Two major new papers on Early Neolithic to Early Bronze Age mtDNA in Central Europe

[Tone]

The question for me is, why the difference in central Europe? Was there less suitable land for these Near Eastern crops, and were crops less abundant even in those specific areas, and so their way of life seemed less successful? Was there more territory suitable to the retention of the HG way of life? Or were these people just less adaptable to a new way of life? After all, in a deeply profound and professional comment, Dr. Wolfgang Haak stated for a Washington Post article that “Farmers are probably loud, noisy and stinky at the same time. They come with domestic farm animals and just take over the place.” Maybe they even had mandolins?

The land around Central Europe is in the same climate zone as the Pacific North West in North America. When "discovered" by Europeans about 200 years ago, the Native Americans living in this zone practiced little to no agriculture, yet achieved a fairly high population density because the area was rich in available food resources, including fish.

The situation in Central Europe was probably the same thousands of years ago. The Central European LBK farmers were stopped because it's quite possible the natives were too strong in number in the territories North, East and West of the agricultural lands. And the natives had no incentive to adopt agriculture since they were already living in one of the best food spots the planet Earth has to offer.

Just an idea...

 

[Maciamo]

Isn't HV Mesolithic?

All top level mt-haplogroups are Paleolithic.

 

[Maciamo]

FWIW Jean Manco disputes these results. In general, none of the supposed H reported from that period have been tested at high enough resolution to say that they were H for sure. Those two studies between them had maybe 3 samples that could have been H and were reported as H (but also could have been something else), along with 3 that were probably incorrectly reported as H.

If they weren't H, they were HV or R0, but in any case not U4 or U5. HV and R0 are typically Middle Eastern/Southwest Asian haplogroups, so if that it the case, it could mean that haplogroup such as E1b1b, T or J were present in Iberia during the late Paleolithic or Mesolithic.

 

[LeBrok]

Originally Posted by Angela
The question for me is, why the difference in central Europe? Was there less suitable land for these Near Eastern crops, and were crops less abundant even in those specific areas, and so their way of life seemed less successful? Was there more territory suitable to the retention of the HG way of life? Or were these people just less adaptable to a new way of life? After all, in a deeply profound and professional comment, Dr. Wolfgang Haak stated for a Washington Post article that “Farmers are probably loud, noisy and stinky at the same time. They come with domestic farm animals and just take over the place.” Maybe they even had mandolins? :

The situation in Central Europe was probably the same thousands of years ago. The Central European LBK farmers were stopped because it's quite possible the natives were too strong in number in the territories North, East and West of the agricultural lands. And the natives had no incentive to adopt agriculture since they were already living in one of the best food spots the planet Earth has to offer.

Just an idea...

Central and North East Europe was very wooded with thick forests way back. It was hard to clear forests with copper tools, therefore first thriving big scale cultures showed up with Corded Ware bronze age people. With bronze axes it became feasible to cut thick forest for crop fields.

Secondly, I suspect that early crops varieties were of Middle Eastern and South European kinds. It took time to modify them and bread new varieties for Central and Northern European climate.

Thirdly, first farmers who got to Europe were of darker skin colour than today Europeans. They needed time to mix with locals and develop lighter skin colour, more suitable for low UV radiation and more efficient in vitamin D production.

These 3 major obstacles were in the way of South European farmers moving North in big numbers. It might also explain why first big farming communities/cultures happened when R1a and I people of Central and Northern Europe learned how to farm. They've already had lighter skin and other predispositions to colder weather. But still they didn't go big till invention of a bronze axe.

 

[Tabaccus Maximus]

FWIW Jean Manco disputes these results. In general, none of the supposed H reported from that period have been tested at high enough resolution to say that they were H for sure. Those two studies between them had maybe 3 samples that could have been H and were reported as H (but also could have been something else), along with 3 that were probably incorrectly reported as H.

My antennas are also alerted to the Spanish results. Several things just don't jive and I meant to make the case in a seperate post but I'll put here.

