Revised Laz, Ancient genomes suggest three ancestral populations for Europeans

[Fire Haired14]

If you mean "wiped out", no, that doesn't necessarily follow, in my opinion. The Celts could have been and I think probably were a small warrior aristocracy imposed on a larger population. In that case, there would probably have been a dramatic increase in the prevalence of the Y haplotype of the Celtic invaders over time, but the autosomal DNA could still include a lot of Neolithic ancestry, as well as some Mesolithic and even Paleolithic ancestry.

That's not what the autosomal DNA of modern west Europeans suggests. The fact Irish and Welsh are no differnt is evidence Celts from Britain exterminated the previous people of Ireland.

 

[Angela]

So, how do you explain the almost complete dominance of IE languages in Europe? Perhaps IE folk specialized as language teachers. Or perhaps the stereotype was partly true. The Celtic legends of old Ireland and the Roman descriptions of the Celts both conjure up images of a stratified warrior society where chariots played an important role in battle.

I didn't mean to imply that there was no population flow into southern Europe after the Neolithic. Just looking at the Tuscan score for EEF, it is about 75%. The score for the North Italians is about 70%. Something obviously happened, but it wasn't significant enough to move the needle very far in southern Europe. Just take a look at the PCA from Lazaridis et al. Even Northern Italians aren't all that different from these EEF.
View attachment 6391



The question for me is when and under what circumstances did the actual changes occur. If I again look at the Italian genetic landscape, it seems to me that there was indeed some admixture after the fall of Rome, in northern Italy for example, and perhaps tapering off in the south around Campania. It doesn't seem to have been very large, however, if we go by IBD analysis, and even if we look at the distribution, in Italy, of what I think most people would see as the unambiguously northern yDNA lineages like I1, or even R U-106.

The period of the Celtic migrations was, I think, a different story, but those date, in Italy, to the first millennium B.C., not to 3000 B.C. which is when these "kurgan" theories posit that the Indo-European invasions occurred. We have direct evidence of these Celtic incursions not only in the written record, but in the archaeological record as well, and they may be responsible for a good part of the change in the genetic landscape, although many of these marauding bands of warriors went back to Central Europe (the Boii, for example) and so we still aren't talking about population replacement.

So, we're basically looking, in Italy, at least, at the period from 2300 B.C. to about 500 B.C., if we take into account the IBD analysis in Ralph and Coop. See:
View attachment 6390

That indicates to me the middle and late Bronze Age or even the early Iron Age. As far as Italy is concerned, Gimbutas thought that the Villanovan culture brought the "Italic" languages to Italy. I've seen later formulations that seek to tie it to Urnfield or Hallstatt. My speculation would be that we should be looking perhaps at the Terramare and the Apennine cultures in terms of local manifestations. Frankly, I don't know and I don't pretend to know. I think we need a lot more evidence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terramare_culture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apennine_culture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villanovan_culture

I'm just saying that in the advance of none of these cultures do we see evidence of mass genocide in Italy, not even of the men. Also, had such a thing occurred, how can one explain that the EEF component remains what it is? Unless you are positing that the "Indo-Europeans" were themselves not very different from the people already in Italy? That's possible, but wouldn't this kind of invasion show in the archaeological record?

As for chariots, the earliest known "actual" chariots are from Sintashta, in 2000 B.C., a long time, and a long way away from central Europe in 3500 B.C.. I'm also not aware of any in the context of even the second millennium B.C. movements. I suppose you could have driven chariots across the narrow opening between the Alps and the sea in northeastern Italy through which the Lombards also came, but I don't know of any evidence of it. They certainly weren't driving them across the western Alps in the time of Hallstat etc., at least not to my knowledge. (And Hannibal notwithstanding,

)

I guess what I'm saying is that I think that cultural artifacts and other indicators that date to the Iron Age in the steppes that are connected with people like the Scythians were transposed and attributed to a far earlier period, and perhaps different people, at least by hobbyists. As much as some bloggers might like it, I don't think these incoming people were "blonde cowboys of the steppes."

Ed. Ah, I see that you answered your own question, and in much fewer words. Indeed, how could there have been population replacement even in far western Europe, if the people remain close to 50% EEF.

