Low LP levels in Bronze Age

Angela

Elite member
Messages
21,823
Reaction score
12,325
Points
113
Ethnic group
Italian
More and more evidence that it only began to increase in frequency in the first millennium BC and has continued to the present day. So, all those elaborate theories that were passionately held about it's history were incorrect.

See:
Joachim Burger et al

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)31187-8


"Highlights


  • Genomic data from Tollense, the oldest large-scale conflict site north of the Alps
  • Novel method indicates that Bronze Age warriors represent an unstructured population
  • Lactase persistence frequency in Tollense (7.1%) is significantly lower than today
  • Selection coefficient estimate of 6% over the last 3,000 years
Summary

Lactase persistence (LP), the continued expression of lactase into adulthood, is the most strongly selected single gene trait over the last 10,000 years in multiple human populations. It has been posited that the primary allele causing LP among Eurasians, rs4988235-A [1
], only rose to appreciable frequencies during the Bronze and Iron Ages [2
, 3
], long after humans started consuming milk from domesticated animals. This rapid rise has been attributed to an influx of people from the Pontic-Caspian steppe that began around 5,000 years ago [4
, 5
]. We investigate the spatiotemporal spread of LP through an analysis of 14 warriors from the Tollense Bronze Age battlefield in northern Germany (∼3,200 before present, BP), the oldest large-scale conflict site north of the Alps. Genetic data indicate that these individuals represent a single unstructured Central/Northern European population. We complemented these data with genotypes of 18 individuals from the Bronze Age site Mokrin in Serbia (∼4,100 to ∼3,700 BP) and 37 individuals from Eastern Europe and the Pontic-Caspian Steppe region, predating both Bronze Age sites (∼5,980 to ∼3,980 BP). We infer low LP in all three regions, i.e., in northern Germany and South-eastern and Eastern Europe, suggesting that the surge of rs4988235 in Central and Northern Europe was unlikely caused by Steppe expansions. We estimate a selection coefficient of 0.06 and conclude that the selection was ongoing in various parts of Europe over the last 3,000 years."
So, I wasn't wrong. It wasn't about steppe herders having high levels of LP from living off their cows and horses, and bringing it to more central and western Europe.

The question is why did it start to take off in the first millennium.
 
Maybe milk becoming more important at the expense of cheese. Also did yogurt exist in Neolithic Europe?
 
it must have already spread in the Neolithic, even if it was only at a low frequency originally. I don't see any evidence that the European LP allele found in sub-Saharan Africa came from Bronze Age steppe-derived people.
 
it must have already spread in the Neolithic, even if it was only at a low frequency originally. I don't see any evidence that the European LP allele found in sub-Saharan Africa came from Bronze Age steppe-derived people.

I agree. That's one of the reasons I always doubted that was the source.
 
That's very interesting. Ancient DNA discredits many theories based on ideologies of the past.
 
The one about Pontic Caspian steppe people bringing light pigmentation to Europe also.

They did bing the plague, unfortunately.
 
These are there haplogroups( a mixture of r1b and I-m170 with 1 r1a sample that belonged to z-282 type)...🤔

Source:
eurogenes based on pribislav anlaysis

WEZ15 I2a1b1a1b1a1a

WEZ24 I2a1b1a2b1a2a1a1a1a3a2~

WEZ35 R1b1a1b1a1a2

WEZ39 I2a1b1a1b1~

WEZ40 R1b1a1b1a1

WEZ48 I2a1b2a2a3

WEZ51 I2a1b1a1b1a1a~

WEZ53 R1b1a1b1a

WEZ54 R1b1a1b1a1a2

WEZ56 R1a1a1b1~

WEZ57 R1b1a1b1a

WEZ58 I2a2a

WEZ59 R1b1a1b1a1a2a1a

WEZ64 I2a1b1a1b1a

WEZ71 I2a1b1a1b1~

WEZ83 I2a1b1a1b~
 

This thread has been viewed 6231 times.

Back
Top