tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41235591320146274312024-03-19T00:15:33.977-07:00Eurogenes BlogFocusing on ancient population genomicsDavidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.comBlogger595125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-85901682144562018242024-02-22T03:52:00.000-08:002024-02-22T18:21:59.844-08:00Berkeley, we have a problemA new preprint at bioRxiv by Kerdoncuff et al. makes the following, somewhat surprising, claim:
One of the individuals, referred to Sarazm_EN_1 (I4290) described above that was discovered with shell bangles showing affiliation with South Asia, has significant amount AHG-related ancestry, while a model without AHG-related ancestry provides the best fit for Sarazm_EN_2 (I4210) (Table S4.5).
FirstDavidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com411tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-57269891842389389792024-02-12T21:01:00.000-08:002024-02-22T14:01:19.574-08:00The Nalchik surpriseIf, like Iosif Lazaridis, you subscribe to the idea that the Yamnaya people carry early Anatolian farmer-related admixture that spread into Eastern Europe via the Caucasus, then I've got great news for you.
We now have a human sample from the Eneolithic site of Nalchik in the North Caucasus, labeled NL122, that packs well over a quarter of this type of ancestry (see here). Below is a quick G25/Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com280tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-52884390286654110742024-01-13T01:25:00.000-08:002024-01-13T15:05:19.467-08:00Romans and Slavs in the Balkans (Olalde et al. 2023)It's always amusing to see some random Jovan or Dimitar arguing online that Slavic speakers have been in the Balkans since at least the Neolithic.
Obviously, Slavic peoples only turned up in the Balkans during the early Middle Ages. It's just that their linguistic and genetic impact on the region was so profound that it may seem like they've been there forever.
A new paper at Cell by Olalde et Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com615tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-12770348948874327452023-12-20T21:11:00.000-08:002023-12-21T15:19:51.081-08:00Dear Harald #2The ancIBD method paper from the David Reich Lab was just published in Nature (open access here). It's a very useful effort, but the authors are still somewhat confused about the origin of the Corded Ware culture (CWC) population. From the paper (emphasis is mine):
This direct evidence that most Corded Ware ancestry must have genealogical links to people associated with Yamnaya culture spanning Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com399tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-56767002527734623802023-11-19T18:04:00.000-08:002023-11-20T23:00:09.405-08:00Musaeum Scythia on the Seima-Turbino PhenomenonA few weeks ago bioRxiv published two preprints on the Seima-Turbino Phenomenon (see here and here).
I can't say much about these manuscripts until I see the relevant ancient DNA samples, and that might take some time.
However, for now, I will say that both preprints really need to emphasize the profound impact that the Sintashta-related early Indo-Iranian speakers had on the Seima-Turbino Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com521tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-90018553576537794922023-11-10T03:59:00.004-08:002023-11-17T00:26:44.935-08:00Wielbark Goths were overwhelmingly of Scandinavian originWhen used properly, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is an extraordinarily powerful tool and one of the best ways to study fine-scale genetic substructures within Europe.
The PCA plot below is based on Global25 data and focuses on the genetic relationship between Wielbark Goths and Medieval Poles, including from the Viking Age, in the context of present-day European genetic variation.
I'd Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com258tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-88118941038220690382023-11-04T00:06:00.012-07:002023-11-10T13:17:46.189-08:00Slavs have little, if any, Scytho-Sarmatian ancestryHere's an abstract of a new study from the David Reich Lab about ancient Slavs, titled "Genetic identification of Slavs in Migration Period Europe using an IBD sharing graph". Emphasis is mine:
Popular methods of genetic analysis relying on allele frequencies such as PCA, ADMIXTURE and qpAdm are not suitable for distinguishing many populations that were important historical actors in the Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com201tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-90970162639277848582023-09-22T05:53:00.012-07:002024-02-22T14:02:13.145-08:00The Caucasus is a semipermeable barrier to gene flowThe scientists at the David Reich Lab are a clever bunch. But they're not always on top of things. And this can be a problem.
For instance, they fail to understand that the Caucasus has effectively stymied human gene flow between Eastern Europe and West Asia through the ages. That is, the Caucasus is a semipermeable barrier to human gene flow.
