24,000 year old Mal'ta Siberians (ydna R* and mtdna U*)

Tabaccus Maximus

Tabaccus Maximus
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Ethnic group
Galo-Germanic Atlantic Fringe
Y-DNA haplogroup
R1b - SRY 2627
mtDNA haplogroup
H1a
The 24,000 year old Mal'ta mammoth hunter encampment is rumored to show individuals to belonging to y-chromosomal haplogroup R* (no additional details) and mtdna haplogroup U*. The Afontova Gora individuals from roughly the same time also appear to have the same profile. Dienekes has posted:

http://dienekes.blogspot.jp/2013/10/paleoamericanodyssey-tweets-on-24000.html


It seems my post on R* and Q* (P-M45) Siberian connections was timely, coming just a few days before the PaleoAmerican Conference, here on Eupedia.

http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/29167-Haplogroup-P-M45-link-to-Mound-Building


There are some especially interesting things about the discovery. One is the apparent lack of any sort of East Asian admixture in the Mal'ta or Afontova individuals, but people who had typical "Mongoloid" features and dark skin.

This raises several questions about the Mal'ta individuals:

1. What kind of R*, or is it even R* and not P-M45 or Q*? Is it R1*, R2*?

2. Are the Mal'taian or Afontova hunters related to hunters in Europe? There are striking similarities, also big differences.

3. Are Native Americans racially a combined mixture of nomadic West Asian mammoth hunters and East Asians?

4. And/or are Europeans a mixture of a Mongoloid R* and Caucusian women (U*, H* and T*)

5. Did R* belong to a completely different race (say R/Q* + X) and mixed with East Asians and Caucasians producing Amerindians and Europeans, respectively?



We will be talking about this for a long time! Big, exciting news.
 
The Mal'ta site is essentially in the Yeniseian region, home to the Yeniseian language which has been proposed being akin to the Na-Dene languages of the Americas. This is probably totally irrelavant and coincidental given the fact that the Mal'ta site is 24,000 years old.


More questions for the masses:

1. Does this potentially move the origin of R* further East?

2. Assuming R*/Q* people drove the mammoth into extinction, what impact did dwindling herds have on the migratory movements of these people?

3. Was there a pollenization effect whereby highly migratory hunters were exposed to vastly different cultural traditions and technologies?
 
I believe this is just another indication that prehistoric Northeast Asians were more Caucasian than modern. There is even an article on Dienekes blog which says Native Americans are a Caucasian/Mongolian hybrid type.
 
are there any serious sources or only rumours?
 
Native Americans are siberians that crossed the Bering Straight over into Alaska and then conquering the Americas (this can be reflected by Y-DNA Q, the haplogroup of the Americas)....before that the ancestors of most Native American males were in Central Asia stuck at the P mutation that splits most European males (R) from most Native American males (Q) in the plains of Kazakhstan...The R males for the most part would head westwards, either slightly (R1a) or early on penetrating deep into Western Europe (R1b) other rare branches would spread in/near parts of turkey and the Caucasus (R1b) or even Iran and heavily into Central Asia (Afghanistan,Pakistan,India,Uzbekistan,Turkmenistan) (R1a)
 
I've been reading about this quite a bit, too. The archaeology of the area, particularly the dating, seems to be a bit of a mess... some people are claiming that the "R" man is from the Middle Paleolithic, and the definitely "Mongoloid" child found nearby? is from the Late Paleolithic, after the LGM...I don't know given the state of the scholarship what the story is...I think we have to wait until the paper comes out to see where exactly they found the R and U combination, and in what exact archaeological context and with as accurate a date as possible...was it at Mal'ta which might be LGM, or the site further north which was abandoned in the LGM, to be inhabited by people from the east later, or both...but he seems to be definitely "R" and "U", and he is "much darker than Oetzi".

I don't know why the latter is a particular surprise. I know of one paper that dated blue eyes, for example, to 6,000 B.C., down around the Black Sea, and attributed it to the Neolithic diet not providing enough Vitamin D, and not getting enough of it from the sun at higher latitudes, which meant that this mutation spread very quickly in those populations. The other paper of which I'm aware gives a broad range for light skin mutations in Europeans of about 19,000 to 11,000 years before present. Even the absolutely most ancient date would be after the time of this hunter gatherer, while the 11,000 year old date, 9000 B.C., fits in very nicely with the Neolithic transformation in and around the northern Near East.

