Origin & Spread of I, I1, I2, and further downstream Subclades.

I am posting this thread as a singular point for people to discuss their theories as to the origin & spread of Y DNA Haplogroup I, I1, I2, and further downstream subclades. I will refrain from posting my ideas in this post and rather just post some general questions that need to be answered and addressed in any theory (my ideas will be posted after). There is a lot of good scientific data that can be used as reference material here and I hope that it is used in every theory.

1. Where/When did IJ originate?

2. Where/When did I originate?

3. When did I reach Europe and where was the original settlement?

4.Where/When did Proto-I1 diverge from I2

5.Where was the geographical location of I1 during the bottleneck and when did it end?

6.Where/When did I2 originate?

7.Where/When did I2a/b/c originate?

8.Where/When did I2a1 and I2a2 originate?

9.Where/When I2a1a(M26), I2a1b(M423), and other I2a1 subclades originate (I2a1c/d/e)?

10. Explain the modern day distributions of I Subclades

I am focusing on the middle east right now so these are just general guesses. Recently I have had a few big ideas about hg I. I think there is a good chance the Magdolnian people are the ones who spread I2a1-P37.2, because it was the main lineage of Mesolithic west Europeans and because its age estimates fit almost perfectly. My other big idea is that hg I is west European-specific, because all hg I in eastern Europe migrated there from western Europe after the Mesolithic. There is hardly any evidence in modern Y DNA variation of hg I being in eastern Europe before or even during the Neolithic. It is the same story with mtDNA U5b, it obviously originated in western Europe and probably around the same time as hg I. Many European-specific haplogroups appear to be be west European and later migrated to eastern Europe.

OK, I'll take a crack at this. WARNING: Lots of pure speculation, don't hold me to this...


1. Where/When did IJ originate?

West Asia seems like a good candidate, considering that its known modern distribution is split three ways between Europe (I), West Asia (J), and Iran (IJ*). I haven't looked at age estimates for IJ lately, but 35k+ years ago seems reasonable.

2. Where/When did I originate?

I still believe that Haplogroup I originated in Europe. All modern subclades have their highest diversity in Europe. That doesn't mean that proto-I split from IJ in Europe, but rather that the MRCA most likely lived in Europe. STR and SNP dating tend to give 20k-30k ages for Haplogroup I as a whole, which would put the contemporary Europe of Haplogroup I's MRCA squarely in the Gravettian culture. Unfortunately, that doesn't help us narrow down the location much better than "Europe," as the Gravettian spread over almost all of Europe. At least we know that there must have been an east to west movement to some degree.

3. When did I reach Europe and where was the original settlement?

If we accept a Gravettian introduction, then proto-I may have been introduced when and where Gravettian culture was introduced, which is generally acknowledged as being along the European side of the Black Sea about 32k years ago. Haplogroup I is likely a descendant of this proto-I.

4.Where/When did Proto-I1 diverge from I2

Nordtvedt dates the split to about 22k years ago, which could place it at the end of Gravettian culture, in Europe.

5.Where was the geographical location of I1 during the bottleneck and when did it end?

Pomerania has been looking more and more like a good guess for I1's MRCA location as we have gotten more SNP details. I suspect that I1 was much less common than I2 until very recently, but if we have any shot at finding ancient Mesolithic proto-I1, I would guess that it would be in Mesolithic Pomerania.

6.Where/When did I2 originate?

The TMRCA of I2 is not much younger than the I1/I2 split, at about 21k years per Nordtvedt, so it's difficult to narrow down its geography any more than "Europe." I suppose we can say that it seems split between the northern Adriatic region near the Alps (I2b-L416/I2c-L596) and Western/Central Europe north of the Alps (I2a-L460), which I guess would put the origin somewhere near the Alps? That is extrapolating awfully far back, though. I suppose I'm with Fire Haired in guessing "not Eastern Europe" at least.

7.Where/When did I2a/b/c originate?

Looking at I2a-L460, we see subclades with high diversity across France (most of the P37.2>PF3983+ branch), across Northern Europe (most of the P37.2>M423+ branch and L35>M223), and along the Rhine (like L35>L38). Along with the plethera of ancient samples, that makes me believe that I2a-L460 has a Transalpine MRCA, which Nordtvedt places at just under 21k years ago. What Transalpine culture was around just under 21k years ago and had successors to the north as well? Why, the Solutrean.

