iranians

Anatolian Aceramic farmers inherit about 10% of their genes from a gene pool related to the Neolithic Iran/Caucasus while later ACF derive about 20% of their genes from another distinct gene pool related to the Neolithic Levant.

Notably, three of the AAF (Anatolian Aceramic farmers) carry the derived allele for rs12193832 in the HERC2 (hect domain and RLD2) gene that is primarily responsible for lighter eye color in Europeans. The derived allele is observed as early as 14,000–13,000 years ago in individuals from Italy and the Caucasus, but had not yet been reported in early farmers or hunter-gatherers from the Near East.

Iron Gates HG can be modeled as a three-way mixture of Near-Eastern hunter-gatherers (25.8 ± 5.0 % AHG or 11.1 ± 2.2 % Natufian), WHG (62.9 ± 7.4% or 78.0 ± 4.6%, respectively) and EHG (11.3 ± 3.3% or 10.9 ± 3%)


There are two good works published about the Iron Age in the Italic peninsula. One is about the Piceni and the other is a doctoral thesis on two sites in the south of the peninsula. Both are on mitochondrial DNA and the differences between the north and the south are obvious, because in the south there are Levantine and Asian lineages.

It is possible that we find CHG and Levantine natufian in the Italian Neolithic- everything will depend on the origin and the time in which the migrations took place

Gaska said...

@EurDNA

In Spain there are more than 80 samples of lineage I in many of its variants including I2a2a/I2a2a1/I2a2a2/I2a2a3/I2a1b1/I2a1a1/I2a1a1a1b etc.. from the Mesolithic to the Bronze Age. If you want, I can send you a list. E1b is an anecdote (1 sample), R1b-V88 (3 samples) and G2a is more frequent (35 samples). There are also several H2 and two C1a. Very similar to the rest of Mesolithic and Neolithic Europe

S Brace-We found that the vast majority of Mesolithic and Neolithic individuals analysed belonged to haplogroup I, and more specifically to I2a2. This suggests that I2a2 Y-chromosome lineages were already present in Early Mesolithic Britain, and were either absorbed by incoming Neolithic populations or alternatively, these were assimilated in continental Europe and not in Britain, which could fit the small amount of British Mesolithic specific ancestry observed in agriculturalist groups from the region. We identify a single occurrence of haplogroup I2a1b in a sample from Kelco Cave, a lineage also identified in two Late Neolithic/Chalcolithic West Iberians

Cassidy- Here we provide evidence of a genetic connection among Scandinavian, British, and Irish Neolithic populations. This signal is weaker than the signals observed between the Iberian Peninsula and the British Isles, however, suggesting that migration between the British Isles and Scandinavia along the Atlantic coast was less frequent than that between Iberia and the British Isles.

Now you can continue denying the evidence, I have already told you that I have no special interest in demonstrating the Iberian migrations to the islands, I hope that some work was published on the French Neolithic and so you can sleep peacefully.

olga said...

@ weure said...

"May be fare fetched but I have E-V22.That’s quite NE African."

I see that you are puzzled for being Dutch an have E-V22.
Sephardic Jews from Spain and Portugal run to the Netherlands in big groups at the end of the 15th century and throughout the 16th century in search for religion freedom.
In fact Moroccan Jews, many of them coming from Spain at that time are E-V22
They were highly educated people, and produced an impressive list of important people.

Grey said...

Andrzejewski said...
"So it's the WHG and not the Indo-Europeans who are responsible for red-hair, blue/green eyes and light skin?"

maybe some of the phenotype stuff is additive - like two groups with genes that turned hair from black to brown but when added together made it lighter?

for example say three regions each with a set of partial depigmentation genes: A (west) B (central/baltic) and C (east) so after mixing
- west region mostly A+B
- central region mostly A+B+C
- east region mostly B+C
?

Grey said...

there's a specific welsh phenotype, not universal but noticeably common, which always made me wonder if there was a Berber-like element in their dna.

not surprising imo as (iirc) there was a neolithic culture centred on southern Portugal which linked north Africa, Corsica/Sardinia and Britain/Brittany and if BB spread along those pre-existing trade routes.

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

@EurDNA

Comparison of Irish and Central European ancient genomes for haplotype-based affinity to modern populations. Interpolated heatmaps comparing relative haplotype donations by two Irish (Ballynahatty, Rathlin1) and two Hungarian (NE1, BR2) ancient genomes.

Andrzejewski said...

@Grey "there's a specific welsh phenotype, not universal but noticeably common, which always made me wonder if there was a Berber-like element in their dna.

not surprising imo as (iirc) there was a neolithic culture centred on southern Portugal which linked north Africa, Corsica/Sardinia and Britain/Brittany and if BB spread along those pre-existing trade routes."

I read that Welsh people have more WHG compared to the English. Not sure about the accuracy of the claim.

I am very curious how come in the UK 90% of the population, females included, have been exterminated in one way or another while in most other parts of Europe, ranging from Germany to Spain to the Balkans, the CWC/BB Indo-European speaking people ASSIMILATED the farmer population and thereby reducing the Steppe ancestry in the process. For example, in Spain most of the mtDNA is from EEF and some WHG but British Beakers are identical with Dutch ones to the tee, even on mtDNA.

Andrzejewski said...

Is there a chance that Greece, Italy and the Balkans are descendants of Cardial Pottery Culture, and that it can explain not only the phenotypical expression's difference between Southern Europeans and Central Europeans like Oetzi or GAC individuals, but also genotypical differences e.g. prevalence of E1b1b and E-V22 haplogroups all over these areas (and some J1 and J2), rather than G1a like most other farmer groups from Anatolia (like the ones taking the northbound route up the Danube, for instance)?

Andrzejewski said...

Another food-for-thought: mtDNA n1a1 was very common among Farmer societies of Europe, with some links to North Africa:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_N_(mtDNA)

"The haplogroup N descendant lineage U6 has been found among Iberomaurusian specimens at the Taforalt site, which date from the Epipaleolithic.[17] The N1b subclade has been observed in an individual belonging to the Mesolithic Natufian culture.[18] Additionally, haplogroup N has been found among ancient Egyptian mummies excavated at the Abusir el-Meleq archaeological site in Middle Egypt, which date from the Pre-Ptolemaic/late New Kingdom, Ptolemaic, and Roman periods.

The N1 subclade has also been found in various fossils that were analysed for ancient DNA, including specimens associated with the Starčevo (N1a1a1, Alsónyék-Bátaszék, Mérnöki telep, 1/3 or 33%), Linearbandkeramik (N1a1a1a3, Szemely-Hegyes, 1/1 or 100%; N1a1b/N1a1a3/N1a1a1a2/N1a1a1/N1a1a1a, Halberstadt-Sonntagsfeld, 6/22 or ~27%), Alföld Linear Pottery (N1a1a1, Hejőkürt-Lidl, 1/2 or 50%), Transdanubian Late Neolithic (N1a1a1a, Apc-Berekalja, 1/1 or 100%), Protoboleráz (N1a1a1a3, Abony, Turjányos-dűlő, 1/4 or 25%), and Iberia Early Neolithic cultures (N1a1a1, Els Trocs, 1/4 or 25%)."