 

[Aberdeen]

That's not what the autosomal DNA of modern west Europeans suggests. The fact Irish and Welsh are no differnt is evidence Celts from Britain exterminated the previous people of Ireland.

I don't understand what you're saying. There are in fact some differences between the two populations, and the substantial similarities would be explained by the fact that the population of ireland could have been and probably was fairly similar to the population of Britain during the Neolithic period. So why assume that Celts from Britain exterminated the previous people of Ireland? The "Celts" as a genetic group that arrived from the continent, probably weren't that large a group in Britain or Ireland, but succeeded in imposing their language and culture on the existing population. And not the same language, because the Irish spoke Gaelic, not Welsh, so the Celts who conquered Ireland probably arrived in Ireland from somewhere on the continent, rather than from Britain. The reason parts of Scotland became Gaelic speaking is because of an invasion from Ireland.

 

[Aberdeen]

Angela, I don't want to repeat your long post, but I think it does a good job of advancing the argument that these Bronze Age invaders who imposed their IE language and culture on the Neolithic population of western Europe may not have got around to it until the iron Age. So, did the Bronze Age arrive in western Europe before the IE folk? Should we think of IE invaders of western Europe as Iron Age, maybe as a result of a pause after they over-ran eastern Europe during the Bronze Age" That would require a substantial rewrite of the chronology of IE western Europe. And while it does seem unlikely that those charioteers could have swept out of the Russian steppes and ridden their chariots through the forests of western Europe and across the English Channel, how do we explain the existence of a warrior culture that seems to have embodied nomadic cultural values as western Europe emerged into recorded history? Your view makes sense in genetic terms, but raises a host of other issues, I think.

 

[Angela]

Angela, I don't want to repeat your long post, but I think it does a good job of advancing the argument that these Bronze Age invaders who imposed their IE language and culture on the Neolithic population of western Europe may not have got around to it until the iron Age. So, did the Bronze Age arrive in western Europe before the IE folk? Should we think of IE invaders of western Europe as Iron Age, maybe as a result of a pause after they over-ran eastern Europe during the Bronze Age" That would require a substantial rewrite of the chronology of IE western Europe. And while it does seem unlikely that those charioteers could have swept out of the Russian steppes and ridden their chariots through the forests of western Europe and across the English Channel, how do we explain the existence of a warrior culture that seems to have embodied nomadic cultural values as western Europe emerged into recorded history? Your view makes sense in genetic terms, but raises a host of other issues, I think.

I wouldn't say that the change began in the Iron Age in southern Europe. I'm comfortable with saying, based on the genetics, that it started in the Bronze Age, but I think we're talking about layers here, and it was added to in the Iron Age.

In Spain also, by the way, we're talking about population movements around 2000 B.C., not 3500 B.C.

Regardless, my main point was that unless these Indo-Europeans were very EEF by the time they got to southern Europe, there wasn't any population replacement going on. There couldn't have been, because these southern Europeans are still 70-75% EEF, and even in central Europe, we have the Germans at around 50% EEF.

The biggest fly in the ointment you might say is how did Spain become so highly yDNA R1b then, and yet so highly EEF, or northern Italy become so high in R1b U-152 and remain 70% EEF. I don't know.

Either the P312 clades are not the Indo-Europeans of the Kurgans, but instead perhaps a slightly older population that entered Europe through the Balkans, or each man who came to Europe during the Bronze Age took twenty wives, or there is something about these lineages, like a slight propensity to father more boys, that led to it.

 

[Aberdeen]

I agree that R1b is, in many respects, a puzzle. But I find the continued EEF of northern Italy to also be quite puzzling, if the percentages in fact that constant over the millennia. There does appear to be some evidence of waves of invaders duing the Bronze and Iron Ages, followed by the creation of the Roman empire, which resulted in the importation of large numbers of slaves to work plantations (and although that probably affected southern and central Italy more than the north, it's difficult to imagine that it didn't have an impact in the north). Then the Germanic invasions and the fall of Rome, which led to the Lombards settling in northern Italy, followed by the chaos of the Dark Ages, with various massacres of populations, different groups being conquered, etc. And northern Italy still comes out 70% EEF? It's a bit of a puzzle to me. Maybe a higher birth rate among the peasants kept returning northern Italy to a high EEF level.