1. We've learned from the last of the two papers that Hunter-Gatherer populations were alive and well during the Neolithic, un-neolithicized and continuing to follow traditional sustainment strategies. This poses an immediate problem for dating sites in Spain. If I positively extract haplogroup H from a presumably Paleolithic cultural site, then I must rely exclusively on carbon dates to put into a timeline. (Paleolithic age technolgies persist even in 2013)

2. If H survived in the Franco-Cantabrian refuge, why did U* re-colonize Europe but H did not. Doesn't that seem a little strange given highly procreative nature of H and the likelyhood that through the Ice Age, the Franco-Cantabrian refuge sustained a relatively small, homogenous, hunter-gatherer population built on similar way of life?

3. The dates don't jive. H can only be so old. That means H1 & H3 have only so long to trek into Spain before getting snowed-in for a few thousand years. Even moderate ages for H1 & H3 don't work.

 

[Tabaccus Maximus]

More thoughts...

I would expect low amounts of H* to leak into Europe with Linear Band Culture and the later Rossen or Funnel Beaker Culture. Both move westward and show signs of cultural diffusion.

With enough time H eventually reaches Treilles, France (3000 B.C.) which is also believable given the context of other haplogroups and culture through which it is associated.

Graphically, dates and sites for H in Spain 'appear' out of place...

Which brings us to the most holy of all sacred cows...dating archealogy sites in Northern Spain based on associated technologies and carbon dates.

UH-OH!

 

[adamo]

Wait, what? Why did U re-colonize Europe and H did not?? Mtdna H is found in 40-60% of the females in virtually every European country. It reaches highest frequency in 63% of Irish females and originated in the Cantabrian refuge. From there it spread heavily to nearby countries and all across Europe, with a marked west to east percentage gradient. (Highest frequencies are in west and Central Europe and the frequencies decrease as we hit he western Russian planes and towards Asia. Mtdna H was by all odds the most successful European mtdna haplogroup. V also spread from the Cantabrian refuge but today is only found at high frequencies (40% or more) in extreme northern Scandinavia parts of norther Sweden Norway and Finland. U was the oldest mtdna group to enter Europe though, exiting the Middle East and heading towards northwestern Russia/ the Baltic states region. From here, where the highest frequencies are experienced, some of these females would have leaked into parts of the Balkans or more towards west/Central Europe at lower frequencies. Finland,France,Belgium,Latvia,lithuania Croatia; all these countries have European HiGhS of U at 20-25% of their females. Average is about 15% of the females in all European countries are U; it's a rarer northeastern European haplogroup (not Scandinavia as V is centred in north Scandinavia), but near the Baltic states region is where U peaks.

 

[Floyo]

All top level mt-haplogroups are Paleolithic.

NVM, i understand it now.

 

[Tabaccus Maximus]

Wait, what? Why did U re-colonize Europe and H did not??

That is what I am saying.
http://dienekes.blogspot.jp/2013/04/mtdna-haplogroup-h-and-origin-of.html

It is one thing to say that Haplogroup H is virtually absent in the Mesolithic, its another to graphically illustrate the various ages and distributions which I will try to find and post.
What I am saying, is that for whatever reason, Paleolithic H samples in Spain are a clear outlier. They do not conform to any reasonably expected pattern. The many issues with persisting hunter-gather technologies, dating and the general trash that is taken for archeogenetics and interpretation in Spain might be an explanation.

Mtdna H is found in 40-60% of the females in virtually every European country.

That it is true, Sir.

It reaches highest frequency in 63% of Irish females and originated in the Cantabrian refuge.

It does have a pattern of extreme excelleration in the archeological record begining in the late Neolithic. H1 and H3 may have travelled from Spain, maybe not, but they are not old enough by any liberal measure to be Franco-Cantabrian refugees. Simply not old enough at all, ever, by anyone's numbers.

From there it spread heavily to nearby countries and all across Europe, with a marked west to east percentage gradient.

That may be true for H1 and H3. That may also be partly true for some clades of R1b. If Beakers began expanding from Spain, and if Beakers were some kind or many kinds of R1b, then that may be why they are often yoked together.

 

[MOESAN]

Part of the issue is with the eternal problem of dating. Are you relying on any particular study for the dating of, if not the origin, the expansion of mt dna H? For instance, what do you think of the Behar et al study on it?
http://www.cell.com/AJHG/abstract/S0002-9297(12)00146-2
In table S5 of the supplement he gives the following dates for these H subclades, if I'm reading it correctly:
H1 9,888
H2 11,905
H3 8919

Those look like Neolithic dates to me.

