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Sunday, July 28, 2019

They mixed up Huns with Tocharians


I don't yet have the genomes from the recent Ning et al. paper on the Iron Age nomads from the Shirenzigou site in the eastern Tian Shan. But I do have most of the previously published data featured in the paper, including the Damgaard et al. 2018 Hun and Saka samples from the western Tian Shan.

After reading the Ning et al. paper between the lines and running a few analyses of my own, it's clear to me that most of the supposedly Tocharian-related Shirenzigou individuals actually share a very close relationship with the Tian Shan Huns, and indeed may have been their ancestors.

For instance, Ning et al. found that a large part of the ancestry of the Shirenzigou ancients could be modeled with the Tian Shan Huns, which was an anachronistic approach because the former are older than the latter. They also found that Ulchi-related ancestry was a key part of the genetic structure of eight out of the ten Shirenzigou individuals, and this likewise appears to be an important part of the genetic structure of the Tian Shan Huns.

Note the strong statistical fits in the Global25/nMonte and qpAdm mixture models below, respectively, which characterize these Huns as a two-way mixture between the Ulchi and the earlier Tian Shan Saka. And keep in mind that the Saka also harbor significant Ulchi-related ancestry.

Hun_Tian_Shan
Saka_Tian_Shan,92
Ulchi,8

distance%=1.2553

Hun_Tian_Shan
Saka_Tian_Shan 0.928±0.009
Ulchi 0.072±0.009

chisq 4.409
tail prob 0.992464
Full output

Moreover, the Shirenzigou males belong to Y-haplogroups Q1a and R1b (two instances of each), and they share the latter with one of the Tian Shan Huns. Judging by the data from the relevant BAM files, it's also possible that the Shirenzigou males share a very rare subclade of R1b with the Hun, defined by the PH155 mutation (see here). The Y-haplogroup assignments for the other Tian Shan Huns end at R and R1, but that's almost certainly due to missing data.

On the other hand, two Tian Shan Sakas belong to Y-haplogroup R1a but none to R1b, which fits with the pattern from currently available ancient DNA that R1a was more common than R1b in Saka-related groups, such as the Scythians and Sarmatians (see here).

This is all very interesting, because the Huns replaced the Saka in the western Tian Shan, and, considering their R1b and excess Ulchi-related ancestry, very likely moved into the region from the direction of Shirenzigou. Indeed, in my opinion a strong argument can now be made that the Iron Age population from the Shirenzigou region took part in the formation of the Hunnic confederacy.

So where does that leave the theory presented by Ning et al. that the Shirenzigou ancients may have been closely related, and perhaps even ancestral, to the Tocharians, simply because they packed a lot of Yamnaya-related and possibly proto-Tocharian Afanasievo ancestry, and were living close to the Tarim Basin, where Tocharian languages were subsequently first attested?

I'm not sure, but I now find it difficult to reconcile this theory with the fact that they were closely related, and probably ancestral, to the Tian Shan Huns. As far as I'm aware, Huns cannot be linked to Tocharians in any meaningful way.

Of course it's possible that different Afanasievo-derived groups were living in the Tarim Basin and surrounds, and, as some merged with new populations pushing into the region from the east and adopted non-Indo-European languages, others retained their Tocharian speech and eventually split into communities speaking Tocharian A, B and apparently also C (see here).

But this has to be demonstrated directly with ancient DNA from archeological sites where Tocharian languages were attested. Till then, I'll keep thinking that Ning et al. wrote a paper about Tocharians that really should've been a paper about Huns.

Here's a famous wall painting of Tocharian princes from the cave of the sixteen sword-bearers in the Tarim Basin, dated to 432–538 AD. They don't look like guys with a lot of Ulchi-related admixture to me, but I might be wrong. Feel free to let me know what you think in the comments below.


Update 08/17/2019: The Shirenzigou nomads are now in my dataset. Below are a few successful and not so successful qpAdm mixture models for them. Note that I tried to use a wide range of relevant "right pops", but also retain a lot of markers, specifically to be able to discriminate between different types of steppe and steppe-derived sources of gene flow (refer to the full output). Admittedly, the Shirenzigou nomads can be modeled with Afanasievo-related ancestry, but...

CHN_Shirenzigou_IA
KAZ_Botai 0.161±0.023
KAZ_Wusun 0.490±0.023
NPL_Mebrak_2125BP 0.349±0.019

chisq 5.793
tail prob 0.926172
Full output

CHN_Shirenzigou_IA
KAZ_Botai 0.143±0.022
NPL_Mebrak_2125BP 0.295±0.019
Saka_Tian_Shan 0.562±0.024

chisq 6.796
tail prob 0.870794
Full output

CHN_Shirenzigou_IA
KAZ_Botai 0.185±0.023
NPL_Mebrak_2125BP 0.428±0.021
RUS_Sintashta_MLBA 0.270±0.026
TJK_Sarazm_En 0.117±0.027

chisq 11.351
tail prob 0.414345
Full output

CHN_Shirenzigou_IA
KAZ_Botai 0.032±0.027
KAZ_Zevakinskiy_LBA 0.567±0.025
NPL_Mebrak_2125BP 0.401±0.019

chisq 15.157
tail prob 0.232961
Full output

CHN_Shirenzigou_IA
NPL_Mebrak_2125BP 0.452±0.031
RUS_Afanasievo 0.435±0.025
RUS_Okunevo_BA 0.114±0.049

chisq 19.808
tail prob 0.0708003
Full output

CHN_Shirenzigou_IA
NPL_Mebrak_2125BP 0.409±0.031
RUS_Okunevo_BA 0.173±0.050
Yamnaya_RUS_Caucasus 0.418±0.026

chisq 20.453
tail prob 0.0589872
Full output

CHN_Shirenzigou_IA
NPL_Mebrak_2125BP 0.464±0.033
RUS_Okunevo_BA 0.104±0.053
Yamnaya_RUS_Samara 0.432±0.027

chisq 27.189
tail prob 0.0072566
Full output

Both the Wusun and Saka are generally accepted to have been the speakers of Indo-Iranian languages. So it's possible that the Shirenzigou nomads were Indo-Iranian speakers too, or at least derived from such peoples.

Surprisingly, NPL_Mebrak_2125BP was the key to obtaining the best statistical fits. This is a trio of samples, roughly contemporaneous with the Shirenzigou nomads, from a burial site high up in the Himalayas in what is now Nepal (see here).

To be honest, I'm not quite sure why the Himalayan ancients work so well in my models. Perhaps they're just a really good proxy for an Iron Age population from the northern part of the Tibetan Plateau? By the way, most of the Shirenzigou nomads made it into the latest Global25 datasheets (see here).

See also...

Almost everything you ever wanted to know about the Xiaohe-Gumugou cemeteries

The mystery of the Sintashta people

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

256 comments:

1 – 200 of 256   Newer›   Newest»
Matt said...

Re; Tian Shan Hun and Saka, a G25 re-processed PCA on Inner Asian groups: https://imgur.com/a/SJwWDHA

(I relabeled TS Saka DA53 as the outlier in that group as it seemed markedly more western than the others (close to Haji Firuz BA I4243), while I labelled DA56 into the TS Saka main group as couldn't see anything outlying about it).

On the point of the paintings, I guess IMO the depictions are fairly stereotyped and not too detailed in the face. I wouldn't say the less defaced/worn paintings are clearly outside the East+West Eurasian mix range though, esp for only 25-40% -

- https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Kizil_cave_8_donor_figures.jpg (reconstruction in line drawing: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f5/f0/06/f5f0065b8c6f0a651c3b43759622f0c2.jpg / https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ad/10/e4/ad10e47db7abb0a3be98a9f5a81a65d9.jpg)
- https://www.alamy.com/english-donor-figures-from-kizil-caves-3-8-century-donor-figures-from-kizil-caves-image184971340.html
- https://www.granger.com/results.asp?inline=true&image=0615909&wwwflag=4&itemx=1

Davidski said...

@Matt

I relabeled TS Saka DA53 as the outlier in that group as it seemed markedly more western than the others (close to Haji Firuz BA I4243), while I labelled DA56 into the TS Saka main group as couldn't see anything outlying about it.

OK, I'm gonna check this out and maybe re-run my mixture models.

Matt said...

It does still looks like Tian Shan Saka have a bit less East Eurasian ancestry on average than Huns even swapping DA53 out and DA56 in, and maybe DA56 really is outlying in some way I missed, but yeah, that might be worth doing.

Davidski said...

Ha! Interesting, if true that is, because these are low coverage genomes.

https://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2019/07/afanasievo-people-may-well-have-been.html?showComment=1564312967318#c5723894324541497415

Slumbery said...

@Davidski

You criticized the authors for their anachronistic approach because the modelled Saka with Hun ancestry, but you use a modern population in your model.

I'd suggest this:

"sample": "Hun_Tian_Shan:Average",
"fit": 0.8093,
"Saka_Tian_Shan": 85.83,
"RUS_Shamanka_N": 14.17,

Ulchi, when modelled with ancients, are pretty much come as a mixture of BHG and Devil's Gate, but apparently the ancestry in the Tien San Huns was more from the BHG side of them (I also tried Devil's Gate and even the combination of them).
This also might mean the ancestry in the Huns is not really Ulchi related, just related to an ancient group that is partial ancestor to the Ulchi. Ulchi does not seem to be better that BHG as reference here.

Davidski said...

@Slumbery

I have to use Ulchi because that's the East Asian reference pop that produced the highest ratios of eastern admix and best fits for eight of the ten Shirenzigou samples in the paper.

Slumbery said...

@Davidksi

Ah, I see. They are needed for better comparability. I have the impression that Ning et al. had a very limited approach and apparently there were a lot of things they did not even try.

Davidski said...

Yeah, and guess what, this paper is gonna be cited for the next five years by a lot of people claiming that these Huns were Tocharians or proto-Tocharians.

zardos said...

And there goes the proof for Yamnaya and R1b being clearly Indo-Europeans from the start...

Bzw, anything new from the Italian peninsula?

Drago said...

From the previous thread, is OG referring that these “Tocharians” are actually R1b -PH200 ?

Davidski said...

@zardos

Well, speaking of Italy, wait for the early Italic samples. I can tell you they're like Beakers with lots of steppe admix, and I'm betting with at least some R1b-U152.

@Drago

Yes, he's seeing PH200 in the R1b samples from Shirenzigou.

Synome said...

I think it might be most appropriate to call these Iron age nomads likely Xiongnu, since they are dated to the era of the founding of their empire and the Xiongnu were known to be active in Xinjiang.

Of course, there is now quite a strong body of evidence that the Huns were ethnically descendants of the Xiongnu confederation, so the term Huns isn't too far off, just from a later time period, from around the 4th century CE.

Davidski said...

@Synome

They may have been the Xiongnu, but they were almost certainly ancestral to the Tian Shan Huns rather than the Tocharians.

At some other point, when I have the genomes, I might look at the Xiongnu issue.

Davidski said...

@All

I had a look at the Saka_Tian_Shan samples and yep, DA56 doesn't appear to be an outlier, while DA53 does. So I updated the models in the blog post.

Old models...

Hun_Tian_Shan
Saka_Tian_Shan,88.2
Ulchi,11.8
distance%=1.5421

Hun_Tian_Shan
Saka_Tian_Shan 0.893±0.009
Ulchi 0.107±0.009
chisq 9.034
tail prob 0.82888

New models...

Hun_Tian_Shan
Saka_Tian_Shan,92
Ulchi,8
distance%=1.2553

Hun_Tian_Shan
Saka_Tian_Shan 0.928±0.009
Ulchi 0.072±0.009
chisq 4.409
tail prob 0.992464

Wastrel said...

The problems of trying to stick pins in an area (in time and space) about which so little is known. It's hard to line up genetics and linguistics when very little is known about the first, and almost nothing about the second.

That said, it's not implausible at all that Afanasievo-derived populations could have been ancestral to both Huns and Tocharians, even though the Huns didn't end up IE-speaking. Indeed, given the geographical areas of Afanasievo and the assumed Hun homelands, and given that the Huns at least ended up a multi-ethnic, expansionist ruling elite, I'd be very surprised if at least some of them WEREN'T partially descended from Afanasievo people! [although, of course, with some other element as well, because Huns ended up neither IE-speaking nor particularly IE-looking]

But none of that really helps that much with the Tocharians anyway. We already "knew" that Tocharians were at least partially descended from Yamnaya or Yamnaya-related populations: they spoke IE. ["strong evidence for introduction of IE languages into Xinjiang"? Well yes, we can see them, we have thousands of documents!] But so little is known about their possible routes of descent that nothing much more can really be said. We know there were Yamnaya-related populations stretching from Portugal to Mongolia; we also know most of those populations have since been genetically overwritten and linguistically replaced by later movements (both IE and not), so we don't even have a good list of possible ancestor groups for the Tocharians (at a more useful level of resolution than just "Yamnaya"). Indeed, we're not even sure that Tocharian A was even really spoken in Tocharia at all! (religious texts are often found far from their language's homeland).

It's also worth pointing out a big difference between Tocharian and Anatolian. Anatolian is specifically basal - it retains features all other IE lacks, and thus is almost certain to have split off first. Tocharian, on the other hand, is just divergent - it looks very different, but not because it retains things lost elsewhere, but just because it's really weird. In fact, it's weird primarily for the opposite reason: it lost lots of morphology quickly (and sometimes replaced it with new morphology) and merged lots of sounds that remained distinct elsewhere. This makes it very hard to gauge how basal it might be. Its divergence MIGHT indicate a long period of separation. But it might just as well be explained by relative geographical isolation and contact with a different range of substrate and adstrate languages.