 

[Nobody1]

I wrote this before on other threads and will gladly repeat;
That the Indo-Europeans did not wipe out the pre-existing pops. was already evident from Archaeology and mostly also from Linguistics; That a new people emerged is however likewise evident from Archaeology and Linguistics and it spanned a good thousand years of continual expansion towards east and west likewise; And Genetics is manifesting all of it especially the common pattern of the pre-existing female pop. remaining (more) intact than the pre-existing male pop. and the Indo-European society was a patriarchal society;

And Indo-Europeans have first to be tested via the 3way-mixture (Lazaridis) model of EEF/ANE/WHG in order to fully understand that impact; For none of the corpses used to create this 3way-mixture models were Indo-Europeans;

The Indo-European expansion was individual from area to area so for the mentioned Italy the emerging of the Indo-Europeans is signalized by the expansion of the Bronze-age Urnfield-complex (~1200BC) of Canegrate/Scamozzina (proto-Golasecca/Golasecca) and expanding further south into proto-Villanova/Villanova of the Indo-European Umbrians (proto-Italic/Italic) and a second-wave forming into the Iron-age Este/Atestine-cultre of the Indo-European Veneti;

Arnoaldi-situla (Villanova-culture / Po-valley) - a chariot race [5th cen BC]

Italy than also experienced a new-wave (following the Bronze-age collapse) of the non-Indo-European Pelasgians from the East Aegean (Tyrsenoi/Etruscans); As described by Herodotus (I/XCIV) as migrating into the land of the Ὄμβροι [Umbrians]; And the Terremare-culture (~1500BC) most prob. was already a first Indo-European wave expanding into the Po-valley for it bears all the markers; And who is Sapsuta?

Paul MacKendrick - The Mute Stones Speak (1962)
The terremare are important: they preserve the memory of an immigrant population, distinct in culture from the aborigines. The distinguishing marks of this new culture are knowledge of metal-working, a pottery identifiable by its exaggerated half-moon handles, and the practice of cremation rather than inhumation. On the evidence, we must suppose that this new culture emerged about 1500 B.C. as a fusion of indigenous hut-dwellers and immigrant lakedwellers. Bronze (Horse) bits found in their settlements show that they had domesticated the horse, and there is some evidence, outside the terremare, for dogs as well, described by Randall-Maclver as "doubtless good woolly animals of a fair size."

 

[Angela]

I wrote this before on other threads and will gladly repeat;
That the Indo-Europeans did not wipe out the pre-existing pops. was already evident from Archaeology and mostly also from Linguistics; That a new people emerged is however likewise evident from Archaeology and Linguistics and it spanned a good thousand years of continual expansion towards east and west likewise; And Genetics is manifesting all of it especially the common pattern of the pre-existing female pop. remaining (more) intact than the pre-existing male pop. and the Indo-European society was a patriarchal society;

And Indo-Europeans have first to be tested via the 3way-mixture (Lazaridis) model of EEF/ANE/WHG in order to fully understand that impact; For none of the corpses used to create this 3way-mixture models were Indo-Europeans;

The Indo-European expansion was individual from area to area so for the mentioned Italy the emerging of the Indo-Europeans is signalized by the expansion of the Bronze-age Urnfield-complex (~1200BC) of Canegrate/Scamozzina (proto-Golasecca/Golasecca) and expanding further south into proto-Villanova/Villanova of the Indo-European Umbrians (proto-Italic/Italic) and a second-wave forming into the Iron-age Este/Atestine-cultre of the Indo-European Veneti;

Arnoaldi-situla (Villanova-culture / Po-valley) - a chariot race [5th cen BC]

Italy than also experienced a new-wave (following the Bronze-age collapse) of the non-Indo-European Pelasgians from the East Aegean (Tyrsenoi/Etruscans); As described by Herodotus (I/XCIV) as migrating into the land of the Ὄμβροι [Umbrians]; And the Terremare-culture (~1500BC) most prob. was already a first Indo-European wave expanding into the Po-valley for it bears all the markers; And who is Sapsuta?

