Ancient DNA England: Iron age, Roman-Gladiator, and Anglo Saxon

berun said:
Of course ancient Germans could be more similar to Welsh than today's Germans; the last 2000 years have left a lot of admixture in Europe. About the isotopes this theme it's quite new to me but the testings done are allways local, there are not comparisions with other European regions so my doubt is yet there... moreover after reading in Supplementary:

1.2.3 Carbon and Nitrogen Stable Isotope Results
δ 13 C and δ 15 N values of five of the genotyped individuals fall within or marginally outside (6DRIF3) ±2
SD of the mean for RomanoBritish humans from York (n=173) (Supplementary Fig. 4). These data are
consistent with the local RomanoBritish diet which was very predominantly based on terrestrial
C3 resources, but probably with small contributions of marine protein to the diet of at least parts of the
population 7,8 . Two of the individuals (3DRIF26 and 6DRIF18)
have dentine δ 15 N values which are higher than the York mean +3 SD (or further than 1.5 interquartile ranges from the median).
Consequently, neither individual was consuming the typical York diet, at the time when the sampled tooth
roots were forming, between c. 7 and 14 years of age 71. Indeed, the two datapoints are equally unusual
when compared with the sizeable human dataset available from all of Roman Britain (mean δ 13 C 19.6
±0.7 and δ 15 N 10.2 ± 1.3‰ (1 SD)).

Maybe this difference could be explained by the different gladiator's diet, or maybe that their diet was from another region. All is under doubts.
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I'm not sure that I follow; the diet was consumed when they were children, and the foods weren't grown in England, or even in Europe for some of them.

Sample 3DRIF26 is the Syrian (or Nabataen) autosomally, so his results make sense. I'd like to know the yDna of sample 6DRIF18 and if he was one of the millet eaters.

Ed. Isn't 6DRIF18, one of the two "foreigners" in this tested group, the only one of the Iron Age and Roman era samples who is blonde and blue eyed?
 
Also interesting that lactase persistence was not yet a done deal, although there was a lot of it.
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I'm wondering about this now.

The Rastlin island dudes are all R1b-L21 and LP dating from 2026–1534 cal BC.

http://www.pnas.org/content/113/2/368.abstract

This is a long time before the historical Celtic expansion from La Tene / Halstatt or Belgae.

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

In this new paper two of the roman era samples are R1b-L21
- 3DRIF-16
- 6DRIF-3
plus the earlier iron age woman

Table 16 in the supplementaries shows LP

5/9 samples have results for LP, 3 positive and 2 negative.

Five samples returned imputed lactase persistence genotypes: two Roman burials and the Iron-Age individual were likely to have been lactase persistent, while two Romans, 6DRIF-22 and the suspected migrant 3DRIF-26 were homozygous for the ancestral non-persistence variant.
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So effectively 3/5 LP or 3/4 LP if you exclude the east med guy and
- Iron age woman and one of the two L21 males are LP (and the other L21 is blank not negative)
- other LP is 6DRIF-23

So?

Not inconsistent with the BB celts having a much higher rate of LP and later arrivals of (La Tene / Hallstat / Belgae) reducing the percentage.

#

edited a lot cos late and dumb
 
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There is no Baltic ancestry in any of those samples. Celtic and Germanic nobles had more Steppe admixture than commoners, which pulls them towards EHG-rich populations like Balts and Finns.
 
Greying Wanderer said:
I'm wondering about this now.

The Rastlin island dudes are all R1b-L21 and LP dating from 2026–1534 cal BC.

http://www.pnas.org/content/113/2/368.abstract

This is a long time before the historical Celtic expansion from La Tene / Halstatt or Belgae.

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

In this new paper two of the roman era samples are R1b-L21
- 3DRIF-16
- 6DRIF-3
plus the earlier iron age woman

Table 16 in the supplementaries shows LP

I may be misreading this somehow but it seems to only have five results with four left blank yet in the text it says



6DRIF-22 and 3DRIF-26 are the ones marked in the table as two yellow bars which I assume means both ancestral alleles.

So the five positive for LP should include the three mentioned in the quote plus two more?

Either way my main point is the iron age woman and one of the two L21 males are LP and the other L21 is blank.

So?

Not inconsistent with the BB celts having a much higher rate of LP and later arrivals of (La Tene / Hallstat / Belgae) reducing the percentage.
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For Romano Britons they got results for only 3 of them. Then they have results for the Jordanian (homozygous ancestral) and for the Iron Age woman, who was heterozygous, so she was probably LP.