Until they accept and understand this fact, theyDavidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com571tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-749975584619430172023-08-31T05:33:00.003-07:002023-09-29T14:24:37.358-07:00The story of the Khvalynsk peopleI'm totally serious when I say that this video is more objective, informative and accurate than any peer-reviewed paper published to date when it comes to the genetic origins of the Khvalynsk people.
However, that's not to say it's perfect. I think it misses some important details. See here...
The Caucasus is a semipermeable barrier to gene flow
Dear David, Nick, Iosif...let's set the recordDavidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com358tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-63173769316876518192023-08-12T05:01:00.006-07:002023-09-29T04:16:19.831-07:00Frustrated comediansI've now had the chance to read and digest the following two papers in Science about the origin of Indo-European languages:
Language trees with sampled ancestors support a hybrid model for the origin of Indo-European languages, Heggarty et al.
The genetic history of the Southern Arc: A bridge between West Asia and Europe, Lazaridis, Alpaslan-Roodenberg et al.
The Heggarty et al. paper is pure Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com409tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-26339193907871876962023-07-23T05:37:00.006-07:002024-02-22T03:54:40.652-08:00Dear Sandra, Wolfgang...a problemIn their recent paper, titled Early contact between late farming and pastoralist societies in southeastern Europe, Penske et al. make the following claim:
By contrast, Yamnaya Caucasus individuals from the southern steppe can be modelled as a two-way model of around 76% Steppe Eneolithic and 26% Caucasus Eneolithic/Maykop, confirming the findings of Lazaridis and colleagues 47. This two-way mix Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com401tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-78972095712349479052023-07-19T18:47:00.004-07:002023-07-23T05:47:13.413-07:00Early contact between farmers and pastoralists in ancient Europe (Penske et al. 2023)I can't wait to get stuck into the data from the new Penske et al. paper. This is likely to be the main topic on this blog for the next few weeks, or perhaps even months.
Early contact between late farming and pastoralist societies in southeastern Europe
By the way, I think it's hilarious how the authors totally ignored the fact that the North Pontic region is located in Eastern Europe. InsteadDavidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com82tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-67511780443039018962023-05-18T21:26:00.001-07:002023-11-10T21:44:39.032-08:00Alexey Nikitin: Interpreting the genetic ancestry of the first kurgan buildersClick on the image below to view the talk. Thoughts?
See also...
Dear David, Nick, Iosif...let me tell you about Yamnaya
Dear David, Nick, Iosif...let's set the record straightDavidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com399tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-76666906755421578942023-04-08T04:15:00.006-07:002023-12-21T01:36:54.437-08:00Dear Harald...I've started analyzing the Identity-by-Descent (IBD) data from the recent Ringbauer et al. preprint (see here). Unfortunately, it'll take me a few weeks to do this properly, so I won't be able to write anything detailed on the topic for a while.
Meantime, this is the comment that I left for the authors at bioRxiv (at this time it's still being approved, but it should appear there within a day orDavidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com443tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-69084662883046198392023-02-13T02:36:00.011-08:002023-09-27T02:02:04.479-07:00Dear David, Nick, Iosif...let me tell you about YamnayaLazaridis, Alpaslan-Roodenberg et al. recently claimed that the Yamnaya people of the Pontic-Caspian (PC) steppe carried "substantial" ancestry from what is now Armenia or surrounds.
However, this claim is essentially false.
Only one individual associated with the Yamnaya culture shows an unambiguous signal of such ancestry. This is a female usually labeled Ukraine_Yamnaya_Ozera_o:I1917. The "Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com892tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-59144987200549574742023-01-13T12:23:00.008-08:002023-02-26T00:55:19.057-08:00Dear David, Nick, Iosif...let's set the record straightAlmost a decade ago scientists at the David Reich Lab extracted DNA from the remains of three men from the Khvalynsk II cemetery at the northern end of the Pontic-Caspian (PC) steppe.
These Eneolithic Eastern Europeans showed significant genetic heterogeneity, with highly variable levels of Eastern Hunter-Gatherer (EHG) and Near Eastern-related ancestry components.
As a result, the people at Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com450tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-24230505395926778622022-11-13T13:01:00.001-08:002022-11-13T13:07:17.944-08:00A reappraisal of Ashkenazic maternal ancestryKevin Brook, who occasionally comments on this blog, has published a peer-reviewed book titled The Maternal Genetic Lineages of Ashkenazic Jews.