For a long time, the conventional wisdom seemed to be that H had a starburst pattern and the diversity showed a source in the Middle East. That could have been followed by a movement along both coasts of the Mediterranean, with H1 and H3 moving from North Africa into Iberia? Or does the phylogeny indicate that it moved in the other direction?

If this movement began in the late Mesolithic, it could explain the stray H found in Mesolithic eastern Europe, picked up from a woman brought from the Caucasus, for example. The "Mesolithic" H in Iberia is another issue. Some experts in mt dna claim that the tests used too few sequences and they could just as well be "U". I suppose the only way we'll know is to get better samples, tested more rigorously, from southern Europe.

One things is pretty clear to me anyway, and that is that H was not "the" mt dna marker for Central and Eastern Europe during the Mesolithic.

thanks for your link (but it's an abstract,the hell!) and for your thoughts -
I agree mt H doesn't seem the typical mt HGr of central and eastern Europe during mesolithic -
all the way all our '-lithic' names are confusing because they refer to culture evolution and we give them a date of birth linked to the source of culture in a place, when the date of apparition in other places in very different - (I think in so called 'neolithical sites' in France were in fact some populations were at the mesolithical stage) - 8000/9000 BC neolithical? in Near-East maybe, but elsewhere? if in Iberia: Mesolithical!?!
what would account is the dates of presence in western Europe...
I agree for a possible path through one or the two sides of Mediterranea sea concerning mt H, who knows (what Y-DNA HG?) - bearers of the archaic type of 'cromagnoid-mediterranean' of Charles (1060's)? an heavy element among autosomals 'mediterranean component' (basque side)???

 

[Angela]

thanks for your link (but it's an abstract,the hell!) and for your thoughts -
I agree mt H doesn't seem the typical mt HGr of central and eastern Europe during mesolithic -
all the way all our '-lithic' names are confusing because they refer to culture evolution and we give them a date of birth linked to the source of culture in a place, when the date of apparition in other places in very different - (I think in so called 'neolithical sites' in France were in fact some populations were at the mesolithical stage) - 8000/9000 BC neolithical? in Near-East maybe, but elsewhere? if in Iberia: Mesolithical!?!
what would account is the dates of presence in western Europe...
I agree for a possible path through one or the two sides of Mediterranea sea concerning mt H, who knows (what Y-DNA HG?) - bearers of the archaic type of 'cromagnoid-mediterranean' of Charles (1060's)? an heavy element among autosomals 'mediterranean component' (basque side)???

The link to the pdf was in the upper right hand corner. Here is a direct link to the paper. You need to follow the links to the Supplemental Data. The dates are in Table S5.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002929712001462

I would indeed agree that of course it's important for our purposes when a lineage got to Europe.

However, the estimated age of a lineage is a floor or ceiling, whichever you choose.

If Behar's dates are correct, mtDNA "H" is only 12,846 years old, or 10, 800 B.C. So, is it plausible it was already in the Franco Cantabrian refugia and ready to expand in 11,500 with the beginning of the Holocene, especially if the starburst pattern and variance mean that "H" originated in the Middle East? And if it is plausible, why don't we see the same pattern of spread as for U5?

Hervella et al 2012 did label two finds from Upper Paleolithic/Magdalenian sites in Cantabria as H and H6. However, first of all, they don't provide actual dates for these two samples, which isn't helpful. Secondly, Behar's date for H6 is 10,945, which is a problem. Also, the classification for both these samples is in dispute, as apparently the H6 one could just as well be U, and the H one is more likely to be RO or HV.
Hervella et al...http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0034417

This is why I asked what people thought of the Behar dates.

HV is kind of old (21,905 years ago) and the Paglicci 25 cave sample, which might be HV or RO is dated to 24,000 BP. HV is just possible, given SD differences, and RO is definitely possible, as it's dated to 39,960.

I'm taking some of this sample information from Jean Manco's online collection of ancient dna...I don't think it's up to date, but it gives a pretty good idea.
http://www.ancestraljourneys.org/ancientdna.shtml

And then, at the end of the day, how do we know that if there were some early stray HV or H migrants into Europe, that they even survived, and the majority didn't arrive until the Neolithic, for which period the trail is very clear.

Btw, MtDna "V", according to Behar, has an age 9,739