As for how and when the internet got a hold of it, it was leaked by a presenter at the PaleoAmerican conference who spoke to the author of the paper. He later tried to take it down, but it was too late.

I thought this was a very interesting quote from his blog:
ADMIXTURE showed West Eurasian, Amerindian and Southeast Asian (Pacific) components. No East Asians again.

Again, I don't think this is a huge surprise... MtDNA U2 looks like it might have developed somewhere in between Siberia and India,(maybe somewhere east of the Caucasus?) spreading both north and south.
The Kostenki skull, as modeled by the scientists (which admittedly has to be taken with a grain of salt...remember how they created an Oetzi with blue eyes who looked northern European before they got the dna?) looks sort of South Indian to me, or indeed Oceanian...

It's interesting that someone broke protocol and somehow got access to the raw data and ran it through a calculator. Not Kosher...but it gives us a glimpse...it looks like the data was run through the MDLP calculator.

These are the results:
[2,] “33.7% Brahui + 66.3% Udmurd” “21.9804″
[3,] “34.5% Makrani + 65.5% Udmurd” “22.357″
[4,] “34.3% Balochi + 65.7% Udmurd” “22.413″
[5,] “33.3% Sindhi + 66.7% Udmurd” “24.1198″
[6,] “36.5% Burusho + 63.5% Udmurd” “24.211″
[7,] “39.7% Pashtun + 60.3% Udmurd” “24.3389″
[8,] “34.3% Pathan + 65.7% Udmurd” “24.716″
[9,] “32.2% Pakistani + 67.8% Udmurd” “24.753″
[10,] “41.4% Tadjik + 58.6% Udmurd” “24.852

There's the south Asian, maybe ASI heavy component, and then with the Udmurts you have both a more western Eurasian dna and an eastern "Siberian" one?

Just for the heck of it I looked these people up online...

These are the Balochi:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6aFtYVGidvk/TVRdcn7IuyI/AAAAAAAAAAY/qQKTJA1q5QA/s1600/3.jpg
This is one of the two peaks of the Gedrosia component.

I couldn't find group pictures of the Brahui with enough resolution.. but you can just google them.

These are the Udmurts...I did not pick a picture from the ones obviously cherry picked for "northern European" looking people and then posted on line...I went with a picture taken quite a while ago by scientists...however, you can see the "Siberian" look in some of the people even in the pictures chosen to highlight the red hair that sometimes appears amongst them...guess they forgot to crop out the pretty girl all the way on the left. :)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Udmurt_people.jpg
http://russianpickle.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/udmurt_people_red.jpg?w=300&h=225

So, if we us the modern Udmurts for 66% of the mixture in this R man, it seems to me that Mr. R definitely had some "Siberian" type genes.

Does anyone have access to the admixture results of the Udmurts? I would think Dienekes has included them in Globe 13 but it must be one of those populations represented by letters...I don't know which one.

Ed. I can provide citations for the two pigmentation studies that give approximate dates if someone wants them.
 
I've been reading about this quite a bit, too. The archaeology of the area, particularly the dating, seems to be a bit of a mess... some people are claiming that the "R" man is from the Middle Paleolithic, and the definitely "Mongoloid" child found nearby? is from the Late Paleolithic, after the LGM...I don't know given the state of the scholarship what the story is...I think we have to wait until the paper comes out to see where exactly they found the R and U combination, and in what exact archaeological context and with as accurate a date as possible...was it at Mal'ta which might be LGM, or the site further north which was abandoned in the LGM, to be inhabited by people from the east later, or both...but he seems to be definitely "R" and "U", and he is "much darker than Oetzi".

I don't know why the latter is a particular surprise. I know of one paper that dated blue eyes, for example, to 6,000 B.C., down around the Black Sea, and attributed it to the Neolithic diet not providing enough Vitamin D, and not getting enough of it from the sun at higher latitudes, which meant that this mutation spread very quickly in those populations. The other paper of which I'm aware gives a broad range for light skin mutations in Europeans of about 19,000 to 11,000 years before present. Even the absolutely most ancient date would be after the time of this hunter gatherer, while the 11,000 year old date, 9000 B.C., fits in very nicely with the Neolithic transformation in and around the northern Near East.

As for how and when the internet got a hold of it, it was leaked by a presenter at the PaleoAmerican conference who spoke to the author of the paper. He later tried to take it down, but it was too late.

I thought this was a very interesting quote from his blog:
ADMIXTURE showed West Eurasian, Amerindian and Southeast Asian (Pacific) components. No East Asians again.

