An Overview of All R1b Spread Theories in Layman's Terms

moore2moore said:

Here I reviewed all of the various theories regarding the spread and commonality of R1b in Western Europe, in layman's terms.

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one thing we can be clear on is that R1b is not an italian marker, but a gallic marker.

I doubt even when the Romans at the time of the Hannibal wars, .......would have had more than 10% R1b in their populace

I'm curious about

moore2moore said:

This is why a slightly more downstream clade of R1b*, ancestral to modern lineages, was found, already in Els Trocs Spain, 7000 years ago.

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Where did you get this information? The only R1b from El Trocs I'm aware of isn't ancestral to modern (M269) R1b in western Europe. It would be pretty interesting to have such a sample prior to the Portalon R1b that might be M269, from thousands of years later (which displays some Steppe affinities that the El Trocs sample lacks).

It seems like you just decided to rewrite the results to support your theories.

There seem to be disputes online. The Reich paper, i.e. the scientific lab testing the remains, said they were R1b1 (P25).

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1502/1502.02783.pdf

That is ancestral to M269.

Several others noted this:

http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?3818-Ancient-R1b-DNA-from-Spain

Others try to make calls that the Els Trocs specimen was from a brother clade of M269 and therefore not ancestral, but I am unaware of that being in any scientific paper.

Here's what is certain:

By 7000 years ago, R1b1 P25 was present from Spain to Siberia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R1b

Think of that. This is pre-plane, pre-mass migration by boat, pre-car, pre-horse.

In other words, whether Els Trocs was a brother clade or not, the daddy clade was present throughout Europe, already, by 7000 years ago. Therefore, the migrations that dispersed it likely happened as early as 8000 years ago. It's a vast range.

It's insanity to think that if the ancestral form was present that long ago, that the derived mutation M269 couldn't have also been present across such a large range.

Use I2 as a model. Several forms of it, grandfather clade, father clade, brother clades, are present during a wide swath of Europe over the millennia of prehistory.

moore2moore said:

There seem to be disputes online. The Reich paper, i.e. the scientific lab testing the remains, said they were R1b1 (P25).

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1502/1502.02783.pdf

That is ancestral to M269.

Several others noted this:

http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthread.php?3818-Ancient-R1b-DNA-from-Spain

Others try to make calls that the Els Trocs specimen was from a brother clade of M269 and therefore not ancestral, but I am unaware of that being in any scientific paper.

Here's what is certain:

By 7000 years ago, R1b1 P25 was present from Spain to Siberia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_R1b

Think of that. This is pre-plane, pre-mass migration by boat, pre-car, pre-horse.

In other words, whether Els Trocs was a brother clade or not, the daddy clade was present throughout Europe, already, by 7000 years ago. Therefore, the migrations that dispersed it likely happened as early as 8000 years ago. It's a vast range.

It's insanity to think that if the ancestral form was present that long ago, that the derived mutation M269 couldn't have also been present across such a large range.

Use I2 as a model. Several forms of it, grandfather clade, father clade, brother clades, are present during a wide swath of Europe over the millennia of prehistory.

Click to expand...

I'm so sorry, but it doens't make any sense. As for R1b-V88 equivalent from Spain, it was tested by some other genetists and it is positive for a great number of V88 equivalent markers. And, as for R1b-M269 from El Portalon, we saw from Genetiker that it is very eastern shifted.

Also I2 has a point of origin from where it spreads. The fact because of that we have a lot of I2 samples all over Eurasia isn't due to the fact it was ab origine well and uniformly spread... but it is due to the fact that I2 is more ancient than other clades and it spread before other y-haplogroups began their expansion.

And, of course, it is nearly impossible that the same mutation formed in the mean time in two different places from two different lines. We have. probably, a M269 from El Portalon and we have a M269 in Yamna of the same period: how is it possibile? Probably, one of the two isn't M269. Or, a relative of one of the two samples migrated from a place to the other. But, obviously, we haven't the case that M269 developed from two different lines in two different places in the mean time.

