the origin of the early european farmer

[bicicleur]

last year there was this study with the DNA of the early Hungarian neolithics :

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/14...comms6257.html

and there is also the known DNA of Derenburg, Avelaner Cave, Treilles & Piere Fritte

https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer...k.k-L2e4oXVbT0

where did these people come from?

first guess would be the Levant/Anatolia, descendants of the Natufians

but this study is about skulls and it suggests that there was a another origin for European farmers :

http://arheologija.ff.uni-lj.si/docu.../pinhasi33.pdf

check the table on page 65 and you'll notice that there are 3 clusters :

- PPN = the Levant and southeast Anatolia , IMO the Natufians
- cluster around Catalhoyuk : SKC, Nea Nikomedia (and to some extent Cardial)
- Danube Gorge Neol is a seperate group, IMO the source of I1 found in neolithic Hungary

LBK shows a lot of variation among the 3 sites, so each site may have a different genetic origin

for the cluster around Catalhoyuk, please check :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belba%C5%9F%C4%B1

Their most lasting effect was felt not in the Near East, where they seem to have left no permanent mark on the cultural development of Anatolia after 5000 BC, but in Europe, for it was to this new continent that the neolithic cultures of Anatolia introduced the first beginnings of agriculture and stockbreeding.

is this the origin of the early European neolithic?

your comments and observations are most welcome

[Maciamo]

The way I see it is that cereal farming developed in the Levant (Pre-Pottery Neolithic, aka PPN), while cattle, sheep/goat and pigs were domesticated further north in the Taurus and Zagros mountains. The two groups converged a few millennia later in Anatolia, with cultures such as Çatalhöyük, then Near Eastern farmers (a blend of Anatolian herders and Levantine cereal farmers) moved to northern Greece (Nea Nikomedeia, Sesklo, Dimini), then moved up to the Balkans progressively blending with local C1a2, F, I1 and I2 people, hence the increasing genetic distance from the original PPN people. Another offshoot from Greece crossed over to Italy by boat and formed the Cardium Pottery culture. They mixed with the indigenous E-M78 people there, then continued to the western Mediterranean.

[bicicleur]

the study I mentioned above shows people from southwest Anatolia (CatalHoyuk) were different from people from southeast Anatolia / the Levant
the skulls of the early European farmers were more similar to the southwest Anatolians
the people in Belbasi cave, southwest Anatolia grew vegetables (bitter vetch) that arrived at Franchtti cave (the Peleponesos) together with obsidian from Melos 13000 years ago
the first farmers in Thesaly, Greece grew the same vegetables
it looks like the Cardium fishermen who started to spread along the mediterranean 8000 years ago (IMO G2a) where the same that discovered Cyprus, Melos and the Peleponesos 13000 years ago
people in Franchtti cave lived there since LGM (20000 years ago) ; IMO they were I2a-CTS595, I2a was found among both Cardial (La Treille) and Hungarian neolithic and they are found among present day Sardinians and Basque

[Angela]

If we look at how they plot on a PCA, they couldn't have been very different from each other. See the following graphic from Lazaridis et al:
http://s28.postimg.org/z4iatx0h9/isdtnvfdal.png

The Hungarian Neolithic samples from Gamba et al* also seem to cluster pretty tightly together, and very close to Oetzi, who was very close to Stuttgart. The major difference to me seems to be how much "local" hunter gatherer they had absorbed.

Also, I am rather persuaded by the Pachou et al analysis, which uses extensive modeling, and which shows that the group that went to Europe was a rather homogenous group that embarked from the coastal Levant/Syria area to follow the coast of Anatolia to the northwest, then basically to island hop and then ultimately to move into Europe in a two pronged approach.

From Paschou et al:
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/25/9211.abstract

Supplementary data is here:
http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/20...11111.sapp.pdf

"Using population network analysis, we also find that the gene flow from Anatolia to Europe was through Dodecanese, Crete, and the Southern European coast, compatible with the hypothesis that a maritime coastal route was mainly used for the migration of Neolithic farmers to Europe. "

The Dienekes post about it:
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2014/06...to-europe.html

It's also discussed here:
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads...-et-al-2014%29

This is the graphic which shows the relationships between populations. The closest proximate population would appear to be the Druze, which is no surprise, and then the trail seems to lead to Cappadocians, then the Greek islands and then into the rest of Europe.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ojG5YJptKW...u2014-fig4.png

As to animal husbandry, recent genetic analysis shows that the domestication of these animals took place over a wide area spanning from southeastern Anatolia to the middle Zagros region. Cattle domestication had already occurred in the Upper Euphrates between 11,000 and 10,000 BP, and by 9500 BP, mixed plant and animal husbandry was present in the Near East, and by 8500 BP, plant farming and all four major domesticated animals are present in Central Anatolia.