_______________________________________


My conclusions are:

1. N1a1a1 was a VERY common Anatolian mtDNA marker, much more common than mtDNA H. For some reason following the Bronze Age era it was overwhelmingly reduced to almost non-existent.

2. It was also a very common mtDNA marker of Cardial Pottery cultures in Southern Europe, along with male MENA (North African, Levantine) Y-DNA markers as J1, J2, E1b1b and E-V22.

3. There's a strong genetic link to North Africa, although the directional vector remains unknown.

4. Neolithic farmers were very heterogeneous when it comes to their mitochondrial dna, which may mean that just like Indo-Europeans they assimilated diverse groups by means of exogamy as the spread from Anatolia, or even before that.

5. They must've been two waves of Anatolian Farmers (EEF), with corresponding genetic differences: (i) The (early?) Anatolians who moved up the Danube to form the Strcevo-Cris, then LBK and TRB, and so on. They were the "more 'refined'" Anatolians, largely descended from AHG in situ, and; (ii) Anatolians who first admixed with CHG (to form Kura Araxes?), thereby reducing AHG ratio from 100% -> 89%, and later on admixing with incoming Levant_N/Natufians, so that already 20% of the current Anatolian farmers in today's Turkey were Levantine in origin. These groups might've taken the maritime route to form the Cardial Pottery farmers of Southern Europe: Greece, Italy, Southern Balkan and Spain.

Am I correct?

Samuel Andrews said...

@Andre,

You're right It's been confirmed the Iberian farmers & Danube farmers descended from different but closely related Anatolians.

Cardiel farmers who went to Spain had less CHG/IranNeo affinity not more. Also, they didn't have a lot of mtDNA N1a1a or Y DNA J, E1b. One Iberian sample has E1b-M78 but that's it.

There's no true North African input into Europe until the Medieval Moors. This is an important detail clarified by ancient DNA. Paleolithic, Neolithic North Africans have a distinct genetic signal. If, any Neolithic Europeans had this ancestry we would know.

Andrzejewski said...

@Sam I'm fascinated what reduced the Neolithic farmer N1a1a1 frequency to almost zero in today's populations. I know that H1 and H3 are Anatolian signals but most Neolithic cultures pre-Bronze Age had a high mtDNA marker. I know that I was discussing it before but the fast disappearance of this major mtDNA haplogroup enormously puzzles me...

Andrzejewski said...

@Gaska When it comes to Spain there are lots of puzzles and confusions which are not easily solvable. Besides the question of the origin of the Basques we learned that Visigoths besides being of Scandinavian origin have extensively admixed in the Balkans before crossing into the Roman Empire. We have always suspected the E1b haplogroup in Spain originated with the MOORS, however we found out that there were Visigothic E1b individuals, likely from Balkan admixture. The Visigoths also had some minority outliers with East Eurasian mtDNA C4 which must've indicated a Hunnic admixture. (Going off on a tangent here, it's also amazing how this haplogroup which used to be common in Western Russia for 7,000 years almost completely vanished after 1,000AD after Eastern Slav settlement, but I digress here).

Another unsolved mystery in regards to Spain is the fate of the Converso Sephardic Jews: it's believed that Jews constituted at least 10% of the population of 1492 Spain, and assuming that most Jews chose to remain and convert rather than go into exile, their contribution is almost non-existent if at all amongst modern Spanish population. Which leads me to the conclusion that the Sephardic Jews in Spain were mostly Spanish convert to Judaism with the same genotype (and phenotype) of the surrounding Castilian Spaniards, and that following the establishment of the Inquisition they simply "converted back" and vanished completely without a trace.

So you see, @Gaska, the ethnogenesis of your beloved Spaniard countrymen/women is anything but simple, unlike the way you prefer to portray it ;)

weure said...

@Andrzejewski Regarding the E1b variant E-V22.
Publications from ten years ago already stated that it's not only an old haplotype but especially widespread.....from the Horn of Africa (south) to the Gulf states (east) or places along the silk route, to Spain in the West.
It's old enough to play a part in the neolithic spread from the Levant to the Mediterranean area. But also Phoenician spread or the Arabic period in Sicily and Spain etc.
But also among the Ashkenazim, possible entry was the Ukranian area than into Poland/ Central Europe. Fare from easy to pinpoint.

Bob Floy said...

@weure

In your case, being from Holland, it's probably a safe bet that it came in from Spain, one way or another. In my case, I'm not going to be sleeping very well until this paper on Italy comes out ;p

weure said...

@Olga I see that you are puzzled for being Dutch an have E-V22.
Sephardic Jews from Spain and Portugal run to the Netherlands in big groups at the end of the 15th century and throughout the 16th century in search for religion freedom.
In fact Moroccan Jews, many of them coming from Spain at that time are E-V22
They were highly educated people, and produced an impressive list of important people.

Thanks for the input! And I'm certainly aware of that. But the context is very different. Sephardim were a very sophisticated group indeed and certainly at that time a closed and recognizable population. But there are some simple facts that indicate that there is no connection with the Sephardim. First of all they had certain names and surnames. Until 1812 most Frisians used only the patroniem, and had very recognizable names too. But no Spinoza ;) From about end 17th century I could find 'Haye Jans', 'Jan Hayes', 'Fokke Jans' etc etc. And the Sephardim were simple not there in small villages in Friesland, if I remember it well the fist ones, but that were Ashkenazim (!) came mid 17th from Emden East Frisia to the capital of the Frisians Leeuwarden. The Sepharidim were certainly in the 17th and 18th century only concentrated in the towns of Holland ()not Friesland) like Amsterdam. From there it's socially seen a giant leap to a tiny (Catholic) community of Frisian speaking farmers and skippers on the Frisian country side.....different worlds. No mutual acces.

weure said...

@Bob I dunno for sure. only educated guesses.
Even the ENF residu option is a possibility also may be a statistical wonder ;)))

Samuel Andrews said...

@Andre,
"@Sam I'm fascinated what reduced the Neolithic farmer N1a1a1 frequency to almost zero in today's populations. "

The explanation for the apparent discontinunity of (Danube) farmer mtDNA is this...

In probably the 4th millenium BC, western European farmers moved west as far north as Sweden and as far east as Poland. The farmer ancestors of Corded Ware & Bell Beaker were of largely western European origin.

Later, in the Bronze age, ethnic drift & natural selection changed the mtDNA makeup of Europe. Natural selection favored mtDNA H. Natural selection disfavored mtDNAs K1a & U5.

You can see this clearly in the Baltic Bronze age. They very high frequencies of mtDNA H. Even though they were 1/3 Baltic hunter gatherer they had very little Baltic hunter gatherer mtDNA. Almost all their mHG U5 was of Steppe origin.

Samuel Andrews said...

I'm 99% confident natural selection affects mtDNA. You can see it working in small populations like Ashkenazi Jews & Finns.

