Scythian/Sarmatian DNA, your thoughts.

Too bad they couldn't be more specific. According to the genetic mathematician Ken Nortvedt, I2a1 is pretty old and his suggested spread map indicates some of it followed the "close to the mediterranean" pathway surmised for Neolithic colonization towards the West. Reps could have wound up in that France site.

The Neolithic samples were strongly predicted to I2a1a based on STRs. No real chance that they were I2a1b. There are several reasons to think that I2a1a was the most successful Haplogroup I subclade during the Neolithic, and that a lot of these other subclades that are common now, like I1 and I2a-Din, owe their current distributions to more recent expansions.

On the other hand, he has computerized, on the basis of very precise analysis of the elements of I2a1b1 (the older I2a2a) that this subclade, which currently dominates I2 in the Balkans and Eastern Europe, arose not sooner than 2,800 years ago somewhere north of the Danube. He thinks it spread southward with the Slavic explosion of the 1rst millennium AD. But he admits the possibility of other scenarios.

FWIW I think Nordtvedt has it right here, totally... our best guess should be the Slavic expansion until we actually have evidence of something else. Thanks for the great summary of Nordtvedt's views, he's an authority who has been right more frequently than most others.

As to the Sarmatians, I think Bodin is fascinated by the evidence of Constantine Porphyrogenitus associated to snippets from Pliny, which has nothing to do with DNA of course, and which must be treated with much caution in any case.

I think Bodin sees some important evidence: that I2a-Din is young and not ancient in the Balkans (or at least has a discontinuity), and that there is a good deal of Haplogroup I in Eastern populations like Kurds, quite possibly including I2a-Din or even being I2a-Din dominant. So he comes up with a fairly romantic theory about Sarmatians bringing I2a-Din to the Balkans. But as several of us have said, that's not the most likely theory with current evidence, and it will need a good amount of studies on Sarmatian ancient DNA, or at least modern Eastern I2a-Din. I guess that it's not a disprovable theory, I just wouldn't take a bet on Bodin's side.
 
The Neolithic samples were strongly predicted to I2a1a based on STRs. No real chance that they were I2a1b. There are several reasons to think that I2a1a was the most successful Haplogroup I subclade during the Neolithic, and that a lot of these other subclades that are common now, like I1 and I2a-Din, owe their current distributions to more recent expansions.

Based on Y-Search, the closest sample to the I2a* STR's found in the Neolithic site is a person from Mexico (ID: AVC9H) that carries haplogroup I2a2*, which is the 2010 designation for I2a1b, I would have thought that this person might be carrying the modern I2a2 (Former I2b), but the paper clearly indicates that the samples found in the site were I2a1-P37.2 (Former I2a*), so if we're going by STR evidence, the closest sample is I2a1b, not I2a1a unless you have something I have not seen.

Btw, someone had already entered the STR values for the Neolithic I2a sample on Y-Search, it's ID FJQXG for whoever is interested in checking it out.
 
Based on Y-Search, the closest sample to the I2a* STR's found in the Neolithic site is a person from Mexico (ID: AVC9H) that carries haplogroup I2a2*, which is the 2010 designation for I2a1b, I would have thought that this person might be carrying the modern I2a2 (Former I2b), but the paper clearly indicates that the samples found in the site were I2a1-P37.2 (Former I2a*), so if we're going by STR evidence, the closest sample is I2a1b, not I2a1a unless you have something I have not seen.

Btw, someone had already entered the STR values for the Neolithic I2a sample on Y-Search, it's ID FJQXG for whoever is interested in checking it out.

Cullen's Predictor gives 100% confidence in I2a1a-M26 for the better sample, but isn't sure about the STR cluster it goes in (best guess is cluster A). Nordtvedt, Dienekes, and others have noted that it appears to be M26+ going by STRs.
 
And please I would like to know what Poli means on Scythian , my assumption is that is Scythian word , accepted by Slavs and it means field .