I2b-L416/I2c-L596 is trickier, because it is split between Cisalpine (I2b-L416 and maybe I2c-L596 PF3881-) and Transalpine (I2c-L596>PF3881) branches. For lack of a better explanation, I've tended to assume a south-to-north migration for this branch. Its early proto-I2b/I2c ancestors could have then lived in the Epigravettian, although it didn't differentiate into I2b and I2c proper until 12k years ago, at which point the region would have transformed into the Mediterranean Epipaleolithic. I2c then may have scrambled geographically around the Alps as early as the Sauveterrian or as late as the Neolithic.

8.Where/When did I2a1 and I2a2 originate?

I2a1-P37.2 differentiated very soon after I2a-L460 as a whole did, so I would place it as still Solutrean, about 20k years ago.

Proto-I2a2-L35 must have passed through the Solutrean as well, but its TMRCA is much younger, circa 12.5k years ago. By then, the Solutrean was long gone, and it had several remnant cultures. I think proto-I2a2-L35>L38 could have taken the Magdalenian route, and I2a2-L35>M223 could have branch northward from that, perhaps into Ahrensburg culture.

9.Where/When I2a1a(M26), I2a1b(M423), and other I2a1 subclades originate (I2a1c/d/e)?

Proto-I2a1a-M26 and proto-I2a1c (Western/Alpine) split nearly 18k years ago per Nordtvedt, which would be before the end of the Solutrean. It also would have been around the LGM, so we can guess somewhere relatively warm. From there I see I2a1a hanging out around France until the Neolithic, when it exploded. I2a1c was probably not too far away, but trended more northward, and doesn't seem to have expanded until very recently in the grand scheme of things. The French outliers (I2a1d/e) are also on this branch, splitting 18k-15k years ago, possibly in the Solutrean and its successor, the Magdalenian. It's hard to say much more about them because they're outliers, although they do help anchor the branch as a whole.

I2a1b-M423 as a broadly Northern European branch seems to be confirmed by ancient finds, as well as modern diversity. As its modern TMRCA is only about 12k years old per Nordtvedt, it could also have been present in Ahrensburg. The ancient samples seem to be further removed than that, though.

10. Explain the modern day distributions of I Subclades

All of them? Too broad IMHO. I would place some of the more important expansions as being I2a1a-M26's largely Neolithic expansion, I2a1b-Din's largely Slavic expansion, I1's largely Germanic expansion, I2a2a-Cont's largely Germanic expansion, and I2a2b-L38's largely Celtic expansion.

@sharkey

I do not understand your point #2

If I belonged to IJ
and that belonged to IJKLT
and IJKLT belonged to HIJKLT
and that belonged to GHIJKLT

then clearly I basal component would be west-asian. how could it (I) be european unless it dragged J with it?

Sile said:

@sharkey

I do not understand your point #2

If I belonged to IJ
and that belonged to IJKLT
and IJKLT belonged to HIJKLT
and that belonged to GHIJKLT

then clearly I basal component would be west-asian. how could it (I) be european unless it dragged J with it?

Click to expand...

I'm basically saying that proto-I probably branched from IJ in West Asia, but the earliest Haplogroup I MRCA (a descendant of the first proto-I carrier to branch from IJ, removed by several thousand years!) lived in Europe.

Good idea to start this thread, Mozart! Indeed, I also believe that we need to look at I2 in general in order to learn more about what brought forward the quite distinct distributions of its various sub-clades. Since that will already be quite difficult to establish, I will for the time being refrain from discussing issues even further in the past, e.g. the IJ and I1-I2 splits. I furthermore think I1 needs a discussion on its own. So, I will focus my contributions on your questions 7-10, which already is quite a lot of questions to be answered in a single thread. As most of my ancestry is from around the Harz mountains, I am especially interested in I2a2, and will place a further focus there.

Where/When did I2a/b/c originate?

