Dienekes has posted a nice summary of the history of migration theories since the early days of anthropology with Coon until the latest DNA tests on Neolithic and Mesolithic Europeans.
We will know more once more ancient DNA is tested. Everybody is looking forward for the prehistoric Y-DNA results. If my reasoning is correct it should confirm my own migration theories as illustrated by these maps.
In short, I postulate that :
- Mesolithic hunter-gatherers belonged to Y-DNA haplogroup I (and mtDNA haplogroup U)
- Early Neolithic farmers from Greece and the Balkans brought Y-DNA haplogroups E1b1b (notably E-V13), T and J2 (especially J2b), and possibly also G2a, which I associated with the spread of sheep and goat herders from the Caucasus region and Anatolia westward along the Mediterranean.
- The next wave of migrants were the Bronze-Age Indo-Europeans, which can be separated in two groups : the northern R1a from the Eurasian steppes, and the southern R1b from the region north and south of the Caucasus and around the Black Sea, especially in northern Anatolia and southern Russia. This was the first violent migration into Europe. Their technological superiority and war-like culture caused them to replace most of the older paternal lineages in conquered regions, giving the current landscape of R1b-R1a dominated Western and Eastern Europe. Regions with a long tradition of agriculture and bigger cities, like the Balkans, Greece and southern Italy, suffered less from the Indo-Europeans.
At present it looks like the Indo-Europeans could have belonged to mtDNA haplogroups U (U3 and U4 ?), H (H5 and H7 ?), K, I, W and X. Some J and T is also possible for the R1b group due to their Middle-Eastern origin.
We will know more once more ancient DNA is tested. Everybody is looking forward for the prehistoric Y-DNA results. If my reasoning is correct it should confirm my own migration theories as illustrated by these maps.
In short, I postulate that :
- Mesolithic hunter-gatherers belonged to Y-DNA haplogroup I (and mtDNA haplogroup U)
- Early Neolithic farmers from Greece and the Balkans brought Y-DNA haplogroups E1b1b (notably E-V13), T and J2 (especially J2b), and possibly also G2a, which I associated with the spread of sheep and goat herders from the Caucasus region and Anatolia westward along the Mediterranean.
- The next wave of migrants were the Bronze-Age Indo-Europeans, which can be separated in two groups : the northern R1a from the Eurasian steppes, and the southern R1b from the region north and south of the Caucasus and around the Black Sea, especially in northern Anatolia and southern Russia. This was the first violent migration into Europe. Their technological superiority and war-like culture caused them to replace most of the older paternal lineages in conquered regions, giving the current landscape of R1b-R1a dominated Western and Eastern Europe. Regions with a long tradition of agriculture and bigger cities, like the Balkans, Greece and southern Italy, suffered less from the Indo-Europeans.
At present it looks like the Indo-Europeans could have belonged to mtDNA haplogroups U (U3 and U4 ?), H (H5 and H7 ?), K, I, W and X. Some J and T is also possible for the R1b group due to their Middle-Eastern origin.