Again, I don't think this is a huge surprise... MtDNA U2 looks like it might have developed somewhere in between Siberia and India,(maybe somewhere east of the Caucasus?) spreading both north and south.
The Kostenki skull, as modeled by the scientists (which admittedly has to be taken with a grain of salt...remember how they created an Oetzi with blue eyes who looked northern European before they got the dna?) looks sort of South Indian to me, or indeed Oceanian...

It's interesting that someone broke protocol and somehow got access to the raw data and ran it through a calculator. Not Kosher...but it gives us a glimpse...it looks like the data was run through the MDLP calculator.

These are the results:
[2,] “33.7% Brahui + 66.3% Udmurd” “21.9804″
[3,] “34.5% Makrani + 65.5% Udmurd” “22.357″
[4,] “34.3% Balochi + 65.7% Udmurd” “22.413″
[5,] “33.3% Sindhi + 66.7% Udmurd” “24.1198″
[6,] “36.5% Burusho + 63.5% Udmurd” “24.211″
[7,] “39.7% Pashtun + 60.3% Udmurd” “24.3389″
[8,] “34.3% Pathan + 65.7% Udmurd” “24.716″
[9,] “32.2% Pakistani + 67.8% Udmurd” “24.753″
[10,] “41.4% Tadjik + 58.6% Udmurd” “24.852

There's the south Asian, maybe ASI heavy component, and then with the Udmurts you have both a more western Eurasian dna and an eastern "Siberian" one?

Just for the heck of it I looked these people up online...

These are the Balochi:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6aFtYVGidvk/TVRdcn7IuyI/AAAAAAAAAAY/qQKTJA1q5QA/s1600/3.jpg
This is one of the two peaks of the Gedrosia component.

I couldn't find group pictures of the Brahui with enough resolution.. but you can just google them.

These are the Udmurts...I did not pick a picture from the ones obviously cherry picked for "northern European" looking people and then posted on line...I went with a picture taken quite a while ago by scientists...however, you can see the "Siberian" look in some of the people even in the pictures chosen to highlight the red hair that sometimes appears amongst them...guess they forgot to crop out the pretty girl all the way on the left. :)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Udmurt_people.jpg
http://russianpickle.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/udmurt_people_red.jpg?w=300&h=225

So, if we us the modern Udmurts for 66% of the mixture in this R man, it seems to me that Mr. R definitely had some "Siberian" type genes.

Does anyone have access to the admixture results of the Udmurts? I would think Dienekes has included them in Globe 13 but it must be one of those populations represented by letters...I don't know which one.

Ed. I can provide citations for the two pigmentation studies that give approximate dates if someone wants them.

Here an admixture analysis which includes Udmurts:
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...ans-or-Nordics?p=411687&viewfull=1#post411687

I interpreted them to be northeast european (aka "saami"+"supposed indo-european" component), but unsure.
 
I've been reading about this quite a bit, too. The archaeology of the area, particularly the dating, seems to be a bit of a mess... some people are claiming that the "R" man is from the Middle Paleolithic, and the definitely "Mongoloid" child found nearby? is from the Late Paleolithic, after the LGM...I don't know given the state of the scholarship what the story is...I think we have to wait until the paper comes out to see where exactly they found the R and U combination, and in what exact archaeological context and with as accurate a date as possible...was it at Mal'ta which might be LGM, or the site further north which was abandoned in the LGM, to be inhabited by people from the east later, or both...but he seems to be definitely "R" and "U", and he is "much darker than Oetzi".

I don't know why the latter is a particular surprise. I know of one paper that dated blue eyes, for example, to 6,000 B.C., down around the Black Sea, and attributed it to the Neolithic diet not providing enough Vitamin D, and not getting enough of it from the sun at higher latitudes, which meant that this mutation spread very quickly in those populations. The other paper of which I'm aware gives a broad range for light skin mutations in Europeans of about 19,000 to 11,000 years before present. Even the absolutely most ancient date would be after the time of this hunter gatherer, while the 11,000 year old date, 9000 B.C., fits in very nicely with the Neolithic transformation in and around the northern Near East.

As for how and when the internet got a hold of it, it was leaked by a presenter at the PaleoAmerican conference who spoke to the author of the paper. He later tried to take it down, but it was too late.

I thought this was a very interesting quote from his blog:
ADMIXTURE showed West Eurasian, Amerindian and Southeast Asian (Pacific) components. No East Asians again.