In Ashkanzi Jews, several unrelated K subclades are popular. In Finns several unrelated V subclades are popular. It looks like, natural selection favored mtDNA K in Askenazi ancestors and mtDNA V in Finns' ancestors.

And imo, mtDNA H served some kind of unknown reproductive advantage for women in bronze age Europe.

weure said...

@Bob And I think nature follows sometimes a fuzzy logic too.....sometimes it flips out of our models and schemes.

A sidekick remark in this respect. Yesterday I discovered that my father and I have the Herc2 SNP for blue eyes rs12913832 GG gives in 99% of the cases blue eyes (usually it's a melanin blocker).

Still both chestnut eyes. hahah

But now I know why the grandad, dad (my sons) and I have blonde hair with chestnut eyes (not a usual combination).


weure said...

@Sam that 99% remark was totally (funny) coincidence (see both postings) hahahah

Bob Floy said...

@weure

"I think nature follows sometimes a fuzzy logic too..."

Sometimes? Ha, most of the time ;]
Most of my models and schemes have been flipped.

"Yesterday I discovered that my father and I have the Herc2 SNP for blue eyes rs12913832 GG gives in 99% of the cases blue eyes (usually it's a melanin blocker).

Still both chestnut eyes. hahah

But now I know why the grandad, dad (my sons) and I have blonde hair with chestnut eyes (not a usual combination)."

Yeah. My Calabrian, E-V22 bearing great uncles were all very light skinned, with light eyes, and one of them had red hair. Go figure.

Andrzejewski said...

@Sam "Later, in the Bronze age, ethnic drift & natural selection changed the mtDNA makeup of Europe. Natural selection favored mtDNA H. Natural selection disfavored mtDNAs K1a & U5."

I am sure that it also affected the phenotype of Europeans from Bronze Age onward: it seems as though the main reason that Europeans in general look distinct from Middle Easterners or dwellers of the Caucasus, that Ashkenazi Jews can in many cases be told apart from their neighbors, and also that Finns stand out (aside from their Siberian admixture) is their unique mtDNA H on all of its subclades. I can't help thinking that way...

weure said...

@Andrjezewski

In the case of the Germans or North Europeans it's most probably a natural selection pressure that favored light features. I have read somewhere about the Icelandic mores in the middle ages. There were three classes, the noble earls were described as light featured (blond, blue eyed etc), the middle classes of kaerls were described as somewhat reddish and the slaves/ thralls were described as darkish. Of course this reflected not the realityl, but that was obviously the social norm. This was a selective mechanism.....

Ric Hern said...

I wonder if L51 will be found somewhere in that light yellow area towards the East on that Rathlin Map...Poland or the Baltic...?

Gaska said...

@ Andrzejewski

I have already said that Spain, compared to other European countries such as Italy, Greece, Albania or the Balkans is a very genetically bored country. We already know that the Greeks and Romans brought J2 to the peninsula and that the Goths were fundamentally R1b (56,25%) I (12,5%), J2a (12,5%) and E1b1b (18,75%)- Now the interesting thing will be to find out that part of the current Spanish population E1b (7%) descends from the Visigoths or the Moors. The Goths settled in the Castilian plateau and that may explain that lineage in Castile and Galicia (better than the resettlements after the expulsion) and the Moors stayed longer in Andalucia, although it must be recognized that the repopulation in Granada affected the largest part of the population

Regarding the Jews, the truth is that it is a controversial issue, it is true that they were relatively numerous and in some cases very powerful (lenders ...). I have seen the document in which the assets of the Jews of my village are liquidated in 1492. They had to sell off their properties (houses, land, sinanoga) to leave their businesses, and they all left (not a single family remained), the majority to Portugal and Morocco. I think it was a tragedy because they were already as Spanish as the Christians, but the kings could not allow them to stay because among other things they helped the Moors to end the Visigoth kingdom. Actually I think they were not very dear to the rest of the population. The conversos / marranos who remained were harshly persecuted by the Inquisition. Many of them feld to the Netherlands and Austria converting their Spanish surnames - and a percentage of 15-20% were R1b Df27 ie old Christians converted to Judaism. You have a clear example with
the Jewish Austrian musician Arnold Schöenberg- Df27/BY16148 whose family translated their Spanish/Portuguese surname Belmonte (Beautiful mountain) into German-Schöner Berg

That is to say, basically you have guessed right, a good percentage of Spanish Jews was Df27, the majority marched but others stayed, and it is true that their contribution to the Spanish genetic pool is insignificant. The Spanish geneticists say that they probably brought the haplogroup J1 to the peninsula (1% of the total)

Ric Hern said...

What is also interesting is the affinity rising in Western Ukraine towards the West, but also interesting is the Blue in the Basque area compared to the surrounding areas on that Rathlin Map...

Gaska said...

@ Andrzejewski said "I know that H1 and H3 are Anatolian signals"

I think you are wrong, we do not know data from Italy but in Iberia HV, V, H, H1, H2, H3, H4, H6, H7, H14 are Paleolithic (Magdalenian) and Mesolithic markers, that spread across mainland Europe after the last glacial period. What happens is that some results have not been published in international scientific journals. They are therefore WHGs like U5b

+ La Chora Cave (San Pantaleón de Aras, Voto, Cantabria).(6.360 BC). The dating of 8.360 + -80 b.p. (GrN- 20961) was obtained by a sample taken in the mesolithic level Residues of terrestrial and marine animals, elaborate bone and lithic tools (harpoon of double row of teeth, scrapers and pendants with decorations) were found- The dating has documented the human occupation during the Late Magdalenian and Azilian (Mesolithic) MIT-Hap- H6

+ Sado Estuary (Central Portugal) - 8 mitochondrial haplogroups belonging to the Mesolithic were recovered (9,500-7,500 BC) - Helen Chandler, Joao Zilhao et al (2005). Results Mitochondrial Haplogroups- H (2), H1b (1), H7 (1), U4 (1), U5b1c2, N1b

+ On the origin of the Iberomaurusians-As they are hinges between the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic, the study of Iberomaurusian populations of TAF (Morocco, 23,000–10,800 YBP) and AFA (Algeria 15,000–11,000 YBP) provides important data in the understanding of the settlement of North Africa. Our results showed that the mtDNA sequences of the seven specimens from AFA are classified exclusively into Eurasiatic haplogroups: H or U (three individuals), T2 (two individuals), JT (one individual), and J (one individual).