"Poli" was my typo. Sorry. It should be "Pali" (as in Diodorus and Pliny). "Spali" is considered a later variant (it appears in Jordanes' quote of a Gothic legend). I'm not sure what the word meant in Scythian. Diodorus contrasts this group to the "Napi" which linguists have interpreted to be "relatives" (or something similar) in ancient Iranic (perhaps something akin to the turkic "Pechenegs"). The interpretation "field dwellers" is a much later Slavic popular etymology. Whatever the "Pali" may have been originally, it seems that as time went on, the term became more and more associated with the concept of "royal clan" per se (Herodotus' "Basilei"?), and that whatever group acquired fleeting hegemony in the Iranic steppe world became "Pali". You no longer needed to be of Scythian ethnicity. The 1rst century "Spali" who created a "Scythian" power state between Danube and the Volga were Aorsan ("West" Alans). The "Spali" defeated by the Goths in the early 3rd c. were likely Alans. By the fifth century (if not earlier) the term had acquired the standard Alanic suffix -an (so now it was "Palan" or "Spalan" and variants). It has survived in East Slavic (South Russian more precisely) lore as the "Ispolins". It made its way into Armenian classical historiography [Zenob Glak] as "the land of Paluni" (but this could have been a Hunnic mediation). So there is no surprise to see it reemerge as the Old East Slavic "Polani". There were Scytho-Sarmatian remnants in the initial aristocracy of Kyivan Rus (perhaps the clearest evidence are the two Iranic deities in Volodimer's pagan pantheon of 980). But this is another story.
 
Cullen's Predictor gives 100% confidence in I2a1a-M26 for the better sample, but isn't sure about the STR cluster it goes in (best guess is cluster A). Nordtvedt, Dienekes, and others have noted that it appears to be M26+ going by STRs.

What are the defining STR markers for I2a1a? It's kind of odd how this calculator gives it that for sure when the closest person in genetic distance carries I2a1b, here's another calculator which predicts it as 100% I2a-P37.2 but we already know that:

http://predictor.ydna.ru/

We need more proof to indicate that it's I2a1a (Which I'm not disputing btw, just trying to make sure).
 
What are the defining STR markers for I2a1a? It's kind of odd how this calculator gives it that for sure when the closest person in genetic distance carries I2a1b, here's another calculator which predicts it as 100% I2a-P37.2 but we already know that:

http://predictor.ydna.ru/

We need more proof to indicate that it's I2a1a (Which I'm not disputing btw, just trying to make sure).

I think that the problem is that Mr. Morales (YSearch AVC9H) is mistaken about his haplogroup... Cullen's Predictor also gives a 100% confidence on him being I2a1a-M26... and also quite confident as being "A" cluster.

Some modals are here (not entirely up to date but should be sufficient).
 
If we go based on this:

http://www.familytreedna.com/public/I2aHapGroup/default.aspx?section=yresults

I agree, the sample from the Neolithic site does seem to match I2a1-M26, a good question I always wondered about is, shouldn't it not make sense to compare STR marker values between ancient and modern haplotypes? I mean we know that STR markers mutate, for example these Neolithic samples carried a value of 13 on the DYS393 marker, who's not to say their descendants could have mutated to 14? I mean this is 5000 years ago, and I've seen more actual major STR differences in 3 or 4 generations which is peanuts in comparison, what do you think?
 
If we go based on this:

http://www.familytreedna.com/public/I2aHapGroup/default.aspx?section=yresults

I agree, the sample from the Neolithic site does seem to match I2a1-M26, a good question I always wondered about is, shouldn't it not make sense to compare STR marker values between ancient and modern haplotypes? I mean we know that STR markers mutate, for example these Neolithic samples carried a value of 13 on the DYS393 marker, who's not to say their descendants could have mutated to 14? I mean this is 5000 years ago, and I've seen more actual major STR differences in 3 or 4 generations which is peanuts in comparison, what do you think?