This problem gets worse if come to think that most or all non-Anatolian IE languages derive from early Corded Ware: it means that until Andronovo arrives, we have basically zero information about any of the IE languages spoken from Corded Ware eastward, except for Tocharian, attested long after the rest of that linguistic world had been overwritten.

It's like trying to draw a donkey based solely on the evidence of its tail, when you've never seen a donkey before...

Davidski said...

Already the idea that these Shirenzigou nomads were ancestral or even closely related to the Tocharians seems like a rather distant possibility.

And I have a feeling that it'll become even more distant when I get the genomes, because they'll probably show quite bit of Botai-like ancestry to match their R1b subclade.

Drago said...

So the samples from Shirenzigou are R1b Ph-155 & Q1; and Tarim basin groups are R1a-Z645 & ?
Along with other lines of evidence, we're starting to see good details.

Davidski said...

The Tarim Basin mummies are just R1a-M198 for now, but that was done with very basic technology.

Matt said...

@synome, it would be pretty interesting to see how these samples cluster in G25 with respect to Tian Shan Hun and Mongolia_XiongNu_WE, who deviate away from the "most East Asian shifted" Hun&Saka in the direction of Mongolia XiongNu (sort of both the two who look identical to Han Chinese and the one which doesn't).

@Wastrel, always high quality posts from you.

I would add though that Tocharian seems basal in the lexicostatistic methods that don't really directly take into account about morphology or phonology at all (except as those indirectly affect expert classification of cognates).

Also how do we know if the changes with Toch happened quickly or slowly? (Re; "lost lots of morphology quickly"). Unless we have a transect of the development of the proto-language, either directly or through borrowings into other languages, which I don't know that we do. Or is there a specific reason that it would have to happen quickly or not at all?

Of course there are good arguments that you can't really estimate a deep divergence from deep morphological and phonological differences (as are interdependent and "stochastic" if I'm using that word right and can happen at remarkably different rates in different languages), but a longer scale gives more time for these things to happen in.

(I tend to have some general beef with arguments that IE language X just looks more basal because it is more divergent due to contacts, in that there is almost never a scenario involved to actual test this with the consequences of rejecting the idea if the test comes back negative. But it's not necessarily a problem if there's an actual test - it's just that it often seems to be a way to make some scenario consist with what the person proposing "already knows" to "make sense" with the "consensus" as they perceive it, argued with an absence of any positive support from the consequences of saving the life of some much loved scenario or other.)

Slumbery said...

@Synome
Of course, there is now quite a strong body of evidence that the Huns were ethnically descendants of the Xiongnu confederation, so the term Huns isn't too far off, just from a later time period, from around the 4th century CE."

I cannot talk about the genomes of the current paper of course. Looking at just the Tien San Hun samples and the Xiongnu samples we have, the Xiongnu -> Hun theory would need a yet to be sampled additional variety of the Xiongnu to work. At least as a mayor ancestry. It is of course not impossible, the two Xiongnu group listed in G25 already very different and it is not like we are swimming in Xiongnu samples.


"sample": "Mongolia_XiongNu:Average",
"fit": 1.1733,
"Han": 77.5,
"RUS_Shamanka_N": 20.83,
"POL_Globular_Amphora": 1.67,
"RUS_West_Siberia_N": 0,
"TKM_Geoksiur_En": 0,
"Yamnaya_RUS_Kalmykia": 0,

"sample": "Mongolia_XiongNu_WE:Average",
"fit": 1.9073,
"RUS_Shamanka_N": 29.17,
"TKM_Geoksiur_En": 17.5,
"Yamnaya_RUS_Kalmykia": 17.5,
"RUS_West_Siberia_N": 15,
"Han": 14.17,
"POL_Globular_Amphora": 6.67,

"sample": "Hun_Tian_Shan:Average",
"fit": 1.0811,
"Yamnaya_RUS_Kalmykia": 28.33,
"RUS_Shamanka_N": 25.83,
"TKM_Geoksiur_En": 16.67,
"POL_Globular_Amphora": 14.17,
"RUS_West_Siberia_N": 10.83,
"Han": 4.17,

"sample": "Saka_Tian_Shan:Average",
"fit": 1.1277,
"Yamnaya_RUS_Kalmykia": 31.67,
"TKM_Geoksiur_En": 21.67,
"RUS_Shamanka_N": 17.5,
"POL_Globular_Amphora": 15.83,
"RUS_West_Siberia_N": 10.83,
"Han": 2.5,

Based on the above ancestry shootout, I'd say that the group dubbed as Mongolia_Xiongnu would not work at all as a significant ancestor to Tien San Huns. Mongolia_XiongNu_WE might work, but I am not entirely convinced. These Huns are the most similar to the locally preexisting Saka and that makes me wonder how much recent ancestry they really have from the lands of Mongolia. Saka_Tien_San and Hun_Tien_San might be basically the same population with some cline and internal movements.

Nevertheless I tried a few models, just to see what happens. I copy them there, maybe it is useful to ignite ideas:

"sample": "Hun_Tian_Shan:Average",
"fit": 3.3198,
"RUS_Sintashta_MLBA": 50.83,
"Mongolia_XiongNu": 33.33,
"TKM_Geoksiur_En": 15.83,

"sample": "Hun_Tian_Shan:Average",
"fit": 1.6454,
"Mongolia_XiongNu_WE": 68.33,
"RUS_Sintashta_MLBA": 26.67,
"TKM_Geoksiur_En": 5,

"sample": "Hun_Tian_Shan:Average",
"fit": 1.3318,
"Saka_Tian_Shan": 91.67,
"Mongolia_XiongNu": 8.33,

"sample": "Hun_Tian_Shan:Average",
"fit": 1.208,
"Saka_Tian_Shan": 74.17,
"Mongolia_XiongNu_WE": 25.83,


"sample": "Mongolia_XiongNu_WE:Average",
"fit": 2.8495,
"Saka_Tian_Shan": 70.83,
"Mongolia_XiongNu": 29.17,

Simon_W said...

A tiny off-topic alert: I've just posted Global 25 models for the three Swiss language groups in this thread: http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2019/07/getting-most-out-of-global25_12.html

Ric Hern said...

I think the presence of MtDNA Haplogroup H15 in Sheringizou, Yamnaya and in Middle Bronze Age Britain can not really rule out some Afanasevo like Ancestry...

Ric Hern said...

Even the Modern distribution of H15 hints at some or other contact with Proto-Indo-Europeans somewhere in the past....

Slumbery said...

@Ric Hern
"I think the presence of MtDNA Haplogroup H15 in Sheringizou, Yamnaya and in Middle Bronze Age Britain can not really rule out some Afanasevo like Ancestry..."

Afanasievo is genetically nearly identical to Yamnaya, a straightforward and (at the time of the sampling) unadmixed colonization from the Volga region. Any mtDNA in the Afanasievo samples almost certainly arrived from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe too. Yamnaya-related ancestry was all over Central Asia well before the time of these samples. Mostly from Sintashta, but also from more direct sources. So this connection is not specific to Afanasievo. It could have come from Afanaisevo, but it could have ended up there in many other ways.

Ric Hern said...

@ Slumbery

Yes, like I said "...H15 hints at some or other contact with Proto-Indo-Europeans somewhere in the past...."

Ric Hern said...

There seems to be a fanatical urge to prove that R1b were Non-Indo-European, even those within the proposed Homeland of PIE...blows the mind...

zardos said...

It's rather about proving or disproving R1b with early Yamnaya as being directly associared with IE speakers. Bell Beakers did not help to solve this so far.
I think its more likely Yamnaya was IE, but its not really proven yet. And the exact relationship to Corded Ware is not that clear.

Vinitharya said...

Well, someone's got to counter Carlos Quiles' bizarre anti-R1a sentiments. And Yamnaya only has R1b-Z2103, not the L51 hypothetical Quilesian "master-race" that Indo-Europeanized the I hole-digging hunter-gatherers, the G2a farmers, and the yoiking Forest Finn R1as.

Ric Hern said...

@ Vinitharya

At the end of the day when you try to even up a scale that is loaded with crap on the one side you have to add an equal amount of crap to the other side. This does not solve the problem because then you sit with 2 times as much crap on your hands...

Ric Hern said...

@ Vinitharya

For example. If Yamnaya wasn't Indo-European then it means that Corded Ware was +-70 to 80% Non-Indo-European. Does that make sense ?

Davidski said...

@Ric

The chances that these Shirenzigou nomads were Tocharians or proto-Tocharians is practically nil, even if they shared some direct maternal ancestry with Afanasievo, because nothing else that matters matches, like the geography, archeology and their overall genetic affinities, including probably their R1b subclade.

So I'm hoping that this paper doesn't get too much attention in the overall scheme of things, and a lot more ancient DNA work is done to try to figure out how the Tocharians ended up in the Tarim Basin.

Andrzejewski said...

If they were indeed the ancestors of the Huns, will this Botai-like ancestry explain the ubiquity of y-dna among the Huns or the Yenisseyan speech of its Jin tribe?

Ric Hern said...

@ Davidski

Yes I am all cool with that and understood what you wrote in the post. However then you get some who extrapolate this into Yamnaya = Non Indo European and also R1b on the Steppe = Non-Indo-European. This in my view is Bull...

Ric Hern said...

@ Davidski

Otherwise we have to accept that Corded Ware was 70 to 80% Non-Indo European because of its Yamnaya Related Ancestry...

zardos said...

Yamnaya related ancestry is not Yamnaya. Finns have a lot of "Germanic related" ancestry, yet they are not Germanic. Yamnaya might be just one related branch, related to CW, related to PIE, but not part or ancestral of it.

I'm not saying Yamnaya wasnt IE, but its clearly IE character is far from being proven yet. Corded Ware on the other hand can't be non-IE, there is too much of a direct genealogical relationship to too many IE people and their archeaological cultures. So far we only have attested IE from CWC and related groups, no direct Yamnaya offspring. Or would you say otherwise?



Synome said...

Regarding the Xiongnu-Hun connection, I agree with those who believe they were a diverse multi-ethnic coalition.

They had an elite which may have been Yeniseian speaking, we may expect some Y hg Q and WSHG/paleosiberian like ancestry there. But the terms "Xiongnu" and "Hun" were probably political rather than ethnic. And so many different groups later were referred to as "Hun", "Chon", "Huna", etc based on their historical association with the Xiongnu empire, without having a common genetic history or language. There were some groups within the empire that were probably predominantly Iranic, Turkic, Mongolic, Yeniseian, etc. with varying levels of admixture between them.

That makes tracing the connection between these terms and these groups difficult to do with genetics alone. You need to really get the historical context right.

Ric Hern said...

@ Zardos

Okay, from which Non-Yamnaya related Ancestry in Corded Ware did Indo-European come ? WHG, EEF, Globular Amphora, TRB ?

Davidski said...

@All

Not sure why the discussion keeps gravitating back to Yamnaya and Corded Ware, since this is more of a Hun post and thread.

Huns weren't our ancestors, but they're still fascinating, and the possibility that R1b-PH155 might be a proto-Hunnic marker is especially interesting.

R-PH155 on the YFull tree

Davidski said...

I can't wait to get these samples.

What's the bet that they're going to be something like Botai, Sarazm, Steppe_MLBA and various eastern stuff from Siberia and East Asia?

IMO the Botai/Sarazm ancestry is masking the Steppe_MLBA (including EEF) signal like in South Asians. They should've checked this.

Arza said...

Re: "Regarding the Xiongnu-Hun connection"

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Hun
Etymology
From Old English Hūne, Hūnas, from Late Latin Hunnus, from Koine Greek Χοῦνοι (Khoûnoi) or Χουνοί (Khounoí),[1] borrowed through Middle Iranian, apparently ultimately from Turkic *Hun-yü, the name of a tribe (they were known in China as Xiongnu).[2]

zardos said...

@Ric: We deal with a continuum of EHG to CHG in Eastern Europe, from which both Yamnaya and Corded Ware derived. In this zone, with influences from farmers and pastoralists in the West, Maykop and steppe-Maykop in the South, different groups emerged, of which Yamnaya was just one.
Who says that all of them spoke the same language to begin with? So far you have no direct genealogy from Yamnaya to Corded Ware. Sure, they were closely related and influenced each other, but that CW is a direct offshot is still not proven yet. They might just have been differents ends of the same continuum, in which different languages, possibly even language groups were spoken. Without a clear evidence, the question remains to be answered in a sufficient manner yet.

@David: Huns for sure are an interesting for Europeans, because after all, without them, for better or worse, Europe and the world might look very, very different.

Vinitharya said...

@Ric
I was merely playing devil's advocate for the more extreme (Vasconophile?) idea that R1b had nothing to do with Indo-European dispersal. Certainly Z2103 was a major vector and also the dominant Y-line of some steppe cultures (Yamnaya, Afanasievo), but they have yet to find L51 on the steppe, and at any rate the fact that it sort of just springs up in the area of the Bell Beaker/Corded Ware contact zone really gets the noggin joggin', so to speak. Huns were really an amalgam of many peoples by the time they get to the steppe in what is now Ukraine; Attila means 'little father' in Gothic.

Drago said...

It’ll be ironic if Xiongnu have a large western origin

zardos said...

In the end all those Eastern steppe groups had, in a way, a western origin. The cultural ignition came from the Indoeuropeans. Even the Mongols just copied and probably perfected the Scythian way of life, especially their war machine. You always had cultural exchange, be it trade, conquest or some renegades which brought secret knowledge to those which received them friendly. Most of the Eastern groups started as hunters and rather simple pastoralists, until the adopted the Scythian ways.
I found it always quite remarkable how much of the later steppe package was already invented and applied by the Scythians. From my point of view the biggest invention since then for that way of life was definitely the stirrup, which came fairly late.