The book focuses on 129 mitochondrial (mtDNA) haplogroups that are found in present-day Ashkenazic Jews, and reveals that these lineages can be traced back to a wide range of places, such as Israel, Italy, Poland, Germany, North Africa, and China.
ErgoDavidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com184tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-53729987229780046572022-11-01T18:54:00.002-07:002022-11-01T19:09:40.207-07:00The story of R-V1636Who wants to bet against this map? Keep in mind that ART038 (~3000 calBCE) remains the oldest sample with the V1636 and R1b Y-chromosome mutations in the West Asian ancient DNA record. Ergo, there's nothing to suggest that V1636 or R1b entered Eastern Europe from West Asia.
See also...
A tantalizing link
How relevant is Arslantepe to the PIE homeland debate?Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com214tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-8518242748295467232022-10-27T04:25:00.003-07:002022-10-29T20:39:11.291-07:00The Yassitepe challengeThis is about the only successful qpAdm model that I can find for the pair of Early Bronze Age (EBA) females from Yassitepe, Turkey, using a decent set of outgroups and markers. I wouldn't take it too literally, but it does suggest a potentially significant level of European ancestry, including some steppe ancestry, in these Yassitepe individuals.
TUR_Aegean_Yassitepe_EBA
Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com153tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-43230524414454711902022-10-13T17:02:00.006-07:002022-10-14T18:27:46.013-07:00The Kura-Araxes people deserve betterWhen discussing the Kura-Araxes culture and its people it's important to understand these key points:
- there is Eastern European steppe ancestry in Kura-Araxes samples, and if you're not seeing it then you're not looking hard enough
- Armenian Kura-Araxes samples are mainly a mixture between three different groups currently best represented in the ancient DNA record by ARM_Areni_C, Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com242tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-82924972674312769712022-10-06T21:29:00.005-07:002022-10-12T06:04:05.820-07:00Balto-Slavs and Sarmatians in the Battle of HimeraG25 coordinates for most of the samples from the recent Reitsema et al. paper are available in a text file here. They're also in the G25 datasheets at the usual link here.
A basic distance analysis with the G25 data at Vahaduo shows that the two samples labeled Himera_480BCE_3 are either early Balts or Slavs. I suspect that they're Slavs, because I believe that early Slavs had this type of Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com163tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-56864444172283399562022-09-19T05:52:00.016-07:002022-10-16T19:22:58.876-07:00Dear Iosif...YamnayaEven though the Yamnaya culture probably originated in what is now Ukraine, the earliest Yamnaya samples currently available are from the modern-day Samara region of Russia. They mostly date to around 3,000 BCE. I can analyze their ancestry using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) data.
Target: RUS_Yamnaya_Samara
Distance: 3.2816% / 0.03281581
81.0 RUS_Progress_En
14.4 UKR_N
4.6 HUN_Vinca_MN
0.0Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com370tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-44428795109480544232022-09-09T21:15:00.007-07:002022-10-16T19:22:31.050-07:00Dear Iosif, about that ~2%The debate over the location of the so called Indo-Anatolian homeland won't be decided by the persistence of any type of genetic ancestry in ancient Anatolia.
It'll be decided by a multidisciplinary study on the interactions between the ancient peoples of the North Pontic steppe, the eastern Balkans, and western Anatolia.
If such a study finds a pulse of steppe-related gene flow from the Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com267tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-44190711674614497142022-09-04T02:26:00.011-07:002023-01-15T17:31:54.381-08:00But Iosif, what about the Phrygians?A paper in Science co-authored by around 200 scientists from some of the world's top academic institutions surely must mean something, right? Not necessarily.
In this short blog post I'll try to explain, as simply as I can, why the Lazaridis, Alpaslan-Roodenberg et al. paper doesn't get us any closer to solving the riddle of the so called Indo-Anatolian homeland.
However, it must be said that Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com164tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4123559132014627431.post-10807057331003781512022-09-01T15:27:00.006-07:002022-09-19T05:57:32.026-07:00Dear Iosif #3Back in 2016 I made this prediction about the origins of the Yamnaya people (Steppe_EMBA):
But here's my prediction: Steppe_EMBA only has 10-15% admixture from the post-Mesolithic Near East not including the North Caucasus, and basically all of this comes via female mediated gene flow from farming communities in the Caucasus and perhaps present-day Ukraine.
The relevant blog post is still here.Davidskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04637918905430604850noreply@blogger.com60