Why R1b couldn't have been spread around Western Europe by the Bell Beaker people

[Expredel]

The 1% is E1b, but the question remains where and when it comes from. If it was part of the original R1b-L11 migrations that would obviously point at North Africa. North African DNA studies will be important, some R1b L23 has been found so far, but the studies are of poor quality.

[Tone]

As of June, 2015, with several major papers published, it's almost certain that the Bell Beakers were exclusively R1B.

It makes sense. A huge population shift should have left a huge archaeological record. The spread of R1A in the Bronze Age is associated with the Corded Ware culture and likewise R1b is associated with the sprawling Bell Beaker Culture.

The only question seems to be the theory that the Bell Beakers originated in Portugal. How can that be true if the R1B Bell Beakers are arriving from the East as an extension of the Yamna Horizon?

I'm speculating that the Portugal origin for Bell Beakers is in error. However, one thing that can't be ruled out is the Megalith Builders as a source for R1B We still don't have any dna from the Atlantic fringe of that period, and the Megaliths were a major culture that surely spread genes around. Again, just speculation and highly unlikely, but it has to be considered in the absence of evidence.

Still the Beakers were R1B and by far they are the most likely candidates to have spread R1B around Western Europe.

[joeflood]

I don't agree with any of this. First I think R1b-M269 had been endemic in Europe at least 10 000 years before the Bell Beaker period. Second I doubt even Northern Bell beakers were 'exclusively R1b' any more than Germans are exclusively R1b today.

Third I don't think the presence of Bell Beaker culture implies anything much about population movement, Christianity spread without the presence of Hebrews, and Roman culture was everywhere although Italians did not move wholesale (we would have a lot more G and Alpine R1b throughout Europe if they had).

The thing any 'late R1b arrival' theory fails to explain is the really high concentrations as we approach the Atlantic coast. Also, if you think they came from the steppe as some amateur hobbyists do, why R1a is so common in East-Central Europe.

As of June, 2015, with several major papers published, it's almost certain that the Bell Beakers were exclusively R1B.

It makes sense. A huge population shift should have left a huge archaeological record. The spread of R1A in the Bronze Age is associated with the Corded Ware culture and likewise R1b is associated with the sprawling Bell Beaker Culture.

The only question seems to be the theory that the Bell Beakers originated in Portugal. How can that be true if the R1B Bell Beakers are arriving from the East as an extension of the Yamna Horizon?

I'm speculating that the Portugal origin for Bell Beakers is in error. However, one thing that can't be ruled out is the Megalith Builders as a source for R1B We still don't have any dna from the Atlantic fringe of that period, and the Megaliths were a major culture that surely spread genes around. Again, just speculation and highly unlikely, but it has to be considered in the absence of evidence.

Still the Beakers were R1B and by far they are the most likely candidates to have spread R1B around Western Europe.

[Athiudisc]

I don't see any reason to assume R1b was widespread in western Europe 10,000 years ago. With R1b dominating Yamnaya and now being found in Corded Ware/Battle Axe remains (predating Bell Beaker), an east to west spread seems most likely. The only R1b we have that's older in Europe IIRC is the irrelevant El Trocs...I say irrelevant because it has no relation to modern, western European R1b, whereas the other examples obviously do (a CW/BA sample being U106, apparently, the oldest such find, and probably the oldest we're likely to get if current age estimates are remotely accurate).

The R1b dominance of BB could easily be explained by BB being the organic result of IE/megalith culture contact, considering founder effect and the desirable skills of (for example) an R1b metallurgic and/or herding class...in German BB graves, something like 25% of those interred apparently came from the northeast. What if what we think of as Bell Beaker culture was simply the mixing of the megalith folk from the southwest with IEs from the northeast?