It's possible to add up another theory for the replacement: the starvation of farmers. I'm figuring out sometimes that G was a "farmer haplotype" (which added I and E in the way); somewhere he meet R1b ("herder" or "cowboy") and they started a long relation of symbiosy: farmers provided straw for the cows and cowboys provided meat for the farmers; herders provided "fertilizer" from sheeps/goats to the farmer's fields and in exchange sheeps/goats got easy eat from the straw left. This symbiotic realation helps all involved groups making them more strong and adapted to environement: cow have extra food, goats also, farmers have extra food (meat) and also fertilizers; all together would take adventage over economic groups working alone. The fact that R1b appears in the neolithic cave Els Trocs is quite suggestive: in such area only herders or cowboys have dwelt (recent cultivation of maize and potatoes come from the Americas).

If such population would suffer two or three years of bad harvest, they could manage to survive... but if bad weather (too cold or too dry) would endure by five-seven years..., the remaining groups would be those linked to herding, peopling after such episode West Europe in a way (and a time?) similar as Yamnaya's R1a peopled East Europe.

moore2moore said:

The Reich paper, i.e. the scientific lab testing the remains, said they were R1b1 (P25).

That is ancestral to M269.

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And V88. The reason I find it unlikely that the Trocs sample is ancestral to modern European R1b is that the latter is almost wholly L51. L51's "father" and "brother" were found in Yamna remains. Assuming the same mutations didn't occur in multiple places, it seems far more likely that L51 came from the east, which also explains the Yamna admixture across Europe in (mostly) Indo-European speaking populations...the two (L51/IE) came together.

Otherwise, we're looking at a scenario where Trocs' children went east, became Indo-Europeanized, then came back west. It's not impossible, but it hardly seems more likely.

Here's what is certain:

By 7000 years ago, R1b1 P25 was present from Spain to Siberia.

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I think that, while technically true, this doesn't lead to the conclusion that modern European R1b is descended from Trocs R1b (or its near relations in the area). I'll try to explain my thoughts with an example:

It is certain that there were Europeans from North America to Asia 1,000 years ago. This does not mean that the Scandinavians that settled on the eastern seaboard of North America are necessarily the ancestors of modern Europeans in North America; those modern Euro-Americans are descended from later waves of European settlement, long after.

moore2moore said:

Here I reviewed all of the various theories regarding the spread and commonality of R1b in Western Europe, in layman's terms.

Click to expand...

I red your link:
You can have some doubts about the BA or I-E (the two have convergence) theories about the origins of Y-R1b but your absolute rule saying someting like to "the last newcomers are always the most numerous and the preceding stable populations are obliged to be overrun by them" is a big hypothesis without too much basis for its universal affirmation. By the way told in other words it could seem a confirmation of the BA-IE thesis!
when you say other Y-R1b were surely already present in other places of Europe at same time as the first one in Spain (El Crops?) you open a door to interesting reflexion, but we need more deep subclade of R1b at those times to trace the path(s) or R1b into Europe.
I agree concerning the doubts about the male elite warlike killers, slaughtering all other males: reproductive advantages of elites, sure, but as you say, hard to swallow they obtained 98% of their own ligneage dominance as in W-Ireland like that???

To be clear, I don't think Els Trocs is the ancestor to modern European R1b.

I think it is more likely that the "father or grandfather" mutations of R1b were already extensive throughout Europe in the millennia before we find Els Trocs and other, downstream mutations among the Yamna.

In other words, could there have been a pocket of upstream R1b in modern Iberia, France, Germany, the Czech Republic, or even Doggerland? Which then expanded? Absolutely!

To argue the contrary is to assume that Els Trocs somehow teleported to the furthest extremes of Western Europe. That's not how genes were spread, except during modern times.

Brennos said:

Also I2 has a point of origin from where it spreads. The fact because of that we have a lot of I2 samples all over Eurasia isn't due to the fact it was ab origine well and uniformly spread... but it is due to the fact that I2 is more ancient than other clades and it spread before other y-haplogroups began their expansion.

And, of course, it is nearly impossible that the same mutation formed in the mean time in two different places from two different lines. We have. probably, a M269 from El Portalon and we have a M269 in Yamna of the same period: how is it possibile? Probably, one of the two isn't M269. Or, a relative of one of the two samples migrated from a place to the other. But, obviously, we haven't the case that M269 developed from two different lines in two different places in the mean time.

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This is exactly what I am saying with respect to R1b-M269. That its predecessor clades are slightly more spread out than people think.

I'm not aware of any people in history (and trust me, I have read a LOT of history in my time) moving as fast as people would need to move to get R1b in El Portalon and the Yamna at the same time, unless it was present before their period.

