The Beaker Bell Phenomenon

The Beaker-Bell Culture is probably responsible for spreading of...


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. in fact, the spread of E1b-M81 into France is very likely explainable by Beaker Culture..

E peaks in non Bell beaker areas in France. The Bell beaker complex influenced most of Atlantic and Mediterranean France where today R1b S116* and R1b L21 peak.
 
Re: the E1b hypothesis: We need to remember that we're talking about two different European E1b clades, E1b-M81 (probably came over from North Africa) and E1b-M78 (probably came over from the Near East). Now we're pretty confident that E1b-M81 came over well before the Moors, possibly as long ago as the Neolithic (I'm not familiar with STR dating of this but that's what I've read). So if we're talking about migrations out of pre-R1b Iberia, there's a very good chance that they had a lot of I2a1a, G2a, and E1b-M81... in fact, the spread of E1b-M81 into France is very likely explainable by Beaker Culture. I don't see a similar pattern for E1b-M78 though, so I'm not sure it solves our E1b problem.

There are much more than two subclades of E1b1b. The more I think about it the less sense it makes that E1b1b expanded from the Near East, mainly because all subclades of E1b1b are found in East Africa, even the so-called European ones like V13. I posted a new hypothesis last month about the possibility that the lush green Paleolithic and Mesolithic Sahara was once inhabited by a great number of E1b1b people, who crossed the Mediterranean in search of more fertile land when the Sahara started to desertify.

- E1b1b1a (E-V68) => found in Sardinia and Africa but not in the Middle East (clearly pointing to a direct migration from North Africa to Sardinia)
- its subclade E1b1b1a1 (E-M78) => found in East Africa, North Africa, the Middle East and Europe. E-V13 is one of its numerous subclades and is found all over North Africa as well as in Europe and the Middle East. All the other subclades are mostly East African (V12, V22, V32) or North African (V65), but not Middle Eastern.

- E1b1b1b (E-L19/V257) => the parent haplogroup of E-M81, recently discovered by Trombetta et al. (2011). It is so far found in Kenya, Morocco, Corsica, Sardinia, and Spain, once again showing a direct Africa to Southwest Europe movement. E-M81 itself is found all over the Sahara, as far south as Burkina Faso, and as far east as Sudan.

- E1b1b1c (E-M123) => extremely wide distribution, throughout East Africa, North Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. No clear pattern of distribution so far, but some pockets here and there with higher frequency due to the sparsity of tests.


The lack of clear pattern and the very old age of these haplogroups and their surprising diversity for their age (a sign that they descend from a large Paleolithic population) all agree with a pan-Saharan distribution in the late Paleolithic (from circa 20,000 years ago) until the last desertification of the Sahara roughly 6,000 years ago.

It is a mistake to try to comprehend the world as it was 10,000 or 15,000 years ago by looking at how it is now. Just before the end of the last Ice Age, the world was a totally different place. Northern Europe was uninhabitable, southern Europe was had a climate closer to modern Scandinavia, and North Africa was a vast Eden, teeming with game and fruit trees that could support a very large hunter-gatherer population (certainly more than all Ice-age Europe put together). The Middle East, as far east as Afghanistan and Pakistan, was also much greener than today and filled with big mammals of all kind. That's why most of the late Paleolithic haplogroup diversity was to be found from the Sahara to South Asia, and haplogroups such as R1a and R1b probably arose in such a region too.
 
- E1b1b1a (E-V68) => found in Sardinia and Africa but not in the Middle East (clearly pointing to a direct migration from North Africa to Sardinia)
- its subclade E1b1b1a1 (E-M78) => found in East Africa, North Africa, the Middle East and Europe. E-V13 is one of its numerous subclades and is found all over North Africa as well as in Europe and the Middle East. All the other subclades are mostly East African, not Middle Eastern.

I could believe a direct migration across the Mediterranean for this. How likely is it that there was much E1b M81- in Iberia at the time of Beaker Culture, though? Much of the E1b M81- present in Iberia today (and there isn't all that much) probably came from later migrations into it, no? So if we're postulating a major movement of E1b out of Iberia during Beaker Culture time, it seems that it was mainly E1b M81+. I'm curious if you agree with that.
 
I have an addition regarding that African influence in Iberia and Sardinia: if Maciamo is correct about this, it would perfectly explain what we see with the autosomal DNA data (African admixture) from DODECAD.

Otherwise, I must agree with spongetario that the distribution of E1b, which is basically inverse to the actual occurence of Beaker-Bell sites in France is an argument against Beaker-Bell distributing E1b. On the flip side, if R1b arrived later (which, for all purposes, still cannot be ruled out), it could explain the pattern we do see even if Beaker-Bell carried E1b.
 
Hmmm, there is that possibility. Given we (still) have no idea as of yet where E1b came from (it's one of those Haplogroups everybody expected to be Neolithic but it clearly isn't), this might be it.