Additionally, I'm relatively sure there are non-R1b BB remains, we just haven't tested them. If nothing else, assuming the above musings were accurate, it's not at all impossible that when you arrive in a new area and start taking wives, one or more of them will have a brother or something that you end up keeping around, whether simply for peace in the home or because he makes valuable pottery. :P

[joeflood]

What can I say, the proof is right in front of you.

There are R1bs in Europe today. Use Occam's Razor. The simplest assumption to account for this is that there have always been R1bs in Europe, or at least for a very long time. If someone has an alternative theory, the onus of proof is on them.

Scattered throughout Europe today are remnant R1b subclades that are not M269. I even have one in my CORNWALL project. I have been waiting for more of these to emerge in ancient European DNA, thank you very much for pointing out El Trocs. I cannot find out when the common ancestor of El Trocs and M269 must have been, but it appears to have been a very long time ago, paleolithic for certain. So we have had R1b in Europe for 8000 years - at least.

No reputable scholar supports a Copper or Bronze age entry for R1b to Europe, this is all supported by amateurs. The academic consensus following Balaresque et al is that R1b is early neolithic, from agriculturalists who entered Europe 6500 years ago, three millennia before the Megalisth Builders. But frankly I don't believe this either, the proof is weak. I think when the agriculturalists turned up in Europe they were surrounded by R1b hunters who copied their culture and eventually bred most of the invaders out.

I don't see any reason to assume R1b was widespread in western Europe 10,000 years ago. With R1b dominating Yamnaya and now being found in Corded Ware/Battle Axe remains (predating Bell Beaker), an east to west spread seems most likely. The only R1b we have that's older in Europe IIRC is the irrelevant El Trocs...I say irrelevant because it has no relation to modern, western European R1b, whereas the other examples obviously do (a CW/BA sample being U106, apparently, the oldest such find, and probably the oldest we're likely to get if current age estimates are remotely accurate).

The R1b dominance of BB could easily be explained by BB being the organic result of IE/megalith culture contact, considering founder effect and the desirable skills of (for example) an R1b metallurgic and/or herding class...in German BB graves, something like 25% of those interred apparently came from the northeast. What if what we think of as Bell Beaker culture was simply the mixing of the megalith folk from the southwest with IEs from the northeast?

Additionally, I'm relatively sure there are non-R1b BB remains, we just haven't tested them. If nothing else, assuming the above musings were accurate, it's not at all impossible that when you arrive in a new area and start taking wives, one or more of them will have a brother or something that you end up keeping around, whether simply for peace in the home or because he makes valuable pottery. :P

[Athiudisc]

What can I say, the proof is right in front of you.

I was thinking the same thing. Yamnaya -> Corded Ware -> western Europe, at least for U106. There is literally no evidence to suggest otherwise.

There are R1bs in Europe today. Use Occam's Razor. The simplest assumption to account for this is that there have always been R1bs in Europe, or at least for a very long time.

This is like saying "there are R1bs in North America today, the simplest assumption to account for this is that there have always been R1bs in North America, or at least for a very long time." There's literally no data to support such an assumption. The El Trocs R1b isn't ancestral to any western European R1b of the modern age.

If someone has an alternative theory, the onus of proof is on them.

You're ignoring the data.

No reputable scholar supports a Copper or Bronze age entry for R1b to Europe, this is all supported by amateurs.

Are you really trying to say all the studies recently demonstrating R1b in Yamnaya and Corded Ware are amateur work? Haak and Reich are amateurs?

The academic consensus following Balaresque et al is that R1b is early neolithic, from agriculturalists who entered Europe 6500 years ago, three millennia before the Megalisth Builders.

Again, it seems like you've just decided to ignore all the work that confirms a theory you dislike. I think if you kept up with the science, you'd see that your theory is not the academic consensus at all. You can't just stop learning around 2010 and insist on a theory from a decade ago despite the data provided by professionals.

[joeflood]

[QUOTE=Athiudisc;460132]I was thinking the same thing. Yamnaya -> Corded Ware -> western Europe, at least for U106.

