Steppe Influence in Croatia by the Bronze age

Fire Haired14

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Y-DNA haplogroup
R1b DF27*
mtDNA haplogroup
U5b2a2b1
I guess this is just a preview to an upcoming paper. The link leads to a blank page.

Daniel M Fernandes et al., 2016, Poster at: Dubrovnik, Croatia, Conference: IUAES 2016: Preliminary results of a prehistoric human ancient DNA time series from coastal and hinterland Croatia

Five ancient Croatian genomes were projected on a West Eurasia PCA. Each genome used less than 10,000 SNPs, which is very very very very very few. The Neolithic ones plot by other Neolithic Europeans and the Bronze age one pulls significantly towards the East with Bulgarians. I don't trust the exact locations of this PCA because Yamnaya for example plots between Northern Europe and Caucasus and Bell Beaker with Croatians.

The important news here is that by the "Bronze age"(no date given) there was Steppe influence in Croatia.

Abstract:
Ancient DNA studies are currently going through an age of rapid development, thanks to recent technological and methodological advances the extraction of more data from less and more degraded material. This allows for broader geographical studies with reduced costs. Here we present preliminary results on a human Croatian time series that will include around 30 individuals, covering Neolithic cultures such as Starcevo, Cardial Impresso, Danilo, Sopot and Hvar, as well as five Early to Late Bronze Age sites. The eight samples analysed so far have yielded human DNA contents ranging from 0.15 to 68.32%, with five above 30%. Low-density principal component analysis based on genome-wide SNP data seems to show few differences between Early (Zemunica Cave) and Middle (Zidana Cave) Neolithic samples, but a later Bronze-Age sample from Jazinka Cave plots very close to modern Croatians and Balkan populations in general. Mitochondrial haplogroups, with scores of 0.53 to 0.64, seem to be in conformity with what would be expected to be found in Early European Farmers (H1, K1, K2), while our Bronze Age individual showed either HV0 or H4, due to low coverage. It is plausible that this H4 haplogroup in Bronze Age Croatia is a result of Late Neolithic Indo-European migrations. The position of this individual in the principal component analysis plot may also support that steppe component. More samples will be screened in the near future and a subset will be sent for low-coverage sequencing, then allowing strong population genetic analysis

PCA_JAZ1.png
 
I don't think 10.000 SNPs give enough resolution to draw any conclusion.

It is enough SNPs. It isn't a coincidence all the Neolithic genomes cluster with Sardinians and other Neolithic Europeans, while the Bronze age genome pull so far east. Every genome in Europe(xSpain, Italy) younger than 3000 BC from Poland to Ireland to Hungary to Sweden has significant Steppe admixture so chances are Steppe admixture was also in Croatia.

This Bronze age Croatian probably lived during an early wave of Indo European speakers into the Balkans, that brought Illyrian, Greek, Thracian, etc. languages.

By the way: Exact locations of ancient samples on this PCA shouldn't be taken serisouly because the ancients were projected with moderns when they should have been projected desperately.
 
That's cool, hopefully with Y dna so we can figure out when I2a Dinaric showed up in Balkans.
 
In the figure the Bronze Age sample plots finely between Neolithic Croatians and the Yamnayans; also the Early Bronze Age is when IE must have reached the Balkans (Myceanean Greek is written already by 1600 BC and I remeber that a major archaeological disruption was around 2000).

Once that said, I can't perceive the CWC samples in the figure, and that is important as to know if such IE wave came directly from Yamnaya (doubtful from the distance but above all the peopling event involved) or if it was from the related CWC descended cultures from the north.

If realy the mtDNA was H4 it would point better for CWC origin instead from Yamnaya if Eupedia is updated in that:

Haplogroup H2b, H6a1b, H13a1a1a and many other undetermined H subclades (including many probable H1 and H5) turned up among the mtDNA samples from the Yamna culture, which occupied the Pontic-Caspian Steppe during the Early Bronze Age. The Corded Ware culture, which is associated with the expansion of Y-haplogroup R1a from the steppes to Central Europe and Scandinavia, yielded samples belonging to H1ca1, H2a1, H4a1, H5a1, H6a1a and H10e. Ancient DNA from the Catacomb culture, strongly associated with Y-haplogroup R1a, yielded samples belonging to H1, H2a1 and H6. The Unetice culture, which is thought to mark the arrival of R1b in Central Europe (but overlapping with the previous R1a expansion), had individuals belonging to H2a1a3, H3, H4a1a1a2, H7h, H11a, H82a.
 
