New map of West European Hunter-Gatherer (WHG) admixture

[Maciamo]

Here is the last of the three admixture maps based on Lazaridis et al. (2014) and Eurogenes.

This map compares the genes of modern people to the DNA of a Mesolithic hunter-gatherer from the Loschbour cave in Luxembourg, who lived 8000 years ago and belonged to Y-DNA haplogroup I2a1b and mtDNA haplogroup U5. It is supposed to reflect the percentage of similarity with the Late Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic inhabitants of Western Europe. Nowadays this admixture peaks among the Estonians (49.5%), Finns (47%), Lithuanians (46.5%), Icelanders (45.5%) and Orcadians (45.5%).

Note that I don't have the data for the North Caucasus and the Maghreb. The Maghreb could be interesting as the region has about 5% of U2+U4+U5, but also about 5% of HV0 or V, which are all potentially descended from Palaeolithic or Mesolithic European. So it's not necessarily under 5%, although surely under 10%.

[Angela]

Here is the last of the three admixture maps based on Lazaridis et al. (2014).

This map compares the genes of modern people to the DNA of a Mesolithic hunter-gatherer from the Loschbour cave in Luxembourg, who lived 8000 years ago and belonged to Y-DNA haplogroup I2a1b and mtDNA haplogroup U5. It is supposed to reflect the percentage of similarity with the Late Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic inhabitants of Western Europe. Nowadays this admixture peaks among the Estonians (49.5%), Finns (47%), Lithuanians (46.5%), Icelanders (45.5%) and Orcadians (45.5%).

Note that I don't have the data for the North Caucasus and the Maghreb. The Maghreb could be interesting as the region has about 5% of U2+U4+U5, but also about 5% of HV0 or V, which are all potentially descended from Palaeolithic or Mesolithic European. So it's not necessarily under 5%, although surely under 10%.

Sorry to be nitpicking, Maciamo, but are these indeed the values from Lazaridis et al?

From the chart below, Bergamo is .177 WHG and Toscana .136. Also, North Spain is .125, and the rest of Spain doesn't score 10%. (.068)

Are these perhaps based on Eurogenes figures?



Ed. To correct typo "under 10%", not 1%.

[Hauteville]

Sorry to be nitpicking, Maciamo, but are these indeed the values from Lazaridis et al?

From the chart below, Bergamo is .177 WHG and Toscana .136. Also, North Spain is .125, and the rest of Spain doesn't score 1%. (.068)

Are these perhaps based on Eurogenes figures?

Yes i agree with you. In addition to there aren't samples from continental southern Italy, central Italy, Portugal, Turkey and Middle East.
Spanish have 0,68, and as far as i know the french south are french basque.
And finns, russian north and mordovians aren't part of the table as far as i know.

http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/s...1/001552-1.pdf

[Maciamo]

Sorry to be nitpicking, Maciamo, but are these indeed the values from Lazaridis et al?

From the chart below, Bergamo is .177 WHG and Toscana .136. Also, North Spain is .125, and the rest of Spain doesn't score 1%. (.068)

Are these perhaps based on Eurogenes figures?

I have used both Eurogenes and Lazaridis as there is much more data from Eurogenes. The data for Italy is exactly what you quote: 17.7% in northern Italy and 13.6% in Tuscany. Regarding Spain, the regional data is indeed from Eurogenes. However, .068 means 6.8%, not 0.68%.

[Hauteville]

Aren't the greek samples only from the north?

[Angela]

http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/suppl/2013/12/23/001552.DC1/001552-1.pdf[/URL]

Ed. No, the French south figures are indeed the figures for what would generally have been, in the past, Aquitania. There are no samples for France-south east.
At least that's my recollection. The Basque figures in the chart are the French Basque. Figures are not given for Pais Vasco. The Greeks, to my recollection, are from Thessaly.

I'll check though. I just wish the supplement wasn't so long. :)

[Angela]

I have used both Eurogenes and Lazaridis as there is much more data from Eurogenes. The data for Italy is exactly what you quote: 17.7% in northern Italy and 13.6% in Tuscany. Regarding Spain, the regional data is indeed from Eurogenes. However, .068 means 6.8%, not 0.68%.

Well goodness, that was careless of me. Thank-you for catching it. I'll have to proof read more carefully in the future, and not only my grammar. I obviously meant under 10%.

My only concern is that the Eurogenes analysis may have produced an "ANE" component which may not be precisely equivalent to that of Lazardis et al.

[Hauteville]

In the same Eurogenes Sicily is around 25% and Abruzzo 26% as far as i know.

