David Reich and Nick Patterson on Indo-Europeans

[Aberdeen]

In the Eurogenese BlogSpot today, there's a copy of an abstract that was presented by David Reich and Nick Patterson at a conference. The title of the paper was "DNA points to the Eurasian steppe as a proximate source for Indo-European migrations into Europe. The abstract indicates that this steppe population was a mixture of ANE and Caucasian farmer types, but does not provide much detail.

[Alan]

In the Eurogenese BlogSpot today, there's a copy of an abstract that was presented by David Reich and Nick Patterson at a conference. The title of the paper was "DNA points to the Eurasian steppe as a proximate source for Indo-European migrations into Europe. The abstract indicates that this steppe population was a mixture of ANE and Caucasian farmer types, but does not provide much detail.

That was so obvious. As I said The Slavic expansion into the Pontic Steppes had as much impact on the genetics of the region as the Altaic expansion earleir.

The high WHG in the region of Ukraine can be explained by recent Slavic expansion. So I stay with my statement of 50% farmer 30% ANE and 20% WHG. In non European, Indo Europeans the WHG is far too low compared to the other components, to have played a big role. It is there, which probably proves it's existence in PIE but it can't be that strong portion of the total DNA.

Eurogenes speaks also about pastrolasts. Which were basically the first herders from Western Asia who probably brought lineages such as J*, R1b and maybe some R1a into the region.

[Angela]

Perhaps I'm making too much of it, but words have always mattered a great deal in my line of work. I wonder if they were being very careful by saying that the Eurasian steppe was the "proximate" source for Indo-European migrations into Europe. Would the "ultimate" source be different? Also, what do they mean by "into Europe"? Where are they drawing that eastern border of Europe? It shifts depending on who is drawing the map. Is it the Volga? All the way over to the Urals?

If it should turn out that in that 4,000 to 3,000 BC period that David Anthony has written is the "Indo-European period" on the steppe, when the cultural package came together, the people don't have very much WHG, then why do places in the Baltics have so much of it?

Did the EEF people not reach that area, and it contained SHG type people whose numbers could expand once Corded Ware brought farming there? Did later migrations bring that ancestry further south? I've speculated before that this is the big question mark for me, and that I think it might be a mistake to assume that the genetic landscape was set by the early Bronze Age.

Also, as I've posted before, there probably was some increase in WHG in Central Europe as time went on, perhaps from people who had been on the fringes, perhaps from HGs moving south from their refuge areas, but that isn't enough to explain the high WHG numbers in places like the Baltics, in my opinion. Perhaps as Yamna people moved north they incorporated these people.

I've also been intrigued by that comment reportedly made by Lazaridis that the ANE that arrived in western Europe might not all be attributable to Corded Ware. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's one of the comments that was reported. If he did say something like that, does it mean there were far northern east/west movements earlier in time that brought it? Or does it mean that there was a later movement directly from the Balkans that brought it?

I wish they'd publish some of these papers already. Enough with the teasing....

[Alan]

I wonder if they were being very careful by saying that the Eurasian steppe was the "proximate" source for Indo-European migrations into Europe. Would the "ultimate" source be different?

I also had my thoughts about that and many other knowledgeable people too. it might indicate that Yamna was not the source, but a transitional migration point, which again ironically fits one of my earlier and most used theories. That PIE might have been where animal domestication started and from there they migrated into, two or even three directions. One moving into the Steppes, another into the Balkans through Anatolia and a third one through Iran into Central Asia. That would explain the diversity in Bronze Age European samples.

[Aberdeen]

The use of "proximate" is interesting, but by itself I wouldn't be sure whether they meant Yamnaya was an intermediate source or whether they meant that Yamnaya must have been the immediate source of the Bronze Age types who moved into Western Europe, or whether they meant to imply both. But I found the rest of the abstract quite interesting in that they actually state that ongoing admixture between early farmers and WHG explains the increase in WHG and that Russian hunter gatherers were ANE but that Yamnaya was a mixture of ANE and early farmers that happened about 5000 years ago. So they seem to be ruling out any WHG in Yamnaya and providing a fairly recent time frame for the development of Yamnaya prior to its westward expansion. But they don't say that IE language developed among the Yamnaya, so it may not be an R1a language. The language could have developed in the Caucasus but the cultural package might not have developed until the mixture of steppe ANE with Middle Eastern farmers from the Caucasus.

