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Thursday, September 26, 2019

Is Yamnaya overrated?


Four years after the publication of the seminal ancient DNA paper Massive migration from the steppe is a source for Indo-European languages in Europe by Haak et al., we're still waiting for some of its loose ends to be finally tied up with new samples. In particular...

- if the men of the Corded Ware culture (CWC) were, by and large, derived from the population of the Yamnaya culture, then where are the Yamnaya samples with R1a-M417, the main CWC Y-haplogroup?

- if the men of the Bell Beaker culture (BBC) were also, by and large, derived from the population of the Yamnaya culture, then where are the Yamnaya samples with R1b-P312, the main BBC Y-haplogroup?

- and, most crucially, if R1b-L51, which includes R1b-P312, and is nowadays by far the most important Y-haplogroup in Western Europe, arrived there from the Pontic-Caspian steppe, then why hasn't it yet appeared in any of the ancient DNA from this part of Eastern Europe or surrounds, except of course in samples that are too young to be relevant?

I'm certainly not suggesting that, in hindsight, the said paper now looks fundamentally flawed. In fact, I'd say that it has aged remarkably well, especially considering how fast things are moving in the field of ancient genomics.

But those loose ends really need tying up, one way or another. It's now time.

So someone out there, please, let us know finally if you have the relevant Yamnaya samples. And if you don't, that's OK too, just tell us what you do have. Indeed, it'd be nice know a few basic details about the thousands of samples that have been successfully sequenced in various labs and are waiting to be published. A lot of people would appreciate it.

See also...

Corded Ware as an offshoot of Hungarian Yamnaya (Anthony 2017)

Hungarian Yamnaya > Bell Beakers?

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

1,027 comments:

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Anonymous said...

@Kristiina

Why aren't they part of it? Yes, they do. Just in German/Dutch/Danish was the Bell Beaker expansions (see map).

The explanation for the well known penetration of the R1b-L51 into the CWC is very simple, the CWC came to the area earlier and by the time the BBC expansion began, its expansion had already ended. The BBC encountered the CWC and stopped at this boundary, respectively, R1b-L51 was penetrating the CWC.

Matt said...

Chill, all. This stuff will sort itself out soon enough. The Tauber child is not amazingly persuasive evidence for R1b-L51 in CWC (a fragmented child's bones, in a grave at a time transitional between BBC and CWC; which grave has unusual multiple burial features and is only diagnostically linked to CWC by being a flat grave with a N-S orientation, no grave goods).

But possibly other samples from the Corded Ware horizon and represent the earliest entrants into Europe (as the autosomally Yamnaya-like Corded Ware Polish samples do) which are will crop up with R1b-L51. (That's needed; later populations in NE Europe which are post-early Beaker and post-CWC won't do, because it'll be easy enough to say that these are actually simply not descendants of Corded Ware).

And eventually I am sure they will get lots of usable and published dna out of Yamnaya "intrusions" into the North Balkans, more along the lines of the early Vucedol female, Yamnaya Bulgaria sample, diverse Hungarian Yamnaya in Wang's plot, etc.

(I think there was a suggestion upthread that L51 would crop up in near the Urals, though that is tough to see, since there isn't any evidence in the later adna record of that? Not that there would have to be, necessarily.)

Overall, the early CWC individuals in the Baltic and Poland show that it's likely that these are all people who came from what is autosomally identical populations or a single population, and experienced different explosions of founders.

The "Northern Bell Beakers' " founder lineage was more closely related to the Yamnaya's founder lineage than the founder lineage for the large majority of CWC we have to date, and we need an explanation for that, but it is possible that the founding lineage moved to Europe from the steppe through a CWC-like burial culture, not a Yamnaya-like one.

Davidski said...

In fact, the most persuasive evidence for L51 in CWC is this Dutch Bell Beaker, who is among the oldest individuals belonging to L51 and P312, and with no evidence of any type of ancestry from outside of the CWC.