I see nothing in Haak to support your assertion. I do find on searching, "The Yamnaya Samara R1b is mostly R1b-Z2103, and none is in the West ... So it's totally impossible that Yamnaya R1b is ancestral to Western Europe".Elsewhere I see people saying it was M-269, something I doubt very much. We are looking at a big game of internet Chinese Whispers here.

This whole idea that DNA has got something to do with particular cultures or tribes is a strange one. Roman culture was all over Europe 2000 years ago, where is the Roman DNA?

I've seen Reich and It didn't prove anything to me. For a start, that late in the piece Yamnaya could just as well be an outpost of European DNA. Let me look again.

>This is like saying "there are R1bs in North America today, the simplest assumption to account for this is that there have always been R1bs in North America, or at least for a very long time."

It is not the presence of R1b but the distribution that is the issue. Now here is *very strong evidence* against the East-West R1b theories. USA was settled East-West. Do you see the slightest indication that some haplogroup becomes more concentrated as you head west in the USA? Do you think that native american DNA has been wiped out by technologically superior conquerors? Yet this is the nonsense we are expected to believe in Europe.

>The El Trocs R1b isn't ancestral to any western European R1b of the modern age.>

Probably not, it's just one of many thousands of ancestral R1b lines that have become extinct in Europe, leaving mostly U106 -P312 [ie the descendants of two men]. However - don't you find it at least strongly suggestive that of the very few ancient Y-DNA remains sampled in Western Europe, oe should be R1b and not even M269? There would have been very many more of these in the past and they will continue to come to light. phylogeography is littered with the debris of bogus theories like Reich's - starting with 'Neanderthals and sapiens never even met' which was current about six years ago.

[MOESAN]

BBs for I think were not only religion spreaders, rather metals searchers came from East, maybe I-Ean maybe not. they were a few number in a lot of spotty settlements, and seems relatively heavily settled only in some regions as central Rhine (Worms by instance), and they had not huge territories, only what seem "counters". in Germany it seems they mixed early enough with autochtonous people (more HG than neolithical) and Corded ones, evidently around highlands rich for metals ores and strategic places; it the source of later British BBs. the late "BB"s settlements we have some ancient DNA from, are late mixed developments where some BBs initial aspects were kept among others.it does not tell us if the DNA we find is the ninitial BBs one... BBs were economic enzymes for the most, except some places. By the way, according to some surveys about ancient densities of population, at early and later times they don't seem having helped to populations encreases at any level, in Northwestern Europe.

[Athiudisc]

I see nothing in Haak to support your assertion. I do find on searching, "The Yamnaya Samara R1b is mostly R1b-Z2103, and none is in the West ... So it's totally impossible that Yamnaya R1b is ancestral to Western Europe".

Most of the Samara R1b was Z2103. One was L23. Given that L23 is ancestor of both Z2103 and (European) L51, how does it make sense to suggest that it's "impossible" that European R1b is descended from Yamnaya?

This is like saying "well, your grandfather's father and brother lived in Russia, so it's impossible your grandfather was Russian." It just doesn't follow.

Elsewhere I see people saying it was M-269, something I doubt very much. We are looking at a big game of internet Chinese Whispers here.

Z2103 is under M269, as is L23, is it not?

This whole idea that DNA has got something to do with particular cultures or tribes is a strange one. Roman culture was all over Europe 2000 years ago, where is the Roman DNA?

All over Europe, in small amounts.

It is not the presence of R1b but the distribution that is the issue. Now here is *very strong evidence* against the East-West R1b theories.

Like what?

USA was settled East-West. Do you see the slightest indication that some haplogroup becomes more concentrated as you head west in the USA?

I think we would if, after the initial European invasion of North America, someone else then invaded the east coast several times over the centuries, pushing the descendants of the initial invaders west. or simply extirpating most of them from eastern North America...

Do you think that native american DNA has been wiped out by technologically superior conquerors? Yet this is the nonsense we are expected to believe in Europe.