E1b1b wasn't found in Neolithic sites in Europe either because it came later (most common assumption), or because it was already there since the Paleolithic/Mesolithic, alongside haplogroup I. I am increasingly in favour of the second scenario, because I just can't see how E1b1b could have become so widespread in Europe with a post-Bronze Age arrival. We still don't have any Paleolithic or Mesolithic Y-DNA, and the Neolithic archaeological sites were essentially inhabited by the people who brought the Neolithic culture, not by the contemporary indigenous hunter-gatherers. There is so little haplogroup I in Italy in particular that I foresee that E-M78 (with a E-M81 and E-M123 minority) migrated from North Africa to South Italy, then to Greece, then to the Balkans. Iberia was settled by the same haplogroups but with more E-M81. There were probably several waves in both cases.
 
I could believe a direct migration across the Mediterranean for this. How likely is it that there was much E1b M81- in Iberia at the time of Beaker Culture, though? Much of the E1b M81- present in Iberia today (and there isn't all that much) probably came from later migrations into it, no? So if we're postulating a major movement of E1b out of Iberia during Beaker Culture time, it seems that it was mainly E1b M81+. I'm curious if you agree with that.

The Bell Beaker people didn't necessarily need a big movement of people to spread their culture because all megalithic cultures were already part of a vast Atlantic trade network. So it doesn't really matter how much E-M81 there was in East Iberia at the time.
 
I have an addition regarding that African influence in Iberia and Sardinia: if Maciamo is correct about this, it would perfectly explain what we see with the autosomal DNA data (African admixture) from DODECAD.

Yes and no. If the Paleolithic inhabitants of the North Sahara, or at least coastal North Africa, are the ones who brought E-M78 to Europe (in the Mesolithic ?), they could have been very different people from the modern North Africans. Present-day Maghrebans have more E-M81, which could have been the main haplogroup of the central Sahara before it turned into a vast desert. Forced to move north and south, these E-M81 could have displaced a part of this E-M78 population to southern Europe. However, the names of the Dodecad Admixtures only reflect the distribution of these genes today. If there was a major migration from North Africa to southern Europe, then it would be one of the principal admixture found in southern Europe today, but would still be found at a reasonably high (though lower) frequency in North Africa today. The only candidate that match this is the Mediterranean admixture*.

In the last two days, I have been compiling the list of all ancient European DNA tested to date, and it struck me how the only haplogroup H or HV from the Paleolithic or Mesolithic was from southern Europe. All northern or central Europe is overwhelmingly U with only some K, T and V appearing in terminal Mesolithic cultures with contact with neighbouring Neolithic ones (like the Pitted Ware in Scandinavia). I think it is a sign that I1 and I2 paternal lineages carried exclusively mtDNA U (U4 and U5) until the Mesolithic. If that is so, then who brought the H in Iberia or Italy ? My guess is that it was E-M78 (while E-M81 would have brought U6).

During the Ice Age, the Red Sea was lower and the passage from East Africa to the Arabian peninsula easier than today. The Arabian peninsula was also much greener. With all that water around, and a temperate area similar to continental Europe today, there is a high chance that the Red Sea region was more heavily populated than almost anywhere else on earth at the time. This is where E1b1b, F, G, IJ, K and T could have originated, as well as many mtDNA haplogroups, including R, HV, H, JT, J and T.


* EDIT : The top subclades of E1b1b1 (M78, M81 and M123) split away from each others 20,000 years ago, roughly the same time as R1 split into R1a and R1b, or I split into I1 and I2. So if there is a clear Dodecad admixture matching R1b (Northwest European) and one matching R1a (East European), it's only natural that the E-M81 (Northwest African) is separate from the E-M78 (Mediterranean).
 
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E1b1b wasn't found in Neolithic sites in Europe either because it came later (most common assumption), or because it was already there since the Paleolithic/Mesolithic, alongside haplogroup I. I am increasingly in favour of the second scenario, because I just can't see how E1b1b could have become so widespread in Europe with a post-Bronze Age arrival. We still don't have any Paleolithic or Mesolithic Y-DNA, and the Neolithic archaeological sites were essentially inhabited by the people who brought the Neolithic culture, not by the contemporary indigenous hunter-gatherers. There is so little haplogroup I in Italy in particular that I foresee that E-M78 (with a E-M81 and E-M123 minority) migrated from North Africa to South Italy, then to Greece, then to the Balkans. Iberia was settled by the same haplogroups but with more E-M81. There were probably several waves in both cases.

I'm a bit confused which subclades you're putting where, when. Would you actually place E1b-M81 and E1b-V13 in Europe during the Paleolithic? Y-STR dating and diversity analysis of those clades pretty much rules that out. A Mesolithic arrival isn't impossible, though... worth investigating.
 
I'm a bit confused which subclades you're putting where, when. Would you actually place E1b-M81 and E1b-V13 in Europe during the Paleolithic? Y-STR dating and diversity analysis of those clades pretty much rules that out. A Mesolithic arrival isn't impossible, though... worth investigating.