Drago said...


@ Zardos
Yamnaya was quite wide and featured various groups & subregions
For some reason, I think the IE question starts being relevant with middle- late corded ware


@Ric
maybe it’s a Putinist conspiracy- ask Carlos

zardos said...

@Drago: True, even if we detect a subgroup of Yamnaya which is clearly ancestral to Corded Ware, we still can't say for sure that all Yamnaya groups were IE speakers, especially if this subgroup is clearly a deviation from the others with a different tradition and there would still be no proof of the IE character of other parts of Yamnaya.
We see so many multilingual confederacies, even with a quite similar material culture, later in time, why not from the start? CW really looks like a sudden, explosive expansion of a different kind in comparison - especially from a rather small and homogenous ancestral group. Yamnaya just united different branches of the steppic region under a common cultural unity.

Samuel Andrews said...

Iron age & medieval central Asia was a mess. A million different tribes, there were no large homogeneous genetic clusters, & the region constantly changed.

It is not a big mistake that the authors of the paper miss identified a group as ancestors of Tocherians.

Ric Hern said...

@ Dragos

Nope, before the Iron Age only Hittite and Sanskrit writers were Indo-European....so says the actual evidence.

Davidski said...

@Samuel Andrews

It is not a big mistake that the authors of the paper miss identified a group as ancestors of Tocherians.

The famous saying "they had one job to do" comes to mind.

Nope, this paper is a total f*ck up, because the authors obviously made up their minds from the outset that these Shirenzigou nomads had to have been an Afanasievo-derived population, and then set out to prove it.

They didn't even bother to check whether what they were seeing was an artifact of Steppe_MLBA mixing with something like Botai and/or Sarazm Eneolithic. But that's exactly what it looks like.

By the way, you need to work on your spelling. You almost always have serious typos in your comments here. What the hell is "miss identified"? Never heard of it.

You've also inadvertently put the word "poo" into a couple of your past comments. Come on, raise your game.

Ric Hern said...

@ Dragos

And before those two we can throw in a Basque or Fin to confuse the Whole story, as needed....

Ric Hern said...

It will be interesting to see the difference between Hephalite Huns and Other Huns, if any...

Drago said...

@ Wastrel

''It's also worth pointing out a big difference between Tocharian and Anatolian. Anatolian is specifically basal - it retains features all other IE lacks, and thus is almost certain to have split off first. Tocharian, on the other hand, is just divergent''

Makes sense - an early Hittie / NPIE slit, then relatively rapid radiation of NPIE.
Hence, they problamtic connection of Tocharians with Afansievo isn't needed.

Samuel Andrews said...

@Davidski,

Don't put your anger out on me. My spelling is fine. "Miss-identified" is a word. I've never written 'poo' in my comments.

pconroy said...

The Xiongnu or Wusun were said in Chinese sources to have red hair and green eyes. The Tocharians were depicted like that too.
Attila the Hun was supposed to also have had red hair.

It’s possible that the Xiongnu elite were substantially European, while the rank and file were much more East Asian.

Andrzejewski said...

@pconroy it was Ginghiz Khan, not Attila the Hun, who had the red hair

Andrzejewski said...

Xiongnu and Wusun weren’t the same: Wusun were White Europeans while Xiongnu were East Asians and/or Yenisseyan

Davidski said...

@Samuel Andrews

"Miss-identified" is a word.

No, it's not. Apparently, it's a racing horse.

On the other hand, misidentified is indeed a word.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/misidentify

I've never written 'poo' in my comments.

Here...

https://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2019/07/asiatic-east-germanics.html?showComment=1563316607797#c2030271111600784329

Davidski said...

These Shirenzigou proto-Huns weren't Europeans. They were Central Asians with minimal European admix.

Their R1b subclade is native to Central Asia and had nothing to do with any Tocharians.

Ric Hern said...

@ Vinitharya

Yes indeed. However there is large open spaces between the Dnieper and Elbe Rivers not yet sampled or tested...

Samuel Andrews said...

@pconroy,

Do you have a link to the Chinese quote describing Tocherians as red haired? I've heard they did but never seen the source.

There is an ancient painting online of a Tocherian who clearly has red hair, blue eyes which was enough confirmation before ancient DNA that ancient (eastern) Europeans settled in central Asia.

I find that Chinese quote hard to believe. I also read online many Tarim Mummies had red hair but in reality none of them did.

Davidski said...

@Ric

However there is large open spaces between the Dnieper and Elbe Rivers not yet sampled or tested...

GAC.

Ric Hern said...

Yes, only 2 Burials...

Andrzejewski said...

@Samuel Andrews “ I also read online many Tarim Mummies had red hair but in reality none of them did.”

Source?

Davidski said...

@Ric

More in this paper, including from the Zlota culture. All of these GAC groups are basically the same.

The execution

Samuel Andrews said...

@Andre,

Maybe one of them had red hair. But, I've seen several. The ones said to have red hair, like Charchen man, had dark hair. The 'red hair Tarim mummy' thing was tabloid news lie which kept being repeated. Which kind of annoys me.

Andrzejewski said...

Cherchen Man nicknamed “Ur-David” because he looked like the brother of an Austrian researcher did have red hair and so did the Beauty of Lulan. What does annoy me is Uyghurs in China claiming descent from Scythians and Tocharians after their ancestors performed a genocide on these European groups

Ric Hern said...

Yes I have seen this when you first posted it. However even with the Zlota samples combined with the first two it encompasses only a small region between the Dnieper and Elbe Rivers. Why isn't there any samples from Belarus for example ?

DDeden said...

"it's clear to me that most of the supposedly Tocharian-related Shirenzigou individuals actually share a very close relationship with the Tian Shan Huns, and indeed may have been their ancestors"

I agree. I'm wondering about the Aynu (NOT Ainu) of the Tarim Basin around Khotan, the women speak Uighur, the men speak Uighur and Aynu. IMO, these Aynu and the Japanese "hairy" Ainu may stem from an ancestral population somewhere around central Asia.

Ric Hern said...

Belarus, Northwestern Ukraine and the area between the Vistula and Lithuania...I see nothing from there...

Samuel Andrews said...

Davidski can you add the Zlota culture samples to G25 pca.

Ric Hern said...

@ Davidski

Yes I see what you mean. A distant common ancestor. If there were indeed some Botai relatedness then does this point to the Urals as the place where Western and Eastern R1b split from each other ?

RobertN said...

@Davidski

"Huns weren't our ancestors"

Are you sure about that? People like the Bulgars and Magyars might indeed have Hunnic ancestors.

Ric Hern said...

@ Vinitharya

To be more specific, Belarus, Northwestern Ukraine and the area between the Vistula River and Lithuania.

Ric Hern said...

@ Vinitharya

Don't know if the SGBR Complex filled this gap...

Mem said...

@Andrzejewski

"What does annoy me is Uyghurs in China claiming descent from Scythians and Tocharians after their ancestors performed a genocide on these European groups"


This is not true. The present-day Uighurs are not the continuation of the old Uighurs in the Middle Ages, but the descendants of the Qarluks(the tribe that was the ancestor of Uzbeks and modern Uyghurs) who migrated later to that region and mingled with the old Uighurs there.(Old Uighurs were Oghuz speaker, later are close to kıpchaks)

The Tarim basin still has the significant genetic heritage of ancient Tocharians despite two separate Turkic migrations there, you can even understand this by looking at the phenotype of modern-day Uighurs.

There is also no information that the old Uighurs committed genocide against the Tocharians, but vice versa, the old Uighurs had translated tocharian Buddhist texts into their own language, and there were many Tocharian words in their language.

Please don't make such exaggerated comments.

Samuel Andrews said...

@Mem,

Thanks for your comment. It's not good to confuse migration or invasion with racial hatred between groups and genocide. I wondered which Turkic group modern Uighurs really derive from . Thanks for sharing they are from Qarluks.

Samuel Andrews said...

The Huns are key to understanding Turks. Why? Because the Huns were of almost 100% Xinjang Iranian origin.

We have DNA from 5 different early Turkic pops in Kazakhstan. Their West Eurasian ancestry matches the Xinjang Iranians not the Scythians/Iranians who lived in Kazakhstan.

In my opinon, this means the early Turks were a mix between Xinjang Iranians & new arrivals from Atalia mountains (who were ~100% Asian). Those new arrivals from Atalia mountains spoke proto-Turkic.

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

Does not suprise me to see this central Asian R1b branch show up in Huns after it showed up in those Mongol burials awhile back.

Samuel Andrews said...

The R1b is R1b M73?

Slumbery said...

@Ric Hern + Vinitharya
"Belarus, Northwestern Ukraine and the area between the Vistula and Lithuania...I see nothing from there..."

Corded Ware, as well as it's direct descendants are not sampled at all from Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. That is a huge territory and these missing samples would be crucial to understand the roots and formation of the Srubnaya and the Sintashta (and by extension the Andronovo) populations.
One sample of interest however is the one that dubbed as Poltavka outlier in G25. In terms of genome-wide ancestry it is very Sintashta-like and the Y-Hg is R1a-Z93 too. And the sample is older than even Abasevo, opening up the possibility that the yet to be sampled Balanovo (a suspect for source) already had the Sintashta genetic make-up.
And yet, Poltavka outlier is the only R1a-Z93 sample I know of, before it comes in abundance in the Sintashta samples. So indeed, there is room for the modern dominant R1b lineages too.

@RonertN
Are you sure about that? People like the Bulgars and Magyars might indeed have Hunnic ancestors.

Possibly, but that is more of a cultural thing by now. The genetic impact of Huns on the modern Hungarian and Bulgarian populations is noise level.
Also apparently Huns started out as a multi-ethnic confederation from the beginning and they become even more so in Europe. This makes Hunnic ancestry a bit un-exact. Is it supposed to mean ancestry from some (yet to be defined) core group or any group counts that in some point was part of the confederation?

Davidski said...

@Samuel Andrews

In my opinon, this means the early Turks were a mix between Xinjang Iranians & new arrivals from Atalia mountains (who were ~100% Asian). Those new arrivals from Atalia mountains spoke proto-Turkic.

I've never heard of the Atalia mountains.

@Slumbery & Ric

There won't be much in Eastern Europe north of Ukraine except the usual hunter-gatherer lines and whatever was on the steppe.

All of those major lineages that expanded with population rich in steppe ancestry will be found sooner or later north of the Black Sea in Ukrainian Yamnaya and/or post-Stog groups.

Matt said...

@Paul Conroy, at the moment, the only genetic sample of Xiong Nu who looks to be a leader is sample "Sample Xiong Nu 92" / "DA39", who is from an "enormous" burial structure at Balgasyn Tal of Öndör-Ulaan Soum in the province of Arkhangai Aimag, of which "main grave (which) had been robbed, but still yielded some rather astonishing artifacts that clearly suggest a burial ritual for kings of the Xiongnu period. The skeleton of the main grave (i.e. of the aristocrat) was extensively broken and, therefore, only some parts of the skull and some limb bones were found".

For excerpt and sample detail confirming this: https://imgur.com/a/qFihIu9

Unlike the two "East Asian" XiongNu samples at Omnogobi, DA39 is much more Northeast Asian: https://imgur.com/a/wloXgW6 (circled in green).

(The two XiongNu Omnogobi are from a massacre site, and IMO may well have just been Han Chinese, either joining the Xiong Nu confederation or as soldiers of a Han Chinese state, since they more or less match the Northern Han).

The "king"/ "aristocrat" DA39 was assigned Y haplogroup R in the paper by Damgaard (which caused some interest), but Davidski has pointed out that these assignments seem to often be extremely wrong, so he is probably going to be a Q, or another haplogroup that is more what we'd expect.

Open Genomes said...

The complete set of aligned Y SNP calls from the Tianshan individuals:

Y SNP calls for all 4 Tianshan individuals

M15-2: R-PH200
MO12: R-PH155
M15-1: Q-M120
X3: Q-F5400

An important thing to note is that R-PH155 was found in a supposed "Gepid" from Serbia with an artificially deformed skull who was at least 20% East Asian, and therefore likely a Hun, and a Tian Shan Hun from Uzbekistan.
Both Q-M120 and Q-F5400 are East Asian.

Davidski said...

Right, that's the Tian Shan Hun that I mentioned in my blog post because he belongs to R1b.

His ID on the YFull tree is ERS2374341.

So not only does he belong to R1b, but he shares a very specific subclade with the Iron Age Shirenzigou nomads, which is obviously more evidence that these nomads are ancestral to Huns.

And then there's the Hunnic-like, East Asian-admixed Gepid who belongs to the same lineage. Awesome! Why wasn't any of this in the paper?

Bob Floy said...

They really made a dog's breakfast of this, wow.
That last paper on the Tocharians was a little dodgy, too, it's disappointing.

But how in the hell did they make a mistake like this? Did they just see R1b and run straight over the cliff?

Samuel Andrews said...

@Davidski,
"I've never heard of the Atalia mountains."

Stop being an asshole. People know what I mean. I'm right nonetheless that early Turks were fusion between a new Asian group from near altai mountains & Tian Shan Iranians.

I was right about proto-Turkic originally from Asian people with little/no West Eurasian ancestry. I'm also right about Uralic languages, Y DNA N coming from a group rich in northwest Siberian ancestry.

Early Finnic had tiny Siberian ancestry but they are the exception not the rule. Mansi are the only Uralic(s) in Siberia with significant European ancestry. Most don't. Bolshoy_Oleni_Ostrov fits so well as an ancestor of Saami that I'm still tempted to think they spoke proto-Saami.

Gaska said...