Again, I don't think this is a huge surprise... MtDNA U2 looks like it might have developed somewhere in between Siberia and India,(maybe somewhere east of the Caucasus?) spreading both north and south.
The Kostenki skull, as modeled by the scientists (which admittedly has to be taken with a grain of salt...remember how they created an Oetzi with blue eyes who looked northern European before they got the dna?) looks sort of South Indian to me, or indeed Oceanian...

It's interesting that someone broke protocol and somehow got access to the raw data and ran it through a calculator. Not Kosher...but it gives us a glimpse...it looks like the data was run through the MDLP calculator.

These are the results:
[2,] “33.7% Brahui + 66.3% Udmurd” “21.9804″
[3,] “34.5% Makrani + 65.5% Udmurd” “22.357″
[4,] “34.3% Balochi + 65.7% Udmurd” “22.413″
[5,] “33.3% Sindhi + 66.7% Udmurd” “24.1198″
[6,] “36.5% Burusho + 63.5% Udmurd” “24.211″
[7,] “39.7% Pashtun + 60.3% Udmurd” “24.3389″
[8,] “34.3% Pathan + 65.7% Udmurd” “24.716″
[9,] “32.2% Pakistani + 67.8% Udmurd” “24.753″
[10,] “41.4% Tadjik + 58.6% Udmurd” “24.852

There's the south Asian, maybe ASI heavy component, and then with the Udmurts you have both a more western Eurasian dna and an eastern "Siberian" one?

Just for the heck of it I looked these people up online...

These are the Balochi:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6aFtYVGidvk/TVRdcn7IuyI/AAAAAAAAAAY/qQKTJA1q5QA/s1600/3.jpg
This is one of the two peaks of the Gedrosia component.

I couldn't find group pictures of the Brahui with enough resolution.. but you can just google them.

These are the Udmurts...I did not pick a picture from the ones obviously cherry picked for "northern European" looking people and then posted on line...I went with a picture taken quite a while ago by scientists...however, you can see the "Siberian" look in some of the people even in the pictures chosen to highlight the red hair that sometimes appears amongst them...guess they forgot to crop out the pretty girl all the way on the left. :)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Udmurt_people.jpg
http://russianpickle.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/udmurt_people_red.jpg?w=300&h=225

So, if we us the modern Udmurts for 66% of the mixture in this R man, it seems to me that Mr. R definitely had some "Siberian" type genes.

Does anyone have access to the admixture results of the Udmurts? I would think Dienekes has included them in Globe 13 but it must be one of those populations represented by letters...I don't know which one.

Ed. I can provide citations for the two pigmentation studies that give approximate dates if someone wants them.


The "West Eurasian" is not only through the Udmurts. Tadjiks, Pathan, Baloch, Kalash all are predominantly West Eurasian and "only" 1/5 to 1/3 of their Genetics are South(ASI) or East Asian.

The Gedrosia component might peak in Baloch but the Baloch or even less the Brahui are not representative for this component respectively. Because they have considerable South Asian as well Southwest Asian components. The same is the case for all the other components there is no modern population representative for more ancient components Sardinians might be the closest cousins to Neolithic farmers yet they have some considerable H&G ancestry too. In Baloch (in South and most of Central Asia in general) case it is slightly even more decisive since the ASI component is not even predominantly non West Eurasian while Mediterranean(farmer) and North European (H&G) are relatively close components.

Baloch as a population might not be the best representative for prehistoric people belonging to this Gedrosia component, but this doesn't mean there aren't individual cases of Baloch which might be representative.


Here are some Baloch examples which I think might be representative for "Gedrosia".

543263-Baloch-1367443614-490-640x480.jpg
Liaqat-Baloch-Big-Pic.gif
1858386978.jpg
uzair_baloch-580x435.jpg
Mahnoor-Baloch-3.jpg

baloch-journo.jpg


Brahui are basically Balochis who have adopted a Dravidian language when some Dravidian Muslims from India settled in Balochistan ad became part of the Baloch.
 
and in what exact archaeological context and with as accurate a date as possible

This is what bothers me the most with dating/archaeological contexts in Europe. It has been shown that in European hunter/gatherer peoples apparently persisted alongside Neolithic peoples for many centuries, without mixing.
Can we be sure the archaeological context is 24,000 years ago and not 14,000 years ago? That's partly why I am so interested in knowing what kind of R* has been found, because I will feel either more confident about a successful dna extraction and proper dating or I won't.