Both plant and animal husbandry is present in the Balkans by 8500 BP.

https://www.academia.edu/5289850/Dom...l_consequences

That's only as concerns the movement into Europe proper, of course. Another archaeological trail leads east/southeast toward India and another toward Turkmenistan.

Ed.* Gamba et al, not Paschou et al

[Maleth]

quote:-The path from Northern Africa to
Southern Europe via Near East, Cappadocia, the Dodecanese, and, of course, Crete is obvious. -: unquote

Thats very interesting and nicely presented information Angela. Thanks for posting.

[Sile]

you can add this to your reading

http://biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2014/09/03/008664.full.pdf


and

http://www.academia.edu/7555505/Exte...istoric_sample

[bicicleur]

If we look at how they plot on a PCA, they couldn't have been very different from each other. See the following graphic from Lazaridis et al:
http://s28.postimg.org/z4iatx0h9/isdtnvfdal.png

The Hungarian Neolithic samples from Gamba et al* also seem to cluster pretty tightly together, and very close to Oetzi, who was very close to Stuttgart. The major difference to me seems to be how much "local" hunter gatherer they had absorbed.

Also, I am rather persuaded by the Pachou et al analysis, which uses extensive modeling, and which shows that the group that went to Europe was a rather homogenous group that embarked from the coastal Levant/Syria area to follow the coast of Anatolia to the northwest, then basically to island hop and then ultimately to move into Europe in a two pronged approach.

indeed, as you state yourself, the samples are all Hungarian (and some Croatian)
they would be in the SKC cluster
the outliers are PPN , Danube Gorge and German LBK, none of them are in the plot

If I'm right, EEF is based on German LBK (Stutgart) ?
In that case, I wonder wether it is possible to represent all early European farmers by this one single genome.
It does not represent the diversity there was omang the real EEF.

One possible explanation for the diversity of German LBK could be that they could have picked up all sorts of local hunter-gatherers on their northwart expansion.
In Hungary there were allready a mixture of several haplogroups, in spite of the fact that the Balkans in mesolithic times were practically uninhabited (the only populated areas were Aegean coastal areas and the Danbue Gorges).
It might also explain why EEF peeked in Europe some 7000 years ago, and WHG started to grow again 5-6000 years ago.

Anyway, you gave me a lot of reading to catch up.

[bicicleur]

one comment on page 65 in the study I mentioned above :

The sharp contrast in D2 distance trends between theLBK site of Viesenhauser Hof and the LBK sites ofSchwetzingen and Sonderhausen is intriguing

Sonderhausen does seem to fall in the SKC cluster.
The other 2 not.
As Stuttgart is close to Ötzi, Stuttgart may also fall into the SKC cluster, but it is obvious that not all LBK falls into that cluster.

[bicicleur]

Also, I am rather persuaded by the Pachou et al analysis, which uses extensive modeling, and which shows that the group that went to Europe was a rather homogenous group that embarked from the coastal Levant/Syria area to follow the coast of Anatolia to the northwest, then basically to island hop and then ultimately to move into Europe in a two pronged approach.

From Paschou et al:
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/25/9211.abstract

Supplementary data is here:
http://www.pnas.org/content/suppl/20...11111.sapp.pdf

"Using population network analysis, we also find that the gene flow from Anatolia to Europe was through Dodecanese, Crete, and the Southern European coast, compatible with the hypothesis that a maritime coastal route was mainly used for the migration of Neolithic farmers to Europe. "

The Dienekes post about it:
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2014/06...to-europe.html

It's also discussed here:
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads...-et-al-2014%29

This is the graphic which shows the relationships between populations. The closest proximate population would appear to be the Druze, which is no surprise, and then the trail seems to lead to Cappadocians, then the Greek islands and then into the rest of Europe.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ojG5YJptKW...u2014-fig4.png

As to animal husbandry, recent genetic analysis shows that the domestication of these animals took place over a wide area spanning from southeastern Anatolia to the middle Zagros region. Cattle domestication had already occurred in the Upper Euphrates between 11,000 and 10,000 BP, and by 9500 BP, mixed plant and animal husbandry was present in the Near East, and by 8500 BP, plant farming and all four major domesticated animals are present in Central Anatolia.