The same thing always happens when we mix genetics and language. The concept of Indo-European is merely linguistic. Indo-European peoples are those who speak an Indo-European language, regardless of their uniparental markers, their autosomal composition, their cephalic measures, their material culture, their religious beliefs or their geographical location. And only linguists can establish which languages ​​are or are Indo-European using the Comparative Method. In the province of Alava (basque Country Spain) where my paternal origins are, only 20% of the people speak Euzkera, then most of us are Basque and Indo-European because we speak Spanish. However, in the neighboring province of Guipúzcoa, more isolated and mountainous, 80% speaks Euzkera then they are not Indo-European, and the genetic differences between us are invaluable

I understand Davidski's "anger" (Sorry to say if it isn't), because many times the geneticists' conclusions are hasty and inconclusive, although I would have liked to have also pointed out the contradictions that exist between the official Kurganist theory and the dilemma we have regarding R1b-L51. Indeed, R1b-PH155/PH200 has nothing to do with P312 / Df27 etc, and therefore they are neither our ancestors nor are we very interested in their history, yet I understand that these R1b subclades are indicative of the haplogroup's ultimate origin. And regarding the language spoken in the Yamna culture, this is the eternal debate, of those who do not want to understand that the Kurgan theory as explained by Gimbutas and then by many geneticists, is dead and buried. After the results in Iberia who can demonstrate the genetic continuity necessary to establish that L51/P312 spoke IE?- From my point of view, we have to be patient and expect more results. Let's see what happens with the Etruscans in Italy but it is funny that so far neither the Mycenaeans nor the Hittites are R1b and yet the Iberians, Basques and Tartessians are.

What will happen if a genetic continuity is demonstrated between those hypothetical U152s mentioned by Davidski and the Etruscans?

Drago said...


@ Gaska

“etc, and therefore they are neither our ancestors nor are we very interested in their history”

Are you the official spokesmen of the Baqsue Genealogy community; or just the royal Queen of England ?

Gaska said...

@Drago said"Are you the official spokesmen of the Baqsue Genealogy community; or just the royal Queen of England ?

"When you speak Spanish many times we use the plural "nosotros-we", it is simply a matter of education because using continuously "Yo-I", sounds self-centered- In this case, when I say We, I mean I, and I am humble enough to understand that my Opinion is not or does not have to be shared by many of my countrymen. This form of expression may be incorrect in English. I could do it in Euzkera but I don't think you would understand me, so I hope you will be able to excuse my grammatical mistakes. Regarding the Queen of England, you could have used another example because the English in general are not very good friends of ours (they never have been and never will be). Forgive me the English guys who participate in this forum, but the antipathy seems mutual despite sharing ancestors R1b-P312-



zardos said...

Ethnicity is not the same as speaking a language. PIE was an ethnicity which had much more in common than language. The language spread because of the ethnicities success, not vice versa.

Afroamericans are Germanic speakers, but no Germanics by ethnicity.
Basques are on their own, unless they give up their identity. Same goes for the Irish, which are no English, even if they lost their Celtic tongue and are so close to the English even genetically.

In a way a people with the same ancestry and culture can be very close even if adopting a different language. Obviously Hungarians have a lot more in common with their IE neighbours than with their linguistic relatives Ugrians in the North East.

The IE language was just a crucial part of a larger package known under the same label.
If an isolated group of farmers without steppe ancestry and culture would have spoken an IE dialect, they would be as much of a deviation as a people with the complete package except for speakIng a different language.

Ric Hern said...

https://yfull.com/tree/R1b/

Here is the tree of R1b. Please show me the Continuity in Iberia you speak of.

Gaska said...

@Ric,We have already spoken many times, so that you do not think that I am a racist Basque I will give you the example- Iberians.

EHU002- El Hundido (2.434 AC)- Hap Y- R1b-P312- Mit Hap- K1a4/a1
I3238- Cueva de la Paloma (2.350 AC)- Hap Y-R1b1a/1a2a-L49- Mit Hap-H3+152
I6472/RISE701-La Magdalena (2.250 AC)- Hap Y-R1b-U152/L2- Mit Hap-HV0b
I6539-Humanejos (2.200 AC)- Haplogrupo Y-R1b-P312- Mit Hap-T2b3+151
I6588-Humanejos (2.192 AC)-Haplogrupo Y-R1b-L151/P311- Mit HAp-U5b2/b3
I3485-Castillejo del Bonete (2.200 AC)- Haplogrupo Y-R1b-CTS2229-Mit Hap-J1c1
EHU001-El Hundido-(2.165 AC)- Haplogrupo Y-R1b-L5- Mit HAp- U5a1/b1
I5665/RISE911-Virgazal (2.133 AC)- Haplogrupo Y- R1b-P312-Mit Hap- K1a24/a
I1312d-Can Roqueta (Barcelona) (1.782 BC)--HapY-R1b-Df27-Z195-Hap Mit-HV0+195
I4559-Galls Carboners (Tarragona) (1.600 AC)-Hap Y-R1b-P311- Mit Hap-J1c1
I4563-Galls Carboners (Tarragona) (1.600 AC)- Hap Y-R1b- Df27-Z195-Mit Hap-H1/H84
I1836-Cova del Gegant (Barcelona)- (1.593 AC)- Hap Y-R1b-L151-Hap Mit- U5a2/b3
I8570-Tossal Mortorum (Castellón) (1.400 AC)- Hap Y-R1b-L151- Mit Hap-J1c3
I12641-Can Revella (Barcelona)(665 AC)- Iberian Culture-Hap Y- R1b-M269- Hap Mit-HV0d
I12640-Can Revella (Barcelona)(618 AC)-Iberian culture-Layetania- HapY-R1b-P312-Mit Hap-H1t
I8211- Ampurias (Gerona) (475 AC)- Cultura Íbera-Indiketes- Hap Y-R-Mit Hap-HV0+195
I8344-Ampurias (Gerona) (450 AC)- Cultura Íbera- Haplogrupo Y-R1b1a/1a-Mit HAp-H3
I12410-Mas Den Boixos (Barcelona)(445 AC)- Cultura Layetana- Hap Y-R1b-P312-Mit Hap-H
I12877-Mas Den Boixos (Barcelona)(445 AC)- Cultura Layetana- Hap Y-R1b-M269- Mit Hap-J1c1
I8210-Ampurias (Gerona) (425 AC)- Cultura Íbera-Indiketes- Hap-Y-R1b1a/1a2-Mit Hap-U5b3
I8209-Ampurias (Gerona)(425 AC)- Cultura Íbera-Indiketes-Hap Y-R1b-P312- Mit Hap-U1a1/a
I8212Ampurias (Gerona) (425 AC)- Cultura Íbera--Haplogrupo Y-R- Mit Hap-H27+16093
I8341-Ampurias (Gerona) (425 AC)- Cultura Íbera-HapY-R1b-P312-Mit HAp Mitocondrial-H1
I3323-Puig de Sant Andreu (Gerona) (284 AC)-Indiketes- Hap Y-R1b-L151-Hap Mitl-X2b
I3324-Puig de Sant Andreu (Gerona)(276 AC)- Cultura Ibérica- Hap Y-R1b- DF27-Hap MitH1
I3496-Turó de Can Oliver (Barcelona) (250 AC)- Layetanos - Hap Y-R1b- Df27-Hap Mit-H1e1/a
I3326-Puig de Sant Andreu (Gerona)(225 AC)- Cultura Ibérica- Hap Y-R1b-P297- Hap Mit-J1c
I3327-Puig de Sant Andreu (Gerona)(225 AC)- Cultura Ibérica- Hap Y-R1b-L52-Mit-J2b1/a
I3321Els Estrets-El Racó de la Rata (Castellón) (200 AC)- Ilerkavones-- Hap Y-R1b-P312-U3a
I3320-Els Estrets-El Racó de la Rata (Castellón) (200 AC)- Hap Y-R1b-Df27-Z225-Mit-I1
I8206-Ampurias (Gerona) (200 AC)- Cultura Ibérica-Indiketes--Hap Y-R1b- Df27-Z195-Mit-H7a1

In other words, absolute genetic continuity between 2,500 BC (BB culture), the Roman invasion (200 BC), and the current contemporary population, written evidence that these gentlemen spoke a non-Indo-European language and absence of invasions. How do Reich, Haak, Heyd and the other Kurganists pretend convince us that in Yamnaya an IE language was spoken?. One of two, or R1b.P312 has absolutely nothing to do with the steppes, or in the steppes Iberian and Basque were spoken. Everything else is unscientific and incoherent explanations. And of course, forget to explain it by saying that R1b-P312 changed his language to that of his women, or adopted the language of the conquered Iberian Neolithic, or that Iberian actually is an IE language. None of that makes sense. So either you find L51 in the steppes, or stop pretending impossible things.

Gaska said...

@zardos

I think we are saying the same thing, in my case I speak French, Spanish and Euzkera, then I am 2/3 of Indo-European and 1/3 No Indo-European. Since I am Df27, what is my ethnicity? European ?, Basque ?, Ukrainian ?,South European?. I am a little tired of this debate, and of the disputes regarding the origin of R1b, R1a, the Chinese, the Indians, the Turks etc. I do not like people who relate race, ethnicity and language with superiority, whiteness, language, money and power. For you to know I am Basque, Spaniard, European and Roman Catholic, I measure 1.93 cm, I have blue eyes and blond hair (I know that none of you care, but, I say that to my friend Andrei who seems to think that all the southern Europeans are short and swarthy), I am straight and I have four children, I think the best thing we did the Spaniards in America are the Cuban mulatto (in the translator the male genus mulattos comes out, we say "mulata"). They are the most beautiful women I have ever seen in my life. I am interested in the origin of L51/P312 and Df27 because they are my ancestors but I have been arguing for a long time with all kinds of stubborn racists who have found meaning in their lives identifying with a certain haplogroup or lineage, and who are obsessed with the purity of the race, when genetics has taught us (even the Basques) that genetic differences are insignificant, and that the important thing is to be generous and supportive. That is, the Tocharians, the Huns, the Yamnaya riders and the purity of the Basque race, I don't give a damn. What I would like to find my BBs ancestors there Wherever they are, to have a beer for their health. This blog may be too serious for this comment, my anticipated apologies.

Matt said...

May be of interest to some, taking Tian Shan Hun as a single cline, simulated some Western and Eastern end points of that cline:
https://pastebin.com/ztuRzc9a

Western End, Eastern End, Midpoint and more conservative Eastern End.

Visually: https://i.imgur.com/NSKE7IU.png (cline is in goldenrod).

Eastern sims seems to have some qualities akin to Hovsgol_BA, Okunevo, Kaz_Pazyryk_IA but not to be identical to any of them. Of course, this could be an illusion and no such single end point to a cline existed!

Ric Hern said...

At this stage I feel that the Man/Women who discovers the Oldest R1b L51 deserves a Nobel Prize and will in my view equivalent to the First Man on the Moon. Heheheeh..

Synome said...

@Matt

That is definitely interesting. Notice how all of those locations are close to the southern Yenisei river.

Linguist Alexander Vovin argued that the language of the Xiongnu was probably related to the southern Yeniseian languages of Pumpokol and Arin.

"Did the Xiongnu speak a Yeniseian Language?", Vovin (2000).

zardos said...

@Gaska: Purity is not the issue, but the direction of the geneflow and selection.
NeandertalS and Denisovans had not too much positive to give, but some of their genetic contribution was highly valuable for Eurasians and the rest was bred out anyway.
Obviously the Northern American Indians didnt profit from an invasion which largely replaced them. Same goes for the Botai people.
That the steppe people did themselve mix on the way is a completely different thing, because they decided with whom, spread their genes and culture.

Their is no simple good or bad about that issue, rather it depends on the outcome for the participating parts and the species as whole.

If Denisovans would have kept the upper hand in Eurasia, I doubt there would be humans discussing evolution on the Internet ;)

Queequeg said...

@ Sam Andrews and re: "Bolshoy_Oleni_Ostrov fits so well as an ancestor of Saami that I'm still tempted to think they spoke proto-Saami."

In the time frame of BOO, Proto Saami was still West Uralic, ancestral also to Baltic Finnic and Mordvinic. I'd myself guess that West Uralic speakers were in those days still more biased towards WSHG than BHG, however mostly being EHG/SHG/WHG like.

Matt said...

@synome, cheers. I'd caveat cline extension can be hazardous though; the Tian Shan Hun individuals *could* be modelled as the product of such a cline that extends like that...

But it also may be that the Saka_Kazakh_Steppe (or something fairly near to that) is one terminus of the true cline (forming from a conventional Western Steppe_MLBA/IA+Hovsgol_BA/HunTianShan_o base) and the Haji Firuz BA / DA53 are the other, and then extending that cline too far beyond Saka_Kazakh_Steppe is taking us into the realms of fantasy populations that didn't exist.

Be interesting to see if anything like those sim "Eastern" individuals shows up through more adna work!

Open Genomes said...

@David

I can extract the 1240k SNPs for the 4 male Shirenzigou nomads. I trimmed 3 bases at either end of the reads, and these genomes are aligned to hg38, so the results should be more accurate now.

Do you want them now for a preliminary analysis before Harvard posts them?

LivoniaG said...

Just as a side note if it might be helpful.

The Tocharian languages are generally agreed to be most closely related on a phylogenic basis to the Hittite and the early Anatolian IE languages.

On the IE tree, the branch is usually located near the base close to Hittite and Luwian.

The languages are not attested before about 800 AD. So they appear to represent one of the latest but closest branch-offs, quite unlike Mycenaean Greek or other early attested languages found in Europe or the Middle East.

