Very interesting. Finally some Neolithic Y-DNA from Europe. As I had expected no R1a or R1b.
Y-DNA analysis
The presence of F* is a bit befuddling considering that it has virtually disappeared from the modern population, except in specific parts of the Caucasus*. This could mean that the Neolithic farmers of the LBK originated in the (southern) Caucasus, the place where cattle, goats and pigs were first domesticated.
The rarity of F* and G2a3 in the geographic area corresponding to the LBK Culture also means that the R1a and R1b Indo-Europeans who invaded Europe in the 3rd millenium BCE most certainly killed most of the men from the Neolithic population. In fact, the G2a3 found in northern Europe nowadays belongs mostly to a more recent subclade (G2a3b1a) that also certainly originated in the Caucasus, but only came to Europe during the Bronze Age, accompanying R1b1b2a1.
mtDNA analysis
Out of 26 mtDNA haplotypes identified, there were :
- 3 N1a
- 3 HV
- 3 H
- 1 V
- 3 J
- 6 T (incl. 3 T2)
- 4 K
- 1 U5a1a
- 2 W
No big surprise here. It is pretty much a Middle Eastern composition, except the U5a1a, V and W samples (perhaps an assimilated hunter-gatherers). Note the near absence of haplogroup U, which is the dominant haplogroup after H in northern Europe nowadays. As I had predicted, hg U is of Paleolithic European origin (U5) or of Indo-European origin (U2, U3, U4), which is to say of Paleolithic Eastern and North-Eastern European origin (Russia, Ukraine).
Neolithic lineages had a high proportion of N1a and HV compared to the modern European population, which also supports the hypothesis of a major population shift since then. The authors mention that only 11 of these 26 haplotypes are found in high frequency in the present-day population. In other words, there would have been massive extinction of lineages on the maternal side too, although probably less important than for male lineages.
Predicting Y-DNA from mtDNA
The article comes with a map of genetic distances between the LBK samples and modern populations. It confirms a strong link with Anatolia and the Caucasus.
North-east Spain, south-west France, Cornwall and south Wales, which have the highest percentage of R1b1b2 in the world (along with Ireland), display one of the highest genetic distance from Near Eastern mtDNA (either LBK or modern Near East). If this needs explanations, it means that maternal lineages associated with high R1b populations simply do not correlate with the Neolithic diffusion of agriculture from the Near East. In other words, it is highly unlikely that Near Eastern farmers brought R1b to Western Europe.
The map also shows that the regions where Y-DNA haplogroup I is the strongest in comparison to Near-Eastern haplogroups E1b1b, T, J and G2a (i.e. northern Spain, Scandinavia, Bosnia-Herzegovina) are the regions where mtDNA lineages are the farthest from the LBK/Near-Eastern samples.
(more detailed above the above map in the thread
Europe before the Indo-Europeans)
Since I determined the percentage of Paleolithic vs Neolithic admixture by subtracting R1a and R1b percentages, this new study provides a confirmation that that R1a and R1b were indeed absent in Central and Western Europe during the Neolithic, since their modern incidence can be completely ignored to determine which region has the most Near-Eastern/Neolithic lineages.
The part of northern France around Picardy and Upper Normandy seems to be a hotspot for Near Eastern mtDNA. I had previously noticed the higher than average incidence of hg G2a and J2 in the region. I have personally observed that people in this region did look considerably more Caucasian (not Semitic) than elsewhere in northern Europe. A perfect example is French Defence Minister Hervé Morin (pictured below), who hails from this part of France.
I think that Neolithic LBK farmers from the Caucasus could have looked like that.
* I have since noticed that the authors of the study did not test for all the SNP's downstream of F, so that it is possible that the F* are actually pre-I or pre-J lineages.