[Hauteville]

The greek samples are from Thessaloniki.

[Ike]

The greek samples are from Thessaloniki.

Hmmm, sampling in urban areas is not quite smart.

[Fire Haired14]

You can use stats from ANE K8, which is a Eurogenes test which will be on GEDmatch after New years. You should use it because it takes out east Asian and African admixture.

http://eurogenes.blogspot.com/2014/1...t-to-east.html

[Fire Haired14]

A Sami from Finland scored 57% WHG on ANE K7, which is around what French and people from central Europe score, so not very high. Because of East Asian admixture Sami, have less WHG than other NE Europeans. The same goes for Finno-Urgics and Turks in Russia.

[Fire Haired14]

Note that I don't have the data for the North Caucasus and the Maghreb. The Maghreb could be interesting as the region has about 5% of U2+U4+U5, but also about 5% of HV0 or V, which are all potentially descended from Palaeolithic or Mesolithic European. So it's not necessarily under 5%, although surely under 10%.

NW Africans in ANE K8 score 15-20% WHG, higher than any near easterns, even though they have alot of African ancestry. Also, several Siberians score significant WHG, and no Near eastern, suggesting they admixed with Mesolithic not modern Europeans.

[Moor]

Here is the last of the three admixture maps based on Lazaridis et al. (2014) and Eurogenes.

This map compares the genes of modern people to the DNA of a Mesolithic hunter-gatherer from the Loschbour cave in Luxembourg, who lived 8000 years ago and belonged to Y-DNA haplogroup I2a1b and mtDNA haplogroup U5. It is supposed to reflect the percentage of similarity with the Late Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic inhabitants of Western Europe. Nowadays this admixture peaks among the Estonians (49.5%), Finns (47%), Lithuanians (46.5%), Icelanders (45.5%) and Orcadians (45.5%).

Note that I don't have the data for the North Caucasus and the Maghreb. The Maghreb could be interesting as the region has about 5% of U2+U4+U5, but also about 5% of HV0 or V, which are all potentially descended from Palaeolithic or Mesolithic European. So it's not necessarily under 5%, although surely under 10%.

I'm Moroccan from the south (chleuh berber) I have 28% WHG according to Eurogenes ANE K7.

[Moor]

NW Africans in ANE K8 score 15-20% WHG, higher than any near easterns, even though they have alot of African ancestry. Also, several Siberians score significant WHG, and no Near eastern, suggesting they admixed with Mesolithic not modern Europeans.

Indeed I'm 28% WHG.

[Fire Haired14]

Indeed I'm 28% WHG.

That's alot higher than near easterns score in ANE K7. It won't be very difficult to discern whether that WHG is from Mesolithic or modern Euro admixture, and I think most if it is Mesolithic. It could also simply be NW African, because WHG exists in all of west Eurasia it's just highest in Europe, and maybe it's next highest in NW Africa.

Maciamo is right that there's a strange presence of typical WHG mtDNA in NW Africa, and maybe there's Y DNA I too.

[Fire Haired14]

On Eurogenes PCAs of west Eurasia NW Africans fit in-between SW Asians and Sardinians. They appear to be a mix of SW Asian, African, and WHG. Where their Near eastern-type ancestry comes from exactly is unknown but it's very similar to Near eastern ancestry in west Asia and Europe.

[Moor]

That's alot higher than near easterns score in ANE K7. It won't be very difficult to discern whether that WHG is from Mesolithic or modern Euro admixture, and I think most if it is Mesolithic. It could also simply be NW African, because WHG exists in all of west Eurasia it's just highest in Europe, and maybe it's next highest in NW Africa.

Maciamo is right that there's a strange presence of typical WHG mtDNA in NW Africa, and maybe there's Y DNA I too.

Agree with you myself a K2b, but I don't feel good to see my region empty in the map lol.

[Angela]

NW Africans in ANE K8 score 15-20% WHG, higher than any near easterns, even though they have alot of African ancestry. Also, several Siberians score significant WHG, and no Near eastern, suggesting they admixed with Mesolithic not modern Europeans.

To what archaeological culture or movement of people is this supposed to be tied, and based on what evidence? Ibero-Maurisian? What y dna? Has any basal "I2a" or "C" been found in North Africa? Or are people basing it on mtDNA? Those early studies on Mesolithic Iberian mtDna are pretty dodgy, in my opinion.

Or is the speculation that the gene flow went in the other direction? That would certainly explain that "African" that showed up in some analyses of La Brana, and some of the mtDna L3 in Iberia, but again, with what migration and where is the archaeological trail?