According to Cruciani :

- E1b1b is 22,000 years ago
- E1b1b1a (E-M78, or actually E-V68 now) is 18,500 years

During this period, around the Last Glacial Maximum, the Sahara and Arabian peninsula were a vast patchwork of dense and sparse forests (temperate in the north, tropical in the south), not unlike eastern India and eastern China, but on a bigger scale. The regular monsoon that allowed this rich vegetation to flourish left about 13,000 years ago, then returned, then left again 6000 years ago and hasn't come back (yet). Each event brought a sudden desertification to the Sahara and Arabian peninsula, and I think that each time animals and people just moved somewhere else where there was more water and vegetation, both north and south. So E1b1b might have first arrived to southern Europe (at least in great number) roughly 12-13,000 years ago, which also coincides with the end of the Ice Age, the beginning of the Mesolithic, and the climate getting comfortably warmer in Europe, allowing Paleolithic Europeans (hg I) to move further north, and North Africans (E1b1b) to settle in southern Europe.

As for E-V13, it probably already existed at the time of this migration, and due to a founder effect became somehow a dominant lineage in Greece. It's not clear whether the founder effect applied to Mesolithic South Italy too, or if E-V13 really developed in Balkanic Greece then re-expanded to South Italy later with the Greek colonisation. It's also possible that E-V13 originated in Greece itself after E-M78 had come from North Africa, and that all the E-V13 in North Africa today is of Greco-Roman origin, but I doubt so, because E-V13 is too widespread around Europe and the Middle East too, and I don't think the Greeks and Romans are solely responsible for all of it.
 
Yes and no. If the Paleolithic inhabitants of the North Sahara, or at least coastal North Africa, are the ones who brought E-M78 to Europe (in the Mesolithic ?), they could have been very different people from the modern North Africans. Present-day Maghrebans have more E-M81, which could have been the main haplogroup of the central Sahara before it turned into a vast desert. Forced to move north and south, these E-M81 could have displaced a part of this E-M78 population to southern Europe. However, the names of the Dodecad Admixtures only reflect the distribution of these genes today. If there was a major migration from North Africa to southern Europe, then it would be one of the principal admixture found in southern Europe today, but would still be found at a reasonably high (though lower) frequency in North Africa today. The only candidate that match this is the Mediterranean admixture*.

Oh, I see your point now! You mean that the modern makeup of Northwest African (even if we substract the Arab influence) would not be representative at all of the ancient North African population. This is definitely a very interesting new and promising approach!
 
One thing that may help solve this problem is examining the distribution of R1b-L11*, which is the direct ancestor of S116 (which some say originated in Iberia among the Beaker folk) and U106. (map by Myres 2010):
mapa L11.JPG
Here, we see 3 places where there is a relatively high concentration:
-The Midlands of England, and to a lesser extent, the rest of England as well as Wales
-A trans-alpine area stretching from Lombardy to southern Germany
-The southwest coast of the Baltic (roughly the Baltic coasts of Poland, Germany, Germany and Sweden)
The Spanish Levant, Brittany and most of Germany also show notable frequencies (though lesser than the ones mentioned).
Now then, if the Beaker Culture truly were responsible for the expansion of S116, I doubt L11* were absent in such core Beaker areas as Western Iberia and Sardinia.
Instead, I rather believe that L11 originated c. 2500-2300 BC in Central Europe in the Early Bronze Age or Late Copper Age, either with an Indo-Europeanized late Beaker culture or the Unetice culture (this would explain the abundance of L11* in the Trans-Alpine area described above).
 
I'm not saying that S116 IS from Iberia, I'm just suggesting that S116 MOVED INTO Iberia. Then some of S116 early subclades evolved in Iberia and moved up to north in the same direction with the original Beaker folks.
 
I'm not saying that S116 IS from Iberia, I'm just suggesting that S116 MOVED INTO Iberia. Then some of S116 early subclades evolved in Iberia and moved up to north in the same direction with the original Beaker folks.

As I (and other board members) said before, there's no reason to assume S116's subclades (except for Z196) evolved in Iberia.
 
As I (and other board members) said before, there's no reason to assume S116's subclades (except for Z196) evolved in Iberia.
But S116 settled in Iberia, that's a fact and I believe it's an ancestor of S28/U152. We're talking about the linear continuity here.

And where would that place be?
Maybe England or maybe Central Europe!
 
So... in your opinion, L11 can't be equated with the Indo-European expansion?

I don't think that the whole R1b is Indo-European at all. European R1b is native to Europe, it's European. European R1b has nothing to do with the early INDO-Europeans!

And R1a alone is not Indo-European either. The new Indo-European race/ethnicity was born when R1a and J2a mixed with each other somewhere around the Caucasus be it Northern Caucasus (or the Pontic-Caspian Steppe) or be it Southern Caucasus.
 

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