Fire Haired14
Banned
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- Y-DNA haplogroup
- R1b DF27*
- mtDNA haplogroup
- U5b2a2b1
The only dramatic change in pigmentation between 6000 BC and 2800 BC was in skin color. The difference between Yamnaya and Corded Ware/Sintashta isn't evolution, because Yamnaya isn't ancestral to Corded Ware/Sintashta. Poltavka was contemporary to Corded Ware but they had differnt skin color.
Mathieson 2015 gave allele frequencies for phenotype SNPs but their categories "Steppe", "EF", etc. were too broad. Geneticker has just posted calls for each individual: More phenotype SNPs from prehistoric Eurasia. So, the broad categories is no longer a problem. Some of Geneticker's results are probably wrong. He has been slightly inconsistent with published papers before. Keep that in mind. What I'm doing with this post is presenting the information Geneticker provide about the phenotype of Pre-Historic Europeans and their implications on the origins of traits in Europe today. Geneticker did not test many of the SNPs Mathieson found signs of selection for, you can find information on those SNPs in my first post.
I've added the results from Geneticker's recent work to my spreadsheet: Pre-Historic West Eurasian Phenotype and Ancient Hair Color Predictions.
Essentially all the data comes from a handful of locations and Time Periods.
6000-5000 BC
Hunter Gatherers N=11: West Europe, Sweden
Farmers: Anatolia(N=23+), Central Europe(N=17+), Spain(N=18+).
3000 BC
"Steppe"(N-20+): Yamnaya, Afanasievo, Poltavaka.
2800-2000 BC:
R1a Dominated(N=20): Corded Ware, Srubnaya, Sintashta, Andronovo. Equal representation of R1a-Z93 dominated and Corded Ware.
Note: There's other data. But the data above is the only data with enough samples to make population categories. Most from from 2800-2000 BC LNBA North Europeans not dominated by R1a and Russian Mesolithic+Eneolithic. There's also a handful of data from 3000 BC EEFs in Italy.
Hunter Gatherers N=11: West Europe, Sweden
Farmers: Anatolia(N=23+), Central Europe(N=17+), Spain(N=18+).
3000 BC
"Steppe"(N-20+): Yamnaya, Afanasievo, Poltavaka.
2800-2000 BC:
R1a Dominated(N=20): Corded Ware, Srubnaya, Sintashta, Andronovo. Equal representation of R1a-Z93 dominated and Corded Ware.
Note: There's other data. But the data above is the only data with enough samples to make population categories. Most from from 2800-2000 BC LNBA North Europeans not dominated by R1a and Russian Mesolithic+Eneolithic. There's also a handful of data from 3000 BC EEFs in Italy.
This information is important concerning pigmentation results in ancient DNA
It is important to understand in pigmentation only Eye color and Red or non-Red hair can be predicted accurately with the SNPs tested. Skin color and Hair color can not be predicted accurately. We can track the frequency of the two mutations most associated with Light skin in Europe. But that doesn't tell us for fact what skin color any ancients had it only suggests they had Dark or Light skin.
The same goes for Hair color. We can predict hair color but the results are just suggestions. Also, the two most popular Red hair variants often pop up in ancient DNA because of DNA damage according to Ian Mathieson. So, it's difficult to track Red hair.
The same goes for Hair color. We can predict hair color but the results are just suggestions. Also, the two most popular Red hair variants often pop up in ancient DNA because of DNA damage according to Ian Mathieson. So, it's difficult to track Red hair.
Here are four graphs depicting the frequency of Blue eye color, frequencies of Light skin mutations, and frequencies of a Lactose Tolerance mutation(rs4988235 T). I only included Anatolia Neolithic, North European EEF, R1a Dominated LNBA, and modern North Europe for the Skin color mutation frequencies. For the Blue eye color frequency I included those four and West/North Hunter gatherers. For Lactose Tolerance I included West/North Hunter Gatherer and lots of modern Europeans.
Note: This the below graphs for Skin+Eye Color are not allele frequencies. They are the frequency of people with two-derived alleles in 3 SNPs associated with eye and skin color. The frequency of the Lactose Tolerance mutation(rs4988235 T) are allele frequencies though.
Blue eye Frequency.
Light skin mutation #1(rs1426654).
Light skin mutation #2(rs16891982).
Lactose Tolerance(rs4988235) frequency.
The graphs above show three things.
>No Selection For Pale Skin rs1426654: It's high frequency is mostly do to migration of Anatolian farmers and "Steppe" into Europe.
>No Selection For Blue eyes: Hunter gatherers in West/North Europe were almost uniformly Blue eyed. The migration of Anatolian_HGs caused the frequency to go down, however EEF Central Europeans still had 44% Blue eyes. The Frequency went down to about 20% in R1a dominated LNBA because they were mostly "Steppe". It's much higher today in modern North Europeans at 65%(on average). A combination of further admixture with EEF/WHG and selection could have caused the frequency to go up. It appears Unetice, Andronovo, and Nordic LN had a similarly high frequency as North Europeans today. The most unexpected results are for Srubnaya because only one had Blue eyes while the majority of their close relatives(essentially the same people) Andronovo had Blue eyes. There's variation on eye color in LNBA North Europeans, so it's hard to say if there's been selection or not since then.
>Selection For Pale Skin rs16891982: Only 1/5 "Steppe" and "EEF" had the Light skin version while 3/4 LNBA R1a dominated people did. The majority of other LNBA North Europeans had the Light skin version, so the selection wasn't exclusive to R1a dominated people. In North Europe we can see the frequency is even higher today, almost 100% have the Light skin version. In Italy and Balkans we see the same frequency. However in Greece just over 85% have it and in Iberia just under 70%. So, all over Europe this mutation was selected for after 3000 BC and even after 2000 BC.
>Selection For Lactose Tolerance rs4988235: It makes its first appearance in LNBA North Europe but it was much less popular than it is today. Today the vast majority of North Europeans have a derived allele. A high percentage in Iberia and S/C Asia do to. However in Italy and Balkans it isn't very popular.
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In the case of Red hair Geneticker has found carriers in Sweden(6000 BC), Anatolia(6300 BC), and Russia(5200-4000 BC, R1b1 guy he was almost 100% EHG). This means Red hair was widespread by 6000 BC. There's only two carriers though from Neolithic Europe. He has found carriers of Red hair in R1a-Z93 dominated groups but none in Corded Ware, so probably very few in R1a-M417 dominated Bronze age groups had Red hair.
The highest frequency is in Neolithic Anatolia. Ian Mathieson found the same high frequency but suspects it is DNA damage. He says derived allele in rs1805007 and rs1805008(the most popular Red hair variants) in ancient DNA can be the result of DNA damage. It might DNA damage and it might not be. I don't understand how Neolithic Anatolians from the same time period and same village could constantly get DNA damage in rs1805008. It makes more sense this mutation ran in their family/village. There's no way to know for sure. But we should keep the derived alleles in those two SNPs in mind, they might reveal information about the origins of Red hair.
Carriers have been found in other SNPS associated with Red hair that don't suffer from DNA damage. It doesn't look like Red hair was selected for or not selected for. The R1a dominated groups don't have a much lower frequency than today's NorthEast Euroepans. It's very likely IMO that random drift caused Red hair to rise in frequency in the British Isles and Volga Russia. It also seems there's a lot more Red hair in NorthWest Europe today than in any of the ancients.
Frequency of Red hair Carriers.
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