Um, that's essentially what actually happened in North America. Amerindian haplogroups are very rare compared to European ones. How is this at all debatable?

Probably not, it's just one of many thousands of ancestral R1b lines that have become extinct in Europe, leaving mostly U106 -P312 [ie the descendants of two men]. However - don't you find it at least strongly suggestive that of the very few ancient Y-DNA remains sampled in Western Europe, oe should be R1b and not even M269?

Not really. Look at how far V88 traveled, long before the entrance of M269 into Europe.

There would have been very many more of these in the past and they will continue to come to light. phylogeography is littered with the debris of bogus theories like Reich's - starting with 'Neanderthals and sapiens never even met' which was current about six years ago.

I hear what you're saying, I just don't understand how you don't see that your R1b-as-European-since-the-last-Ice-Age theory is one of those bogus theories that no one really believes anymore beyond a few random people on certain message boards. You're tying to present it as scientific consensus, when the consensus has been moving steadily away from it for years.

Can you even name a scientist that currently supports it? I can't, off the top of my head.

[joeflood]

Athiudisc, thanks for discussing this.

I've managed to get hold of the Haak et al full paper 2014-5, and I must say it does provide some support for what had previously been considered a crank neo-Nazi theory, viz an Aryan bronze age source for R1b. Certainly the current distribution of R-Z2103 could source from that area, though it's a long push to attribute the more familiar West European subclades.

The problem is that ALL major subclades of R1b (U106, P312, V88, Z2103) have about the same 130-180 generation coalescent time based on STR variance, representing a massive bronze age expansion in every region [though why the Bronze Age should cause a massive worldwide population increase, or any population increase for that matter, remains a mystery]. Therefore you cant say that any subclade might be 'ancestral' to any other or that one direction is preferred.

I do think that the original 'R1b since the last ice age' theory is a dead duck, what with the age of R1b being pulled forward so far. A Younger Dryas resettlement is however still possible. Evidence is increasingly pointing to a bolide in the Atlantic being the cause of the "Big Freeze" at 12.8K BPE. Tidal waves from this event could easily have wiped out the Atlantic littoral populations in Europe and Africa, permitting resettlement of the survivors into empty space with the very high prevalence of a single haplotype we see in both Nigeria and Ireland. Speculative but interesting.

If paleolithic (or even neolithic) R1b from Europe continues to prove elusive in the remains, we may have to give up on hunter-gatherer R1b theories. Time will tell. Though it does seem unbelievable that the vast bulk of the population of Western Europe could have such a recent origin.

I'll come back on a few of your other points later.

[Athiudisc]

Athiudisc, thanks for discussing this.

Of course. That's what forums are for. :P

I've managed to get hold of the Haak et al full paper 2014-5, and I must say it does provide some support for what had previously been considered a crank neo-Nazi theory, viz an Aryan bronze age source for R1b.

In all fairness, though, it was only "a crank neo-Nazi theory" after the very strong reaction against such traditional history after WWII. In all seriousness, the only reason anyone ever believed "pots, not people!" was in reaction to Nazis. That's not a very strong basis for science. It would be like rejecting rockets because of von Braun...it might be emotionally appealing, but we'd not have reached the moon with such sentiments.

The problem is that ALL major subclades of R1b (U106, P312, V88, Z2103) have about the same 130-180 generation coalescent time based on STR variance, representing a massive bronze age expansion in every region [though why the Bronze Age should cause a massive worldwide population increase, or any population increase for that matter, remains a mystery].

I think V88 split off and expanded into Africa far before the Bronze Age, but that aside, I don't understand what you mean by "though why the Bronze Age should cause a massive worldwide population increase, or any population increase for that matter, remains a mystery." I think it's relatively obvious why metal-working, horse-riding, dairy-consuming expansionists might supplant earlier populations...they had huge advantages, especially when encountering people who didn't have metal, or cavalry, or dairy, and especially when those earlier populations have a low population density, as was likely the case in northwestern Europe (less so in Mediterranean regions).