I think it depends on the haplogroup. I2a1a has an old enough TMRCA that a comparison between ancient and modern STRs would make sense, although we might expect the ancient sample to be closer to the modal than modern samples, which will have diverged different directions. If the modern TMRCA of a haplogroup is much younger than the ancient sample, however, we'll run into the difficulties you mention, and we will want deeper SNPs to be sure we're interpreting it right.
 
I think it depends on the haplogroup. I2a1a has an old enough TMRCA that a comparison between ancient and modern STRs would make sense, although we might expect the ancient sample to be closer to the modal than modern samples, which will have diverged different directions. If the modern TMRCA of a haplogroup is much younger than the ancient sample, however, we'll run into the difficulties you mention, and we will want deeper SNPs to be sure we're interpreting it right.

As of now, I'm gonna take the sample as I2a1-P37.2 only since that's the only proof we have, while I'm not that familiar with the subclades and STR definitions with haplogroup I*, I have been heavily involved in my own haplogroup to know enough of STR's and SNP's, and I can safely confirm that STR's can be extremely misleading at times, which is why at the end of the day, only SNP's can truly define what is and what's not.
 
Some Ossetians are just a bunch of morons. Actually there're better of with Georgia, than with Russia. I mean South Ossetians had more rights as an separated ethnic group in Georgia than North Ossetians in Russia!

And one of these rights is the right to be exterminated by Georgians.
 
About Pontic-Caspian steppe as homeland of Sarmatians...
It is well known that it was very sparsely inhabited until just couple of centuries ago: Wild Fields. This steppe was a highway of many warrior tribes and it is hard to believe that large number of people could permanently settle there, grow in numbers and later spread towards West thus very significantly contribute to the gene pool of Europe. I think that in such open space it was hard to find shelter from an enemy, or just imagine cold winds in winter without a forest to slow wind speed down, or hot sun in summer without a tree which would make some shade.
I believe that forests northwest from the steppe were much more densely inhabited because they provided all those things which were problem in steppe. And it is well known who lived in those forests - it was Slavs.

So, my point is steppe should not be considered as a source of any DNA, nor should Sarmatians be as numerous as big was the territory they controlled.
 
We don't have any I2a1b data on ancient Scythians/Sarmatians, enough with this.

It does not matter much really, it was only one sample that carried haplogroup C anyways, but it's funny how you're trying to downplay a lineage that was actually found in ancient Kurgan remains, yet you make a big deal with I2a1b when it hasn't even been found.

The message is very clear, I2a1b is your Y-DNA so you're pushing for it.

I believe Aryan culture started in South-Central Asia, that's where the earliest Indo-Iranian religions and traditions come to life, think of the earliest Vedic Aryans and the early Zoroastrianism traditions.

I already said it a million times, I believe it originated in Southeast Europe, and it entered the Middle East from the Balkans, is that what happened for sure? I don't know, but it's my opinion and it makes perfect sense to me.

Frankly, I2a1b is not the only I* lineage in the Middle East, I2c and I1 also exist.

Ohh and one more thing, haplogroup I2a1 was actually found in a Neolithic site in France that dates back to 5000 years ago:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/05/24/1100723108.short

Here's the data:

http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/2011/05/25/1100723108.DCSupplemental/pnas.201100723SI.pdf
Why do you persisting in conecting Scythian and Sarmathians?
First : Balkans and Southeast Europe is same thing
Second : I2a1 found in Trelleis is I2a1a ( not I2a1b .Din ) and they separated from eachother 20.000 years ago
 
Here's a prime source for you: the Hou Hanshu Cf. the footnote to their "Alan" text: http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/hhshu/notes19.html

It's the previous political formation, Yancai or Yentsai (sometimes confused with the "Antes") which bore the name of "great steppe". I have already stated the meaning of "Alani". It's not "my version", it's standard linguistics. "Alan" is simply the lambdacized pronunciation of "Aryan". Join a good IE linguistic discussion group like cybalist@yahoogroups/com. They have many fine linguists there.
Yes you are right , my mistake . Thanks for corecting
 