I don't mean to put you personally on the spot. I just want to know if any attempt is being made to put "components" like this in an archaeological or even anthropological context.

[motzart]

Why bother making these maps now when the new study will be out any day now and most of this data will be obsolete.

[Aberdeen]

To what archaeological culture or movement of people is this supposed to be tied, and based on what evidence? Ibero-Maurisian? What y dna? Has any basal "I2a" or "C" been found in North Africa? Or are people basing it on mtDNA? Those early studies on Mesolithic Iberian mtDna are pretty dodgy, in my opinion.

Or is the speculation that the gene flow went in the other direction? That would certainly explain that "African" that showed up in some analyses of La Brana, and some of the mtDna L3 in Iberia, but again, with what migration and where is the archaeological trail?

I don't mean to put you personally on the spot. I just want to know if any attempt is being made to put "components" like this in an archaeological or even anthropological context.

I'd be willing to bet money on at least some of the WHG and EEF coming from Africa. If we look at EEF, which actually has more WHG than it does Basal Eurasian, the cline in Europe is not northwest to southeast, as it would be if the entry point for EEF was through the Balkans but simply north to south, with Sicily having more Basal Eurasian than is found in EEF.

[Fire Haired14]

I'd be willing to bet money on at least some of the WHG and EEF coming from Africa. If we look at EEF, which actually has more WHG than it does Basal Eurasian, the cline in Europe is not northwest to southeast, as it would be if the entry point for EEF was through the Balkans but simply north to south, with Sicily having more Basal Eurasian than is found in EEF.

The reason Near eastern vs WHG and ANE ancestry in Europe doesn't follow the spread of farming is because later genetic turnovers occurred.

Neolithic farmers in Spain(abstract of new study which sampled genomes, says most similar to Sardinians), Hungary, North Italy, Germany(Reich-Laz sampled them), and Sweden were all basically Sardinian or Basque with a 0 ANE, just 5,000 years ago.

Suddenly during the bronze age in Germany and Hungary ANE pops up, WHG rises, and Near eastern decreases, and the people basically become modern Europeans. This was mostly caused by IEs from the steppe, who made a bigger effect on northern Europe than southern Europe, which is why southern Europeans are more closely related to Neolithic farmers.

[Maciamo]

My only concern is that the Eurogenes analysis may have produced an "ANE" component which may not be precisely equivalent to that of Lazardis et al.

Whenever there was a discrepency between Lazaridis and Eurogenes I have used the Eurogenes data, so the map is consistent overall. I did it for WHG, ANE and EEF.

[Maciamo]

I'm Moroccan from the south (chleuh berber) I have 28% WHG according to Eurogenes ANE K7.

Thanks for sharing. However, the ANE K7 is only useful for calculate the ANE percentage. The WHG is completely different from the one used for this map. With the ANE K7, Northwest Europeans get between 60 and 70% of WHG, which is about twice higher than on this map. I am not sure if it is twice higher in every region though or if it varies a lot. If it is approximately the same everywhere, then you could be in the 10-15% range on this map, like Tuscans and Sardinians.

What is your ANE percentage ?

[Maciamo]

To what archaeological culture or movement of people is this supposed to be tied, and based on what evidence? Ibero-Maurisian? What y dna? Has any basal "I2a" or "C" been found in North Africa? Or are people basing it on mtDNA? Those early studies on Mesolithic Iberian mtDna are pretty dodgy, in my opinion.

Considering that Berbers are almost exclusively E-M81 (with just a bit of G and R1b-V88), and Arabs brought only some J1, J2 and T, I'd say that all trace of Palaeolithic Y-DNA has been wiped out from Northwest Africa, and only 5-10% of Palaeolithic mtDNA survives. Let's keep in mind that Northwest Africa is still a very undersampled region, so it wouldn't impossible to stumble on some rare C or I2a once more people are tested. After all how many Europeans do you know that belong to hg C1a2 ? The FTDNA project has only 14 of them (if we exclude recurring surnames with identical haplotypes). That's not even 0.1% of the European population. So if any survive in the Maghreb, we could only find one every 50,000 people or so (if any survive at all).

Or is the speculation that the gene flow went in the other direction? That would certainly explain that "African" that showed up in some analyses of La Brana, and some of the mtDna L3 in Iberia, but again, with what migration and where is the archaeological trail?

In the sparsely populated world of Palaeolithic or Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, I don't see why migrations couldn't have happened both ways between NW Africa and Iberia. There is enough evidence from mtDNA and autosomal DNA anyway.