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I have noted that both I2a-Din and I2a2 display a secondary frequency peak in/ around Bessarabia (Moldova and NE Romania). Historical movements fail to explain the I2b peak. The 19th century German settlement in Bessarabia was to scant in numbers (approx. 3.500 families), and its sources (upper Rhine, West Prussia/ East Pomerania) are not characterised by high I2b frequencies. In addition, the settlement was strongly religiously motivated, which should have limited gene flow into neighbouring populations. The East Germanic migrations might have transferred I2a2 from Northern Germany to the Black Sea, but in that case I2a2 should have become more equally distributed across Southern Ukraine and the Balkans, instead of peaking around Bessarabia.
Thus, I tend to believe that I2 originally lived somewhere around the northern Black Sea, possibly as part of a LGM refugee population. The rise of Black Sea water levels during the 6th - 4th millennium BC lead to substantial population displacement, possibly also bottleneck effects, and triggered migrations that ultimately lead to I2 sub-clades appearing scattered across much of Europe and Western Asia. The I2a/I2b split should already have taken place on the NW shores of the Black Sea, as should the I2a1/ I2a2 split. About I2c I don't have an opinion so far.

Before going further into detail, let me present a general assumption on the "nature" of I2: While originally hunter-gatherers, they developed into metal / mining people. I have made that point in more detail here: http://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...nter-gatherers?p=432491&viewfull=1#post432491 (read also my other post further down that thread). Essentially, I think, hunter-gatherers, roaming the mountains, are more likely to discover valuable stones than farmers, and they also know better how to stay alive during exploitation and transport via game-rich but not arable terrain. As thus, I regard "unusual" I2 concentrations as indicators of pre-historic mining and metallurgy.
Point in case is the I2a2 peak within Mordwins along the middle Volga. Here, again, later settlements by Volga-Germans, or Viking intrusions (who should anyway rather have promoted I1) fail to explain the specific peak among this non-IE-speaking ethnic. But the copper-based Abashevo-culture, itself a blend of NE Baltic Fatjanovo culture and Black Sea Yanna culture, which flourished in Mordvin lands, could be a plausible explanation (the Yanna culture would provide the link to the I2 "homeland" along Prut and Dniester).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordvins
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abashevo_culture

Such a view of I2 does not mean they were the bearers of prehistoric cultures, at least not initially. They rather operated in the periphery, exploring and supplying resources (initially obsidian/ flint, later ores), also acting as traders between nearby, but not directly adjacent cultures. When larger migrations started, they may have functioned as guides, also as warriors (being hunters, they should have been better trained in using weapons than the farmers they accompanied), and could have gradually evolved into (a part of) local nobility. These roles (trader, nobleman) in turn would explain why so many I2 people have been found in prehistoric graves across wide parts of Europe.

I am not yet prepared to come up with a half-way complete story on the spread of I2 and its various sub-clades. Before, I need to dig further into the development of early metallurgy and bronze-age trade networks: http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/30045-Bronze-age-trade-networks?p=432274#post432274

Nevertheless, here as a sketch:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucuteni_culture would be the starting point. The culture had linkages to the Vinca culture (northern Balkans) and Dündartepe (near Samsun on the central Turkish Black Sea coast).

   Copper axes and other tools have been discovered that were made from ore mined in Volyn, Ukraine, as well as some deposits along the Dnieper river.

   Click to expand...

   As said above, I2 would not necessarily have been the bearer of the culture, rather the people responsible for the external contacts, by sea/ river, and over land.
2. DNA from Motala, Sweden indicates that I2a already lived there around 6.000 BC - those may have been (river-bound) hunter-gatherers which had reached Scandinavia via the East European waterways (Dnjepr-Dina, Volga etc.), possibly also vie Western Ukraine and Poland.
3. With the spread of metallurgy, possibly even as agents of this spread, I2a disseminates further across Europe. At latest the Rössen culture brings them to the Alps, the Harz and the Rhine. Most likely, however, they have already previously been engaged in flint mining and trade, which was an important support industry for the LBK spread of agriculture to Central Europe. A plausible explanation for the differing distributions of I2a1 and I2a2 would be the latter taking a more northerly route via southern Poland and Bohemia towards the Elbe-Saale-Harz region, while I2a1 followed the Danube and was harboured around central Hungary. Both groups, in small numbers, i.e. as "specialists" rather than the main (agricultural) population, would have reconvened on the upper Rhine.
4. A few I2a1 people migrate across the Rhine into southern France, where they mingle into the existing population (Trelles cave). As "stone people", they assume important roles in the Western Mediterranean Obsidian trade network around Sardinia, and bronze-age copper mining there, as well as on the Baleares and in the Pyrenees (I2a1-M26). Search for mineable resources takes other "stone people" from the Alps and the upper Rhine to the British isles, especially Ireland and Cornwall. Last but not least, many take residence in the Dinaric Alps, a region famous for its mineral riches (Gold, silver, copper, iron, salt) in Roman times.
   http://www.anubih.ba/vanserijska/Minerali-1.pdf
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Via_Argentaria