Too bad they couldn't be more specific. According to the genetic mathematician Ken Nortvedt, I2a1 is pretty old and his suggested spread map indicates some of it followed the "close to the mediterranean" pathway surmised for Neolithic colonization towards the West. Reps could have wound up in that France site. On the other hand, he has computerized, on the basis of very precise analysis of the elements of I2a1b1 (the older I2a2a) that this subclade, which currently dominates I2 in the Balkans and Eastern Europe, arose not sooner than 2,800 years ago somewhere north of the Danube. He thinks it spread southward with the Slavic explosion of the 1rst millennium AD. But he admits the possibility of other scenarios. As to the Sarmatians, I think Bodin is fascinated by the evidence of Constantine Porphyrogenitus associated to snippets from Pliny, which has nothing to do with DNA of course, and which must be treated with much caution in any case.
They were realy specifik it was I2a1a - most common in Sardinia and Basque , it separated from I2a1b 20.000 years ago . Yes Porphirogenetos ,Pliny , Lithuanian and Polish legends, Settling of 500.000 Sarmathians on Balkan during rule of Constantine the Great ( IV century ) , archeology that show no Slavic influence after VI century - only few Slavic settlements before ariving of Serbs and Croats ( Serbs and Croats settlements and burials are realy diferent from Sarmathian ) ,and many other proves I already stated
 
I'm just showing that the father of I2a1b has been found further west in a European Neolithic site, and if I2a1b is only 2800 years old (Not sure how that date comes up), I don't see how anyone can connect it to the Medes when they're clearly older than that.

If he was to say the Iranians that mixed with the local I2a1b Southeast Europeans became the Sarmatian folks all together, it would be a more plausible scenario than making up wild theories about Medes carrying such a young lineage or trying to connect it with tribes living in South-Central Asia.
There was no father of I2a1b in west Europe , it was I2a1a . Do you know what is estimated age of Haplogroup in one aeria?
 
Why do you persisting in conecting Scythian and Sarmathians?
First : Balkans and Southeast Europe is same thing
Second : I2a1 found in Trelleis is I2a1a ( not I2a1b .Din ) and they separated from eachother 20.000 years ago

There was no father of I2a1b in west Europe , it was I2a1a . Do you know what is estimated age of Haplogroup in one aeria?

Because they ultimately have the same origin culturally, and the I2a1 found was I2a1, it's just speculation that it's I2a1a based on STR comparison with modern haplotypes, which I explained, is not a very accurate comparison due to the mutation that happens to the STR markers and the inaccuracy of STR predictions, that's where SNP's come on, and the SNP was P37.2, that's all we have.
 
The Neolithic samples were strongly predicted to I2a1a based on STRs. No real chance that they were I2a1b. There are several reasons to think that I2a1a was the most successful Haplogroup I subclade during the Neolithic, and that a lot of these other subclades that are common now, like I1 and I2a-Din, owe their current distributions to more recent expansions.



FWIW I think Nordtvedt has it right here, totally... our best guess should be the Slavic expansion until we actually have evidence of something else. Thanks for the great summary of Nordtvedt's views, he's an authority who has been right more frequently than most others.



I think Bodin sees some important evidence: that I2a-Din is young and not ancient in the Balkans (or at least has a discontinuity), and that there is a good deal of Haplogroup I in Eastern populations like Kurds, quite possibly including I2a-Din or even being I2a-Din dominant. So he comes up with a fairly romantic theory about Sarmatians bringing I2a-Din to the Balkans. But as several of us have said, that's not the most likely theory with current evidence, and it will need a good amount of studies on Sarmatian ancient DNA, or at least modern Eastern I2a-Din. I guess that it's not a disprovable theory, I just wouldn't take a bet on Bodin's side.
Thanks for atleast accepting possibility , even Nortvedt didnt claim it is comed with Slavic expansions , he alowed other possibilities to . And Northvedt clearly didnt know anything about possibility of SerboCroatian Sarmathian origins , and conection betwen Medes and Sarmathians proposed by Diodorus .
For me the theory about Slavic origins of any nation on Balkans is romantic - archeology found in Balkans is realy diferent from one in clearly Slavic aerias except few early settlements from middle VI century- Serbs and Croats comed In VII century , and there is very low R1a , so low it could even all be explained as Germanic and Avaric contribution ( there is 7% of I1 in both Serbs and Croats , and only 5% 3.500 years old R1a in Serbia , and about Croatian R1a we dont know how many of it is Asiatic - nonSlavic )
 