Paul MacKendrick - The Mute Stones Speak (1962)
The terremare are important: they preserve the memory of an immigrant population, distinct in culture from the aborigines. The distinguishing marks of this new culture are knowledge of metal-working, a pottery identifiable by its exaggerated half-moon handles, and the practice of cremation rather than inhumation. On the evidence, we must suppose that this new culture emerged about 1500 B.C. as a fusion of indigenous hut-dwellers and immigrant lakedwellers. Bronze (Horse) bits found in their settlements show that they had domesticated the horse, and there is some evidence, outside the terremare, for dogs as well, described by Randall-Maclver as "doubtless good woolly animals of a fair size."

I agree with most of this, Nobody 1, as I pointed out in my post, although there's no proof of any of it yet, and particularly, no proof that the Etruscans were not, in the main, "natives". (We've discussed this many times, and you still haven't convinced me.)

The fact remains that either these Indo-Europeans were not very numerous, or they were heavily EEF by the time they got to Italy. The genetic results are what they are; the northern Italians are still 70% EEF, (and the Spaniards score even higher, I think) and the Germans are still about 50% EEF. The theories about population movements into Europe have to account for that.

 

[Angela]

I agree that R1b is, in many respects, a puzzle. But I find the continued EEF of northern Italy to also be quite puzzling, if the percentages in fact that constant over the millennia. There does appear to be some evidence of waves of invaders duing the Bronze and Iron Ages, followed by the creation of the Roman empire, which resulted in the importation of large numbers of slaves to work plantations (and although that probably affected southern and central Italy more than the north, it's difficult to imagine that it didn't have an impact in the north). Then the Germanic invasions and the fall of Rome, which led to the Lombards settling in northern Italy, followed by the chaos of the Dark Ages, with various massacres of populations, different groups being conquered, etc. And northern Italy still comes out 70% EEF? It's a bit of a puzzle to me. Maybe a higher birth rate among the peasants kept returning northern Italy to a high EEF level.

According to Ralph and Coop, the answer lies in the large population sizes in Italy from the time of the Neolithic. Some wandering bands of warriors, as with the Ostrogoths, or even a group of 100,000 Lombards are not going to massively change the overall genetic composition. The Celtic migrations, although they fall into the period when the data shows there was population movement into Italy, were probably not that much larger in terms of the number who stayed. The Bronze Age migrations and early Iron Age migrations probably account for the biggest proportion.

Still as you point out, that moved the needle only down to 70%.

As for the Roman era, from the IBD analysis, there isn't any appreciable increase in gene flow into Italy during that period. It seems counter-intuitive to me too, believe me, but it doesn't show up. Maybe a study will come out tomorrow that presents a different picture, but so far, that's what we have. Also, I don't see how big infusions of genes from slaves makes sense considering the definite cline in Italy in terms of autosomal and uniparental DNA. After all, slaves didn't only come from the Levant or Greece or Anatolia. Huge numbers of them also came from Gaul and Germania and Britain. Caesar's vast fortune, that he used to buy the favor of the Roman mobs, came from the sale of his Gallic slaves. Those slaves weren't apportioned in Italy according to ethnicity, either. By that, I mean, all the eastern slaves didn't go to the north and all the northern slaves to the latifundia of the south and Sicily. And there were slaves all over the empire, not just in Italy.

If the data isn't invalidated, it must be that the latifundia system, and slavery in general in the ancient world was not like the slavery of the American south with which many people are more familiar. There was an endless supply of slaves, so there was no need to breed them. Many of them also were sent to the mines, or the galleys or to those latifundia where they were worked to death. Many of the female slaves wound up in brothels, and how long could they have lasted there? The babies, if any, and if the remains found in places in Britain are any indication, were killed at birth. It was a horrible, cruel world in many ways, no matter where your allegiances lay. Yes, there was class movement in the Roman empire. Slaves were manumitted, became prosperous clients, but what was their number compared to the total population? It's also important to remember that a good number of the slaves as time passed were Italian peasants who sold themselves into slavery.

That isn't satisfactory for me, either, but it's the best I can manage.

 

[Nobody1]

I agree with most of this, Nobody 1, as I pointed out in my post, although there's no proof of any of it yet,

Language and Archaeology for starters;
Not just the modern/current language but also the ancient languages themselves which are attested by inscriptions which in turn of course further manifest the Archaeological scenario;

The fact remains that either these Indo-Europeans were not very numerous, or they were heavily EEF by the time they got to Italy. The genetic results are what they are; the northern Italians are still 70% EEF, (and the Spaniards score even higher, I think) and the Germans are still about 50% EEF. The theories about population movements into Europe have to account for that.