Linguits have identified the “horse” word in Tocharian is “yakwe” or “yak-” The wheel words are (Tocharian A) “wärkänt” (Tocharian B) “yerkwanto.” These are reconstruction to Indo-European with a bit of difficulty.

These speakers did not identify themselves as Tocharian. Their self-names appear to be (A) “arsi” and (B) “kusieni.”

Bob Floy said...

The Greeks were aware of them, and called them the "Toxaroi", so we're stuck with "Tocharians".

But I would love to know why these researchers thought that people who look like modern Kyrghiz were "Tocharians".

a said...

Bob Floy said...
The Greeks were aware of them, and called them the "Toxaroi", so we're stuck with "Tocharians".

But I would love to know why these researchers thought that people who look like modern Kyrghiz were "Tocharians".

Have you ever heard of the saying, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery"
One has to differentiate between the Tocharian word for cart/wheel/horse and Iranian words for the same, despite perhaps the two languages being the most opposite in PIE.Then compare them with the possible genetic/archaeological candidates in the region where Tocharian A B C were spoken. Remember some have pointed to the general 3500 BC time frame for wagon/wheel language dispersal.

Apostolos said...

"Blogger Ric Hern said...
At this stage I feel that the Man/Women who discovers the Oldest R1b L51 deserves a Nobel Prize and will in my view equivalent to the First Man on the Moon. Heheheeh..""

They should sample prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps for L151 and Terramare for U152.

(I am basing my prediction on my interpretation of what is written in 'Roman Antiquities' by Dionysius of Halikarnassus, that is that the Tyrhenians were native in the region and also the first to build 'high wooden palisades resembling towers' in Italy.

The Pelasgians were, according to him, a distinct population, originally from Thessaly, who ruled in what is now Tuscany and Lazio (?) for a s h o r t time. What he writes points to a movement of a Bronze Age (?) Thessalian population to Italy and possibly some reexpansions of a mixed Tyrrhenian-Pelasgian population south and east.

The Pelasgians were 'superior to many in warfare, as the result of their training in the midst of dangers while they lived among warlike nations' but 'also rose to the highest proficiency in seamanship, by reason of their living with the Tyrrhenians', so he attributes proficiency in seamanship to the Tyrrhenians, who were calling themselves Rasenna as he says.)

Shaikorth said...

The authors assumed that this sample reflects various groups that eventually mixed in Tian Shan and that similar events took place in the Tarim Basin, it's not like the paper says these are unadmixed representatives of any population. The main reason for their conclusion about "Tocharians" was probably just the Afanasievo-Tocharian theory combined with not looking closely enough at the R1b subclades instead of anything related to autosomal structure.

Btw they're not really like modern Kyrgyz but a heterogenous group, there's four similar to Tian Shan Saka, five more similar to Karakalpaks and one who looks like a mix of the latter group and Daur. Coincidentally if you mix the two main groups you'll end up with something closer to Tian Shan Huns.

Davidski said...

It should be obvious that the paper is arguing that the Iron Age Shirenzigou nomads might be closely related to Tocharians because they're supposedly closely related to Afanasievo people.

It's not arguing that Tocharians came from Steppe Maykop.

But either way, there's no strong evidence that the Shirenzigou nomads were closely related to Afanasievo, Steppe Maykop or Yamnaya.

They just look like proto-Huns with local Botai-related ancestry, including a local Hunnic-specific R1b subclade, rather than the Afanasievo/Yamnaya R1b-Z2103, and some Steppe_MLBA, probably Andronovo, admixture.

a said...

Shaikorth
Look at the region the samples were taken from.
Jungaria basin. There was a reason for that.

Bob Floy said...

@a

I've personally never thought that Tocharians had anything to do with indo-Iranian speakers, but that's been suggested by some. Maybe the Tarim mummies were Andronovo connected, I don't know, but my understanding is that, as you say, Tocharian and indo-Iranian are about as far apart from each other as two IE languages could be. If the Tocharians mixed with Andronovo, that could explain the phenotypic features that we see in the famous "princes" painting, since we know that Yamnaya/Afanasevo apparently didn't have the alleles for that. But it's a big puzzle still, and this latest literature hasn't shed any light on it, unless I'm missing something.

Andrzejewski said...

@a “If the Tocharians mixed with Andronovo, that could explain the phenotypic features that we see in the famous "princes" painting, since we know that Yamnaya/Afanasevo apparently didn't have the alleles for that.”

What do you mean by that? Would you like to explain? How would Yamnaya differ from the phenotype you described?

Andrzejewski said...

I meant @Bob Floy

Bob Floy said...

@Andre

I don't mean to be a dick, but do you have amnesia or something?
See previous conversations.

Arza said...

@ Davidski

This is a good opportunity to use your Twitter account:

https://twitter.com/vagheesh/status/1155865096226332673
The key I think is the presence of the R1b haplogroup of the same subtype as seen in the Afanasievo culture.

Andrzejewski said...

If you mean by that that Yamnaya allegedly were darker skinned and didn’t have the light pigmentation of Andronovo because they didn’t have WHG/Anatolian alleles and therefore Tocharians must be darker than Scythians etc, then I am challenging your assertion. I just wanted to make sure if that’s what you meant...

Bob Floy said...

@Andre

Uh huh. And how do you figure that a culture which was literally just an offshoot of Yamnaya acquired those alleles between the western steppe and China, since we know that Steppe_MLBA acquired them in the west? I can't wait to hear all about it.

Matt said...

There are no light pigmentation alleles which any group had to "acquire" from admixture with another group. The relevant alleles were present in all groups at some frequency and probably rose due to selection. Corded Ware had no higher frequency of these variants than Yamnaya, etc. Even if there were a Tocharian group of pristinely Afanasievo ancestry at some point by the Middle Ages (which I doubt), they could well have had a rise in frequency of relevant allele variants.

...

Narasimhan's comment is a little strange to me; it seems odd that most researchers seem to be taking these results at fairly face value in the first place, but if anyone should have an idea of how the complexities of Central Asian ancestry could unwind to mask out an Andronovo/Sintashta related signal...

Andrzejewski said...

@Bob Floy I am challenging your basic assumption that Yamnaya was overwhelmingly dark. Just because researchers found only a handful of them doesn’t mean that they all were. Just like everyone presumed that all GAC were blond until they found that murdered massacred family in the mass grave. My take is that SOME groups of Anatolians were light, others were dark, and the same applies to WHG, SHG and Steppe populations.

Quiz: if CWC were 75% Yamnaya, then how come most Corded descendants were light pigmented?

Bob Floy said...

@Andre and Matt

I guess everyone believes what they like best.
That's certainly the case with Andre.

Davidski said...

@Arza

This is a good opportunity to use your Twitter account:

https://twitter.com/vagheesh/status/1155865096226332673
The key I think is the presence of the R1b haplogroup of the same subtype as seen in the Afanasievo culture.


Open Genomes needs to have a chat to this guy.

Onur Dincer said...

@Conroy

The Xiongnu or Wusun were said in Chinese sources to have red hair and green eyes. The Tocharians were depicted like that too.

No, in the Chinese sources the Xiongnu were not differentiated from the Han Chinese in appearance, only the Jie, who were said to be a separate branch of the Xiongnu, were described as having some West Eurasian physical features, but even they were never described as having light hair or eyes.

See: https://www.academia.edu/35008551/_A_Comparative_Analysis_of_Chinese_Historical_Sources_and_Y-DNA_Studies_with_Regard_to_the_Early_and_Medieval_Turkic_Peoples._Inner_Asia_19_no._2_2017_197_239

Attila the Hun was supposed to also have had red hair.

No, Attila was described by Priscus, an eyewitness of him, as having East Eurasian physical features:

"Short of stature, with a broad chest and a large head; his eyes were small, his beard thin and sprinkled with grey; and he had a flat nose and swarthy skin, showing evidence of his origin."

Drago said...

''Narasimhan's comment is a little strange to me; it seems odd that most researchers seem to be taking these results at fairly face value in the first place''

Like mentor, like student

Open Genomes said...

@David

Here are the 1240k files for the 4 males that I aligned:
http://open-genomes.org/genomes/Ning%20(2019)/1240k/

If there are enough SNP can put them in Global25 and then replace those when the Reich Lab makes the genotypes available.

rozenblatt said...

Could these guys be Yuezhi? Location wise and time wise they fit.

Davidski said...

@All

There's a new aDNA paper out about a couple of Iron Age Celtic sites in northern France (120–80 BCE, Manche, and 300–100 BCE, Yonne) but the technology used by the authors is relatively basic.

Multi-scale archaeogenetic study of two French Iron Age communities: From internal social- to broad-scale population dynamics

The Y-haplogroups are all R*/R1b. The mtDNA haplogroups are K1, J1, H, H1, H2, H3,
H5, H6/8, H11, U4, U5a, U5b, I, V, T1 and T2. A total of 43 samples were tested.

Davidski said...

@rozenfag

Could these guys be Yuezhi? Location wise and time wise they fit.

Seems unlikely, because the Yuezhi are generally regarded as Indo-Europeans, while the Shirenzigou nomads just look like Huns.

Open Genomes said...

@David, done, messaged Vagheesh Narasimhan on Twitter.
Hopefully he'll reply. Anything else to say to him?

https://twitter.com/vagheesh/status/1155865096226332673

Davidski said...

That appears to be informative enough.

Andrzejewski said...

Yuezhi=Kuchans=Wusun=Tocharians. Right?

rozenblatt said...

@Andrzejewski Usually, it's assumed that Yuezhi=Kushans, but Yuezhi are not Wusun, and Yuezhi did not speak Tocharian languages.

Andrzejewski said...

@Davidski Would U4, U5a, U5b be Steppe mtDNA or WHG ones?

Andrzejewski said...

They spoke Bactrian I think, which was Indo-Iranian. But what language would Wusun speak then?

About the Jie, they were a Yenisseyan speaking tribe, so maybe some of their features looked a tad Europoid

Davidski said...

Would U4, U5a, U5b be Steppe mtDNA or WHG ones?

Impossible to say without more resolution, but U4 is likely to be from the steppe.

Ric Hern said...

@ Andrzejewski

https://amtdb.org/records/

Maybe this can help...

Ebizur said...

Now I have compared the mtDNA of the Shirenzigou specimens with mtDNA of modern Tibetans (as per Qin et al. 2010 and Qi et al. 2013) in greater detail.

The East Eurasian mtDNA lineages detected in three of the Shirenzigou specimens belong to haplogroups that have been found with notable frequency among modern Tibetans.

However, the West Eurasian mtDNA lineages detected in the remainder of the Shirenzigou specimens do not appear to be found among modern Tibetans with notable frequency.

According to Chinese historical texts, a subgroup of the Yuezhi that they recorded as the "Lesser Yuezhi" (小月氏) fled to live among the "Qiang" (羌, this is assumed to have referred at the time generically to Tibeto-Burman-speaking nomads) in the southern mountains after the Yuezhi were defeated badly by the Xiongnu in the early 2nd century BCE.

Andrzejewski said...

@Ric Hern thanx! Reaffirmed my conviction that ANF in Turkey were very diverse on the mtDNA and were probably, like the Yamnaya, spread from the Epipaleolithic onward by exogamy, namely by taking foreign women as they spread forward. By the time they hit Europe they were already a pretty homogeneous group but K, N, H, T, J etc. indicates lots of female lineages.

The W6a in CWC/Yamnaya probably is from Caucasus HG

Andrzejewski said...

OT the problem in reconstructing PIE:

https://www.reddit.com/r/linguistics/comments/cjgmy2/the_problems_with_reconstructing_protoindoeuropean/

Andrzejewski said...

Reconstructed PIE sounds a lot like Norwegian

Jorge Escalante said...

>No, in the Chinese sources the Xiongnu were not differentiated from the Han Chinese in appearance, only the Jie, who were said to be a separate branch of the Xiongnu, were described as having some West Eurasian physical features, but even they were never described as having light hair or eyes.

Many Xianbei are described as Caucasoid as are several Xiongnu (unsurprising given their very high rate of Y-DNA R1a1, over 66% in the Egyin Gol sample).


Liu Yuan (Yuanhai), the Xiongnu emporer of Han Zhao was over six feet tall and had a red beard. (Helfen-Maenchen, Otto, The World of the Huns: Studies of Their History and Culture). Several other Xiongnu are described as having light hair and eyes.

The Ordos remains, as well as Minfeng of eastern Mongolia (contemporaneous with xiongnu) are all Caucasoid (again see Helfen-Maenchen). Helfen-Maenchen also notes that the Tuva region, upon settlement with Xiongnu, became more Caucasoid, not less.


>No, Attila was described by Priscus, an eyewitness of him, as having East Eurasian physical features:


These are not East Asian features; they are just generalized mixed-race features. Besides, Asians do not have broad chests. We know Atilla the Hun was probably mixed but probably not pure Asian. We have DNA from three elite Huns and it's all mixed, but majority European.

Jorge Escalante said...

Yamnaya's darker pigmentation in Anatolia is likely due to pre-IE Iranian plateau admixture. The Samara hunter gatherer, an early Indo European, had blond hair, and was also carrying an R1b clade that is actually ancestral to Western Europeans (unlike Yamnaya).

Corded Ware (CWC) is blond because of their ubiquitous Y-DNA R1a haplogroup, and because their Yamnaya-like ancestors were more similar to Samara than Yamnaya.

I agree that obsessively insinuiating the "darkness" of Yamnaya is often times a matter of stupidity, ignorance or anti-North Euro propaganda. Remember, CWC and all other Europeans are only "Yamnaya-like" not Yamnaya.

Davidski said...