Therefore you cant say that any subclade might be 'ancestral' to any other or that one direction is preferred.

We must be talking about different things. We can literally tell which subclades are ancestral to others through SNPs. As a rough example, I'm positive for L45, and carry the mutations for (skipping back) U106, and M269, and L23, etc.

If paleolithic (or even neolithic) R1b from Europe continues to prove elusive in the remains, we may have to give up on hunter-gatherer R1b theories. Time will tell. Though it does seem unbelievable that the vast bulk of the population of Western Europe could have such a recent origin.

We do have Neolithic R1b in Europe, but it was V88, IIRC (which is part of why I believe it expanded back into Africa before the Bronze Age). I don't find it unbelievable at all that the vast bulk of the population in western Europe is of recent origin...we've seen similar dynamics far more recently in North America, Australia, etc.

I'll come back on a few of your other points later.

Great. I only check this forum so often, so sorry for the long pauses in response. I could have sworn you hadn't responded as of five days ago, but the posting dates say I'm crazy. :P

[MOESAN]

I don't see any reason to assume R1b was widespread in western Europe 10,000 years ago. With R1b dominating Yamnaya and now being found in Corded Ware/Battle Axe remains (predating Bell Beaker), an east to west spread seems most likely. The only R1b we have that's older in Europe IIRC is the irrelevant El Trocs...I say irrelevant because it has no relation to modern, western European R1b, whereas the other examples obviously do (a CW/BA sample being U106, apparently, the oldest such find, and probably the oldest we're likely to get if current age estimates are remotely accurate).

The R1b dominance of BB could easily be explained by BB being the organic result of IE/megalith culture contact, considering founder effect and the desirable skills of (for example) an R1b metallurgic and/or herding class...in German BB graves, something like 25% of those interred apparently came from the northeast. What if what we think of as Bell Beaker culture was simply the mixing of the megalith folk from the southwest with IEs from the northeast?

Additionally, I'm relatively sure there are non-R1b BB remains, we just haven't tested them. If nothing else, assuming the above musings were accurate, it's not at all impossible that when you arrive in a new area and start taking wives, one or more of them will have a brother or something that you end up keeping around, whether simply for peace in the home or because he makes valuable pottery. :P

the question is, for I think, the BBs at first in SW Iberia, had a spotty geographic distribution, and seemed - always at first - a foreign introgression of mighty but not numerous people into an already chalcolithic region - everywhere , in France, Switzerland, even in more Central Europe, they seem a foreign elite at first; apparently well accepted by former elites, either for their metallurgists or prospectors skills or because they were very good and well equiped warriors; everywhere it seems they finished being integrated in other more numerous elites of surely I-Ean origin (Germany) or perhaps Megalithers origin (Atalntic). I suppose they were a step and an element in the genesis of Celtic culture, but not the first demic element, so, if I 'm right, we are not obliged to link theom to Y-R1b.

[MOESAN]

I see an example of this intergation in other groups in the BB-Corded evolution in Germany, the Netherland (and GB?): even among the Britain BBs we can devine a strong foreign element (surely from Balkans-Carpathians region but already settled along the Rhine) mixed with Cordedlike people and other elements supposed autochtones of North and Central Germany; it seems the subsequent Wessex Culture and Armorican Tumuli cultures were for a part descendants of this Channel-Netherlands-Rhine new mix. Original BBs transmitted some elements of their culture to other people; it is the mix where they were surely a minority that become Western Bronze Age cultures.

[Athiudisc]

...so, if I 'm right, we are not obliged to link theom to Y-R1b.

I agree. I believe we'll (eventually) find that R1b met BB as the latter expanded eastward into central Europe.

[RobertColumbia]

...Third I don't think the presence of Bell Beaker culture implies anything much about population movement, Christianity spread without the presence of Hebrews....