Both plant and animal husbandry is present in the Balkans by 8500 BP.

https://www.academia.edu/5289850/Dom...l_consequences

That's only as concerns the movement into Europe proper, of course. Another archaeological trail leads east/southeast toward India and another toward Turkmenistan.

Ed.* Gamba et al, not Paschou et al

Angela, I just viewed thing diagonal, correct me if I'm wrong.
I see Paschou et al compare modern populations and don't use ancient DNA

according to Dienekes it proposes that the Neolithic followed an island-hopping migration into Europe
IMO correlations among modern populations in the Levant and Cyprus/Greece could be due to arrival of the Minoans and early bronze age expansions (Y-DNA J2)
there is no mention of a non-PPB southwestern Anatolia population (G2a2, F*, C-V20 ?), maybe this is extinct in Anatolia now but it would have made a better fit with early neolithic Hungary?

[Angela]

Angela, I just viewed thing diagonal, correct me if I'm wrong.
I see Paschou et al compare modern populations and don't use ancient DNA

according to Dienekes it proposes that the Neolithic followed an island-hopping migration into Europe
IMO correlations among modern populations in the Levant and Cyprus/Greece could be due to arrival of the Minoans and early bronze age expansions (Y-DNA J2)
there is no mention of a non-PPB southwestern Anatolia population (G2a2, F*, C-V20 ?), maybe this is extinct in Anatolia now but it would have made a better fit with early neolithic Hungary?

Yes, that's right, it's based on modern populations. If you take a look at the Supplementary Info it explains the methodology and modeling. I found it to be very impressive. Of course, ancient dna would be better.

I think they were basically trying to determine which of three possible routes for the Neolithic correlate with European genetic variation.
http://www.pnas.org/lens/pnas/111/25/9211
"The Neolithic farmers could have taken three migration routes to Europe. One was by land to North-Eastern Anatolia and from there, through Bosporus and the Dardanelles, to Thrace and the Balkans (14, 15). A second route was a maritime route from the Aegean Anatolian coast to the Mediterranean islands and the coast of Southern Europe (12, 14–18). The third was from the Levantine coast to the Aegean islands and Greece (19). Navigation across the Mediterranean was active during the Early Neolithic and Upper Paleolithic (16–18) as illustrated by the finding of obsidian from the island of Milos in Paleolithic sites of the Greek mainland (19, 20) and the early colonization of Sardinia, Corsica, and Cyprus (18, 21–23). If a maritime route was used by the Neolithic farmers who settled Europe, their first stepping stones into Europe were the islands of Dodecanese and Crete. The Dodecanese is very close to the Aegean coast of Anatolia, whereas the west-most Dodecanesean islands are very close to Crete. Crete hosts one of the oldest Neolithic settlements of Europe in the site of Knossos, established ∼8,500–9,000 y BPE (24, 25), and the inhabitants of the island established the first advanced European civilization starting approximately 5,000 BPE."

Their modeling purports to show that a maritime route was used, with an embarkation point somewhere around the Syria/Anatolia border from what I can gather. The next stop seems to be Anatolia. (Their samples were taken from around Cappadoccia in order to incorporate as much of Anatolia as possible, perhaps?) So, would the southwestern part of Anatolia be much different?

As for G2a, most of the EEF farmers were G2a, as you know, and the others so far are one E-V13 lineage and some I2a and I1 incorporated lineages. So, wouldn't it make sense that the earliest farmers who set sail around the coast of Anatolia and into the island stepping stones were also G2a? One could speculate that by the time of the move to Europe the G2a and E-V13, if one thinks the Natufians carried this lineage, (something of which I'm not sure) could already have been mixed, or, perhaps one could speculate that the E-V13 people picked up G2a as they rounded the Anatolian coast. I think we need ancient DNA to answer these kinds of questions. I do think that the ancient dna will show that subsequent expansions by J1 and J2, both perhaps during the Copper and Bronze Age, overwhelmed the G2a and E-V13 lineages, while not changing the autosomal signature to the same extent.