@Jorge Escalante

Yamnaya's darker pigmentation in Anatolia is likely due to pre-IE Iranian plateau admixture.

WTF? Yamnaya obviously isn't from Anatolia and never was in Anatolia, and it never had any Iranian plateau admixture...

Yamnaya isn't from Iran just like R1a isn't from India

zardos said...

Corded Ware is supposed to be lighter in pigmentation than what we got from Yamnaya and Bell Beakers so far.

@David: The Celtic study is interesting but has no free access. Is R1b all they got? Which subhaplogroup is unknown?
Would be great to compare with BB, Iberians and Basques etc

Jorge Escalante said...

Xiongnu were predominantly Caucasoid. See "The World of the Huns" by Otto Helfen-Maenchen.

Jorge Escalante said...

Sorry, meant to type Ukraine. However they did have admixture from CHG (Iranian plateau) and this is the likely cause of their darker pigmentation. Higher latitude Indo Europeans such as Samara (chronologically older than Yamnaya) were blond.

https://www.eupedia.com/genetics/yamna_culture.shtml

"Yamnayan DNA tested by Haak (2015), Wilde (2014), Mathieson (2015) showed that Yamna people (or at least the few elite samples concerned) had predominantly brown eyes, dark hair, and had a skin colour that was moderately light, lighter than Mesolithic Europeans, but somewhat darker than that of the modern North Europeans. This is not unexpected considering that these samples had about 25% of recent admixture from the Iranian Plateau (before the Indo-European migrations brought Northeast European genes to the region), which would have darkened their pigmentation"

Davidski said...

@Jorge Escalante

The Eupedia article is complete nonsense. Yamnaya is a mixture of various Eneolithic steppe groups with zero ancestry from Iran. This is easy to demonstrate.

Re-read the blog post that I linked to.

Jorge Escalante said...

Which Beakers? The Beakers in Scotland and southwest Europe were darkened WHG admixture. Yamnaya had brown hair and brown eyes, likely due to CHG admixture. Earlier Bell Beakers were more similar to Samara/EHG in pigmentation.

Jorge Escalante said...

I think this is an issue of botched communication. I do not believe Yamnaya came from Iran or have direct "Iranian" ancestry but that, as some studies (such as Jones 2015) have suggested, Yamnaya had CHG admixture which was Near-Eastern or Iranian plataeu-like. I will read your link and get back to you.

Slumbery said...

@Jorge Escalante

Eupedia is not an authority, especially that a lot of their articles are outdated. Davidski directly looked at the genetic data, so a counter-argument should be based on the data, not on summoning Maciamo's (old) opinion.

"However they did have admixture from CHG (Iranian plateau) and this is the likely cause of their darker pigmentation."

CHG was per definition not an Iranian Plateu population, but one from around the Caucasus mountains. One could say that they have a lot of similarity, but using the term this way - "CHG (Iranian Plateau)" - is a distortion.
Unless somebody shows a specific connection between the Iranian Plateau and Yamnaya (in uniparental lineages for example), the assumption of Iranian ancestry fails Occam's Razor even if all things are equal otherwise.

Higher latitude Indo Europeans such as Samara (chronologically older than Yamnaya) were blond.

You mean the Samara HG (I0124)? On what base you call him Indo-European? Sounds anachronistic to me.

Davidski said...

It looks like Maciamo of Eupedia fame has done a Dienekes "Merry Christmas" Pontikos number on everyone.

He wrote a whole bunch of crap, and then stopped updating it because he knew he'd have to correct himself in a big way.

zardos said...

His articles come first, especially his maps, on Google for a lot of topics. Time for something better, but then comes this crap: https://indo-european.eu
And the domain is gone too.

Jorge Escalante said...

Samara HG is putatively proto-IE, like Yamnaya is putatively proto or early IE.

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

"The Samara culture is regarded as related to contemporaneous or subsequent prehistoric cultures of the Pontic-Caspian steppe, such as the Khvalynsk, Repin and Yamna (or Yamnya) cultures.[1] The Proto-Indo-European homeland is often linked to one or more of these cultures."


"Scheme of Indo-European migrations from ca. 4000 to 1000 BC according to the Kurgan hypothesis. The magenta area corresponds to the assumed Urheimat (Samara culture, Sredny Stog culture). The red area corresponds to the area which may have been settled by Indo-European-speaking peoples up to ca. 2500 BC; the orange area to 1000 BC.[14]:30"

In any case it is a steppe individual north of Yamnaya, but unlike Yamnaya did carry a mutation of R1b that is common in Western European males, and is therefore more likely to be ancestral Western Euros than the Ukranian Yamnaya.

Davidski said...

@Jorge Escalante

In any case it is a steppe individual north of Yamnaya, but unlike Yamnaya did carry a mutation of R1b that is common in Western European males.

Nope.

R1b tree

Jorge Escalante said...

Yamnaya are R1b-Z2103 which means they did not contribute to Western and Northern Europeans with "Yamnaya-like" ancestry such as Corded Ware and Bell Beakers. R1b-Z2013 is an Eastern clade not found in ancient or modern western/Northern/northeastern Europe.

Davidski said...

So what? Samara_HG doesn't even belong to M269. His R1b lineage is further removed from Western European R1b than the Yamnaya Z2103.

Look at the R1b tree I linked to above.

Jorge Escalante said...

Well, regardless he shows that earlier R1b in the Russian steppe were lighter pigmented and I reiterate my point that Yamnaya didn't contribute to predominantly R1a and R1b-M269 descended cultures like Corded Ware and Bell Beakers.

EastPole said...

@zardos
“His articles come first, especially his maps, on Google for a lot of topics. Time for something better, but then comes this crap: https://indo-european.eu”

When you are searching for something add this to your google query:

-site:indo-european.eu -site:indo-european.info

This will eliminate the sites you are not interested in.

Jorge Escalante said...

Minimally in Western and Northern Europe. That's the point.

Davidski said...

@Jorge Escalante

Obviously R1b-M269 is present in Yamnaya, because R1b-Z2013 is derived from it. And so is Western European R1b-L51, which is a closely related clade to R1b-Z2103.

So I don't know how you came to the conclusion that R1b-L51 didn't come from Yamnaya, since it makes good sense to assume that it did.

Keep in mind also that Yamnaya was more of a horizon than a single culture, and in fact, it has been divided by archeologists into as many as 10 different variants, and we still haven't seen any Y-chromosome samples from most of them.

Davidski said...

@EastPole

When you are searching for something add this to your google query:

-site:indo-european.eu -site:indo-european.info


Awesome tip.

That swiftly eliminates a lot of garbage from most searches on the Indo-European topic.

Jorge Escalante said...

"Obviously R1b-M269 is present in Yamnaya, because R1b-Z2013 is derived from it. And so is Western European R1b-L51, which is a closely related clade to R1b-Z2103."

I should have said L51, it's late night/early morning here. So West/Northern/NorthEastern Euros and their CWC ancestors were not Z2103. They were a different clade of R1b, or R1a. A tiny number of non-southeast Euros have Yamnaya R1b.

So Yamnaya didn't contribute to them. And yes Yamnaya was a horizon of lineages but people continue to refer to them as one genetically homogeneous culture, based on the Z2103 samples we have found. In particular, this is stupidly used to pretend that all Proto-Indo-Europeans had brown hair and brown eyes, which is stupid and untrue. So as long as people continue this stupid dogma, I continue to assert there is no contribution from Yamnaya to north/west/northeast Europe which is what the genetic data shows anyway. No Yamnaya series has had R1b-L51 or any clade of R1a.

NeilB said...

@Gaska, the Spanish and/or Basques may feel antipathy towards the English, but I can assure you that EVERY Briton I have talked to regarding the Spanish AND Basque peoples have unanimously said "What nice/helpful/friendly/sincere people".
As for your comment "the English in general are not very good friends of ours (they never have been and never will be). Forgive me the English guys who participate in this forum, but the antipathy seems mutual despite sharing ancestors R1b-P312"
Please do not project your own prejudices onto our entire nation! It is simply untrue! NeilB
Ps Some of my countrymen may have fallen for the lies of the Brexiteers 3 years ago, but many now regret being duped.

Samuel Andrews said...

Andre bringing up pigmentation of ancient European pops is getting annoying! Ancient DNA makes it obvious that the very fair complexion in northern Europe is a result of natural selection which started around 3000bc and ended around 1500bc. There's nothing else to discuss.

Samuel Andrews said...

Austronesian. Austroasiatic. Bantu. Turkic. Indo-European.

Those are five major language families which ancient DNA has confirmed all spread via "massive" migration. I could add Afro-Asiatic languages in Africa as well.

The leftist historians, archaeologist need to finally admit the philosophical framework they've used looking at human population history for DECADES is WRONG.

zardos said...

@Samuel: Yes, selection was the main factor for Northern Europeans to become lighter, but migration played its role too.
Corded Ware people and North Eastern Europeans in general seem to have been lighter than classic WHG, ANF, Yamnaya (samples so far) and BB.

This means their spread increased lighter pigmentation too. Actually it seems logical selection was stronger on these populations too.

Part of the late-local selection comes from the idea British BB made up the bulk of the later local population without much of a new influence.
I doubt that and assume a later massive Celtic immigration.
But those were less differentiated, so more fine scale data needs to prove or disprove it.
Even if Celts were BB-related, they might not be the exact same.

EastPole said...

New paper on France’s genetics:

“Reshaping the Hexagone: the genetic landscape of modern France”

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/718098v1

They estimate contributions from various modern populations applying both allele frequency and haplotype-based methods. Mentioned Poland. But unfortunately their “Central/Eastern_Europe” cluster includes Germany, so it is not possible to estimate how much Poles contributed to France gene pool.

zardos said...

Their modern contribution is an issue, since they did not really differentiate older strata present in France. Obviously the Germanic impact is larger than their Northern-Central European recent influence. But the time frame for your analysis is always an issue and must be set.

I'm really annoyed that Roman influence being constantly downplayed.
They speak of the Mediterranean influence and even mention Greeks as a potential source because of their colony but not Romans.
When do we get more data from preRoman and imperial Roman times I'm sure the Roman impact being heavily underestimated by most.

Gaska said...

@NeilB- "The Spanish and/or Basques may feel antipathy towards the English, but I can assure you that EVERY Briton I have talked to regarding the Spanish AND Basque peoples have unanimously said "What nice/helpful/friendly/sincere people".
As for your comment "the English in general are not very good friends of ours (they never have been and never will be). Forgive me the English guys who participate in this forum, but the antipathy seems mutual despite sharing ancestors R1b-P312"
Please do not project your own prejudices onto our entire nation! It is simply untrue! NeilB
Ps Some of my countrymen may have fallen for the lies of the Brexiteers 3 years ago, but many now regret being duped.

NeilB, "You're right, generalizing is always a mistake, so my apologies to those Britons who feel sympathy for Spain, because not all my countrymen think like me"

Regarding Brexit, I honestly think that Great Britain must leave the European Union, I think the voters have made it clear, and we Europeans would sincerely appreciate your agreement, because you have been going around for 3 years and we still have to endure threats, insults etc ... When two people cannot live in the same house it is better for them to separate, you follow your path and we follow ours. It would also be good for you to talk to your politicians so that they stop doing the ridicule.

FrankN said...

Jorge:

"Samara HG is putatively proto-IE, like Yamnaya is putatively proto or early IE."

Samara_HG may have been anything. The site he is from, Lebashinska III, was multicultural The sample wasn't accompanied by any artefacts allowing for a more precise cultural assignment, and the AMS dating covers a very wide timeframe.

Lebashinska III cultural assignations include

(i) the Middle Volga culture, a late 6th/ early 5th mBC synthesis of Lower Volga "steppe-like" pottery with early Combed Ceramics from the Volga-Kama area to the north that replaced the previous Elshan culture;

(ii) "Mariupol-type" burials characteristic for the Azov-Dniepr culture;

(iii) Khvalynsk elements;

(iv) Samara Culture elements.

Note that the latter was more/less contemporary to Khvalynsk, and also posessed domesticated sheep, goats and cows (in Lebashinska IV, even a camel has been found). As such, technically, there wasn't anything like a SamaraCulture HG, only SamaraCulture pastoralists.

Samara Culture stretched somewhat NE from Khvalynsk over the southern part of modern Samara Oblast, and the northern part of Orenburg Oblast. Khvalynsk essentially covered the Lower Volga plus the Caspian shores as far as the Mangyshlak Peninsula; eponymous Khvalynsk is regarded as the northern limit of the homogenous Khvalynsk Culture area.

In order to understand the demographic dynamic of the Lower & Middle Volga prior to ca. 4500 BC, we need a lot more samples from the area, ideally with clear archeological relation to any of the various cultural units in Question.

Andrzejewski said...

@FrankN apparently there was a replacement of some Samara HG R1b clades by more Southernly R1b ones, with HG foraging lifestyle replaces by pastoralism in a clear transition from Samara to Khvalynsk.

Andrzejewski said...

Who were the people behind the Elshan Culture? Were they totally replaced by incomers like Botai or Cucuteni Tripolye?

Gaska said...

@Escalante- I should have said L51, it's late night/early morning here. So West/Northern/NorthEastern Euros and their CWC ancestors were not Z2103. They were a different clade of R1b, or R1a. A tiny number of non-southeast Euros have Yamnaya R1b. So Yamnaya didn't contribute to them. And yes Yamnaya was a horizon of lineages but people continue to refer to them as one genetically homogeneous culture, based on the Z2103 samples we have found. In particular, this is stupidly used to pretend that all Proto-Indo-Europeans had brown hair and brown eyes, which is stupid and untrue. So as long as people continue this stupid dogma, I continue to assert there is no contribution from Yamnaya to north/west/northeast Europe which is what the genetic data shows anyway. No Yamnaya series has had R1b-L51 or any clade of R1a."