Have you read the New Testament or any books on the early Christian church? Christianity initially spread via Jewish communities of the Middle East and Europe and slowly, but inexorably, gained many non-Jewish converts, enough to make them the majority. That didn't happen overnight. There were large Jewish communities in what is now Turkey, Greece, Italy, and probably France and Germany too.

[RobertColumbia]

...
I think we would if, after the initial European invasion of North America, someone else then invaded the east coast several times over the centuries, pushing the descendants of the initial invaders west. or simply extirpating most of them from eastern North America....

I believe this is precisely what we see in Europe when it comes to R1b. R1b likely entered Europe sometime in the very late Neolithic or early to mid Bronze age, killed and/or assimilated some I-bearing men, pushed the rest aside, and flourished for a while. R1a came later, storming out of Asia, killing significant numbers of R1b men, assimilating some, and pushing the rest of them west. We find a greater genetic diversity of R1b men in the east, indicating that they are a remnant of a once-diverse population, but larger numbers of R1b men in the west, showing us the descendants of the subset of R1b men that survived to make it to the west and established successful Italic, Celtic, and Germanic societies.

[joeflood]

Are you attempting to argue that Christianity spread to most of the world, or for that matter anywhere outside the Near East, through Jewish populations?

The point is that you don't need a particular genetic tribe in order to spread a culture. This is a common popular misconception and is actually racist.

[joeflood]

The 'later R1a' might have some merit if you presumed the east-west migration and replacement theory were true, but of course there is little evidence for it. But what you then have to ask is - what were high levels of R1b and R1a doing in particular invading tribes?

Consider. It takes an average N generations for a particular allele to spread through an isolated population of N men. So if you have 1000 men (which one would need for conquest) it is going to take an average 30 000 years of isolation to get 100% concentration. Something else has to be going on to get high concentrations relatively quickly (like 5000 years). There seems to be little or no study of this.

All sounds highly implausible to me.

[Athiudisc]

The 'later R1a' might have some merit if you presumed the east-west migration and replacement theory were true, but of course there is little evidence for it.

Except for all the historic and genetic evidence that exists. There is literally no evidence for the old "R1b spread throughout Europe from refugia after the last Ice Age" theory. It was based on nothing more than modern distribution, which is so obviously flawed that I'm amazed the idea still has adherents. Again, by the same logic, Europeans are native to North America and have been there for 30,000 years. It's just silly.

But what you then have to ask is - what were high levels of R1b and R1a doing in particular invading tribes?

Having sons that went on to be quite successful, it would appear.

Consider. It takes an average N generations for a particular allele to spread through an isolated population of N men. So if you have 1000 men (which one would need for conquest) it is going to take an average 30 000 years of isolation to get 100% concentration.

Where are you pulling your figures from? They don't seem to agree with any examples in the real world. We have population groups that are, for example, 95% R1b, and R1b hasn't existed for 30,000 years, so your calculations are essentially impossible, mathematically-speaking.

Something else has to be going on to get high concentrations relatively quickly (like 5000 years). There seems to be little or no study of this.

There's actually lots of attention being paid to the issue, you just seem to dislike the data and conclusions.

All sounds highly implausible to me.

What theory sounds plausible to you, then? According to all the evidence we possess, the R1b that would come to dominate western Europe came from central Asia with Indo-European cultures/languages in the last, say, six-thousand years.

[joeflood]

I am sorry Athiudisc but your responses are full of unproven and incorrect statements and misunderstandings. I will go through them one by one shortly.

Here i refer to your core statement " so obviously flawed that I'm amazed the idea still has adherents."

Now take a look at originhunters.blogspot.pt/2014/08/iberian-r1b-y-dna-first-movers-in-europe . I dont necessarily agree with all of this, as I will explain later, but I do agree with part of it. R1b almost certainly originated in Asia but i do think it is quite possible that r1b1 originated in Western Europe and R-M273 almost certainly. The unusual subclades you see in Western Asia are probably due to very early back-migrations from Europe to Asia leading to isolated pockets such as R-Z2103 in the Caucasus (Yamnaya), still there till the present day.