[Fire Haired14]

Aberdeen, they never said Russian hunter gatherers were 100% ANE. Based on leaks Russian hunter gatherers were at most 50% ANE, and most likely majority WHG. Yamna genetically was probably just southeast of modern northeast Europeans. Corded ware was at least 2/3 Yamna, and clusters with modern central-north Europeans. If Corded ware was 30% ANE, they would not cluster in central-north Europe.

[Aberdeen]

Aberdeen, they never said Russian hunter gatherers were 100% ANE. Based on leaks Russian hunter gatherers were at most 50% ANE, and most likely majority WHG. Yamna genetically was probably just southeast of modern northeast Europeans. Corded ware was at least 2/3 Yamna, and clusters with modern central-north Europeans. If Corded ware was 30% ANE, they would not cluster in central-north Europe.

You need to read what people actually say, rather than what you want to assume they said. I didn't say that Russian hunter gatherers were 100% ANE, since the abstract isn't clear about that. I said Reich and Patterson talked about Russian hunter gatherer ANE being diluted among the Yamnaya because of admixture with a population of Near Eastern ancestry. When R&P talked about Russian hunter gatherers being distinct from WHG because they had an "increased affinity" to MA1 it could mean that RHG had more ANE than WHG did, it could mean that RHG had both WHG and ANE but WHG didn't have any ANE at that point or it could have meant something else. All they said for certain is that the ANE in RHG was diluted among Yamyana by admixture with a near eastern population and that 2/3 of Corded Ware came not from Yamnaya but from a closely related population. That leaves a lot unexplained, IMO.

[Aaron1981]

First and foremost the abstract doesn't use terms like ANE, WHG, EEF, so let's not immediately jump to these conclusions, though I am certain we can think of these general terms.
a) I am more interested in the vagueness of how they were able to determine a difference between western and eastern European hunter-gatherers, because from what I can see in the 3-prong model, they are the same.
b)This "resurgence" of local hunter-gatherer ancestry among west Europeans is equally vague. If hunter-gatherer ancestry is the same across Europe, then a east to west migration of the north Eurasian population bringing hunter-gatherer ancestry along with it is just as good an answer, if not more likely.

[Aberdeen]

First and foremost the abstract doesn't use terms like ANE, WHG, EEF, so let's not immediately jump to these conclusions, though I am certain we can think of these general terms.
a) I am more interested in the vagueness of how they were able to determine a difference between western and eastern European hunter-gatherers, because from what I can see in the 3-prong model, they are the same.
b)This "resurgence" of local hunter-gatherer ancestry among west Europeans is equally vague. If hunter-gatherer ancestry is the same across Europe, then a east to west migration of the north Eurasian population bringing hunter-gatherer ancestry along with it is just as good an answer, if not more likely.

I agree that, based on current populations, one would expect Russian hunter gatherers to be a mixture of ANE and WHG. However, extrapolating backwards from current populations to populations in the Bronze Age is risky, in that it may overlook the major changes that have occurred in a particular locale during intervening periods. And when scientists are being vague, I see that as a warning sign and don't like to jump to too many conclusions.

I didn't say that the paper used terms such as WHG, ANE and EEF. I was just using those terms because everyone here knows what they mean. If the researchers come up with new terms for distinct populations when they finally release their paper, we can use those terms then.

[Aberdeen]

The abstract didn't use the term ANE but did talk about Russian hunter gatherers having affinity to MA1, whereas the abstract didn't say whether Russian hunter gatherers had any affinity to the hunter gatherers of western Europe. Although the abstract didn't actually say that the term ANE isn't appropriate for the relationship between Russian hunter gatherers and MA1. Nor did it say that Russian hunter gatherers don't have an affinity to the hunter gatherers of western Europe. We can either drive ourselves crazy worrying about these issues or wait for more data.

The abstract does reinforce my assumption that R1a took a more direct route from Siberia to Europe than R1b did, so probably had less other admixture when it first arrived in western Europe, but I could be wrong.