.+ La Pasiega Cave (Puente Viesgo, Cantabria) - (16.200-15.740 BC). Ancient DNA in the Cantabrian fringe populations: A mtDNA study from Prehistory to Late Antiquity- C de la Rúa, N Izaguirre (2.015) - The cave has archaeological remains from the Solutrean and early Cantabrian Magdalenian epochs. There is a basic level with ambiguous pieces that, due to their characteristics, has been related to a possible Mousterian. On it, a relatively rich Solutrean level rested with very characteristic materials such as laurel leaves and fine notch points made by pressure, as well as aszagayas. It was specified that this level could correspond to the Upper Solutrean. The most recent stratum was also relatively rich, with several burins, punches, bone objects and perforated teeth that could belong to the Archaic Magdalenian. Important cave paintings- Mit Hap-H

+ Pirulejo Cave (Priego de Córdoba, Córdoba) - In the excavation campaign of 1991 in sub-level 4B (inventory number 256) corresponding to the Magdalenian (13.000-12.000 BC), various human remains appeared, specifically two fragments of parietal, a milk canine, a Lower molar milk and three premolars probably lower. Due to the differential wear of the dental crown, it can be deduced that there are two adults and another child. Two of these teeth, named 1PI and 2PI, were selected based on their apparent good state of preservation.
2PI- Mitochondrial Haplogroup-HV-
1PI-Mit Hap- N *

+ El Mirón Cave(Ramales de la Victoria, Cantabria)- “Due to the deficient state of conservation of El Mirón dental pieces, it has only been possible to obtain DNA in one of the teeth, the first upper right premolar (14), recovered, at a level attributable to the Middle Magdalenian (14,000-12,000 BC). Mitochondrial Haplogroup-H.

This means that the percentage of ancestry of the WHGs in the Iberian, Italian and French Neolithic and Chalcolithic is much higher than that commonly used in European genetic studies. I believe that some of these individuals could have been used to fix more precisely the genetic pool of the WHGs and I think that in relation to Spain they only use the genome of the deposits of el Mirón cave and la Braña (both U5b)

Bogdan said...

Whew. This is a wild one, but thank you Davidski for creating this blog site and allowing some ‘hair down’, so to speak, as long as comments are on topic. It was getting quite tight.

Great to see BBB chime in...

I think what we got here in this topic is more evidence of early diversities of people, cultures and expansive trade networks going back to earlier BA era that few thought possible / imaginable, but with time and evidence will become clearer...

Grey said...

Andrzejewski said...
"I am very curious how come in the UK 90% of the population, females included, have been exterminated in one way or another"

that's the assumption.

personally i wonder if the original population was small and concentrated near the coasts and the new (dairying) population arrived and expanded dramatically in the interior and as a result became 90% of a much larger total population.

A said...

@Leron, Ancient Greek historians didn’t say anything about ‘ethiopians among the colchians’. Herodotus said the colchians resembled Egyptians, not ethiopians.

Andrzejewski said...

Yea, but like I replied to @Samuel Andrews it seems as though European phenotype developed as a homogenization following the CWC and BB spread with mtDNA becoming more common to the extinction of any other farmer mtDNA. For some reason I think that it’s the main reason why Ashkenazi Jews looked a tad different (in general) from Polish Catholics (and it has nothing to do with hair or skin color); Jews, who may have acquired their Farmer mtDNA K1a from an Anatolian admixture during biblical times, may look different than gentile Europeans but they might’ve fit perfectly in Romanian society 3500BC, for example.

Likewise, it may or may not be that members of the LBK society with their prevalence of N1a1a1 may’ve looked more “Middle Eastern” shifted compared to later farmer societies in Europe. I don’t know but that’s a possibility, based on the commonality of this Haplogroup in near eastern populations today.

As for Finns, the fact that they harbor both Siberian N1c1 and the ancient mtDNA V on its various subclades may go a long way towards explaining why they seem like an outlier population rather than the European norm. They also have an extra amount of WHG, even above Baltic’s.

Not sure 100% but to me it looks as if the spread of a GAC-like population or the Farmer/forager substrate of the Rhenish Dutch Beaker (with their high H content?) who may be responsible why contemporary Europeans, be it Sicilian, Russian or Scottish Highlanders, look different from either Bedouins, Mansi, Kartvelians or many Ashkenazi Jews or Saami.

Andrzejewski said...

MtDNA H in Bronze Age and onward Europeans, that’s what I mean

Andrzejewski said...

So who built Stonehenge?

Draft Dozen said...

@Leron

"I'd only wager on very isolated areas as having people who retained a more ancient darker phenotype. As seems to have been the case in ancient Georgia with the Greek historians mentioning "Ethiopians among the Colchians"

Re-read carefully what Herodotus wrote. Herodotus Book 2: Euterpe:

"104. For the people of Colchis are evidently Egyptian, and this I perceived for myself before I heard it from others. So when I had come to consider the matter I asked them both; and the Colchians had remembrance of the Egyptians more than the Egyptians of the Colchians; but the Egyptians said they believed that the Colchians were a portion of the army of Sesostris. That this was so I conjectured myself not only because they are dark-skinned and have curly hair (this of itself amounts to nothing, for there are other races which are so)"

And this is Abkhazian story of Nart saga:

"Narts, all one hundred brothers, once saddled their horses - arashchi - and set off on the road, as always, to get the glory of catching....They spread the burqas in the shade of a tree and sat down, the younger ones lit a fire and began to cook, to the sky, and people noticed this smoke, obit They were black at the distance of a half-day’s journey from the place where the sledges were resting, black people-Negroes-they were all so black that the brave jigit would be frightened to see them. The black men of the soldiers dressed and ordered them to find out what kind of smoke Black-faced warriors returned from the reconnaissance, told the elders everything, black-faced men and women gathered, old and young, consulted and decided to meet the uninvited guests worthily-to fight while they were still alive. And they began to build fortifications from the side where the white warriors come from. The next morning the sledges, as usual, set off and were very happy when they saw black faces at noon. But soon the sledge noticed that the black people were going to meet them with spears and arrows. Then the cards that did not like the bloodshed selected several of their warriors and sent them without weapons, so that those blacks would make sure that they were not enemies, but friends. But the black-haired people shot arrows at them, wounded two sledges, and the soldiers had to return. The sledges were conferred and again sent their unarmed envoys. But the same thing happened as at first. Then all one hundred sledges sat down on their fire-like horse-araches and rushed to the black faces like furious bison, destroyed the walls of the fort, many trampled on their hooves, desperate brave men were knocked down with a whip, and the checkers were not allowed to run. The black faces were understood, with whom they had an affair and that the sleds were not harmed by innocent evildoers, asked for peace and reconciled. They gave a big black feast. The Narts spent exactly one month among blacks. And when they returned back to their homeland, the black faces gave them a lot of cattle, and a hundred of the best black-faced jigits went with them to see how the famous sledges live and stay with them. One hundred brothers of the sledges returned to Apsny (Abkhazia), with them a hundred black faces from a distant land. Very pleased with the blackface Apsny, and when the month of separation came, half of the guests returned to their homeland, and the other half of the guests remained forever in this region."

@Gaska

"That's because of the sun, that is, the environmental conditions (not because they are genetically whiter)."

Think so? Afrikaners did not turn to black while living in South Africa, Yakuts have not become whiter than the Scandinavians living in extremely cold conditions. So with Africans living in Abkhazia from my comment above.
https://birdinflight.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/bif_ethnos_01.jpg

Samuel Andrews said...