I thought this was a very interesting quote from his blog:
ADMIXTURE showed West Eurasian, Amerindian and Southeast Asian (Pacific) components. No East Asians again

Could it be the other way around? MNOPs is should be ancestral to Polyneasian, Austronesian and other south asian/pacific peoples.
I've wondered if the origin of tatooing could be linked to the ancestral population of MNOPs whose descended peoples who were usually heavily tatooed in pre-history?? [ie. West Asians, Polyneasians, Ameridians, Jomonese, etc.]
 
The 24,000 year old Mal'ta mammoth hunter encampment is rumored to show individuals to belonging to y-chromosomal haplogroup R* (no additional details) and mtdna haplogroup U*. The Afontova Gora individuals from roughly the same time also appear to have the same profile. Dienekes has posted:



It seems my post on R* and Q* (P-M45) Siberian connections was timely, coming just a few days before the PaleoAmerican Conference, here on Eupedia.



There are some especially interesting things about the discovery. One is the apparent lack of any sort of East Asian admixture in the Mal'ta or Afontova individuals, but people who had typical "Mongoloid" features and dark skin.

This raises several questions about the Mal'ta individuals:

1. What kind of R*, or is it even R* and not P-M45 or Q*? Is it R1*, R2*?

2. Are the Mal'taian or Afontova hunters related to hunters in Europe? There are striking similarities, also big differences.

3. Are Native Americans racially a combined mixture of nomadic West Asian mammoth hunters and East Asians?

4. And/or are Europeans a mixture of a Mongoloid R* and Caucusian women (U*, H* and T*)

5. Did R* belong to a completely different race (say R/Q* + X) and mixed with East Asians and Caucasians producing Amerindians and Europeans, respectively?



We will be talking about this for a long time! Big, exciting news.

This is not a surprise at all Y DNA R is Mongoliod I would except it actually to be in Siberia 24,000ybp. Also Caucasian subclades of R R1b, R1a, and R2 is proof there was Caucasin-Mongoliod inter marriage and so is the mtDNA U. To me non of this is a surprise it has been what I have been predicting for a while. And I guess Eupedia got this news late I have seen forums talking about this for a few days.

There is no way Native Americans formed from a mix of east Eurasians(Mongoloids) and west Eurasians(Caucasians). The reason is their Y DNA and mtDNA is all Mongoloid except small minority mtDNA X2. Also their autosomal DNA shows they group very closely with other Mongoloids and also surprisingly Mongoloids group pretty closely with Oceania not at all with Caucasians. It is way to simplistic to say that about Native Americans if this mixing happened while they were in Asia why doesn't it involve other Mongoloids. Honestly it makes experts sound like little kids.

TB you need to remember how recently y DNA R1 subclades spread across Europe. R1b1a2a1a L11 in west Europe is estimated to be only 6,000-5,000 years old. I have seen this forum before and I miss that Fire Haired guy he had good theory's on its Germanic and Italo Celtic origin. It's ancestral subclades would have come out of the Near east less than 10,000ybp. R1a may have originated in Europe but its "Indo European" subclade R1a1a M17 which almost all modern R1a is under. Would not have spread till 6,000-5,000ybp. So I know it sounds cool and exciting to act as if Y DNA R has a long history in Europe and can tell about Europeans origins BUT IT CAN NOT. You need to understand the history of the subclades that make up such high Y DNA R1 percentages in Europe.
 
The "West Eurasian" is not only through the Udmurts. Tadjiks, Pathan, Baloch, Kalash all are predominantly West Eurasian and "only" 1/5 to 1/3 of their Genetics are South(ASI) or East Asian.

The Gedrosia component might peak in Baloch but the Baloch or even less the Brahui are not representative for this component respectively. Because they have considerable South Asian as well Southwest Asian components. The same is the case for all the other components there is no modern population representative for more ancient components Sardinians might be the closest cousins to Neolithic farmers yet they have some considerable H&G ancestry too. In Baloch (in South and most of Central Asia in general) case it is slightly even more decisive since the ASI component is not even predominantly non West Eurasian while Mediterranean(farmer) and North European (H&G) are relatively close components.

Baloch as a population might not be the best representative for prehistoric people belonging to this Gedrosia component, but this doesn't mean there aren't individual cases of Baloch which might be representative.


Here are some Baloch examples which I think might be representative for "Gedrosia".