In the figure the Bronze Age sample plots finely between Neolithic Croatians and the Yamnayans; also the Early Bronze Age is when IE must have reached the Balkans (Myceanean Greek is written already by 1600 BC and I remeber that a major archaeological disruption was around 2000).

Once that said, I can't perceive the CWC samples in the figure, and that is important as to know if such IE wave came directly from Yamnaya (doubtful from the distance but above all the peopling event involved) or if it was from the related CWC descended cultures from the north.

If realy the mtDNA was H4 it would point better for CWC origin instead from Yamnaya if Eupedia is updated in that:
Looking at BA Croat or other BA Balkan Samples they could have mixed already with local population losing their strong Yamanya signature, or they came from West Yamnaya or Anatolia with already higher farmer and lower Yamnaya admixtures. To figure that out we will need West Yamanya, BA Anatolia and maybe Cucuteni samples.
 
If the Croatian Bronze Age mtDNA is H4 it is another paradox to relate it to the East: in "Neolithic mitochondrial haplogroup H genomes and the genetic origins of Europeans" there are two German Bell Beakers with H4a1 (this study tries to say that European H was mostly from Iberian BB), and in "New population and phylogenetic features of the internal variation within mitochondrial DNA macro-haplogroup R0" there is a map where H4 is now present above all in Iberia and Caucasus and explains that:

Some clades get the highest frequency in Iberia, such as H1, H3, and H5a or are only observed in this region (H4);

By now with the data available the IE ancestry route for the Bronze Age sample seems from the north, in the meeting place for BB, CWC , Unetice.
 
@Berun,

We don't have enough mito genomes from ancient or modern people to determine whether haplogroup H4 is descended of "Steppe" people. It's been found in Corded Ware, but so has H1 and H6 and H13.
 
That's cool, hopefully with Y dna so we can figure out when I2a Dinaric showed up in Balkans.

Last 2,000 years probably. At least that's what age estimates suggest.
 
Modern H4 distribution and ancient samples (2 BB, 1 CWC, 1 Unetice) are a numerical evidence for at least a westerner major presence (4 from some 25 "German" samples from zero in some 25 in the steppes). Also the secondary H1 and H3 expansion with the BB could have carried perfectly some H4 in Germany and it would have not any steppe origin at all. So even if accepting a Yamnaya ancestry, it might have lived in the north previously... but of course there is the yamnayitis that is over all recent papers that somehow prevents other scenarios, and if in this paper they have not taken the CWC data into account that would be a symptom.
 
If the Croatian Bronze Age mtDNA is H4 it is another paradox to relate it to the East: in "Neolithic mitochondrial haplogroup H genomes and the genetic origins of Europeans" there are two German Bell Beakers with H4a1 (this study tries to say that European H was mostly from Iberian BB), and in "New population and phylogenetic features of the internal variation within mitochondrial DNA macro-haplogroup R0" there is a map where H4 is now present above all in Iberia and Caucasus and explains that:



By now with the data available the IE ancestry route for the Bronze Age sample seems from the north, in the meeting place for BB, CWC , Unetice.


Maybe I misundertand your thought here?
Why a paradox? without going in a sub-subclade question I red in Maciamo that mt H4 was absent in Europe before BA and is widespred today at low frequencies. No recent link to H1 or H3 more occidental or northern.
By the way I find unprecise and even wrong and mistaking the term "Neolithic" for BBs and CWC (it's not your fault, it's often said and written). Chalcolithic Eneolithic fit better.
 
The paradox is because tracking H4 is pointing first to the north (BB, CWC, Unetice samples), and if we trackt the sister H1 and H3 to the eastward expansion of BB, and being now H4 more high in Iberia, the logical to expect is that also the sister would made the same travel, but of course history has it's own logic.
 
It would be interesting if any Y-DNA sample would be processed in some future research, from Bronze Age samples.

This, however, is competely incorrect:''later Bronze-Age sample from Jazinka Cave plots very close to modern Croatians ''

It plots with Bulgarians, who are not genetically close to Croats. Only conclusion I could drawn from that is that modern Croat population recived additional genes trough Slavic migrations.

Bronze Age Croat plot significantly more southern, and I presume ancient Illyrian genetic profile looked like his.
 
My MtDNA is associated with the Yamnaya Culture( at the oldest root. H6a1. I have other changes to my MtDNA) I feel MtDNA H6 probably arose in Central Asia or possibly Eastern Europe( Samara Russia) Family Tree DNA lists my ancestral origins in this order: Slovakia and Croatia first, then Slovenia, Serbia. All these countries surround Hungary. The Yamnaya migrated to the Hungarian Plains. My MtDNA is a reflection of these migrations. Jen V
 

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