@Andre,
"Likewise, it may or may not be that members of the LBK society with their prevalence of N1a1a1 may’ve looked more “Middle Eastern” shifted compared to later farmer societies in Europe."


mtDNA has no impact on how someone looks. Also, most European mtDNA is in fact Anatolian farmer.

Bob Floy said...

@Sam

Is it true that Ireland has a high prevalence of steppe-related mtDNA, more so than in the rest of Europe? I've heard this.

Samuel Andrews said...

@Bob Floy,
"Is it true that Ireland has a high prevalence of steppe-related mtDNA, more so than in the rest of Europe? I've heard this."

There isn't much mtDNA data published from Ireland. More data is available from Beaker-Bronze age Britain than modern Ireland.

andrew said...

@Simon_W has a good point about Punic involvement being too late.

The suggestion of @Vinitharya that Iberia is close to N Africa and that Iberia is ground zero from which Bell Beakers emerge make a lot of sense. @Gaska along similar lines also seems to offer a plausible theory.

A said...

"Is it true that Ireland has a high prevalence of steppe-related mtDNA, more so than in the rest of Europe? I've heard this."

Interestingly the highest prevalence of red hair is in western Britain and Ireland, and also among the Udmurt people who live in Russia near the Urals (on the western side). Udmurts also have some of the highest percentages of 'yamnaya ancestry'.

Apparently half of Udmurts have dark hair and eyes, and the other half have red hair and blue eyes. Makes me wonder whether there are some red haired Yamnaya remains out there waiting to be sampled.

Michalis Moriopoulos said...

Dave, Reichlab has released the genomes from the fresh-off-the-presses East Africa paper:

New genomes:
https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/sites/reich.hms.harvard.edu/files/inline-files/Data_S1_EA_aDNA.tar.gz
Main site:
https://reich.hms.harvard.edu/datasets

I wonder if some of the present day populations (like Copts and Nubians) they used for the PCA are also included. It would be great to have them in the G25, too.

Samuel Andrews said...

@A, I have red hair For a long time I was hoping it was Yamnaya. I'm starting to think, natural selection in Bronze age northwest Europe made red hair "popular" (frequency of 3-7%).

The oldest red hair mutations come from early European farmers. It was very very rare. Several examples have been found in Bell beaker, Andronovo, late Neolithic Sweden, Baltic Bronze age.

One of Baltic Bronze age samples had red hair, as did sample from bronze age Germany with R1a. Baltic Bronze age are main ancestors of modern Balts, important ancestors of Slavs who aren't known for red hair in Europe today.

Modern British/Irish & Scandinavians, have 10x higher frequency of red hair mutations than Bell Beaker did. Bell beaker is the main ancestor of Irish, Welsh, Scottish. They're also the brothers of the ancestors of Scandinavians.

So, it looks like natural selection favored red hair during Bronze age. I'm starting to think the "high frequency" (sarcastic quotes) in northwest Europe today is a local development in the last 4,000 years.

Overall, this is what ancient DNA suggests is the origin of fair complexion in northern Europe. It developed locally sometime between 6,000 and 3,500 years ago.

A said...

@Samuel

what about the red haired Tocharians.

Those red-haired Yamnaya guys are out there somewhere.

Andrzejewski said...

@A The red-haired Tocharians are Andronovans, meaning about 60% Yamnaya or other Kurganites (ANE + WHG + CHG), plus at least 20% EEF with some 5% WHG transmitted via the EEF, with trace elements of BMAC and even Botai.

Grey said...

Andrzejewski said...
"So who built Stonehenge?"

the atlantic megalith culture (iirc originally centered on southern Portugal) who settled in regions with soft metals: SW Britain, South Wales, South Ireland, Brittany etc

https://aratta.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/megalithic_culture.png?w=352&h=397

(not sure what the reasons for the Denmark and NE Scotland settlement would be as i haven't heard of early soft metal mining in those regions. the Denmark settlement may have been for amber or flint as apparently there was some special flint from north Jutland)

Maju had a lot of posts on this culture at one point.

from those posts i've always assumed BB either started from and spread along the trade links already created by these people or they bumped into one of the links on their travels and then spread along them.

Andrzejewski said...

@Sam "mtDNA has no impact on how someone looks. Also, most European mtDNA is in fact Anatolian farmer."

I do understand that ;) But what I'm thinking about is the possibility that as Anatolian farmers were ALREADY a heterogenous group based on their mtDNA (K1a, H, HV, N1a1a1, W etc) plus but to a lesser degree also their Y-DNA (mostly G1a but also E1b, J1, J2), don't you think that different farmer groups looked different than others? For instance, GAC and Sardinians must've had some outstanding phenotypical differences, besides - the amount and type of forager admixture varies enormously among regions.

So, bottom line, do you think that the European phenotypes developed more recently, by a natural selection and/or genetic drift favoring CERTAIN farmer groups over others? (If CWC and BB admixed mostly with Greeks or Italians, would Northern Europeans look much more "Southern"-shifted?

Grey said...

@myself
"atlantic megalith culture"

my guess on the north african ancestry in the scottish beaker is it comes from this atlantic megalith culture (who had connections to north africa) and BB arrived at the same sites later cos they were following the atlantic megalith culture's pre-existing trade nodes.

https://aratta.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/megalithic_culture.png?w=352&h=397

coptic actor in mr robot

https://i2.wp.com/www.arabamerica.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/5a4893e83be816decaeb9f3e25934502.jpg?ssl=1

Bob Floy said...

"my guess on the north african ancestry in the scottish beaker is it comes from this atlantic megalith culture (who had connections to north africa) and BB arrived at the same sites later cos they were following the atlantic megalith culture's pre-existing trade nodes"

Are we sure about this north African connection to the Atlantic megalith culture? I don't recall seeing any mention of it in the recent literature. Isn't it more likely that Anatolia was the breeding ground for Europe's megalith obsession? Gobekli tepe seems like it may be the starting point for that to me. It's on the opposite side to where EEF's ancestor's came from, sure, but close enough for the ideas to have spread to them, easily.

Is it a coincidence that the first real megalithic structure appears there, then Europe is flooded with migrant farmers from Anatolia, and megaliths start popping up everywhere?

Andrzejewski said...

@Bob Floy "Is it a coincidence that the first real megalithic structure appears there, then Europe is flooded with migrant farmers from Anatolia, and megaliths start popping up everywhere?"

I think Neolithic Farmers were more into building the "long house". I'm intrigued what part of our heritage (native concepts and lifestyles, not something like Christianity which was clearly "imported") arrived with the farmers and what part thereof originated with the Indo-Europeans. Like beer was surmised to be invented by the Sumerians but the ones carrying it into Europe were the Anatolians.

Bob Floy said...

@Andrzejewski

So you think that Gobekli tepe, in mesolithic Anatolia, has nothing to do with megalithic sites in neolithic Europe, which had recently been colonized by Anatolian farmers. Yes, there's a gap of some centuries between the two, but still.

They were hardy people, I'm sure they had the energy to build both long houses and stone circles.

