Tomenable
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It turns out that the mysterious "Teal People" lived in Caucasus region, in what is now Georgia, before mixing with Russian EHG, as Davidski has predicted - and they had been a genetically distinct, isolated population since at least 25,000 years ago:
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/151116/ncomms9912/full/ncomms9912.html
http://m.phys.org/news/2015-11-fourth-strand-european-ancestry-hunter-gatherers.html
http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?5833-Teal-discovered-
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/151116/ncomms9912/full/ncomms9912.html
http://m.phys.org/news/2015-11-fourth-strand-european-ancestry-hunter-gatherers.html
http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?5833-Teal-discovered-
The sequencing of ancient DNA recovered from two separate burials in Western Georgia - one over 13,000 years old, the other almost 10,000 years old - has enabled scientists to reveal that the Yamnaya owed half their ancestry to previously unknown and genetically distinct hunter-gatherer sources: the fourth strand.
By reading the DNA, the researchers were able to show that the lineage of this fourth Caucasus hunter-gatherer strand diverged from the western hunter-gatherers just after the expansion of anatomically modern humans into Europe from Africa.
The Caucasus hunter-gatherer genome showed a continued mixture with the ancestors of the early farmers in the Levant area, which Manica says makes sense given the relative proximity. This ends, however, around 25,000 years ago - just before the time of the last glacial maximum, or peak Ice Age.
At this point, Caucasus hunter-gatherer populations shrink as the genes homogenise, a sign of breeding between those with increasingly similar DNA. This doesn't change for thousands of years as these populations remain in apparent isolation in the shelter of the mountains - possibly cut off from other major ancestral populations for as long as 15,000 years - until migrations began again as the Glacial Maximum recedes, and the Yamnaya culture ultimately emerges.
"We knew that the Yamnaya had this big genetic component that we couldn't place, and we can now see it was this ancient lineage hiding in the Caucasus during the last Ice Age," said Manica.
While the Caucasus hunter-gatherer ancestry would eventually be carried west by the Yamnaya, the researchers found it also had a significant influence further east. A similar population must have migrated into South Asia at some point, says Eppie Jones, a PhD student from Trinity College who is the first author of the paper.
"India is a complete mix of Asian and European genetic components. The Caucasus hunter-gatherer ancestry is the best match we've found for the European genetic component found right across modern Indian populations," Jones said. Researchers say this strand of ancestry may have flowed into the region with the bringers of Indo-Aryan languages.
The widespread nature of the Caucasus hunter-gatherer ancestry following its long isolation makes sense geographically, says Professor Ron Pinhasi, a lead senior author from University College Dublin. "The Caucasus region sits almost at a crossroads of the Eurasian landmass, with arguably the most sensible migration routes both west and east in the vicinity