"Poli" was my typo. Sorry. It should be "Pali" (as in Diodorus and Pliny). "Spali" is considered a later variant (it appears in Jordanes' quote of a Gothic legend). I'm not sure what the word meant in Scythian. Diodorus contrasts this group to the "Napi" which linguists have interpreted to be "relatives" (or something similar) in ancient Iranic (perhaps something akin to the turkic "Pechenegs"). The interpretation "field dwellers" is a much later Slavic popular etymology. Whatever the "Pali" may have been originally, it seems that as time went on, the term became more and more associated with the concept of "royal clan" per se (Herodotus' "Basilei"?), and that whatever group acquired fleeting hegemony in the Iranic steppe world became "Pali". You no longer needed to be of Scythian ethnicity. The 1rst century "Spali" who created a "Scythian" power state between Danube and the Volga were Aorsan ("West" Alans). The "Spali" defeated by the Goths in the early 3rd c. were likely Alans. By the fifth century (if not earlier) the term had acquired the standard Alanic suffix -an (so now it was "Palan" or "Spalan" and variants). It has survived in East Slavic (South Russian more precisely) lore as the "Ispolins". It made its way into Armenian classical historiography [Zenob Glak] as "the land of Paluni" (but this could have been a Hunnic mediation). So there is no surprise to see it reemerge as the Old East Slavic "Polani". There were Scytho-Sarmatian remnants in the initial aristocracy of Kyivan Rus (perhaps the clearest evidence are the two Iranic deities in Volodimer's pagan pantheon of 980). But this is another story.
Thanks for explanation , I am going to look in to the matter , conection Polani - Dervljani and Tervingi- Greutungi still intriguess me
 
About Pontic-Caspian steppe as homeland of Sarmatians...
It is well known that it was very sparsely inhabited until just couple of centuries ago: Wild Fields. This steppe was a highway of many warrior tribes and it is hard to believe that large number of people could permanently settle there, grow in numbers and later spread towards West thus very significantly contribute to the gene pool of Europe. I think that in such open space it was hard to find shelter from an enemy, or just imagine cold winds in winter without a forest to slow wind speed down, or hot sun in summer without a tree which would make some shade.
I believe that forests northwest from the steppe were much more densely inhabited because they provided all those things which were problem in steppe. And it is well known who lived in those forests - it was Slavs.

So, my point is steppe should not be considered as a source of any DNA, nor should Sarmatians be as numerous as big was the territory they controlled.
Initially Sarmathians lived north of Caucasus , and for they way of life steppes were the best shelter - they were horsemens living in carts pulled by horses .And horses need grass so no they couldnt lived in forest . Historical sources mentions up to 500.000 Sarmathian archers - that is enourmous numbers for that times . R1a is also lived in steppes even longer then Sarmathians and survived
 
Because they ultimately have the same origin culturally, and the I2a1 found was I2a1, it's just speculation that it's I2a1a based on STR comparison with modern haplotypes, which I explained, is not a very accurate comparison due to the mutation that happens to the STR markers and the inaccuracy of STR predictions, that's where SNP's come on, and the SNP was P37.2, that's all we have.
Mait you loosing it . You are the one that said it was I2a1b found in west Europe (Treilles ) , and now you saying only thing we know it is I -P37.2 , are you arguing with yourself now?
 

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