Exactly;
But the fact also remains that none of us know what the Indo-European result actually is; So how is it than possible to determine an impact or lack of it; Bulgarians have 71% EEF and Bulgaria (Varna/Karanovo-VI) was one of the first contacts and presence of the Indo-Europeans in the west; What can be concluded from that is pure speculation in both ways; Let the corpses do the talking and so i am waiting until someone tests the 3way-mixture (Lazaridis) model on to actual Indo-Europeans i.e. Andronovo corpses (Keyser et al) / Corded-ware corpses (Haak et al) / Yamna/Catacomb corpses (Wilde et al);

(We've discussed this many times, and you still haven't convinced me.

)

 

[Aberdeen]

One blogger's perspective on the IE expansion into Europe.

http://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.ca/p/blog-page.html

I agree with those who think it's all speculation until the ancient bones tell us more about who the IE folk from the steppes were genetically, and we also have more DNA results from Europe before and after the IE expansion into Europe. And that map, even if it's correct, doesn't really tell us anything about western Europe. Nevertheless, I think it's relevant to the discussion, up to a point. I've always assumed that the subsequent IE expansion into western Europe had a fair bit of eastern Europe genetic material because of mixing between the original IE folk and the people they conquered or influenced in eastern Europe.

 

[Angela]

[

QUOTE=Nobody1;430350]Language and Archaeology for starters;
Not just the modern/current language but also the ancient languages themselves which are attested by inscriptions which in turn of course further manifest the Archaeological scenario

We've gone from pots are just pots, not people, to pots mean lots of people. It's all much more complicated than that, and site specific. As for linguists, they give me a headache. :grin: I'll wait for the DNA, thank-you very much.

Exactly;
But the fact also remains that none of us know what the Indo-European result actually is; So how is it than possible to determine an impact or lack of it; Bulgarians have 71% EEF and Bulgaria (Varna/Karanovo-VI) was one of the first contacts and presence of the Indo-Europeans in the west; What can be concluded from that is pure speculation in both ways; Let the corpses do the talking and so i am waiting until someone tests the 3way-mixture (Lazaridis) model on to actual Indo-Europeans i.e. Andronovo corpses (Keyser et al) / Corded-ware corpses (Haak et al) / Yamna/Catacomb corpses (Wilde et al);

You're preaching to the already long converted. You should be addressing this point to Firehaired.

As for the mass of the Etruscans, you'll convince me when you show me an ancient DNA result that couldn't have come to Italy with the Neolithic, or the results from a Villanovan compared to an Etruscan, preferably both commoners, that shows a major difference in DNA. I don't have any preference either way, I should note, as to the ultimate origin of the Etruscans. I always quite liked the idea, as inaccurate as it now seems, that I was partly descended from the Trojans.

I've read way too much in the Classics, no doubt.

 

[epoch]

I agree that R1b is, in many respects, a puzzle. But I find the continued EEF of northern Italy to also be quite puzzling, if the percentages in fact that constant over the millennia. There does appear to be some evidence of waves of invaders duing the Bronze and Iron Ages, followed by the creation of the Roman empire, which resulted in the importation of large numbers of slaves to work plantations (and although that probably affected southern and central Italy more than the north, it's difficult to imagine that it didn't have an impact in the north). Then the Germanic invasions and the fall of Rome, which led to the Lombards settling in northern Italy, followed by the chaos of the Dark Ages, with various massacres of populations, different groups being conquered, etc. And northern Italy still comes out 70% EEF? It's a bit of a puzzle to me. Maybe a higher birth rate among the peasants kept returning northern Italy to a high EEF level.

The influx of slave genes may be smaller than first guessed. Back before the impact of hygiene, the onset of the consumption of potatoes and the discovery of penicilline child mortality was high, and far higher among the lowest class. Nutrition was a harsh environmental pressure. Add to that a population shrinkage in late antiquity, which tends to favour majority genes if I recall correctly and you see that slavery actually may not have added that much.