543263-Baloch-1367443614-490-640x480.jpg
Liaqat-Baloch-Big-Pic.gif
1858386978.jpg
uzair_baloch-580x435.jpg
Mahnoor-Baloch-3.jpg

baloch-journo.jpg


Brahui are basically Balochis who have adopted a Dravidian language when some Dravidian Muslims from India settled in Balochistan ad became part of the Baloch.

I don't get the logic of your argument...the modern Baloch have nothing to tell us about this ancient "R" population because they are "too" South Asian...and yet we're talking about an "R" and "U" population, if the description is accurate (which we don't really know yet) which is a blend of "West Eurasian", "Amerindian" and "SOUTH-EAST" Asian"? Meanwhile, this man was "much darker" than Oetzi? You don't think that's slightly illogical?

Not to mention that I fail to see how "Baloch as a population might not be the best representative for prehistoric people belonging to this Gedrosia component, but... individual cases of Baloch...might be representative." I don't think either of these modern populations should be seen as representative...this ancient population no longer exists; it was merely meant to be suggestive of the kind of mixture that the authors may be talking about. But if we were to talk about people being representative, shouldn't we look at the group as a whole rather than picking out certain individuals? And just how was your determination made as to which individual Baloch are more representative of the Gedrosia component? What standards did you apply...is it just an accident that the individuals you chose happen to be more "European" looking? Sorry, I find that a little suspect.
Another thing that I don't understand is why these results are causing such a fuss...fair coloring is a mutation that spread because of UV radiation levels too low to provide enough Vitamin D to people living at high latitudes, and a mainly "cereals" diet just exacerbated the problem...at least that seems to be the latest thinking...regardless, this is a relatively late development in human history...

Btw, I think it will be very interesting if we can get phenotypical snps for European hunter gatherers of, say, the Mesolithic era, or even the Neolithic era...a high fish diet has allowed the Eskimos to keep their darker pigmentation even at very high latitudes...I don't see why that might not be the case for European hunter gatherers as well...all that Baltic seal fishing, and Neolithic era river fishing...I'm not predicting it, but it wouldn't surprise me either, particularly if the studies are correct which tie it to a mainly "cereals" diet.
 
The link between depigmentation and a cereal diet is interesting. I have not heard of that before, but it does remind me of another interesting hypothesis about neolithic/post neolithic traits. It postulates that many of the modern orthodonic problems in Europe and the Near East are due to a historical diet of cereals and dairy.

In other words, people descending from populations of the near east may have experienced shrinking jaws that has caused crowding of the lower teeth. The teeth of hunter-gatherers with a similar ancestry to Europeans may help test this theory to a degree.
 
This is what bothers me the most with dating/archaeological contexts in Europe. It has been shown that in European hunter/gatherer peoples apparently persisted alongside Neolithic peoples for many centuries, without mixing.
Oh, they mixed but slowly, and finely about 4k years ago they've disappeared completely in Europe, except some northern fringes.
 
It's good news to finally have some Palaeolithic Y-DNA. The results are completely what I would have expected. I placed the origin of R* and R1* in Central Asia and southern Siberia. I recently proposed that R* men could have belonged to haplogroup U2 (in addition to U4 and U5) and that the European R1 branch would have evolved alongside the U2d and U2e, while the Central/South Asian R2 branch would have been linked to U2a/b/c/i.

I doubt that this 24,000 year old Mal'ta Siberian belongs to U* for the above reason, because U2 was already found in a Russian sample 6000 years old than this one, and because haplogroup U* is over 50,000 years old and would have branched into its main subclades well before 24,000 years ago.

The Mongoloid feature and absence of East Asian admixture are also expected since the early Steppe people (Proto-Indo-Europeans) had Mongoloid or Proto-Europoid (meaning mixed Mongoloid and Europoid) features and had essentially European haplogroups.

The only surprising thing is that the Mal'ta Siberian had relatively dark skin, perhaps like Native North Americans. That is odd considering that most R1 populations today have white skin, blue eyes, and R1a populations tend to have a high incidence of blond hair too (even in Central Asia). This would mean that the genes for fair skin, blue eyes and blond hair were acquired in Eastern Europe (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus) after R1a and R1b moved into the region, and before they re-expanded to Central Europe and Central Asia during the Bronze Age.
 
The lack of cereal diet could explain why the meat consuming Saami are much darker than their neighbours. But this then should apply even more for dairy consumenting peoples like Indo-Europeans, which would be surprising.
 