I think all maps showing migrations should show shallow seas (300 feet lower) as only after LGM (Last Glacial Maximum, around 8,000 to 10,000 B.C) was the sea level as it is today. People could cross the Caspian Sea which was probably much smaller, the Persian Gulf did not hold water so a lot of people lived there just as that was the old 'fertile crescent'. Humans always lived near water such as sea coasts and rivers. IJ could have lived there. There was probably a lot of IJs. Where and when the IJ lived in the same environment they would have retained their IJ designation as they would not have mutations. Those other IJ that moved to Europe and Middle East could have mutated. The IJs in Europe and Middle East could have died out unsuited to the new environments. the split might have happened in any of the three areas.

oriental said:

I think all maps showing migrations should show shallow seas (300 feet lower) as only after LGM (Last Glacial Maximum) was around 8,000 to 10,000 B.C. People could cross the Caspian Sea which was probably much smaller, the Persian Gulf did not hold water so a lot of people lived there just as that was the old 'fertile crescent'. Humans always lived near water such as sea coasts and rivers. IJ could have lived there. There was probably a lot of IJs When they split the IJ that lived in the same environment would have retained their IJ designation as they would not have mutations. Those other IJ that moved to Europe and Middle East could have mutated. The IJs in Europe and Middle East could have died out unsuited to the new environments.

Click to expand...

isn't it odd that the adriatic sea which was all land in the northern sector had no migration of I2a from bosnia/croatia into Italy in those times !!! ........maybe they knew it was going to be flooded , like the black, caspian and Aral seas.

There's a theory.....flooding, I wonder if atlantis was caught in these types of floods!

oriental said:

I think all maps showing migrations should show shallow seas (300 feet lower) as only after LGM (Last Glacial Maximum) was around 8,000 to 10,000 B.C. People could cross the Caspian Sea which was probably much smaller, the Persian Gulf did not hold water so a lot of people lived there just as that was the old 'fertile crescent'. Humans always lived near water such as sea coasts and rivers. IJ could have lived there. There was probably a lot of IJs When they split the IJ that lived in the same environment would have retained their IJ designation as they would not have mutations. Those other IJ that moved to Europe and Middle East could have mutated. The IJs in Europe and Middle East could have died out unsuited to the new environments.

Click to expand...

Good point Orinetal and Sile, thanks to rise the sea level about 100 meters after Ice Age we might be missing vital sites, caves with bones of ancestors to have the full picture. The North Adriatic lowlands, now under the water, could have been an excellent refuge for people during Glacial Maximum with interesting micro-climate and forested land. Also there was an easy land bridge to cross between Mediterranean and Black Sea, from Asia to Europe, till about 7k years ago when both got connected.

@FrankN
I respect your effort but, I guess that if you would've been aware of existence of I2a-Isles and I2a-Disles you would never have written such a post:
https://www.familytreedna.com/public/I2a-L161/
http://i2aproject.blogspot.com/2013/12/from-2010-updated-haplogroup-i2a-tree.html

Shetop said:

@FrankN
I respect your effort but, I guess that if you would've been aware of existence of I2a-Isles and I2a-Disles you would never have written such a post:
https://www.familytreedna.com/public/I2a-L161/
http://i2aproject.blogspot.com/2013/12/from-2010-updated-haplogroup-i2a-tree.html

Click to expand...

I am aware of their existence. That's why I wrote "Search for mineable resources takes other "stone people" from the Alps and the upper Rhine to the British isles, especially Ireland and Cornwall." I assume you are aware of the Amesbury Archer who proves late chalcolithic migration from the upper Rhine / north-western Alps into SE England: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amesbury_Archer.