I think that most of the guys have understood this for a long time, and leaving aside the issue of pigmentation and cranial measures (which on the other hand as Sam says is annoying), the problem is the famous steppe signal, because it only appears in mainland Europe with the CWC (post 3,000 BC), then you have to keep looking for cultures, peoples, villages or settlements between 4,000 and 3,000 BC where both R1a and R1b-L51/P311/310/P312 etc appear ...

Onur Dincer said...

@Jorge Escalante

Many Xianbei are described as Caucasoid as are several Xiongnu (unsurprising given their very high rate of Y-DNA R1a1, over 66% in the Egyin Gol sample).

Can you give reference to the description of many Xianbei and Xiongnu with Caucasoid features? Regarding the Y-DNA haplogroups of the Egyin Gol Xiongnu, see the Petkovski et al. 2006 paper mentioned in the link I provided in my previous comment, it shows that the Egyin Gol Xiongnu carried the Y-DNA haplogroups N1c1, Q, and C with no finding of R1a. Can you tell me which paper shows over 66% R1a1 in the Egyin Gol Xiongnu?

Liu Yuan (Yuanhai), the Xiongnu emporer of Han Zhao was over six feet tall and had a red beard. (Helfen-Maenchen, Otto, The World of the Huns: Studies of Their History and Culture). Several other Xiongnu are described as having light hair and eyes.

Can you give me more examples?

The Ordos remains, as well as Minfeng of eastern Mongolia (contemporaneous with xiongnu) are all Caucasoid (again see Helfen-Maenchen). Helfen-Maenchen also notes that the Tuva region, upon settlement with Xiongnu, became more Caucasoid, not less.

The Ordos culture is commonly considered as Iranian or at least Indo-European. Which Minfeng in eastern Mongolia do you mean? The only Minfeng I know is in Xinjiang, not Mongolia.

These are not East Asian features; they are just generalized mixed-race features. Besides, Asians do not have broad chests. We know Atilla the Hun was probably mixed but probably not pure Asian. We have DNA from three elite Huns and it's all mixed, but majority European.

Broad chest is common among Tungid type Mongoloids. Huns were Tungid type Mongoloids, not slender Mongoloid types like Sinid:

https://pic1.zhimg.com/80/v2-935b7d02f9a183a96ee93245025f7bcc_hd.jpg

We have three autosomal DNA samples from Kazakh steppe Huns, the immediate precursors of European Huns, all of them are almost wholly East Eurasian in genetics. They are confusingly labeled as Hun-Sarmatian, Gunno-Sarmatian or CentralHun in the Damgaard papers due to the Hunnic expansion into the Sarmatian lands in the Central Asian steppe, Open Genomes should change his links from Sarmatians to Huns for those samples as they are genetically nothing like Sarmatians. Z419959 is a GEDmatch ID of one of those samples, you can check it out. Its ancestry is clearly of Altaic type East Eurasian ancestry.

(continues below)

Onur Dincer said...

We also have five autosomal DNA samples from Xiongnu-era burials from the Mongolian steppe. Two of them are probably Han Chinese immigrants based on their genetics. Two of them are genetically almost an even mix of East and West Eurasians with a small South Asian input like most of pre-Mongolian invasion medieval Central Asian Turkic autosomal DNA samples we have (bear in mind that none of those medieval Turkic samples are from the Mongolian steppe or environs, they are all from the Kazakh steppe, Tian Shan or the Caspian steppe so it is very normal for them to have so high West Eurasian ancestry after the Turkicization of the native Iranian peoples of the Kazakh steppe and the other western regions). The other Xiongnu autosomal sample we have (GEDmatch ID: Z780597) is almost totally East Eurasian in ancestry, but not of a type like the Han Chinese but of the Altaic type like the Kazakh steppe Hun autosomal samples, I think it is a real Xiongnu sample, certainly not a Han Chinese immigrant, and not an Indo-European immigrant either.

As for the Tian Shan Hun (Huna people, also called Ephthalites) autosomal samples so frequently mentioned in this blog, Tian Shan Huns (Huna people, also called Ephthalites) were described as white-looking and their looks were contrasted with those of all other Huns by Procopius of Caesarea:

"The Ephthalitae Huns, who are called White Huns [...] The Ephthalitae are of the stock of the Huns in fact as well as in name, however they do not mingle with any of the Huns known to us, for they occupy a land neither adjoining nor even very near to them; but their territory lies immediately to the north of Persia [...] They are not nomads like the other Hunnic peoples, but for a long period have been established in a goodly land... They are the only ones among the Huns who have white bodies and countenances which are not ugly. It is also true that their manner of living is unlike that of their kinsmen, nor do they live a savage life as they do; but they are ruled by one king, and since they possess a lawful constitution, they observe right and justice in their dealings both with one another and with their neighbours, in no degree less than the Romans and the Persians"

Indeed, unlike other Huns, Tian Shan Huns were probably Iranian-speaking rather than Altaic or Yeniseian according to the historical sources.

Xiongnu were predominantly Caucasoid. See "The World of the Huns" by Otto Helfen-Maenchen.

Don’t you have anything to offer for your claim other than that outdated source?

Davidski said...

Can you tell me which paper shows over 66% R1a1 in the Egyin Gol Xiongnu?

He probably read it at Eupedia.

Onur Dincer said...

Lastly, we do not have any autosomal DNA data from burials that are known to belong to European Huns yet.

self-consumer said...

@Andre, rozenfag

I find it hard to believe that Yuezhi spoke Bactrian while in Gansu. The dialectal position of the language places its development in Bactria.

I'd speculate that they spoke either (para-)Tocharian, an unattested Indic language like their Wusun neighbors, or maybe something Afanasievo-derived (if Tocharian was not).

Onur Dincer said...

@Samuel Andrews

Austronesian. Austroasiatic. Bantu. Turkic. Indo-European.

Those are five major language families which ancient DNA has confirmed all spread via "massive" migration. I could add Afro-Asiatic languages in Africa as well.

The leftist historians, archaeologist need to finally admit the philosophical framework they've used looking at human population history for DECADES is WRONG.


Not true for Turkic. I cannot name a single Y-DNA haplogroup that can specifically be associated with Turkic. Different Turkic-speaking groups have different compositions and concentrations of Y-DNA haplogroups, whatever Y-DNA composition Proto-Turks had cannot be discerned from the modern DNA data, so far ancient DNA data do not help either. Compared to this genetic diversity among Turkic speakers, the Turkic languages do not harbor so high diversity, which points to a recent origin (3000 year-old at most) for the Turkic language family.

Andrzejewski said...

@Davidski are you a believer in the Altaic macro-family encompassing Turkic, Mongolian and Tungusic, or do you deem this theory obsolete?

J.S. said...

@ All
Y-dna Gallic Iron Age from Gurgy (Yonne) & Urville-Nacqueville (Manche)
https://hostpic.xyz/files/1564519588727421239.png
https://hostpic.xyz/files/15645194863028204107.png

Samuel Andrews said...

@Onur,

I based that statement about on G25 PCA position of early Turkic genomes from Kazakhstan. It looks very convincing that modern central Asian Turks are of mostly early Turkic origin. Turkey, Siberian Tatar, Bashkir, Tatar_Lipka have the same kind of early Turkic admixture.

Drago said...

@ Frank N

“Note that the latter was more/less contemporary to Khvalynsk, and also posessed domesticated sheep, goats and cows”

Nope. Well; they arguably found them at one or two site (Oroshaemoye I)
Not sure that really means it had domesticates; which solidly appear in Khvalynsk (“ Sheep and goats appeared together with cattle for the first time at sites of the Khvalinskiy culture”); although it was still mostly a forager culture

These are all interesting cultures; but they have little if anything to do with PIE

Onur Dincer said...

@Samuel Andrews

I based that statement about on G25 PCA position of early Turkic genomes from Kazakhstan. It looks very convincing that modern central Asian Turks are of mostly early Turkic origin. Turkey, Siberian Tatar, Bashkir, Tatar_Lipka have the same kind of early Turkic admixture.

I think I know what you mean. You mean the Altaic type East Eurasian autosomal ancestry (maximizing in ancient Devil's Gate and modern Ulchi). But the same type of ancestry was found among the Indo-European-speaking populations of the Eurasian steppe, the Tian Shan and the Tarim Basin too in varying proportions beginning from the Bronze Age and extending with the Iron Age. The Turkic expansion increased the proportion of that ancestry in those lands (in some parts dramatically), and even carried that ancestry into lands where it did not exist before (in those cases rarely in high proportion). So that East Eurasian autosomal ancestry is far from specifically Turkic. When we look at Y-DNA haplogroups too, we cannot find any that we can specifically associate with Turkic, even among the East Eurasian Y-DNA haplogroups.

Shaikorth said...

@Onur Dincer

There is autosomal DNA from three Huns from Hungary but it consists of AIM's (two alternative fits provided for each) and phenotype-related SNP's. One has Y-DNA of likely Gothic origin but does resemble the other ACD sample in being dark and lactase intolerant.

(Artificial cranial deformation, horse burial): Y-DNA Q-M25, Eye color brown 0,94, Hair color dark/brown 0,88/0,58, skin dark to black/ 0,8, Autosomal AIM's 53% EU 47% EA / 55% EU, 45% EA

(Artificial cranial deformation, rich grave goods): Y-DNA R1b-U106, Eye color brown 0,87, Hair color dark/brown 0,83/0,6, skin intermediate/ 0,78, Autosomal AIM's 67% EU, 33% EA / 99% EU 1% EA

(Lactase persistent, mixed Roman and steppe grave goods): Y-DNA R1a-Z2124, Eye color brown 0,87, Hair color dark/black 0,93/0,52, skin intermediate/ 0,75, Autosomal AIM's 53% EU, 40% EA, 7% African / 96% EU, 4% EA

Onur Dincer said...

@Shaikorth

Thank you for correcting me. I should have written "we do not have any large genome-wide autosomal DNA data from burials that are known to belong to European Huns yet" rather than just "we do not have any autosomal DNA data from burials that are known to belong to European Huns yet."

I already read that Hungarian study, their genome coverage is too little to be reliable for ancestry tests.

Shaikorth said...

@Onur Dincer
Those markers can't tell which parts of Europe or Asia their ancestries are from specifically but they can tell West and East Eurasian apart (that's been tested with the HGDP set). Otherwise AIM's would be quite useless for even forensics which is not the case.

FrankN said...

Drago: On domesticates in the Samara Culture, see e.g.
http://conferences.au.dk/fileadmin/conferences/2017/RadiocarbonAndDiet/RadiocarbonAndDiet2017_BookOfAbstracts.pdf ,
especially the contributions by Kulkova e.a. (p 73 ff.)

"The Turganic site was excavated during the 1981-1982 and 2014-2015. There are two cultural layers on this site. The earlier cultural layer belongs to the Eneolithic period (Samara culture) and the later layer is the cultural layer of Bronze Age (earlier stage of Yamnaya culture). The species composition of animal bones from the Turganic site allows us to assess the diet of ancient people. During the Eneolithic period meat resources consisted mainly of the domestic ungulate animals. Cattle, small cattle and probably the horse were the main animals for cattle breeding in this period. (..)

The series of 32 radiocarbon dates on animal bones and on organics from pottery was obtained from different parts and stratigraphic layers of site. (..) The [Group I] dates are in the interval from 5206 to 4361 cal ВС. This is the chronological period of the early and developed stages of the Samara culture.
"

I'd sometimes appreciate if you informed yourself better before posting unsubstantiated opinion.

[Let me uses this opportunity to correct myself: "Samara_HG" was from multi-cultural Lebjazhinka VI. Lebjazhinka III is the one-layer Samara culture site that has a/o supplied camel bones (ibd. p. 75).]

In general, I think it would be good idea to relabel "Samara_HG" to something else, since that label is prone to be misunderstood as representing the pastoralist Samara Culture. E.g. when Andrzej speaks about "a clear transition from Samara to Khvalynsk, this holds true when comparing Khvalynsk aDNA to the "Samara_HG". However, archeologically Khvalynsk and Samara cultures were roughly contemporaneous with a lot of commonalities.
The main difference appears to be that Khvalynsk burial rites showed substantial "Western" influence that the Samara Culture lacked. E.g., Khvalynsk graveyards in oriented lines of individual burials appear to go back to "Mariupol" and ultimately Mesolithic Dniepr Rapids traditions. The same seems to apply to the use of red ochre - apparently (and intriguingly) a "Mesolithic larger Circum-Baltic) tradition a/o documented from the Dniepr Rapids Meso-/Neolithic, Kunda, and various Maglemose/Kongemose sites between S. Sweden and the Lower Oder, while hardly known in Central Asia, Anatolia, among EEFs, or in Siberia.

Onur Dincer said...

@Shaikorth

Those markers can't tell which parts of Europe or Asia their ancestries are from specifically but they can tell West and East Eurasian apart (that's been tested with the HGDP set). Otherwise AIM's would be quite useless for even forensics which is not the case.

At least the ones in that study seem to be unreliable given the vastly different results of their two analysis methods for some samples. For example, one sample gets 33% EU, 67% EA in the Multinomial logistic regression average classification method whereas it gets 100% EA in the Naive Bayes (H-W) predicted admixture method. Another example: 67% EA, 33% AF (sic) in the Multinomial logistic regression average classification method and 100% EA in the Naive Bayes (H-W) predicted admixture method.

Samuel Andrews said...