The lack of cereal diet could explain why the meat consuming Saami are much darker than their neighbours. But this then should apply even more for dairy consumenting peoples like Indo-Europeans, which would be surprising.

I also would not expect to see depigmentation in a snowy climate, being one who has had "snow-burns" from UV light reflection. Depigmentation requires a cloudy, low-light, non-snowy environment. Several areas come to mind.
 
This would mean that the genes for fair skin, blue eyes and blond hair were acquired in Eastern Europe (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus) after R1a and R1b moved into the region, and before they re-expanded to Central Europe and Central Asia during the Bronze Age.
I'd suggest that depigmentation was the result of the intermingling of the R population with HVO's in the Near East, Black and Caspian Sea areas in the pre-Neolithic. It's possibly the last area where significant Neanderthal-Sapien admixture took place and where beneficial depigmentation genes may have persisted in Sapien populated, low-light areas. (I'm assuming Neanderthals had depigmentation)
 
I don't get the logic of your argument...the modern Baloch have nothing to tell us about this ancient "R" population because they are "too" South Asian...and yet we're talking about an "R" and "U" population, if the description is accurate (which we don't really know yet) which is a blend of "West Eurasian", "Amerindian" and "SOUTH-EAST" Asian"? Meanwhile, this man was "much darker" than Oetzi? You don't think that's slightly illogical?

It's interesting that someone broke protocol and somehow got access to the raw data and ran it through a calculator. Not Kosher...but it gives us a glimpse...it looks like the data was run through the MDLP calculator.

These are the results:
[2,] “33.7% Brahui + 66.3% Udmurd” “21.9804″
[3,] “34.5% Makrani + 65.5% Udmurd” “22.357″
[4,] “34.3% Balochi + 65.7% Udmurd” “22.413″
[5,] “33.3% Sindhi + 66.7% Udmurd” “24.1198″
[6,] “36.5% Burusho + 63.5% Udmurd” “24.211″
[7,] “39.7% Pashtun + 60.3% Udmurd” “24.3389″
[8,] “34.3% Pathan + 65.7% Udmurd” “24.716″
[9,] “32.2% Pakistani + 67.8% Udmurd” “24.753″
[10,] “41.4% Tadjik + 58.6% Udmurd” “24.852

There's the south Asian, maybe ASI heavy component, and then with the Udmurts you have both a more western Eurasian dna and an eastern "Siberian" one?

Just for the heck of it I looked these people up online...

These are the Balochi:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6aFtYVGidvk/TVRdcn7IuyI/AAAAAAAAAAY/qQKTJA1q5QA/s1600/3.jpg
This is one of the two peaks of the Gedrosia component.

You brought up the Gedrosia argument and you did also brought up the autosomal DNA of this Siberian individual which shows Baloch admixture. So how is, me using Baloch and Gedrosia in my answer, illogical? Your complaining about this is actually the only illogical thing.

Not to mention that I fail to see how "Baloch as a population might not be the best representative for prehistoric people belonging to this Gedrosia component, but... individual cases of Baloch...might be representative."

Look the answer is clear on hand and I even explained why the Baloch as a population is not representative for the Gedrosia component.
~67% of Baloch/Brahui DNA is Gedrosia but what about the other ~33% of which the majority is South and Southwest Asian? Do you assume that 33% of your genes, roughly 1/3, has no role in your physical appearance?


I don't think either of these modern populations should be seen as representative...this ancient population no longer exists;

Good this is exactly what I said, this is actually a repetition of my post.

it was merely meant to be suggestive of the kind of mixture that the authors may be talking about. But if we were to talk about people being representative, shouldn't we look at the group as a whole rather than picking out certain individuals?

But if the population is not representative and has a very significant foreign admixture, than this population as a whole can't be representative for the component. And if you take a good look at the fst distances of these components you will understand why it is that way.

considering fst distances, the closest to the Gedrosia component are Caucasus and North European. While even Caucasus and Gedrosia are like two pieces of one bigger component (West Asian).
When we now consider that most of the non Gedrosia component among Baloch and Brahui is South Asian and Southwest Asian, which both have some non Caucasian affinities or admixture (South Asian allot more than Southwest Asian), wouldn't it make allot of sense to take selectively Balochi individuals which appear physical more West Asian looking than the average? According to me it does.