Of the three Roman-Briton samples where they were able to get results, one (# 3-L21+) was homozygous derived, one (#22 U-152) was homozygous ancestral, and one, #23, is heterozygous, so probably lactase persistent, which means 2/3 Romano-Briton samples with results were already LP, or 3/4 of all the British samples if you count the Iron Age woman. However, 2 of those three were only heterozygous. Don't take any of this to the bank; it's late. :)

IF this is representative, levels are higher now, I think. Has anyone looked at homozygosity rates in Britain for LP?

I'm even less comfortable making broad generalizations about La Tene Celts (if that's even where the ancestors of some of these men came from) versus the prior inhabitants, when we don't have results for the other 3 samples, and have so few samples in total.

(I don't remember; were the Rathlin samples homozygous or were they also heterozygous?)

As far as the pigmentation is concerned, north east Britain wasn't exactly home turf for the Silures was it? I'm not saying there might not have been movement within Britain, but I don't know why you'd assume they were Silures.

@Fire-Haired,

Unless I'm misreading it, it's number 18 who might have spent his childhood elsewhere, yes? He's also the only one of the Romano Britons who is blonde and blue-eyed.

@Vukodav,
I'm not following you. These samples are either soldiers in the Roman army, or gladiators. What do Celtic and Germanic nobles have to do with it?
 
@Angela

IF this is representative, levels are higher now, I think.
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Yes. It's not important but on first reading the frequency looked low and therefore made me lean more towards the idea of a gradual increase over time but then it struck me the results were still consistent with the idea of a dramatic increase during BB times and a reduction in the frequency in eastern Britain from the earlier BB layer being pushed back by later Celtic invasions.

As far as the pigmentation is concerned, north east Britain wasn't exactly home turf for the Silures was it? I'm not saying there might not have been movement within Britain, but I don't know why you'd assume they were Silures.
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I wasn't clear. I meant that if the York people were a mixture of a darker Welsh-like substrate and more recent north sea Celts coming from the east then if there was a higher proportion of the Welsh substrate further west then it would fit with the Romans thinking the Silures in Wales were noticably darker.

Unless I'm misreading it, it's number 18 who might have spent his childhood elsewhere, yes? He's also the only one of the Romano Britons who is blonde and blue-eyed.
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Of the three tests Strontium, Oxygen and Carbon/Nitrogen
- 6/7 are within the British range for Strontium (outlier the J2 guy)
- 5/7 within previous British range for oxygen (outliers the J2 guy and 6DRIF-21)(but they think the range might need to be revised upward)
- 5/7 within previous British range for the Carbon/Nitrogen test (outliers J2 guy and 6DRIF-18)

6DRIF-18 is discussed more in another paper here

http://www.yorkarchaeology.co.uk/wp...r-et-al-2011-Headless-Romans-JAS-Accepted.pdf

which says he had a lot of Nitrogen as a kid so either he ate a lot of freshwater fish or may have come from elsewhere with his genetics implying Britain.

The York diet apparently had some fish so maybe he was just a fisherman's kid?
 
Three carriers of the rs2228479 red hair gene
- M1439 (iron age woman)
- 3DRIF-16 (one of the R1b-L21)
- 6DRIF-22 (R1b-DF23)
 
Angela said:
How interesting also that we find our first Roman Era Middle Eastern sample in Britain! We need to see a comparison of him to early Anatolian farmers and to various Jewish populations. Just from a quick look through he's less SSA than modern Palestinians, yes? That would be pretty much as expected. He's also pretty close to both Saudi's and UAE and modern Syrians depending on the tool used. We really need a better fix through isotope analysis as to precisely where he originated. If he's actually Roman Era Syrian versus Idumean or Judean it makes a difference to the analysis. Also it's important to see if better resolution can be achieved for his yDna J2.
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Something tells me he might have been a Ghassanid. That he had somehow less SSA is also a confirmation of what we know, that post Islamic expansion SSA admixture rised slightly.
 
The diet of the gladiators is quite expressive: thw two "British" L21 are inside York's parameters for Nitrogen/Carbon, the other tell other histories (Figure 4): 6DRIF-22, the "Gaulish" U152 as said had more N intake when young (change of diet? change of place...?); the blondy 6DRIF-18 is out of the parameters as said; same for our "Arab" J2; and for 6DRIF-23 he had less C intake when adult. So it is unexpected to have such figures for a kind of people (gladiators) that mainly came from a market of prisoners of war dedicated to make fun from their fights and deads? Nothing unusual. But what to do when the parameters of York are very similar to that of South Germany? how to distinguish migrations like that? The archaeologists found that they had and stronguer right arm, one of the beheaded had a bear o lion's mark, and the way to finish their lives fits well for gladiators that lost the fight in the arena.