@Onur,

It's lots of a specific kind of East Asian ancestry as well as lots more BMAC/southcentral Asian ancestry than Iranians in Kazakhstan didn't have but Iranians in Tian Shan did have. Plus, Early Turks are fairly uniform & their kind of ancestry exists from Tatars in Ukraine to Uygur.

Onur Dincer said...

@Samuel Andrews

It's lots of a specific kind of East Asian ancestry as well as lots more BMAC/southcentral Asian ancestry than Iranians in Kazakhstan didn't have but Iranians in Tian Shan did have. Plus, Early Turks are fairly uniform & their kind of ancestry exists from Tatars in Ukraine to Uygur.

There have always been regional differences in BMAC/SCA ancestry in the territories you mention, but BMAC/SCA is largely irrelevant to the matter as it has been widespread in those territories for many millennia.

With regard to Crimean Tatars, I should say that their ancestry is one of the most mysterious topics as the Pontic-Caspian steppe and with it the Crimean steppe received too many migrations from the east during the medieval times and ancient DNA studies still have not covered that region adequately for the past two millennia.

Uyghurs live in a region where there was already some proportion of Altaic/Iranian type East Eurasian ancestry since at least the Bronze Age, thus since millennia before earliest the Turkic migration to their territory. Also, the Tarim Basin has had some East Asian type East Eurasian ancestry too for a long time due to its proximity to China proper and Tibet, that is why we see elevated levels of East Asian ancestry as compared to the Siberian ancestry in Uyghurs when we compare them with other Turkic populations.

The early Turks you mean are probably the pre-Mongolian invasion medieval Turkic samples, almost all of them are from the Kazakh steppe or the adjacent Tian Shan region, so it is no wonder they are autosomally so close to each other. Those regions also already had had varying levels of East Eurasian ancestry since long before the earliest Turkic arrivals, Turkicization maybe brought to those regions some homogenization facilitated by the closeness of the Turkic dialects spoken during those times.

Davidski said...

@All

Must see...

Check out the qpAdm mixture models for the Tian Shan Huns in my update.

Based on these models, it's rather unlikely that these Huns had any real Afanasievo ancestry. So if they were significantly derived from the Shirenzigou nomads, then the Shirenzigou nomads didn't either.

Jorge Escalante said...

There's nothing outdated about that source (facts don't expire) and the Xiongnu burials you mention are meaningless with dating and stratigraphic context. Xiongnu weren't a monoracial entity at all time periods.

Jorge Escalante said...

>Can you give reference to the description of many Xianbei and Xiongnu with Caucasoid features? Regarding the Y-DNA haplogroups of the Egyin Gol Xiongnu, see the Petkovski et al. 2006 paper mentioned in the link I provided in my previous comment, it shows that the Egyin Gol Xiongnu carried the Y-DNA haplogroups N1c1, Q, and C with no finding of R1a. Can you tell me which paper shows over 66% R1a1 in the Egyin Gol Xiongnu?

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/597997v1.full#ref-22

Z2124 was widespread on the Bronze Age steppe, especially in the Afanasievo and Sintashta cultures 20 and R1a detected in Xiongnus 21,22 very likely belong to the same branch

22., Keyser-Tracqui, C., Crubézy, E. & Ludes, B. Nuclear and Mitochondrial DNA Analysis of a 2,000-Year-Old Necropolis in the Egyin Gol Valley of Mongolia. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 73, 247–260 (2003).

The observed rate of R1a1 in Xiongnu was over 60% at Eygin Gol, the haplotypes you mention were minorities there.


>The Ordos culture is commonly considered as Iranian or at least Indo-European. Which Minfeng in eastern Mongolia do you mean? The only Minfeng I know is in Xinjiang, not Mongolia.

Xiongnu are also identified as Iranian, and yes Minfeng is in Xinjiang, Ordos eastern Mongolia.

>Broad chest is common among Tungid type Mongoloids. Huns were Tungid type Mongoloids, not slender Mongoloid types like Sinid:

I have not seen any anthropomorphic measurements that Tungids or any other phenotype in Siberia have broad chests. I have seen several photos of Mongol archers and none of them had broad chests despite heavy clothing.


http://www.manchuarchery.org/photographs-mongolian-archers

There is no anthropometric difference between Han Chinese and Mongolians with regards to chest circumference:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25907729/

" In the boys who had had no spermatorrhea (11-14 years old), the body height of Han boys was 1.4 cm higher than that of Mongolia boys (P < 0.01), however, there were no significant differences in sitting height, chest circumference, body weight, TST, SST,AST and BMI between Han boys and Mongolia boys (all P > 0.05). In the boys who had had spermatorrhea (12-17 years old), the body height, sitting height, chest circumference, body weight, SST, BMI of Han boys were 1.8 cm,0.6 cm, 3.1 cm, 3.1 kg, 1.7 mm and 0.7 kg/m(2) higher than those of Mongolia boys, respectively (all P < 0.05), however, the differences in TST and AST between Han boys and Mongolia boys were not statistical significant (all P > 0.05)."


I believe Mongols are actually more gracile than Han Chinese and have a small chest circumference similar to Amerindians and Eskimo. I have encountered both Chinese and Mongols during my deployment to Afghanistan and my living in New York City and my impression was the Han "Sinids" are somewhat physically stronger and more robust than Mongols, and that the reputation Mongols have for being "robust" in the skeletal frame is unwarranted. If Atilla or ancient Huns had broad chests it is probably because they are mostly European autosomally or had some kind of "hybrid robusticity."

I will get back to you with those albinoid Xiongnu.

Chad said...

Timeframe and location likely makes them Yuezhi. Wusun come in 150-200 years later, provided the dating of the samples is correct. Some Xiongnu and even Han admixture is possible. Wusun definitely had Han admixture.

The Yuezhi are also seen as one source of the formation of Huns in Bacteria after being forced out by the Wusun and Xiongnu. Still works out.

Chad said...

Bactria* autocorrect

Andrzejewski said...

Were the Wusun Indo-Iranian?

Davidski said...

@Chad

The Yuezhi are also seen as one source of the formation of Huns in Bacteria after being forced out by the Wusun and Xiongnu. Still works out.

What works out?

These Shirenzigou nomads aren't related to Afanasievo and there's no evidence that they had anything to do with Tocharians.

They're related to the Tian Shan Huns, and they get their Yamnaya-like ancestry from the same sources: Andronovo herders (probably via female gene flow) and native groups like Sarazm_En.

Hun_Tian_Shan
RUS_Lokomotiv_N 0.312±0.011
TJK_Sarazm_En 0.165±0.021
UZB_Kashkarchi_BA 0.523±0.019
chisq 10.007
tail prob 0.615365

Drago said...

@ Frank

Thats an interesting abstract. It suggests ''During the Eneolithic period meat resources consisted mainly of the domestic ungulate animals. ' However, it is not clear exactly when this occurred. Your original reference was to Vybornov, but who was describing the Khvalynsk culture, not Pricaspian
Moreover, a major problem lies in the dating in Russian & Ukrainin sites, as they are based on organic pottery containing molluscs, the dates are problematic unless correct for reservoir effect; and has led to huge inconsistencies and false theories (e.g. Mallory & Anthony), but have been recently begung to be adressed
Lastly, if we really seek to prove shifts in diet, then provide isotopic evidence from the human consumers themselves.
I believe you were informed of this already, but perhaps chose not to believe it because you have a theory which proposes a migration from the Aral-Caspian ocurruing at this time

Chad said...

Works out with regard to being ancestral to the Huns, but they show up later than these samples. I said they're Yuezhi, not Tocharian.

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

Davidski said...
@Samuel Andrews

"Miss-identified" is a word.

No, it's not. Apparently, it's a racing horse.

On the other hand, misidentified is indeed a word.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/misidentify

I've never written 'poo' in my comments.

Here...

https://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2019/07/asiatic-east-germanics.html?showComment=1563316607797#c2030271111600784329

July 28, 2019 at 6:32 PM



In all the many years that I have frequented this beloved blog I have never laughed so hard at a comment. Poor Krefter may yet again adopt a new handle. His spelling has improved dramatically though, I am happy to see him no longer using raciest.

Onur Dincer said...

@Jorge Escalante

There's nothing outdated about that source (facts don't expire) and the Xiongnu burials you mention are meaningless with dating and stratigraphic context. Xiongnu weren't a monoracial entity at all time periods.

Which facts? I provide you academic papers, you deny their results. We should be careful in differentiating the burials, not every burial from the Xiongnu lands and times are from the Xiongnu themselves as even the ancient DNA results show us. You seem to have a very broad definition of Xiongnu, I would not consider someone Xiongnu if that person was not regarded/treated as Xiongnu by the Xiongnu themselves regardless of where he was buried.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/597997v1.full#ref-22

Z2124 was widespread on the Bronze Age steppe, especially in the Afanasievo and Sintashta cultures 20 and R1a detected in Xiongnus 21,22 very likely belong to the same branch

22., Keyser-Tracqui, C., Crubézy, E. & Ludes, B. Nuclear and Mitochondrial DNA Analysis of a 2,000-Year-Old Necropolis in the Egyin Gol Valley of Mongolia. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 73, 247–260 (2003).

The observed rate of R1a1 in Xiongnu was over 60% at Eygin Gol, the haplotypes you mention were minorities there.


The Y-chromosomes of those Egyin Gol Xiongnu samples were later analyzed by Petrovski 2006 and were found to belong to the haplogroups N1c1, Q, and C, not R1a. Besides, there are other Y-DNA studies on the Xiongnu too. For example:

https://www.dissertationtopic.net/doc/1672732

All of the tested 12 Xiongnu males from the Heigouliang burial were found to belong to the Y-DNA haplogroup Q in this study.

Xiongnu are also identified as Iranian, and yes Minfeng is in Xinjiang, Ordos eastern Mongolia.

Wrong again, Ordos is in Inner Mongolia, and not in the eastern part of it.

The Xiongnu subjugated some Iranian populations and possibly also mixed with them, but that does not make the Xiongnu themselves Iranian.

I have not seen any anthropomorphic measurements that Tungids or any other phenotype in Siberia have broad chests. I have seen several photos of Mongol archers and none of them had broad chests despite heavy clothing...

You are making too much of a single "broad chest" reference. Chest size varies a lot even within races. Priscus' description was about Attila rather than Huns in general. Besides, I have not said anything about Attila's or European Huns' exact genetic composition, European Huns may well have been West Eurasian-admixed compared to their Kazakh steppe Hun ancestors, we cannot be certain until seeing their genome-wide autosomal results.

Ebizur said...

The official Chinese histories contain many curious and unverifiable remarks, including a claim that "as for Xiōngnú, their progenitor (其先祖) was a descendant (苗裔), called Chúnwéi (淳維), of the Xià dynastic clan (夏后氏)." Remarks of this type in Chinese histories usually appear to refer to a purported ancestor (according to a pedigree transmitted in written or verbal form) of the royal family of such-and-such a kingdom or nation. So, at least according to official Chinese history, the royal family of the Xiongnu was of the lineage of the Xia Dynasty, the first hereditary monarchy to rule over "China." They are also associated with the Yin (陰, i.e. Yin of Yin-Yang, Dark, Shady) Mountains, a name that refers (often somewhat vaguely) to a mountain range or series of mountain ranges that extend along the border between greater Mongolia and China proper, from the northwestern corner of the Ordos Loop, where they force the northward-flowing Yellow River to turn eastwards (this part of the range is also known as the Lang, i.e. Wolf, Mountains), through the Baotou, Hohhot, and western Ulanqab areas (this central section is also known as the Daqing, i.e. Great Green/Blue, Mountains), to eastern Ulanqab and Guyuan County of northwestern Hebei (at present, this easternmost section of the range is the part that is most commonly called the Yin Mountains).

As for descriptions of physiognomy, these are greatly confounded both by the relative nature of such descriptions (the descriptions are always based on comparison to the standard of some viewer, either that of the author himself or that of some person whose report has been conveyed to the author) as well as by the imprecise usage of various ethnonyms. Like "Scythian" in ancient histories of the Western world, "Xiongnu," and, even more so, "Hu" (胡) have been used to refer to any of a number of different ethnic groups that shared certain characteristics from the viewpoint of the contemporary Chinese, usually including their dwelling mainly to the north and/or west of China proper, living as pastoral nomads, being bellicose and antagonistic toward the Chinese, and, of course, "looking different from me/us" (in any of a number of different ways depending on which ethnic group was being described and in which era, etc.).

Slumbery said...

@Onur Dincer said...
"We have three autosomal DNA samples from Kazakh steppe Huns, the immediate precursors of European Huns, all of them are almost wholly East Eurasian in genetics. They are confusingly labeled as Hun-Sarmatian, Gunno-Sarmatian or CentralHun in the Damgaard papers due to the Hunnic expansion into the Sarmatian lands in the Central Asian steppe, Open Genomes should change his links from Sarmatians to Huns for those samples as they are genetically nothing like Sarmatians."

I have somewhat forgotten about those samples or at least the information went passive in my head. The "Hun-Sarmatian" samples from the Kazakh steppe are very Siberian, their majority ancestry is BHG-related.

"sample": "KAZ_Hun-Sarmatian:Average",
"fit": 2.3672,
"RUS_Shamanka_N": 77.5,
"Han": 15,
"RUS_Sintashta_MLBA": 4.17,
"TKM_Geoksiur_En": 3.33,
"KAZ_Botai": 0,


The Tien San Huns can be modelled much better with these than with Saka + the Xiongnu labeled samples.

"sample": "Hun_Tian_Shan:Average",
"fit": 0.9885,
"Saka_Tian_Shan": 86.67,
"KAZ_Hun-Sarmatian": 13.33,

However just using BHG as an ancestry reference is even better (see earlier comment).

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