What was new to me was I2a-L161 (Isles) having a secondary peak in Eastern Germany - thanks for that info! I replicate the map in your first link here for reference:


The East German peak could either mean that I2a-L161 has also historically been present in the Elbe-Saale area (I2a2 hotspot), and arrived in the British isles rather from the Elbe via the North Sea (which was much smaller during that times than today) than via Brittany, or it may be attributed to the medieval German colonisation of Slavonic areas that included many settlers from the Rhineland: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostsiedlung .
The distribution within England suggests further spread by the Anglo-Saxon migrations. The fact that East Anglia has also elevated I2a-L161 frequency points rather to a 5th-6th century AD source around the upper Elbe than in the Rhineland and the Netherlands.

Intriguingly, the Irish distribution appears to widely spare out the prehistoric copper mines in the SE corner (Ross Island, Mt. Gabriel), as well as the alluvial gold deposits south of Dublin. It is rather concentrated around Limerick and Galway. Both areas are known for silver and copper deposits, Western Galway also for alluvial gold, but so far no prehistoric mining from there has been documented. http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/NR/rdonlyres/C18CED87-BE88-48E3-9149-E7AFBF075AF6/0/Top55_2005.pdf (map towards the end).
A transit corridor down to Cork, most likely already a major seaport in prehistoric times, is apparent. The well documented megalithic trade route (gold?, copper?) from NW Ireland via central Scotland and the Orkneys to the Norwegian coast is the final piece to understand most of the I2a-L161 distribution: http://www.archatlas.org/Portages/Portages.php.

Nevertheless, as I have said - this is all a sketch at the moment. I think, before looking in detail into specific sub-clades, it makes sense to first examine my central assumptions:

1. After the LGM, I2 expanded from a Back Sea refuge, not a Cantabrian one as proposed by sparkey;
2. The I2 distribution pattern is closely linked to prehistoric mining and metal trade.

After aDNA results from Motala and Loschbour, there are now four I2a-P37.2 branches with common SNPs older than I2a-CTS5966 and at the same time specific for different parts of Western Europe. Only that fifth and the youngest is specific for Eastern Europe.

The older four are:
I2a-M26
I2a-L178* (Mesolithic aDNA)
I2a-L161 (Isles)
I2a-Disles (I'm not aware of defining SNP)

I mean... does anyone think this is important when considering place of origin for I2a-P37.2?

Off subject. Pigmentation SNPs have been tested for AG2 and MA1(24,000YBP Siberia), and also mtDNA and Y DNA SNPs have been tested for 17,000YBP WHG and or ANE Siberian hunter gatherer AG2.

Y SNP calls for AG2.

http://genetiker.wordpress.com/2014/05/28/y-snp-calls-for-afontova-gora-2/

The results confirm that he had hg F, and probably P. He has the only P mutation he was tested for, P-L781/PF5875/YSC0000255. He is Q1a1-F1215+, but was not tested for anything in between P and Q1a1. AG2 is R1-P245/PF6117+ and R1a1a1-Page7+, but he was R-P224/PF6050-, R1-P286/PF6136-, and R1a1-L122/M448/PF6237-.

Now i understand why others besides Geneticker who did the same tests said he belonged to either R1a1 or Q1a.

AG2 confirms that hg P was popular and probably largely spread with ANE populations.

P was all over Eurasia before the Neolithic. R1b and probably R1a were in west Asia and or central Asia-eastern Europe, R2 was in south Asia, Q was in south Asia-central Asia-Siberia-and the Americas, and P* lineages were in south Asia.

Calls for mtDNA SNPs of 17,000YBP Siberian AG2.

http://genetiker.wordpress.com/2014/05/31/mt-snp-calls-for-afontova-gora-2/comment-page-1/#comment-402

AG2 is a member of mtDNA R and could not be placed in every R subclade he was tested for, most notably west Eurasian R2′JT and nearly every RO subclade including H and HVO. It is really disappointing that he could not get calls for U SNPs, but we do know he did not belong to any of the known U subclades; U5, U6, U1, and U2’3’4’7’8’9. The same is true for MA1 though, because he belonged to his own U subclade which has not been found in modern people.