Beaker The Netherlands I5748, Y-HG R1b1a1a2a1a2, mtDNA X2b4, 2579–2233 calBCE

But he's been around since last year, courtesy of the Olalde et al. Beaker paper.

Anonymous said...

Matt said...
"The Tauber child is not surprisingly persuasive evidence for R1b-L51 in CWC (a fragmented child's bones, in a grave at a time transitional between BBC and CWC; which grave has unusual multiple burial features and is only diagnostically linked to CWC by being a flat grave with a N-S orientation, no grave goods)."

Yes. I also noticed that this is a very unusual burial for the CWC, and if it wasn't in the CWC area, no one would have attributed it to the CWC.

Matt said...

Maybe, but he's not in a CWC material context, and it's quite imaginable that the same autosomal blend of MN European+steppe ancestries could happen through more than one set of circumstances (e.g. there is no autosomal "CWC genotype" which will place a sample as incontrovertibly linked to CWC - CWC samples vary over time from autosomally Yamnaya-like early on to the German CWC later with typically much more MN European).

Matt said...

That last one was a reply to Davidski btw.

Ric Hern said...

Currently I think there was a migration from the Lower Don to the Upper Don and from there Westwards to Baltics/Northeastern Poland. From the Baltics by boat all along the coastline and into River systems all the way to Denmark and the Netherlands. From the Netherlands an expansion up the Rhine towards the Alps and further Eastwards along the Alpine foothills....So basically a migration in the form of a Horseshoe.

Davidski said...

@Matt

Did you notice that we now have direct evidence of early migrations from south of the Alps into the Bell Beaker complex, and the associated genetic signal has nothing at all to do with the Rhenish Beakers?

Matt said...

@Davidski, yes; though it doesn't seem to me that G2a males with a mix of Balkan and steppe ancestry in the mid-late 3rd millennium necessarily preclude a higher level steppe ancestry coming very slightly earlier. I'm gonna wait to see what comes through over time.

Ric Hern said...

@ Davidski

Relatives or descendants of Ötzi ?

Matt said...

btw, off topic of ancient European genomes and Yamnaya/CWC/BBC R1a/R1b, a new paper here https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/801324v1 which purports to offer a new factor analysis method for analysis ancient genomes over time (with claimed accuracy benefits) refers to "Ancient samples from Iran, Armenia and Iraq formed a distinct group". That surprised me as I couldn't remember that there actually were any sampled ancient genomes from Iraq, unless that's an error.

dsjm1 said...

@Kristina

Re A8039 (not 80039) and A8053

Sadly, YFull are in error regarding their version of the L151 tree.

However you are right that 2 burials of A8039 were found in the Faroe Islands. They are currently our oldest known S1194 burials.

What YFull continue to get wrong is that below L151 there are *currently* 4 brother clades. Regarding S1200 and A8039 these are *not* brothers to P312-U106-S1194-A8053 but children of S1194.

YFull have known of this for two years but still mislead us with their incorrect version of their tree. Even ISOGG, the most conservatine tree there is, correctly lists L151 clades as P312-U106-S1194-A8053. The BigY tree also has this listed correctly.

You can see our S1194 story if you google FTDNA S1194.

S1194 tends to show up where U106 shows up especially around tye Sth Baltic.

Cheers D

Kristiina said...

Thanks dsjm! Is this the reason why TMRCA (5000 ybp) of R-1200 is older than its formation (4800 ybp)? However, the same problem regards the whole L151 on yfull: formed 0 ybp, TMRCA 4800 ybp.

In any case TMRCA of R1b-S1200 is very much in line with Corded Ware.

@archi
If we observe the distribution of the whole R1b-S1200 clade, it is wider than the distributions of R1b-A80039 and R1b-A8053, but it is still very much Germanic-centered. Its distribution is far from the explosive growth of P312 and U106 and does not match the Bell Beaker map.