And just how was your determination made as to which individual Baloch are more representative of the Gedrosia component? What standards did you apply...is it just an accident that the individuals you chose happen to be more "European" looking? Sorry, I find that a little suspect.

The individuals I used were in the range of West Asian phenotypes to which the Gedrosian component belongs considering its fst relation. If the individuals end up looking more "European" this is a logically conclusion than accident.

Another thing that I don't understand is why these results are causing such a fuss...fair coloring is a mutation that spread because of UV radiation levels too low to provide enough Vitamin D to people living at high latitudes, and a mainly "cereals" diet just exacerbated the problem...at least that seems to be the latest thinking...regardless, this is a relatively late development in human history...

I think you missed the point, how many of the individuals were "fair" to European standards? The decisive factor for the selection of them was based on their physical appearance as a whole.

Btw, I think it will be very interesting if we can get phenotypical snps for European hunter gatherers of, say, the Mesolithic era, or even the Neolithic era...a high fish diet has allowed the Eskimos to keep their darker pigmentation even at very high latitudes...I don't see why that might not be the case for European hunter gatherers as well...all that Baltic seal fishing, and Neolithic era river fishing...I'm not predicting it, but it wouldn't surprise me either, particularly if the studies are correct which tie it to a mainly "cereals" diet.

I know and I agree. Again the individuals were selected by me not based on their skin color as a factor (most of the individual had the average Balochi pigmentation) but on their physical features as a whole which contrary to your posted photos had a more Caucasian appearance
 
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I don't get the logic of your argument...the modern Baloch have nothing to tell us about this ancient "R" population because they are "too" South Asian...and yet we're talking about an "R" and "U" population, if the description is accurate (which we don't really know yet) which is a blend of "West Eurasian", "Amerindian" and "SOUTH-EAST" Asian"? Meanwhile, this man was "much darker" than Oetzi? You don't think that's slightly illogical?

Not to mention that I fail to see how "Baloch as a population might not be the best representative for prehistoric people belonging to this Gedrosia component, but... individual cases of Baloch...might be representative." I don't think either of these modern populations should be seen as representative...this ancient population no longer exists; it was merely meant to be suggestive of the kind of mixture that the authors may be talking about. But if we were to talk about people being representative, shouldn't we look at the group as a whole rather than picking out certain individuals? And just how was your determination made as to which individual Baloch are more representative of the Gedrosia component? What standards did you apply...is it just an accident that the individuals you chose happen to be more "European" looking? Sorry, I find that a little suspect.
Another thing that I don't understand is why these results are causing such a fuss...fair coloring is a mutation that spread because of UV radiation levels too low to provide enough Vitamin D to people living at high latitudes, and a mainly "cereals" diet just exacerbated the problem...at least that seems to be the latest thinking...regardless, this is a relatively late development in human history...

Btw, I think it will be very interesting if we can get phenotypical snps for European hunter gatherers of, say, the Mesolithic era, or even the Neolithic era...a high fish diet has allowed the Eskimos to keep their darker pigmentation even at very high latitudes...I don't see why that might not be the case for European hunter gatherers as well...all that Baltic seal fishing, and Neolithic era river fishing...I'm not predicting it, but it wouldn't surprise me either, particularly if the studies are correct which tie it to a mainly "cereals" diet.

Hello, I am new here. I think this post is very good and logical and makes sense to me.
 
I'll quote from Davidski of Eurogenes:

Perhaps this is why today different clades of Y-DNA R have such disparate regional hotspots, specifically when the more basal lineages are taken into account: R1a in Eastern Europe, R1b in the Near East and Western Europe, and R2 in South Central Asia? Indeed, perhaps this is also why when the Mal'ta individual is forced into modern genome-wide genetic clusters, he appears West Eurasian, South Central Asian and Amerindian? However, eventually, when enough Mammoth Steppe genomes are sequenced, we're likely to see a new cluster emerge that is modal in these samples.
http://eurogenes.blogspot.com.au/2013/10/ancient-european-admixture-in-americas.html

I think Davidski kind of provides the most likely answer to the questions posed in the first post of this thread.

Basically, rather than Amerindians, West Asians and South Central Asians all being half of the other, essentially what may ultimately be the case is a distinct and wide-spread population of mammoth hunters whose genes have become significant in modern populations.

In other words, the Mal'ta individuals cluster to with Amerindians, West Asians and Indians because those populations have a significant "mammoth hunter" component in their ancestry, not because the Mal'ta individuals had 3/3 of everybody else..
 

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