You probably have already read these, but perhaps others haven't yet seen them.

This is Dienekes' take on the paper on ancient mtDna from Crete. (The link to the actual paper can be found there.)
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2013/05...hey-et-al.html

You can see how the "Hungarian" mtDna differs from the others. Did that group have "N" mtdna as well, and do they cluster differently because of the fact that they have it but most other early European sites (and modern areas) do not?
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IfZnfTnes-...mms2871-f6.jpg

This is the paper positing that Cretan mtDna is very similar to overall European mtDNA:
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal...comms2871.html

This is the paper on ancient Middle Eastern mtDna which purports to show the same island trail into Europe:
http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetic...l.pgen.1004401

This one shows the strong relationship between the mtDna of Lebanon and that of Europe:
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2013/01...of-modern.html

Of course, given the leaks from Reich et al, it remains to be seen whether all this "Near Eastern" mtDna entered Europe solely through the south east, or whether some of it came from the Caucasus/Turkmenistan direction by way of the steppe.

In that regard, I just recently came across this article about the spread of the Neolithic to the Transcaucasus:
On the trail of Neolithic mice and men towards the transcaucasia:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bij.12004/fu

Unfortunately, most of the paper is behind a paywall, but the abstract is pretty clear, and there's this nice graphic from it:

If someone has access to this paper I'd love to know what c,d and m mean. Interestingly, the trail starts near Syria according to the authors.

Everything I know from archaeology seems to support the Paschou et al analysis that the first "outposts" of the Neolithic were often in the islands, and earlier than we see them on the Anatolian coast near the Bosporous. Is that your understanding as well?

This is a paper that charts the Neolithic trail toward India by means of carbon dating and archaeology. Table 1 in the supplement has dates by site for most of the Neolithic sites in the Near East from 10,000 BCE to 3800 BCE.
The Near Eastern Routes of the Neolithic in South Asia
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4012948/
It's helpful in showing all the Neolithic settlements, actually.

It's also true that there was gene flow into Crete from Anatolia post the Neolithic in the Bronze Age, and from there on into southern Europe, (and there are the Sea Peoples incursions to consider) and like you I think this might have been how some J2a made it into Europe, although the J2a sample found in central Europe leaves open the possibility, or perhaps even the probability that some of it entered Europe directly from the steppes.

However, the way I look at it, these people would still have been majority "EEF" or "ENF" if you prefer, so not all that different from the first farmers. The difference would have been their minority ANE component, which was also coming into Europe via another route. The SSA that made it into the Levant was not yet present probably. That the trail they followed was the same as that followed by the first farmers shouldn't be all that surprising should it? The wind and water currents in the Mediterranean hadn't changed, and sea travel was easier than overland slogging in many cases. Even in the Roman Era, with all the roads they built, it was still faster to travel by water. So, it's just a doubling down to me, in a way, of a certain ancestry that had long been present in these places.

In general terms, in Europe, unlike in more complicated places like the Indian subcontinent, it seems to me that all migrations after the Neolithic are made up of the three basic ancestral components in slightly different proportions, and some routes are used again and again from the time of the obsidian trade to the Iron Age and into the modern era...island hopping or coastal travel along the northern Mediterranean coast, across the steppe, or up major rivers like the Danube, the Rhone etc.

Perhaps most importantly, the trail doesn't stop in Crete, but continues on into the rest of Europe, while the J2a trail generally does not.

On balance, I find their conclusions pretty sound, but I'm certainly willing to be persuaded otherwise.

[Angela]

I think this graphic illustrates what Paschou et al are getting at pretty well:

[Kristiina]

"As for G2a, most of the EEF farmers were G2a, as you know, and the others so far are one E-V13 lineage and some I2a and I1 incorporated lineages. So, wouldn't it make sense that the earliest farmers who set sail around the coast of Anatolia and into the island stepping stones were also G2a? One could speculate that by the time of the move to Europe the G2a and E-V13, if one thinks the Natufians carried this lineage, (something of which I'm not sure) could already have been mixed, or, perhaps one could speculate that the E-V13 people picked up G2a as they rounded the Anatolian coast."