[Aaron1981]

I agree that, based on current populations, one would expect Russian hunter gatherers to be a mixture of ANE and WHG. However, extrapolating backwards from current populations to populations in the Bronze Age is risky, in that it may overlook the major changes that have occurred in a particular locale during intervening periods. And when scientists are being vague, I see that as a warning sign and don't like to jump to too many conclusions.

I didn't say that the paper used terms such as WHG, ANE and EEF. I was just using those terms because everyone here knows what they mean. If the researchers come up with new terms for distinct populations when they finally release their paper, we can use those terms then.

I didn't quote you, thus didn't mean to single you out. It's simply amazing that many readers of these forums and blogs throw around terms like ANE/WHG/EEF when they should be used specifically within a researched paper, and equally troubling percentages of X population out of their arse. Worse yet is when they start associating Y haplogroups with such components. I have been guilty of this (a bit) in the past, but try to refrain from such association.

I do subjectively believe that there has been Y biased selection since no earlier than the Copper Age onwards in Europe, which has superseded the common male haplogroups of the neolithic and earlier time frame.

[Aberdeen]

......................

I do subjectively believe that there has been Y biased selection since no earlier than the Copper Age onwards in Europe, which has superseded the common male haplogroups of the neolithic and earlier time frame.

Could you please clarify what you meant by this comment? The evidence suggests that there has been considerable population turnover (but seldom complete replacement) throughout Europe from Paleolithic times right up to the modern period, with more turnover in some areas than other, and more turnover during some time periods than others - it seems to me to be a complex mosaic.

[Fire Haired14]

Aberdeen you did say EHG was ANE, and Yamna was a mixture of ANE and near eastern. You did not consider the possibility of WHG in your post. Post #5. Maybe you didn't mean it and forgot to mention it.

WHG and that Russian hunter gatherers were ANE but that Yamnaya was a mixture of ANE and early farmers that happened about 5000 years ago.

So they seem to be ruling out any WHG in Yamnaya and providing a fairly recent time frame for the development of Yamnaya prior to its westward expansion.

[Aberdeen]

Aberdeen you did say EHG was ANE, and Yamna was a mixture of ANE and near eastern. You did not consider the possibility of WHG in your post. Post #5. Maybe you didn't mean it and forgot to mention it.

You seem to have difficulty in following all but the most basic concepts. I've already explained, for those who have difficulty reading between the lines, that I didn't discuss the issue of whether Russian hunter gatherers had a percentage of what we commonly refer to as WHG because the authors seem to have made a point of avoiding the issue. They only discussed the issue of the RHG affinity to MA1 being impacted by a Near Eastern population among the Yamnaya.

Since you seem to have difficulty understanding discussions about genetics, perhaps you'd be happier reading novels instead

[Aaron1981]

Could you please clarify what you meant by this comment? The evidence suggests that there has been considerable population turnover (but seldom complete replacement) throughout Europe from Paleolithic times right up to the modern period, with more turnover in some areas than other, and more turnover during some time periods than others - it seems to me to be a complex mosaic.

I simply mean there has been positive selection for male descendants of R1. For example of the 50+ male remains during the Mesolithic - Neolithic period of Europe, none of them have descended from R1 male. However, when you look at modern distributions R1, in particular R1b represent 40% of European male lineages, and well over 50% if you consider just the west-central regions of Europe.

[Fire Haired14]

You seem to have difficulty in following all but the most basic concepts. I've already explained, for those who have difficulty reading between the lines, that I didn't discuss the issue of whether Russian hunter gatherers had a percentage of what we commonly refer to as WHG because the authors seem to have made a point of avoiding the issue. They only discussed the issue of the RHG affinity to MA1 being impacted by a Near Eastern population among the Yamnaya.

Since you seem to have difficulty understanding discussions about genetics, perhaps you'd be happier reading novels instead

The way you wrote makes it impossible for anyone to know you considered WHG-type ancestry. You literally said Yamna was ANE+Near eastern.

Are you able to post a disagreement without insults? It's obvious to me now you have a problem with arrogance. Before you're brain leans towards thinking negatively about this post, think objectively about it and try to stay away from causing even more of a rift.

