Nordvedt wrote:
The huge European y haplogroup I1 seems to have a TMRCA of only about 4500 years. Yet, our best present knowledge is that the y tree branch line leading to the I1 founder parted ways from the rest of the haplogroup I tree over 20,000 years ago. We have no evidence right now of any intermediate branches coming off this pre-I1 ancestral line and reaching the present --- a "barren" 16,000 year interval of a branch line hovering on the edge of extinction.
The challenge is to find the haplotype today with the greatest GD or variance as measured from the modal I1 haplotype --- about as good a candidate as we have for the I1 MRCA's founding haplotype. This haplotype must be S31- but M170+; in other words I(xI2) This does not guarantee the haplotype will then be a pre-I1 branch from the ancestral line to I1, it could be an I* haplotype instead. But such a haplotype, I(xI2), could be tested for a number of the many, many snps we have right now which we know are spread randomly along that 16,000 year line. If it is positive for any of them, it qualifies.
Probably some rule is needed to exclude major mutational jumps in which some STR added or lost a large number of repeats in one process. I have not figured out yet how to state such a rule.
Since every haplotype in our databases is not snp tested (actually, most are not), I'd suggest only considering haplotypes with DYS455 = 8 (and maybe 7 and 9) at first. But look out for haplotypes from an African haplogroup which also has 8 at DYs455; I think some supplementary filter will also be needed.
Do you have a candidate haplotype for this search?”
"Edge of extinction" - this could mean hg I1 could have been carried by a small group of men anywhere in Europe or outside, but most likely the Balkans. Klyosov's data supports this too. He believes hg I originated on the Russian plain over 40 thousand years ago, but it's bearers mostly underwent a population bottleneck 6000-4000 years ago. His data shows the following for I2 sub-clades:
Haplotype trees for all three
haplogroups listed above are more uniform ones, and their “age” is 5600±620
years (I2a1), 5700±590 (I2b1) and 5000±630 (I2b2)
In another paper he writes:
The value for TSCA seen in the populations discussed
above are quite typical of other European I1 populations. For the Northwest European/Scandinavian
(Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland) combined series
of haplotypes the TSCA equals to 3375±345 ybp. For
the Central and South Europe (Austria, Belgium, Netherlands, France, Italy, Switzerland, Spain) it equals to
3425±350 ybp, for Germany 3225±330 ybp, for the
East European countries (Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Lithuania) it is equal to 3225±360 ybp (to be
published). It is of interest that even Middle Eastern I1
haplotypes (Jordan, Lebanon, and presumably Jewish
ones) descend from a common ancestor who lived at
about the same time, 3475±480 ybp
So it seems I is indeed Paleolithic in Europe, but the Paleolithic didn't affect it's current population structure because of the bottleneck.