AG2 was not tested for U-MA1 mutations, and geneticker will probably find if he had U-MA1 soon.

Pigmentation SNPs of MA1 and AG2.

http://genetiker.wordpress.com/2014/05/28/pigmentation-snp-genotypes-for-malta-1-and-afontova-gora-2/

The results confirm that MA1 had dark eyes unlike Mesolithic and Neolithic European hunter gatherers. The results are constant with MA1 and AG2 having dark hair, but there are not enough SNPs to be for sure.

AG2 had skin lighting mutation rs1426654 A/A, like Motala12, Stuttgart, Otzi, Gok2, and bronze-iron age Siberian Indo Iranians, proving this mutation is very ancient in west Eurasians. AG2 having this mutation is constant study which estimated this mutation to be 22,000-28,000 years old. I think it is older though because it existed in WHG, ANE, and middle easterns(brother to WHG+basal Eurasian), who are the three main ancestral groups of modern west Eurasians.

MA1 had rs1426654 G/G, like most European hunter gatherer samples, and is evidence the majority of WHG-ANE hunter gatherers did.

Has anyone got better data about sea level change? All I get from here is that during last 8000 years the sea level changed ~5m, which would not be that much of an impact on the Adriatic coast.

Ike said:

Has anyone got better data about sea level change? All I get from here is that during last 8000 years the sea level changed ~5m, which would not be that much of an impact on the Adriatic coast.

Click to expand...

there was a lecture in 2012

some info below

http://bonesandskulls.co.uk/2012/12/29/adriatic-refugium/

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/8/56/figure/F1

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=rRidfbjGNwYC&pg=PA45&lpg=PA45&dq=The+Adriatic+Plain:+A+Human+Refugium?&source=bl&ots=rJVqHqCa0a&sig=HYJmLprVNAa93s1uL9nlxlBJRx0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=H3WKU6v-E8vNlAXf0IHgCg&ved=0CFAQ6AEwCTgK#v=onepage&q=The%20Adriatic%20Plain%3A%20A%20Human%20Refugium%3F&f=false

[url]http://grottadifumane.eu/publication/a-new-cultural-frontier-for-the-last-neanderthals-the-uluzzian-in-northern-italy/wppa_open/

[/URL]

1. "Where/When did IJ originate?"


Somewhere between India and Anatolia


2. "Where/When did I originate?"


Europe - I think the gigantic combined med sea / black sea mega swamp was the most likely geographical barrier


3. "When did I reach Europe and where was the original settlement?"


If the dividing line stretched along the med sea / black sea then one of the closest spots between the two zones: southwest of black sea (most likely imo), sicily or iberia.


4-9 not sure


10. "Explain the modern day distributions of I Subclades"


I think logically there's only two ways for large clusters of HG y dna to survive a farmer expansion.


a) the HGs are in terrain the farmers can't farm at first contact and that remains the case indefinitely e.g. Eskimo, Bushmen, Amazon.


b) the HGs live in terrain the farmers can't farm at first contact but will eventually and the HGs manage a HG->farmer transition before the farmers adapt to that terrain allowing the HG-now-farmer population to expand and become big enough to resist.


I think this is what happened with the big clusters in Scandinavia and Dinaric Alps.


#


Separately I also wonder if given that there were long distance trade routes from ancient times dealing in flint, amber, obsidian etc then gold, silver, copper etc it does seem possible to me that there might have been specific mercantile / artisan minority groups who lived in a chain of small settlements along those trade routes in a similar way to how Bell Beakers maybe did later and Greeks, Armenians, Phoenicians, Jews etc did in historical times.


So I wonder if one or more of the low density but very widespread I2 clades may be the result of that later distribution?


#


(If the chain of traders/artisans idea is correct and if Bell Beaker were a chalcolithic version of the same thing then the R1b Bell Beakers may have taken over some of those sites from the earlier group e.g. Ross Island in Ireland.)


#


I think a lot of this history may be underwater around the coasts of the med and black sea and maybe even along the Atlantic coast.

large image of sea level drop

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/topo/pictures/GLOBALsealeveldrop110m.jpg

I assume most of the exposed land was swampy?