[Tomenable]

BTW - here is an interesting paper, which reveals a correlation between genetics and linguistics among Indo-European speakers:

http://www.jolr.ru/files/(105)jlr2013-9(23-35).pdf

We do not expect that the history of Indo-Europeans followed the same clear model as that of the North Caucasians. It is therefore even more interesting to apply the same methodology to the IE case. So far, we have performed only one, but the most important kind of analysis — the correlation analysis of genetic, linguistic and geographic distances between the Indo-European populations of Europe. (We did not include Indo-Iranian populations because the Indian gene pool is much too different from the European one). This kind of analysis had already been performed earlier, in 2000 [Rosser et al., 2000], where it was found that both correlations are about r = 0.3. Twelve years later we repeated this analysis using a dataset that was ten times as large (Table 1). We found correlations that were twice as high (0.67 between genetics and linguistics and 0.70 between genetics and geography). In contrast with the case of the Caucasus, the partial correlation indicates a more important role of geography (genetics and geography r = 0.32, while genetics and linguistics only r = 0.21). However, the high pair correlation with linguistics (r = 0.67) allows to use the statistical data as good predictors of genetic similarity between populations

A very interesting chart from page 5 (genetic distances of mitochondrial DNA between major IE groups):



We notice that:

1) Generally languages correlate well with genetic distances.
2) There are some sharp exceptions from this rule, including:

a) Hungarians - they are genetically like Slavonic group, yet speak a Non-IE language
b) Romanians - genetically half-way between Slavonic & Germanic, yet speak Romance
b*) Aromuns - genetically (mtDNA) most similar to Slavonic group, yet speak Romance
c) Sicilians - genetically far away from all other groups, yet speak Romance

3) Some other quick observations:

d) Albanians - genetically in the middle between Germanic, Romance, Slavonic, and Baltic
e) Norwegians & Germans - genetically closest to Slavonic & Romance out of all Germanic groups
f) Icelanders and Austrians - relatively close to Celtic group (even closer than English)
g) Slavonic - genetically about half-way between Baltic and Germanic (interesting!)
h) Icelanders - mitochondrial DNA is very Celtic (pretty consistent with other studies).
i) Germanic group - in the middle between Celtic, Romance & Balto-Slavonic (fits with geography)

Remember that this is mitochondrial only (so Y-DNA and autosomal DNA was not compared).

[Tomenable]

One more thing - Latvians, so far away from Germanic (quite surprising).

Perhaps this is because this study is on mtDNA, not on Y-DNA or autosomal.

=============================

BTW:

Czechs & Swedes - looks like Czechs like Swedish women (or the other way around).

Or rather female stock in both countries have some common deep ancestry ???

In terms of Y-DNA Swedes and Czechs are very different.

[Tomenable]

From page 6 - hotspots of Neolithic ancestry in Picardy and North-Eastern Ukraine ???:

[Maciamo]

From page 6 - hotspots of Neolithic ancestry in Picardy and North-Eastern Ukraine ???:

This doesn't look like Neolithic ancestry but rather the Armenian-like component 5caucaso-Gedrosian) of Yamna. Neolithic admixture peaks in the southern Levant (Israel, Palestine, Jordan), which on this map is as low as, or lower than the European average.

It just looks like Haak et al. completely mistook in their assessment of Neolithic ancestry in 2010. The green region around Kurdistan and western Iran corresponds to what I consider the Neolithic homeland of R1b cattle herders, before they crossed the Caucasus to the Pontic-Caspian Steppe. It's not surprising that within Europe it should peak in southern Ukraine (Yamna core) then follow the migration path of R1b through the Carpathians, up the Danube to Germany, and into the Benelux, France and Italy. Non-Indo-European populations like the Basques, Sardinians, Sami, Siberian tribes, North African have very low levels of their admixture. This is also the case for other regions with low R1b like Bosnia-Serbia-Albania, the Arabian peninsula, or even the central Alps (a known refuge for the Neolithic population after the IE invasions).

[Tomenable]

Here Angela posted the original map from Haak 2010 (there were two maps, actually):

http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads...l=1#post450171