Bob Floy said...

"some centuries"

Millennia, I mean, but still.
Seems like a strong possibility to me that they're connected.

Grey said...

Bob Floy said...
"Are we sure about this north African connection to the Atlantic megalith culture?"

iirc the connection is purely a trading one between southern Portugal and north Africa so not exactly part of the same culture - by connection i simply meant how someone with that ancestry might get to Scotland in that era.

"Isn't it more likely that Anatolia was the breeding ground for Europe's megalith obsession? Gobekli tepe seems like it may be the starting point for that to me."

yes, i've always assumed the atlantic megalith culture's roots were somewhere in the east med. but took the maritime route to end up in southern Portugal (which is the edge of the med. climate zone) rather than one of the land routes and then along the Atlantic coast from there.

floristic zones

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/Floristic_regions_in_Europe_%28english%29.png/350px-Floristic_regions_in_Europe_%28english%29.png

(an interesting aside on this pet theory is apparently this culture in southern Portugal had oak plantations for acorns - maybe a result of trying to adapt to the different growing conditions in the atlantic zone - oaks, druids etc)

Bob Floy said...

@Grey

Yeah, there are all sorts of ways that north African ancestry could have ended up in a British BB, if it really is there, but I personally think that the report is dubious. It reminds me too much of things we've heard in the past which turned out to be contamination, a result of low resolution, etc., or just some researcher jumping the gun. We have to take the present political climate into account.

"i've always assumed the atlantic megalith culture's roots were somewhere in the east med. but took the maritime route to end up in southern Portugal (which is the edge of the med. climate zone) rather than one of the land routes and then along the Atlantic coast from there."

This latest paper that everyone was talking about puts the earliest European megaliths in northwestern France, but I have my doubts about that.

Grey said...

@Bob Floy
"I personally think that the report is dubious"

could be

"the earliest European megaliths in northwestern France"

so many megalithic sites along the Atlantic coast dating back such a long time - surprises me how they're not mentioned much, for example

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

and either the idea for them was indigenous or came from outside and if from outside there's only a few candidates given this is pre-pyramids: maltese temples or as you say sites like gobekli.

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

whatever the story behind these people i think BB likely traveled along the trade routes they had created.

Bob Floy said...

@Grey

Of course it dosen't help that the events of that time are 100% unrecorded(unless someone manages to make something of the Vinca script, maybe), and we have to mostly guess.

I've seen the Maltese stuff, the Hypogeum is incredible. Certainly more impressive than Stonehenge.

But, I dunno. For me, until I see something which strongly suggests otherwise, European megalithism probably has it's roots at Gobekli tepe.

Andrzejewski said...

I have an idea for a fun game: let's list the supposed inventions by Neolithic Farmers v. Yamnaya Pastoralists, provided that it's long lasting and continues into today. For example: beer came with Neolithics, horses with Steppists; Indo-European languages came with Steppe groups, but European architecture is more of a Neolithic farmer design, etc.

Grey said...

Bob Floy said...
"until I see something which strongly suggests otherwise, European megalithism probably has it's roots at Gobekli tepe."

that's currently my view (although i wonder if they stopped at malta along the way).

Targamos the Based, son of Kavkasos son of CHG son of said...

Ouch, the "please don't think I am a racist" comments are extremely pathetic.

Bob Floy said...

@Grey

"that's currently my view (although i wonder if they stopped at malta along the way)."

It's a good possibility.

And the distribution of neolithic European megalith sites looks off to me, like something may be missing. From the archeological record, that is. I feel like there ought to be more things like that in the Balkans.

weure said...

@Sam ' Modern British/Irish & Scandinavians, have 10x higher frequency of red hair mutations than Bell Beaker did. Bell beaker is the main ancestor of Irish, Welsh, Scottish. They're also the brothers of the ancestors of Scandinavians.

So, it looks like natural selection favored red hair during Bronze age. I'm starting to think the "high frequency" (sarcastic quotes) in northwest Europe today is a local development in the last 4,000 years.'

Yes most likely it was already there in the Nordic LNBA package, but because of the cultural pressure on light features since then (4000 ybp) it got a boost.

You need a fair amount of pheomelanin to produce light features....and in highest amounts it produces red hair. It's said that it gives blond hair a warm glow and skin too. That glow is obviously considered as 'healthy'.

I carry R160W.

weure said...

@Sam, your are a lucky man ;)

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/11/101103-attractive-women-men-faces-skin-color-evolution-diet-health/

weure said...

Seems to be a difference between a more 'western' R151C and more 'eastern' R160W n one responsible for red hair:

https://images.app.goo.gl/BENNeEF4Qof6di9n7

Drago said...

Bob/ Grey
There’s no direct link from Gobekli to european megaliths. I mean, yes there’s the ANF-ancestry link; but European megaliths come together in western France & expand from there across Western Europe; carrying with them both LBK & Cardial ancestry.

Bob Floy said...

@Dragos

It's true that there's no direct archeological trail, but I can't help feeling like there may be some missing pieces.

Grey said...

Dragos said...
"There’s no direct link from Gobekli to european megaliths."

i didn't think there would be or it would already be a thing but when i look at Skara Brae and wonder where the knowledge behind it came from there's not a lot of options (that i know of).

olga said...


@Weure

Yes, I'm awere of the isolation of these nothern farmers respect to bourgeois citizens, specially if they were foreign with different religions. But, I am also aware that girls, sometimes run to the city to work as house maids. Specially if they have gone trough an awful experience or just because they were fed up with their milieu.That´s the way it works all over the world. And afterwards they get married with somebody in the village who doesn´t ask many questions and everything is forgotten. In a hundred years nobody remembers anything.

Sofia Aurora said...

@Davidski

Guys how did you manage to download the paper?
I tried to create an account but the system restricted me!!!

It writes that it us only for the members of the University's Repository members and that it will be accessible in 2021.

How did you manage to create an account since you are not a member of the Huddersfield University?

Can you help me out?

Osland_B said...

As Davidski said, this wouldn't exactly be a shocking outcome, but I think people are suspicious of this not because of any prejudice as some have intimated, but because the British Bronze Age at this point looks homogeneous. It wasn't spotted in Reich or Olalde papers that featured hundreds of British Bronze Age samples. As well as the two Rathlin men.

So about people here accused of prejudices because they question this: any prejudice is just as morally wrong as the witchhunt-like,puritanical accusing people of being racist just because they don't automatically subscribe to ideals so far left as to be hanging over the cliff. Questioning data and open,respectful debate is always a sound scientific procedure but people are starting to feel like they're walking on eggshells when they question any sensitive topic. That's the reverse of scientific progress.

Everyone knows that the BA in Europe was 'diverse' with extensive trade networks but I think 'diverse' is relative and using this word to describe the BA in Europe isn't the same politically-charged word we use today. Certainly there was more movement than we might imagine in the Bronze Age, as shown by strontium isotope analysis to name one example but 'diverse' implicates 'a great deal of variety'. And I don't think that describes well the British BA, even if N.African/Near Eastern ancestry is confirmed.

weure said...

