Balto-Slavs and Sarmatians in the Battle of Himera

G25 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 Baltic-like genetic structure before mixing with their non-Slavic-speaking neighbors. Well, that's my pet theory for now, so take it or leave it.

Distance to: ITA_Sicily_Himera_480BCE_3:I10943
0.03393838 HUN_IA_La_Tene_o:I18226
0.03572886 DEU_MA_Krakauer_Berg:KRA001
0.03618075 RUS_Pskov_VA:VK159
0.03899963 SWE_Gotland_VA:VK463
0.03915018 Baltic_EST_IA:s19_V12_1

Distance to: ITA_Sicily_Himera_480BCE_3:I10949
0.03573636 HUN_IA_La_Tene_o3:I25524
0.03698768 HUN_IA_La_Tene_o:I18226
0.03732752 SWE_Skara_VA:VK397
0.03767022 Baltic_EST_IA:s19_V12_1
0.03772687 DEU_MA_Krakauer_Berg:KRA001

On the other hand, I'm almost certain that the two Himera_480BCE_4 samples are Sarmatians. The good old G25 does it again!

Distance to: ITA_Sicily_Himera_480BCE_4:I10944
0.03100861 KAZ_Segizsay_Sarmatian:SGZ002
0.03548059 MDA_Sarmatian:I11925
0.03619219 RUS_Urals_Sarmatian:MJ56
0.03626538 RUS_Urals_Sarmatian:chy001
0.03904260 RUS_Urals_Sarmatian:MJ41

Distance to: ITA_Sicily_Himera_480BCE_4:I10947
0.02989458 RUS_Urals_Sarmatian:MJ43
0.03052790 RUS_Urals_Sarmatian:chy002
0.03170622 KAZ_Kangju:DA226
0.03288789 TUR_BlackSea_Samsun_Anc_C:I4529
0.03310149 KAZ_Aigyrly_Sarmatian:AIG003

See also...

Slavic-like Medieval Germans

My take on the Erfurt Jews

I had a quick look at the genotype data from the recent Waldman et al. preprint focusing on the ancestry of early Jews from Erfurt, Germany. My impression is that the genetic origins of these Jews are somewhat more complex than claimed in the manuscript.

Indeed, I'd say the Waldman et al. characterization of the Erfurt Jews as a three-way mixture between populations similar to present-day Lebanese, South Italians and Russians doesn't exactly reflect reality.

Unlike Waldman et al., I designed an ADMIXTURE analysis that separated East Asian ancestry into East Asian and Siberian clusters, and also included Mediterranean and North African clusters. The output is available in a spreadsheet HERE. Below is a bar graph based on some of the output.

Now, keeping in mind that ADMIXTURE is not a formal mixture test, and that it estimates ancestry proportions from inferred populations, as opposed to ancient groups that actually existed, here are some key observations:

- in terms of fine scale ancestry, the Erfurt Jews show enough variation to be divided into three or four clusters, as opposed to just two as per Waldman et al.

- some of the Erfurt Jews show excess "Mediterranean" ancestry, while others excess "North African" ancestry, and this cannot be explained with ancestral populations similar to Lebanese and/or South Italians, but rather with significant gene flow from the western Mediterranean and possibly North Africa

- several of the Erfurt Jews show relatively high levels of "East Asian" ancestry that cannot be explained by admixture from Russians, or even any Russian-like populations, because such populations almost lack this type of ancestry, and instead show significant "Siberian" admixture

- as far as I can see, there are no correlations between any of the observations above and the quality of the samples. That is, low coverage doesn't appear to be causing the aforementioned excess "Mediterranean", "North African" and/or "East Asian" ancestry proportions.

Investigating this in more detail with, say, formal statistics will take some time. But I was able to reproduce the results from the above ADMIXTURE run using several somewhat different datasets, so that's something.

It seems to me that Waldman et al. want a simple and elegant model to explain the data, which is understandable, but I do think they should at least expand their ADMIXTURE analysis to include "Siberian", "Mediterranean" and "North African" clusters, and go from there depending on what they find.

Citation...