Even so, it's no matter if they were locals or foreigners, the case is that the kind of samples are the worst to get conclusions about local britons as such samples are by sure biased, as the Arab guy clearly demonstrates. OK for foreign "gaulish" U152 and "German" U106 in the burial (Occam's razor), being also possible for the matter that they were sons of foreign slaves, or being even possible that they were local britons: the Atlantic Bronze Age ties to Hallstadt and the La Tène Culture some centuries later could be good moments for the introduction of such clades, cultures, and Celtic languages.
 
Greying Wanderer said:
Three carriers of the rs2228479 red hair gene
- M1439 (iron age woman)
- 3DRIF-16 (one of the R1b-L21)
- 6DRIF-22 (R1b-DF23)
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That isn't a red hair variant. 0/7(xArab) had a Red hair variant. That's abnormal for modern Isles Celts. But I don't think it means anything, Tacitus said many British Celts had Red hair.
 
Great study.

What is interesting is that some gladiators/soldiers were significantly "Eastern-shifted" with their closest matching modern populations being - apart from Welsh, Irish and Scottish - Lithuanian and Polish (while for example German and Austrian far behind). One also ate millet grains as a child and grew up in a more continental, colder climate (according to authors). Another interesting thing (I expected this because I did not believe that U106 is only Germanic) is the discovery of U106 in Roman-era men who were determined to be autosomally of Native Briton origin (though it's possible that their ancestors were Belgae or some other continental sub-group of Celts).

The Anglo-Saxon sample was I1-M253, further strengthening long-predicted Germanic links of this haplogroup.

While Germanic affiliations of R1b-U106 with this study turn out to be weaker than previously thought.
 
FireHaired14 said:
They might not have all been 100% Briton. In PCA some pull towards East Europe.
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Actually they do not pull towards some "generic East Europe".

They pull toward Lithuania and Poland, but not towards Belarus, which is much lower:

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160119/ncomms10326/images/ncomms10326-f2.jpg

ncomms10326-f2.jpg
 
You can't claim that those gladiators/soldiers are "pulling towards East Europe".

They are not pulling towards East Europe as a whole. They are pulling very specifically towards LT-PL, then towards North-West Europe, then towards Belarus, then France/North Italy, and only then the rest of East Europe, to a much lesser extent than LT-PL:

(too bad, that in case of the rest of East Europe, they did not describe which country is which):

East_Europe.png


Authors also claim that those Eastern-pulling individuals were eating millet grains in childhood - quote:

analysis of chemical signatures in the bones and teeth of other skeletons from the cemetery had determined that some of the men grew up in colder climates, perhaps Germany or further east in continental Europe. The chemical evidence also indicated some of them ate millet grain—a crop that was unavailable in Britain—as children.
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Millet was for sure unavailable in Britain and was also unavailable in Scandinavia.

Millet is always associated very strongly with Slavic expansion, but also East Germanics* had it according to new findings.

As for the association of millet with Slavic migrations and expansion - such an excerpt:

https://etd.ohiolink.edu/ap/10?0::NO:10:P10_ACCESSION_NUM:osu1330969837

"(...) [millet is] a uniquely Slavic cultigen in Europe that may be useful in studying Slavic migrations (...)"

*Millet was found in Gothic Wielbark culture and Vandal Przeworsk culture in the area of Poland - see these publications:

"Diet and society in Poland before the state: stable isotope evidence from a Wielbark population (2nd c. AD)":

http://www.ptantropologiczne.pl/en/ckfinder/userfiles/images/AR/vol76/AR_76-1-001-022.pdf

"Stable Carbon and Nitrogen Isotope Analysis of Human Diet Change in Prehistoric and Historic Poland":

https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=osu1330969837&disposition=inline

"Preliminary evidence for medieval Polish diet from carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes":

https://www.academia.edu/324137/Pre...diet_from_carbon_and_nitrogen_stable_isotopes
 
Fire Haired14 said:
That isn't a red hair variant. 0/7(xArab) had a Red hair variant. That's abnormal for modern Isles Celts. But I don't think it means anything, Tacitus said many British Celts had Red hair.
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http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Rs2228479

rs2228479, known as Val92Met or V92M, is one of several SNPs in the MC1R gene commonly associated with red (or blond) hair and poor tanning, but note its high presence in one Asian population
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But I don't think it means anything
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Probably not but one of my pet theories involves red hair as a marker for early metal working.
 
Tomenable said:
Great study.

What is interesting is that some gladiators/soldiers were significantly "Eastern-shifted" with their closest matching modern populations being - apart from Welsh, Irish and Scottish - Lithuanian and Polish (while for example German and Austrian far behind). One also ate millet grains as a child and grew up in a more continental, colder climate (according to authors). Another interesting thing (I expected this because I did not believe that U106 is only Germanic) is the discovery of U106 in Roman-era men who were determined to be autosomally of Native Briton origin (though it's possible that their ancestors were Belgae or some other continental sub-group of Celts).