@olga, yes but I must say seen the Dutch context it's hard to believe. We now look quite liberated. But until deep in the twentieth century there were strict lines in Dutch society especially along religious lines.
Seen the fact that we deal here with a Jewish community in the city of Leeuwarden that was end 17th century very tiny:
https://www.dutchjewry.org/drieluik/leeuwarden/leeuwarden.shtml
and known to be on themselves. And a catholic community on the countryside that was equally 'entre nous', it was not done that a catholic girl served as housemaid in a Jewish (or also another religion). Persona non grata from both sides. I think that for 'fallen' catholic girls were other measures....
I know the what is not imaginable, happens still there is a problem that my E-V22 has no connection with the available Jewish E-V22. So the mysterie stays....or is it back on topic in the end, as Dutch BB delivered Scottish and Northern English BB, an African residu in the Dutch BB?????

Grey said...

Osland_B said...
"this wouldn't exactly be a shocking outcome, but I think people are suspicious of this..."

whenever there's a trade network it's not surprising to see individuals from one end of the network showing up at the other end. the trouble is the media like to exaggerate these things for political reasons and then people react against the exaggeration.

personally i've been interested for quite a while in how the atlantic megalith culture fits into the story so if a potential African connection leads to more of a spotlight on it i can live with the inevitable "we wuz egyptians" from the media.

Samuel Andrews said...

@Osland_B,
"Everyone knows that the BA in Europe was 'diverse' with extensive trade networks but I think 'diverse' is relative and using this word to describe the BA in Europe isn't the same politically-charged word we use today"

Amen!

"but 'diverse' implicates 'a great deal of variety'. And I don't think that describes well the British BA, even if N.African/Near Eastern ancestry is confirmed."

True. Lots of people expected Bell Beaker folk to be diverse in the same way Mediterranean cities were diverse in the Roman empire, with Greeks, Syrians, Jews, Italians, Spanish, etc. living side by side.

But, Bell beaker DNA shows the opposite. Bell Beaker culture was driven by an expansive homogeneous ethnic group. DNA from British Bell beaker is the best demonstration of this. 90% of gene pool of previous population disappeared, almost all British Bell Beaker are identical. *However, Davidski did find two individuals who appear to have a parent from two different populations in continental Europe (one possible in France, one in Denmark).

ANI EXCAVATOR said...

A theme that is emerging from the studies lately is the importance of sample size, because of the ubiquity of outliers in archaeological cultures that we would miss without sufficient sampling. The ancient world is certainly diverse, with homogeneity being the exception in most of the archaeological cultures we have samples from. Outliers are everywhere. What it is not is tolerant or liberal or open to equality and assimilation among strangers.

It was certainly diverse, but in the style of Game of Thrones or Star Wars, and certainly not the style of the UN or European Union.

Ric Hern said...

Very interesting. Thanks.

Ric Hern said...

Wonder if those East African samples have any link to the Fulani especially the later different kind of processing of Iron which apparently spread from the North into Kenya....interesting also is the earliest Bantu related individual among those samples, +-1000 ybp. It looks more like the Bantu only reached East Africa around 1300 ybp./700 AD. the earliest. Combine this with the exclusive Khoi Genes of the so called King and Queen of Mapungubwe, and suddenly many questions comes to mind...

Drago said...

@ Bob
“It's true that there's no direct archeological trail, but I can't help feeling like there may be some missing pieces.”

It’s certainly an interesting site. Perhaps we should see more data from eastern Anatolia

weure said...

@Ric what excludes that my E-V22 was already there in BB times? Besides the fact that it would be in statistic sense a miracle that it it survived until now....

weure said...

let's give it a shot, in a blog about Davidski's SGC>BB BB blogger gives this comment:
"One of the key elements in the typological discussion is the position of the 'pan-European' or 'maritime' Beaker (type 2Ia in the Dutch sequence) and the position of AOO/AOC pottery as a go between Bell Beaker Culture and Single Grave Culture. The first point to make is that following Lanting (2008) the Bell Beaker sequence in the Netherlands starts with the maritime Beaker (type 2Ia). Confusing for scholars outside the Netherlands, this implies that AOO/AOC Beakers are not considered to belong to the Bell Beaker Culture. Drenth and Hogestijn consider them late Single Grave Beakers (e.g. 2006). Lanting prefers to give AOO Beakers a separate place between both groups (Lanting 2008, 16), like also Van der Waals and Glasbergen (1955) did. They indicated AOO pottery as 'hybrid' beakers because they combine decorative elements of both the SGC and the BB group."

How about some BB pioniers (with some E-V22) that spread the Maritime Beaker style to the Dutch area?

Ric Hern said...

@ Weure

Yes maybe. I guess because of its uniqueness today, maybe it points to its minimal spread and uniqueness in the past as well. After all a massive migration isn't needed to spread ideas. Usually massive migrations goes hand in hand with conservation of the known...

Gaska said...

@Draft Dozen- @Gaska-That's because of the sun, that is, the environmental conditions (not because they are genetically whiter-"Think so? Afrikaners did not turn to black while living in South Africa, Yakuts have not become whiter than the Scandinavians living in extremely cold conditions.

Of course I think so

The eye and light skin pigmentation phenotypes observed in all SHGs could potentially be explained by admixture between WHG and EHG groups. The high relative-frequency of the blue-eye color allele in SHGs, resembles WHG, while the intermediate frequencies of the skin color determining SNPs in SHGs seem more likely to have come from EHG, since both light-pigmented alleles are virtually absent from WHG. However, for all three well-characterized skin and eye-color associated SNPs, the SHGs display a frequency that is greater for the light-skin variants and the blue-eye variant than can be expected from a mixture of WHGs and EHGs. This observation indicates that the frequencies may have increased due to continued adaptation to a low light conditions.

Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations-Variation exists within all populations of organisms. This occurs partly because random mutations arise in the genome of an individual organism, and offspring can inherit such mutations. Throughout the lives of the individuals, their genomes interact with their environments to cause variations in traits. The environment of a genome includes the molecular biology in the cell, other cells, other individuals, populations, species, as well as the abiotic environment. Because individuals with certain variants of the trait tend to survive and reproduce more than individuals with other, less successful variants, the population evolves. Other factors affecting reproductive success include sexual selection (now often included in natural selection) and fecundity selection.

Imagine Afrikaners living in the Sahara or Kalahari deserts for thousands of years- Any mutation related to a darkening of the skin, would give a clear advantage to the darker individuals compared to the whites and therefore would be more successful- Maybe that mutation would never occur, but if it appeared without doubt the individuals would have more reproductive success than the rest, simply because they would be more adapted to the environment (heat, sun ...). The time the Afrikaners have in South Africa is very small, just a few hundred years, do you think that if they lived in more hostile climates they would not take advantage of the mutations that were beneficial for their survival? How long did humanity take in the mutations related to the whiteness of the skin-75,000 years ?, 150,000 years? - However, when these mutations appeared, they were taken advantage of because they were adapting to the climatic conditions of the northern hemisphere. That's why they are fixed in the whole of the contemporary European population-


Ric Hern said...

