I've made no estimate of what has happened between Yamnaya and now.
On the contrary, it is the idea that Z2103 emerged on the Steppe and separated into lots of different branches (nearly all of which stuck together for thousands of years before migrating en masse to Armenia) that is based on a highly implausible underestimate of how Yamnaya and its descendants would have developed and spread around.


Of course it does. People with Z2103 nowadays are only Z2103 nowadays because their joint ancestor acquired the Z2103 mutation in those times.


No, I said that I wasn't so interested in dead lines.


I'm not dictating anything. I am merely noting where SNP and STR calculations indicate is the most likely point of common origin.


But this isn't what happened. There were lots of branches that subsisted South of the Caucasus, not just one. And the one branch in the Pontic Steppe was not entirely replaced by R1a, but still subsists today just as numerously (if not more so) than the Armenian branches.


There is nothing misleading about it.
Firstly, any Z2103* found in the prehistoric Pontic Steppe is pretty unlikely to be an ancestor of today's Eastern European Z2103 people, as (i) I estimate that Z2103 had already separated into its surviving subclades earlier on, and (ii) nearly all such ancient Z2103 lineages would have died out (Z2108 being the only steppic looking one).
Secondly, you are not going back far enough. The question is where did the basal development of living Z2103 occur? If there is one half-steppic/half-Southern Caucasus basal branch and three wholly Southern Caucasus basal branches, the balance surely tips in favour of their most recent common ancestor having been South Caucasian.

That is not to say that Z2103 was not in the Steppe from early on. There might well have been lots of Z2103 lineages in the early Steppe that became extinct; and one from an estimated 4,200 BC (Z8131) that survived and flourished there.

If you say so i guess. Your window for the formation of Z2103 in Armenia is contemporary with Areni in Armenia ( No R1b ), then the same contemporary population founded Maykop later ( No R1b ). We are then searching a population that never exister for now in ancient DNA, maybe one day it will show.

But i stay on my position that your estimations are a wrong methodology to explain ancient dna. Founder effects can litterally create a new origin for a lineage, V88 in Africa is a good exemple.
 
If you say so i guess. Your window for the formation of Z2103 in Armenia is contemporary with Areni in Armenia ( No R1b ), then the same contemporary population founded Maykop later ( No R1b ). We are then searching a population that never exister for now in ancient DNA, maybe one day it will show.
But i stay on my position that your estimations are a wrong methodology to explain ancient dna. Founder effects can litterally create a new origin for a lineage, V88 in Africa is a good exemple.
This illustrates the problem with modern genetics, which appears to have gone backwards.
Three male skeletons (yDNA L, probably from the same family) are found in a single cave (Areni), and because they are not R1b, the conclusion is reached that R1b didn't exist South of the Caucasus. Presumably, this means there was no J, G or E South of the Caucasus either.
I am aware of 7 identified Maykop samples, one of which was R1 (presumably R1b, as there were several other North Caucasus R1b samples dated to around that time). There are also several other Maykop samples with unidentified Y DNA, and all of samples' yDNA readings are imprecise.
Sweeping conclusions have been reached on the basis of very little information.
 
This illustrates the problem with modern genetics, which appears to have gone backwards.
Three male skeletons (yDNA L, probably from the same family) are found in a single cave (Areni), and because they are not R1b, the conclusion is reached that R1b didn't exist South of the Caucasus. Presumably, this means there was no J, G or E South of the Caucasus either.
I am aware of 7 identified Maykop samples, one of which was R1 (presumably R1b, as there were several other North Caucasus R1b samples dated to around that time). There are also several other Maykop samples with unidentified Y DNA, and all of samples' yDNA readings are imprecise.
Sweeping conclusions have been reached on the basis of very little information.

Interesting facts. From what period are the three samples from Areni? Is that calcolithic?

Even the Maykop samples are intriguing. Seems that my presumption about Maykop, is coming true. Is there any chance to know what R1_branch that sample might be?
I predicted that Maykop culture might have been the homeland of proto Hittites.
 
Interesting facts. From what period are the three samples from Areni? Is that calcolithic?
Even the Maykop samples are intriguing. Seems that my presumption about Maykop, is coming true. Is there any chance to know what R1_branch that sample might be?
I predicted that Maykop culture might have been the homeland of proto Hittites.
If I remember correctly, the Areni samples are early 5th millennium BC Chalcolithic. As with other early R1 samples, no precise subclade is identified - most likely R1b-V88 or R1b-Z2103, as the other early Northern Caucasus R samples are.
I believe what distinguishes the R1 sample from other Maykop is its sizeable Anatolian component, which is suggestive of admixture from the South West.
 
This illustrates the problem with modern genetics, which appears to have gone backwards.
Three male skeletons (yDNA L, probably from the same family) are found in a single cave (Areni), and because they are not R1b, the conclusion is reached that R1b didn't exist South of the Caucasus. Presumably, this means there was no J, G or E South of the Caucasus either.
I am aware of 7 identified Maykop samples, one of which was R1 (presumably R1b, as there were several other North Caucasus R1b samples dated to around that time). There are also several other Maykop samples with unidentified Y DNA, and all of samples' yDNA readings are imprecise.
Sweeping conclusions have been reached on the basis of very little information.