The Anglo-Saxon sample was I1-M253, further strengthening long-predicted Germanic links of this haplogroup.

While Germanic affiliations of R1b-U106 with this study turn out to be weaker than previously thought.
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For me those things all point at a rolling maritime source: Baltic -> North Sea, with individuals and tribes kinda sliding along the coast.

#

Millet was for sure unavailable in Britain and was also unavailable in Scandinavia.
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This paper discusses the diet tests further - they mention millet has sometimes been found in Britain in the context of barracks supplies - maybe imported for auxilia from regions used to it?

http://www.yorkarchaeology.co.uk/wp...r-et-al-2011-Headless-Romans-JAS-Accepted.pdf

#

@Angela

They recruited a lot of Syrian archer auxiliaries

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxilia#Archers

#

@Tomenable

Gothland always struck me as a possibly significant given the geography
 
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This paper discusses the diet tests further - they mention millet has sometimes been found in Britain in the context of barracks supplies - maybe imported for auxilia from regions used to it?
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Thank you! Here is the excerpt:

http://www.yorkarchaeology.co.uk/wp...r-et-al-2011-Headless-Romans-JAS-Accepted.pdf

Of particular interest were two individuals whose diet contained asignificant proportion of C4-plant (probably millet) –based protein. These are the first such isotope values observed in Britain from any archaeological time-period. Millet was not cultivated in the British Isles in antiquity and the results therefore demonstrate the value of palaeodietary data for assisting in isotopic mobility studies.
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But the authors say that they ate millet in childhood, long before living in military barracks:

"The chemical evidence also indicated some of them ate millet grain—a crop that was unavailable in Britain—as children."

However:

maybe imported for auxilia from regions used to it?
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Maybe those children were mixed children of Auxilia men from millet-eating regions with local British women ???

And that's why they ate millet in childhood.
 
Tomenable said:
Thank you! Here is the excerpt:

http://www.yorkarchaeology.co.uk/wp...r-et-al-2011-Headless-Romans-JAS-Accepted.pdf



But the authors say that they ate millet in childhood, long before living in military barracks:

"The chemical evidence also indicated some of them ate millet grain—a crop that was unavailable in Britain—as children."

However:



Maybe those children were mixed children of Auxilia men from millet-eating regions with local British women ???

And that's why they ate millet in childhood.
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I need to read it again because it's a bit confusing but...

I think it says some of the 80+ samples from the graveyard had a high millet diet but if you check the labels those samples *aren't* from the ones in the current paper - they are from other samples in the graveyard.

IIRC the only one of the seven roman era samples in the current paper (excluding the east med guy) who is outside the range on the Carbon/Nitrogen test is 6DRIF-18 who is outside the range on Nitrogen (from fish) rather than Carbon (from millet).

You have to double check the sample label because the samples in the earlier paper are different.

#

Otherwise yes - maybe it's somehow connected to soldiers being fed millet in barracks. Just a guess though.
 
Greying Wanderer said:
I need to read it again because it's a bit confusing but...

I think it says some of the 80+ samples from the graveyard had a high millet diet but if you check the labels those samples *aren't* from the ones in the current paper - they are from other samples in the graveyard.

IIRC the only one of the seven roman era samples in the current paper (excluding the east med guy) who is outside the range on the Carbon/Nitrogen test is 6DRIF-18 who is outside the range on Nitrogen (from fish) rather than Carbon (from millet).

You have to double check the sample label because the samples in the earlier paper are different.

#

Otherwise yes - maybe it's somehow connected to soldiers being fed millet in barracks. Just a guess though.
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That's how I interpret it as well. The millet eating wasn't in reference to the autosomally Romano-British samples.

Plus, I don't understand some of the comments in both the paper and the studies posted above since growing and even eating millet was very common in the Roman World. It's just that, going by the ancient authors, although some people liked it if cooked in certain ways, including boiled in milk, most well to do Romans much preferred wheat and only used millet for animal fodder and bird seed unless the wheat crops failed. Poorer people would eat it, of course, and as I mentioned above, when soldiers were punished they were sometimes given millet rations instead of wheat rations. So, even if not grown specifically in Britain in that time period, I'm sure it was imported.

See: Millet in the Roman World-Charlene Murphy
https://www.academia.edu/12839687/Finding_Millet_in_the_Roman_World

Charlene Murphy-Millet in the Roman World.jpg


Until corn was brought in from the New World, millet was used in Northern Italy to make polenta, just as during the Roman Era they used it to make puls. The most common way I've eaten it is in thick soups with farro and lentils.

If you search google.it for "ricette con miglio" there are dozens and dozens.
 
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