[joeflood]

The second question of interest is the age of R1b. It is claimed that this has been 'pushed forward' but I find it very unlikely that we have any kind of reliable result. The trouble is that the dating is highly sample sensitive and including even one relic line can make a huge difference. Take a look at dienekes.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/on-age-of-y-chromosome-haplogroup-r1b in which adding a single male R-L278* increased the age lower bound from something like 10000 years to over 15000 years. As Ive said before Europe is covered in these relic lines, and once improved testing begins to reveal them we are going to have the age of European R1b pushed way back. Watch this space.

[Athiudisc]

I am sorry Athiudisc but your responses are full of unproven and incorrect statements and misunderstandings. I will go through them one by one shortly.

I'd like that.

Here i refer to your core statement " so obviously flawed that I'm amazed the idea still has adherents."

Now take a look at originhunters.blogspot.pt/2014/08/iberian-r1b-y-dna-first-movers-in-europe

"Sorry, the page you were looking for in this blog does not exist."

R1b almost certainly originated in Asia but i do think it is quite possible that r1b1 originated in Western Europe and R-M273 almost certainly.

What makes you think R1b1 originated in western Europe?

I'm completely unfamiliar with M273.

The unusual subclades you see in Western Asia are probably due to very early back-migrations from Europe to Asia leading to isolated pockets such as R-Z2103 in the Caucasus (Yamnaya), still there till the present day.

Why do you believe this?

[Athiudisc]

I am sorry Athiudisc but your responses are full of unproven and incorrect statements and misunderstandings. I will go through them one by one shortly.

Still waiting. :)

[Brennos]

What can I say, the proof is right in front of you.

There are R1bs in Europe today. Use Occam's Razor. The simplest assumption to account for this is that there have always been R1bs in Europe, or at least for a very long time. If someone has an alternative theory, the onus of proof is on them.

Scattered throughout Europe today are remnant R1b subclades that are not M269. I even have one in my CORNWALL project. I have been waiting for more of these to emerge in ancient European DNA, thank you very much for pointing out El Trocs. I cannot find out when the common ancestor of El Trocs and M269 must have been, but it appears to have been a very long time ago, paleolithic for certain. So we have had R1b in Europe for 8000 years - at least.

No reputable scholar supports a Copper or Bronze age entry for R1b to Europe, this is all supported by amateurs. The academic consensus following Balaresque et al is that R1b is early neolithic, from agriculturalists who entered Europe 6500 years ago, three millennia before the Megalisth Builders. But frankly I don't believe this either, the proof is weak. I think when the agriculturalists turned up in Europe they were surrounded by R1b hunters who copied their culture and eventually bred most of the invaders out.

In fact, R1b was in Spain in the Early Neolithic. However, it wasn't the kind of R1b of the majority of western Europeans: it was R1b-V88 (Els Trocs cave 3).

See the link: http://www.ancestraljourneys.org/eur...ithicdna.shtml

[MOESAN]

Are you attempting to argue that Christianity spread to most of the world, or for that matter anywhere outside the Near East, through Jewish populations?

The point is that you don't need a particular genetic tribe in order to spread a culture. This is a common popular misconception and is actually racist.

Why do you make with this unprecise and too often heard - or red - word of "racist" or "racism"??? what signification here?
If you take "race" as "ligneage" it could be different; some cultural changes seem having occurred at the same time as ligneages changes; NOT ALWAYS, NOT NEVER; sometimes with slaughters, sometimes without any, sometimes only with some "pushings off"; the today transmission of aspects of culture is very fast, but we cannot make a rule based upon it for the far past. And genetics show us some radical changes (Neolithic) occurred with strong colonization and changies of ligneages. Just my point.