In recent "Different wawes and directions of Neolithic migrations in the Armenian Highland", 2014, the highest variance of G is in the Levant, so there is no need to postulate that it must have come through or originated in Anatolia. Of course, that map shows whole G and not only G2a, but I do not know if it is significant.

[bicicleur]

In that regard, I just recently came across this article about the spread of the Neolithic to the Transcaucasus:
On the trail of Neolithic mice and men towards the transcaucasia:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bij.12004/fu

Unfortunately, most of the paper is behind a paywall, but the abstract is pretty clear, and there's this nice graphic from it:

Hi Angela, this link doesn't direct me to the abstract.
Do you have another link?

[bicicleur]

"As for G2a, most of the EEF farmers were G2a, as you know, and the others so far are one E-V13 lineage and some I2a and I1 incorporated lineages. So, wouldn't it make sense that the earliest farmers who set sail around the coast of Anatolia and into the island stepping stones were also G2a? One could speculate that by the time of the move to Europe the G2a and E-V13, if one thinks the Natufians carried this lineage, (something of which I'm not sure) could already have been mixed, or, perhaps one could speculate that the E-V13 people picked up G2a as they rounded the Anatolian coast."

In recent "Different wawes and directions of Neolithic migrations in the Armenian Highland", 2014, the highest variance of G is in the Levant, so there is no need to postulate that it must have come through or originated in Anatolia. Of course, that map shows whole G and not only G2a, but I do not know if it is significant.

it has become clear that the seafaring G2a2 was the main component for the neolithic expansion to Europe
they were not the Natufians who lived further inland
acording to the study the people of Catal Hoyuk were related to them
on the road to Europe they picked up other tribes
I would guess the origins of G2a2 was Cillicia
about G1 and G1b there is little known
I would guess that G1 originated further east, maybe the Zagros Mts
G1b may have originated along the Levant (south of G2a2)
looking at the numbers of known snp in the G-pedigree, I would estimate that G2a1 split from G2a2 some 19000 years ago
as you know, G2a1 is now concentrated in the Caucasus area

[bicicleur]

that should be G2b, not G1b

[Angela]

Hi Angela, this link doesn't direct me to the abstract.
Do you have another link?

Sorry about that, Bicicleur. It's Thomas Cucchi et al, January 2013. Let's see if it works this time:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...12004/abstract

Just in case, here is the abstract (unfortunately, the paper itself is behind a pay wall (so obnoxious):

"Transcaucasia comprises a key region for understanding the history of both the hybrid zone between house mouse lineages and the dispersal of the Neolithic way of life outside its Near Eastern cradle. The opportunity to document the colonization history of both men and mice in Transcaucasia was made possible by the discovery of mouse remains accumulated in pits from a 6000-year-old farming village in the Nakhchivan (Autonomous Republic of Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan). The present study investigated their taxonomy and most likely dispersal path through the identification of the Mus lineage to which they might belong using a geometric morphometric approach of dental traits distances between archaeological and modern populations of the different Mus lineages of South-West Asia. We demonstrate that the mouse remains trapped in the deep storage pits of the dwelling belong to the Mus musculus domesticus from the Near East, with dental shapes similar to current populations in Northern Syria. These results strongly suggest that the domesticus lineage was dispersed into Transcaucasia from the upper Euphrates valley by Neolithic migration, some time between the 7th and 5th millennium BC, providing substantial evidence to back up the scenario featuring near-eastern stimuli in the emergence of agriculture in the South Caucasus. The domesticus mitochondrial DNA signature of the current house mouse in the same location 5000 years later, as well as their turnover towards a subspecies musculus/castaneus phenotype, suggests that early domesticus colonizers hybridized with a later musculus (and maybe castaneus) dispersal originating from south of the Caspian Sea and/or Northern Caucasia. © 2013 The Linnean Society of London

In light of the leaks from upcoming papers, interesting that input from both the upper Mesopotamia area and the south of the Caspian Sea and/or Northern Caucasia is mentioned.

I've never really investigated this area. I wonder if the archaeology shows agriculture and/or herding moving north of the Caucasus onto the steppe.

[bicicleur]

acording to Peter Bellwood, first agriculture and animal husbandry develloped in the Levant and souhteast Anatolia 9500-7000 BC
after 7000 BC there was widespread site shrinkage and abondonment, and pastoralism increased while farming decreased
expansion started, westward to Europe and eastward into Pakistan and Central Asia