#

additional thought

If the now submerged parts of the Black Sea, Adriatic etc did used to be most densely populated areas of LGM Europe (because of wetlands being high in food resources) then if there were stone temples on Malta at the time there's probably some underwater around the coasts too imo.

Also although Iberia, (land) Adriatic and West of the Black Sea are likely to have been the main land refugia it seems to me - given eskimo today - that whole stretch of now submerged coastline all the way along the Atlantic up to west of the Isles would likely have been inhabited by coastal HGs.

documentary about possible underwater temples around the world including Malta. India and Japan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEKyilcDCOo

I think a map of haplogroups at each 5,000 or 10,000 years showing where they occupied would explain better the isolation of various groups as new haplogroups were born and how they conquered ancient groups instead of the present composite diagrams showing migration arrows as if they were in a tour of the lands.

Animation would be best Something like this only with HGs.

FrankN said:

I am aware of their existence. That's why I wrote "Search for mineable resources takes other "stone people" from the Alps and the upper Rhine to the British isles, especially Ireland and Cornwall." I assume you are aware of the Amesbury Archer who proves late chalcolithic migration from the upper Rhine / north-western Alps into SE England: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amesbury_Archer.

What was new to me was I2a-L161 (Isles) having a secondary peak in Eastern Germany - thanks for that info! I replicate the map in your first link here for reference:

The East German peak could either mean that I2a-L161 has also historically been present in the Elbe-Saale area (I2a2 hotspot), and arrived in the British isles rather from the Elbe via the North Sea (which was much smaller during that times than today) than via Brittany, or it may be attributed to the medieval German colonisation of Slavonic areas that included many settlers from the Rhineland: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostsiedlung .
The distribution within England suggests further spread by the Anglo-Saxon migrations. The fact that East Anglia has also elevated I2a-L161 frequency points rather to a 5th-6th century AD source around the upper Elbe than in the Rhineland and the Netherlands.

Intriguingly, the Irish distribution appears to widely spare out the prehistoric copper mines in the SE corner (Ross Island, Mt. Gabriel), as well as the alluvial gold deposits south of Dublin. It is rather concentrated around Limerick and Galway. Both areas are known for silver and copper deposits, Western Galway also for alluvial gold, but so far no prehistoric mining from there has been documented. http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/NR/rdonlyres/C18CED87-BE88-48E3-9149-E7AFBF075AF6/0/Top55_2005.pdf (map towards the end).
A transit corridor down to Cork, most likely already a major seaport in prehistoric times, is apparent. The well documented megalithic trade route (gold?, copper?) from NW Ireland via central Scotland and the Orkneys to the Norwegian coast is the final piece to understand most of the I2a-L161 distribution: http://www.archatlas.org/Portages/Portages.php.

Nevertheless, as I have said - this is all a sketch at the moment. I think, before looking in detail into specific sub-clades, it makes sense to first examine my central assumptions:

1. After the LGM, I2 expanded from a Back Sea refuge, not a Cantabrian one as proposed by sparkey;
2. The I2 distribution pattern is closely linked to prehistoric mining and metal trade.

Click to expand...

http://www.ancestraljourneys.org/haplogroupi.shtml

• I2a1b2 (L161.1) has several sub-groups detected from haplotypes by Ken Nordtvedt:
  • B has the earliest TMRCA at 3,370 BC and possibly arose in Germany. It also appears in Poland. So its ancestor may have been among farmers carrying dairy farming from the Danube Basin - the Lengyel Culture (5000–4000 BC). From there it spread into Britain and Ireland, where it appears at low frequency. It therefore need not have arrived in the British Isles with a major migration, but could be the legacy of individual traders and travellers at any time. However post-Neolithic migrations into the British Isles from the Rhineland include those of Celts, Belgae and Anglo-Saxons.
  • A branches from B. It appears in the British Isles with a TMRCA of c. 500 AD, meaning that it represents the descendants of a single man living at that time, who could have been an Anglo-Saxon, or descended from an earlier arrival.
  • C and D appear in the British Isles. They have a common ancestor who branched off the main L161 line c. 4000 BC, according to the calculations of Ken Nordtvedt. Thus their ancestor could have entered the British Isles with the earliest farmers to arrive there c. 4000 BC, who sprang partly from the Rössen Culture, linked to Lengyel.