@ Gaska

And interesting is that the San of the Kalahari are not Black despite them living in one of the most exposed areas in Africa for thousands of years....compared to the Central African Rain Forests which receive only about 15% Radiation at ground level...

Gaska said...

Regarding the North African ancestry in a British BB, it is probably an anecdote, just like the case found in Iberia. But everyone has to have an open mind and forget for a moment the dogma of the steppes. In that way, everyone could see the BB culture as it really was, not only in terms of its duration (more than 1,000 years) and its extension (Western Europe, Central Europe, North Africa and the islands of the Western Mediterranean), but in relation to its ideology, its customs its material culture and of course the male and female human lineages related to it.

The Bb culture was not exclusively R1b-P312, but also but also (although minority)-I2a (Spain, England, Hungary), G2a (Germany, Spain ..) and even E1b (Spain and England) - This means that we are seeing a cosmopolitan culture with contacts in a amazingly large territory considering that we are talking about the year 2,700 BC- This culture was produced and assimilated to the local Neolithic populations, and recruited people in North Africa, Italy, Sicily, Spain, the Netherlands, etc who traveled throughout the continent- I think Olalde was wrong in trying to associate exclusively R1b-M269 lineage with the BB culture, ignoring the data that he was seeing in his laboratory and he also made a mistake in trying to deny Iberian migrations to other regions. The case of African ancestry in the British Isles is a good example of what I am saying.

In any case there remain many unknowns- Why these Neolithic and African lineages disappear entirely in the British Isles and in Iberia?- At the moment there is no trace of them not in the Bronze Age nor in the Iron Age. What happened to those men? they were violently exterminated '(In Spain, of course, not because there are very rich deposits of BBs-I2a2a), they simply had less reproductive success?

Gaska said...

@-Ric "And interesting is that the San of the Kalahari are not Black despite them living in one of the most exposed areas in Africa for thousands of years....compared to the Central African Rain Forests which receive only about 15% Radiation at ground level"

Thank you, I did not know the case, and of course I do not have a reasonable explanation, I guess it will be because the mutations are just random, that is, we are talking about a process whose result is not predictable except by reason of the intervention of chance-

The production of melanin is stimulated to a greater or lesser extent by the DNA damage induced by ultraviolet radiation. I suppose that both the San and the Afrikaners would have to increase the production of melanin to adapt medium-

epoch said...

@Grizzlor

"So science is wrong, it's just contamination"

Nick Patterson, who is a scientist at the Reich lab, once responded in a thread here that outliers should be treated with skepticism per default, because a lot can go wrong with samples. Also, one should not make too much of a single outlier even if it's legitimate.

So Bob Floy is right to be skeptical when one, and only one sample shows some affinity.

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2017/05/two-early-slavs-from-bohemia.html

"This kind of thing is inevitable. There can be lab mixups of various types or reburials (so a body winds up in deeper strata). This is a reason that I am nervous about making heavy inference from samples that are outliers in
a population.
a) Outlier might be of real interest
b) Or the sample has an atypical history
c) Or something is wrong.

Often hard to tell. The Reich lab is carbon dating more and more samples though this is expensive!

epoch said...

@EurDNA

Welsh and Irish MN show roughly the same amount of Magdalenian admixture as Iberian samples. Uniparentals can be subject to a founder effect. By the way, the other option is that the Magdalenian admixture is coincidentally similar and thus be the cause of the suggested link to Iberia.

weure said...

@Gaska " However, when these mutations appeared, they were taken advantage of because they were adapting to the climatic conditions of the northern hemisphere. That's why they are fixed in the whole of the contemporary European population."

I thin k in the case of hair and eye color you underestimate the cultural pressure IMO.

Look at this case of Herc2, see the difference between North Dutch (87%) and South Duch (74%), that makes that North Dutch tends to go to the Finnic results, the South Dutch have a tendency to more South European results.

https://www.mupload.nl/img/690iz7du0i.54.57.png

The environment is not that different.....the distance is as such small between Norh and South Dutch.

Ok North Dutch where more connected to the Northern European Plain, South Dutch more to Central West Europe. So different population influences. But as it comes to the environment this can't be the difference....



A said...

Do you think they'll ever sample the skulls from the Mycenaean shaft graves that they have sitting in a museum in Athens?

weure said...

@Gaska and Schönberg and the link to Belmonte is interesting have you got a source?

Ric Hern said...

I don't understand this part:

"I suppose that both the San and the Afrikaners would have to increase the production of melanin to adapt medium-"

What do you mean ? The San are the Indigenous People of Southern Africa which has been Kalahari Desert like until 10 000 years ago. They have yellowy skin....they do not need to increased their production of Melanin to adapt to high radiation in the open Kalahari. Their yellow skintone seem to have been sufficient for maybe more than 100 000 years.

Gaska said...


@weure
http://www.andinia.com/articles/culture_and_society/a06228-the-schoenbergs-from-holland-to-germany-and-poland.shtml

The Schoenbergs living in the Netherlands during the first years of the XVIII century were descendants of the de Belmonte family that moved away from Portugal as Jews were expelled and the Inquisition gained a foothold in their former homeland. There, in the Netherlands, some of them still carried the name de Belmonte, while others (the main branch of the family) adopted the "Germanized" van Schoenenberg, which derived into von Schoenenberg, von Schoenberg and then simply Schoenberg. Also, three secondary branches of the family began to unfold there, identified with the names Raphael, Emmanuel and Joseph (see Dom Iago de Sampayo y Belmonte and Schoenberg).

Gaska said...


@Ric-

The light that comes from the sun contains ultraviolet rays (UVA and UVB)- The first activates the creation of melanin immediately-That's why I was saying that maybe there were no mutations regarding the permanent darkening of the skin, but the body always defends itself from the sun by making melanin. I suppose both the Afrikaners and the San will make melanin independent that they are white or yellow.

Ric Hern said...

@ Gaska

Not always only Melanin. Hair protect the skin as well. Afrikaners are particularly hairy. This was mentioned by the English Soldiers. Kind of reminds me of Hairy Gauls mentioned by the Romans.

Ric Hern said...

@ Gaska

So it looks like more than one solution for the same problem....

Grey said...

@Gaska
"Why these Neolithic and African lineages disappear entirely in the British Isles and in Iberia?- At the moment there is no trace of them not in the Bronze Age nor in the Iron Age. What happened to those men?"

maybe there was only very few of them.

if you overlay the atlantic megalith culture sites with the climate zone map then past the pillars of hercules it's only the southern Portugal sites which are inside the Med. climate zone.

so given how early this was what is the likelihood they'd managed to adapt their crop package to atlantic coast climate conditions - pretty slim?

and given the apparent coincidence of a lot of those megalith culture sites seeming to be around soft metal sites maybe there was just a handful of villages mostly all within a few clicks of a mine, safe harbor etc?