I am not taking any position of the ultimate origin of L151. It need not be Corded Ware or Bell Beaker. At the moment the origin is beyond us.

Kristiina said...

Correction: Is this the reason why TMRCA (5000 ybp) of R-S1200 is older than its formation (4800 ybp)?

Anonymous said...

@Kristiina

Find R1b-V88 on the current YFull tree at https://www.yfull.com/tree/R1/.

The present spread of R-S1200 does not mean that it comes from the CWC.

Anonymous said...

@all

BAM files are available at https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/data/view/PRJEB34400


claravallensis said...

OT, I noticed the Lithuanian samples in G25 have been replaced with labeled samples, PA, PZ, etc... what do they mean?

Davidski said...

@claravallensis

See here...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-45746-3

M.H. _82 said...

@ Matt

“And eventually I am sure they will get lots of usable and published dna out of Yamnaya "intrusions" into the North Balkans”

For me, Yamnaya represents the final “intrusion” into the steppe with mobility across it. The lineages / groups found in Yamnaya were already present for some 1000 years before Yamnaya horizon (apart from perhaps the more mysterious M269 & esp L51)
So what I contend is that Yamnaya represents the ‘conquest of the steppe’ ; metaphorically & literally. I’m happy to be proven wrong on this :)
Hence the Title of this Thread .

“[ALT4] which grave has unusual multiple burial features and is only diagnostically linked to CWC by being a flat grave with a N-S orientation, no grave goods).”
I think it was SW orientation; hence a presumption that it’s CWC; no grave goods. (“The burial did not contain any grave goods, but due to the type of grave and positioning of the bodies (with heads pointing towards southwest)

M.H. _82 said...

^ although the classic early CWC positioning was due West & the first first it was crouched- supine; with side-crouched coming in phase 2

Mike said...

These R1b-L51 samples found "deep in the east" are from Bronze age or Eneolithic cultures?

Davidski said...

@Mike

You'll have to ask Gaska about that.

Andrzejewski said...

Steppe migration to India was between 3500-4000 years ago: David Reich

https://m.economictimes.com/news/science/steppe-migration-to-india-was-between-3500-4000-years-ago-david-reich/articleshow/71556277.cms

dsjm1 said...

@Kristina,

Re YFull & S1200 + A8039.
I have sent a feedback email to YFull asking if they will correct their tree to avoid growing confusion about the L151 sub-clades (P312, U106, S1194 & A8053).

I trust they will fix the issue as it is cropping up quiote a bit lately.

Cheers D

jv said...

I guess I'm wondering if they mattered because my Autosomal admix is less than 15% ANE. I'm about 60% Villabruna related ancestry. Obviously not all reaches of Northern Europe experienced the Yamnaya/CWC/BBC take over.

Dora Smith said...

Survive the Jive said in a You Tube video on what the Yamnaya looked like, which actually tells us much of their hostory in western Eurasia, says that non Z2103 haplogroups come from Yamnaya-related peoples of the Bell Beaker culture. But he does not provide one single detail of what he is talking about.

I am pursuing Google clues that might conceivably tell. I'd appreciate knowing what Yamnaya-related peoles of the Bell Beaker culture these are.

I do wonder if perhaps it comes from disagreements on what comprises the Yamnaya and what comprises related concepts, for instance corded ware culture. I've got an article waiting for me to read it that argues that the corded ware culture is not responsible for Indo-European DNA in Europe! I mean, what...

Eupedia points out that much of what we DO know about steppe Y DNA comes from the highest elite of the Yamnaya leadership, those buried in tumuli; they might have tended to belong to just a couple of Y DNA lineages.

Davidski said...

Indo-European DNA in Europe is definitely from Corded Ware. This has now been confirmed 100%.

https://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2021/08/r1a-vs-r1b-in-third-millennium-bce.html

And Eupedia is garbage.

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