MOESAN said:

but your absolute rule saying someting like to "the last newcomers are always the most numerous and the preceding stable populations are obliged to be overrun by them" is a big hypothesis without too much basis for its universal affirmation. By the way told in other words it could seem a confirmation of the BA-IE thesis!

Click to expand...

I agree. I am making the precise point of pointing out the accurate circularity of the statements in this arena, but how such circular statements can be thought of as a rephrasing of the theory.

Let me put it another way. Most people are like, "OMG OMG why is R1b so prevalent? It looks like it came in so recently. OMG!"

My point is that R1b is so prevalent because it expanded so recently.

This is not something to argue about. It's demographics and math.

What this does, however, is destroy the need to seek fantastical explanations on the mechanism. These online boards contain some wild stuff. You read some people's posts, and you would leave with the impression that the R1b-bearing males had either nuclear bombs OR aphrodisiacs and plenty of Viagra.

My point is simple, accurate, elegant (and I believe, true): they arrived more recently, had larger numbers, maybe different germ tolerances, and different cultural attitudes toward childbirth. There are many examples of demographic calculators online. A few years ago, Dienekes posted a model that showed that even a difference of, say, a 1.5x initial population size, combined with having 3.7 children per female (as opposed to 2.2) would result in what looks like the disappearance of the original population in as little as 300 years.

If the first lactase persistent Europeans were from these populations, it would allow babies to be weaned from human milk much earlier, which triggers hormonal shifts allowing most women to conceive again with ease, therefore supporting more frequent childbirth.

Yes it really could be that simple.

This could be one of those things that are in fact so simple and so right under our noses that we can't see them. I too have always been skeptical about the idea of R1b übermensch arriving in their panzer-chariots, slicing every man in half with their bronze swords and then carrying away all the widowed women on their shoulders. Why didn't they achieve this slaughter in the more densely populated Balkans/SE Europe, which was their landing spot in the continent and where R1b is relatively rare to this day? The answer is in the question itself. Most likely, the R1b's saw that Eastern Europe was trouble - they probably had constant fights with the farmers there, so at one point, they probably said "**** it, let's keep moving". Then they must have noticed that the further west they went, the less people - and therefore less problems - they found. And then they just possibly kept going until they hit a wall (the Atlantic Ocean). So instead of god-like warriors, the R1b invaders might have just been very pragmatic. Maybe all they wanted was to find some peaceful and quiet land, where they could be shepherds and have plenty of children.

they probably had constant fights with the farmers there, so at one point, they probably said "**** it, let's keep moving"

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I find that amusing. However, they couldn't conquer the Balkanites as the terrain was mountainous. If they were horseback riders they were effective on flat land but narrow mountain passes are traps. You must have watched enough westerns to know that - even master of westerns - star Ronald Reagan used to say 'cut them off at the pass!"

moore2moore said:

This is exactly what I am saying with respect to R1b-M269. That its predecessor clades are slightly more spread out than people think.

I'm not aware of any people in history (and trust me, I have read a LOT of history in my time) moving as fast as people would need to move to get R1b in El Portalon and the Yamna at the same time, unless it was present before their period.

Click to expand...

You don't get the point: it is nearly impossible that two clades in two different places developed the same mutation in the mean time. It is more likely that a mutation happened in a place and its bearers brought it in other places. It's a matter of science, not history... and, of course, I'm more confident in scientific results, than in personal interpretation of history by not-well-known people who present themselves as the auctoritates in the field.

So, if it isn't yet understandable, I repeat: even if R1b basal clades were well spread all over Europe, then they would have developed different mutations in every places they were, mutations that we can't know because they doesn't exist now.

moore2moore said:

Say it with me everyone: There was no conquest.

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There's no reason to believe this is true. It's no more probable than saying "it was five years and twelve days of bloody war to the knife."

empires empire empires

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I don't know why you're so hung up on this strawman.

This was likely very simple. Start with smaller host populations. Add different disease resistances, coupled with a time of famine, but a caloric advantage for the newcomers (wine/milk?), and then differing birthrates. It's that simple.

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Assuming every point of that is true, it still doesn't magically make it impossible there was violent conflict between the previous and new populations. I really, really don't understand why you think this. We know there was apparently massive population replacement. What's convinced you it was all peaceful? Why are you convinced there was never any violence involved? Why does that seem like a logical thing to insist?