Waldman et al., Genome-wide data from medieval German Jews show that the Ashkenazi founder event pre-dated the 14th century, bioRxiv, posted May 16, 2022, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.05.13.491805

See also...

Mediterranean PCA update

Etruscans, Latins, Romans and others

I've just added coordinates for more than 100 ancient genomes from the recently published Antonio et al. ancient Rome paper to the Global25 datasheets. Look for the population and individual codes listed here. Same links as always:

Global25 datasheet ancient scaled

Global25 pop averages ancient scaled

Global25 datasheet ancient

Global25 pop averages ancient

Thus far I've only managed to check a handful of the coordinates, so please let me know if you spot any issues. Below is a Principal Component Analysis (PCA) featuring the Etruscan and Italic speakers. I ran the PCA with an online tool specifically designed for Global25 coordinates freely available here.

Can we say anything useful about the origins of the Etruscan and early Italic populations thanks to these new genomes? Also, to reiterate my question from the last blog post, what are the genetic differences exactly between the Etruscans, early Latins, Romans and present-day Italians? Feel free to let me know in the comments below.

Update 13/11/2019: Here's another, similar PCA. This one, however, is based on genotype data, and it also highlights many more of the samples from the Antonio et al. paper. Considering these results, I'm tempted to say that the present-day Italian gene pool largely formed in the Iron Age, and that it was only augmented by population movements during later periods. The relevant datasheet is available here.

Update 13/11/2019: It seems to me that the two Latini-associated outliers show significant ancestry from the Levant, which possibly means that they're in part of Phoenician origin. These qpAdm models speak for themselves:

ITA_Ardea_Latini_IA_o
ITA_Proto-Villanovan 0.547±0.081
Levant_ISR_Ashkelon_IA2 0.453±0.081
chisq 7.573
tail prob 0.87027
Full output

ITA_Prenestini_tribe_IA_o
ITA_Proto-Villanovan 0.679±0.068
Levant_ISR_Ashkelon_IA2 0.321±0.068
chisq 7.222
tail prob 0.89033
Full output

The Proto-Villanovan singleton is also a key part of the models. Dating to the Bronze Age/Iron Age transition, she appears to be of western Balkan origin. Moreover, her steppe ancestry is probably derived directly from the Yamnaya horizon.

ITA_Proto-Villanovan
HRV_Vucedol 0.677±0.031
Yamnaya_RUS_Samara 0.323±0.031
chisq 10.397
tail prob 0.661174
Full output

The cluster made up of four early Italic speakers can be modeled with minor Proto-Villanovan-related ancestry, but, perhaps crucially, it doesn't need to be. Indeed, judging by the qpAdm output below, it's possible that almost all of its steppe ancestry came from the Bell Beaker complex, and, thus, the Corded Ware culture complex before that.

ITA_Italic_IA
Bell_Beaker_Mittelelbe-Saale 0.480±0.055
ITA_Grotta_Continenza_CA 0.411±0.042
ITA_Proto-Villanovan 0.109±0.084
chisq 10.294
tail prob 0.590205
Full output

Two out of the three available Etruscans look very similar to the Italic speakers in the above PCA plots, and yet they show a lot more Proto-Villanovan-related ancestry in my qpAdm run. The statistical fit is also relatively poor, perhaps suggesting that something important is missing.

ITA_Etruscan
Bell_Beaker_Mittelelbe-Saale 0.186±0.081
ITA_Grotta_Continenza_CA 0.283±0.064
ITA_Proto-Villanovan 0.531±0.126
chisq 17.175
tail prob 0.143143
Full output

Interestingly, the Etruscan outlier with significant North African admixture (proxied in my run by MAR_LN) doesn't need to be modeled with any Bell Beaker ancestry.

ITA_Etruscan_o
ITA_Proto-Villanovan 0.675±0.057
MAR_LN 0.325±0.057
chisq 14.864
tail prob 0.315912
Full output

Update 17/11/2019: The spatial maps below show how three groups of ancient Romans (from the Imperial, Late Antiquity and Medieval periods) compare to present-day West Eurasian populations in terms of their Global25 coordinates. The hotter the color, the higher the similarity. More here.

See also...

Getting the most out of the Global25