I think it's pretty clear, it's not about R1b, it's about ancient dna. Nothing can explain history better than ancient dna. We will never found the perfect proxys. Modern branches are too diversified and had too much founder effect to be relevant of any kind. If a south caucasus R1b-Z2103 needs to exist in time, it will being found at some point. But if we follow your modern basal branches hypothesis, we should not just found R1b-Z2103* in prehistoric Armenia but also L23* and M269*.
 
This illustrates the problem with modern genetics, which appears to have gone backwards.
Three male skeletons (yDNA L, probably from the same family) are found in a single cave (Areni), and because they are not R1b, the conclusion is reached that R1b didn't exist South of the Caucasus. Presumably, this means there was no J, G or E South of the Caucasus either.
I am aware of 7 identified Maykop samples, one of which was R1 (presumably R1b, as there were several other North Caucasus R1b samples dated to around that time). There are also several other Maykop samples with unidentified Y DNA, and all of samples' yDNA readings are imprecise.
Sweeping conclusions have been reached on the basis of very little information.

The R1 individual you are mentionning is not from Maykop Proper, but Steppe Maykop, whatever it means on an archeological stand point. And it makes sense for R1 to be in North Caucasus at this point in time, because it's everywhere in Eastern Europe for milleniums prior to it. Also there is a Q1a2 individual alongside the R1 one, why not assume then too that this Q1a2 comes from chalcolithic Armenia.
 
If I remember correctly, the Areni samples are early 5th millennium BC Chalcolithic. As with other early R1 samples, no precise subclade is identified - most likely R1b-V88 or R1b-Z2103, as the other early Northern Caucasus R samples are.
I believe what distinguishes the R1 sample from other Maykop is its sizeable Anatolian component, which is suggestive of admixture from the South West.

I bet for R-PF7562. Z2103 is too steppe related I think. V88 is also too southern related with Egypt and Africa.

IE Anatolian speakers were not steppe related (autosomal), hence my best bet go for PF7562, which is an early bronze age split from its branch sister L23. The best place of this split is northern Caucasus.
 
The R1 individual you are mentionning is not from Maykop Proper, but Steppe Maykop, whatever it means on an archeological stand point. And it makes sense for R1 to be in North Caucasus at this point in time, because it's everywhere in Eastern Europe for milleniums prior to it. Also there is a Q1a2 individual alongside the R1 one, why not assume then too that this Q1a2 comes from chalcolithic Armenia.

Besides, Steppe Maykop had a much more "eastern" and quite probably Central Asian Steppe autosomal makeup, very distinct from that of "truly" Caucasian Maykop. I wouldn't analyze these two cultures and peoples together in terms of genetic origins and possibly even ethnic and linguistic identity.
 
Besides, Steppe Maykop had a much more "eastern" and quite probably Central Asian Steppe autosomal makeup, very distinct from that of "truly" Caucasian Maykop. I wouldn't analyze these two cultures and peoples together in terms of genetic origins and possibly even ethnic and linguistic identity.

I think the guys from the paper clearly said that there was a distinction between Maykop and Maykop Steppe ( wich is why the distinction " Steppe Maykop " ) both in ancestry and y-dna. As for ethnic and linguistic, i'm not sure, mtdna of Maykop Steppe is clearly linked with the southern fellows and i've read here and there that some Steppe Maykop people, like Progress had cultural links towards south such as similar kurgans as leyla-tepe.

But as far as y-dna R1, i think it's almost clear that it came from eastern europe, even Narasimhan apparently had after few C14 fails to redate the Z2103 individual from Hajji Firuz something like MLBA. Everything tends to show that prior 3000 BC, there was no R1 south of caucasus, but that after, something triggered their movement.
 
I think it's pretty clear, it's not about R1b, it's about ancient dna. Nothing can explain history better than ancient dna. We will never found the perfect proxys. Modern branches are too diversified and had too much founder effect to be relevant of any kind. If a south caucasus R1b-Z2103 needs to exist in time, it will being found at some point. But if we follow your modern basal branches hypothesis, we should not just found R1b-Z2103* in prehistoric Armenia but also L23* and M269*.
This thread is about the modern distribution of R1b, not ancient DNA, much of which is the history of dead-end lineages with little or no relevance to our ancestry.

If Z2103 South of the Caucasus is due to recent founder effects, then there must have been lots of different founders whose ancestors branched apart thousands of years beforehand, and who then all coincidentally ended up in the same small place (Armenia), leaving no trace of anyone related to them in the Steppe where they supposedly originated.

M269 formed over several thousand years. There are probably remnants of thousands of M269 people dotted all over the place. Whether they will all be found, got tested, be successfully read for yDNA and their results published is another matter. The idea that early M269 people all stuck together in one specific location and mated with women with similar autosomal profiles is an illusion.

Of course, if a single early M269 sample is found on the Steppe, it will be a case of 'proof that M269 was a Steppe lineage'. If found elsewhere, it will be ignored as 'noise' or an 'outlier'.
 
The R1 individual you are mentionning is not from Maykop Proper, but Steppe Maykop, whatever it means on an archeological stand point. And it makes sense for R1 to be in North Caucasus at this point in time, because it's everywhere in Eastern Europe for milleniums prior to it. Also there is a Q1a2 individual alongside the R1 one, why not assume then too that this Q1a2 comes from chalcolithic Armenia.
The argument 'it's not proper' is often used in genetics debate. Bell Beakers without Steppe DNA are written off as not proper Bell Beaker. M269 with few SNP reads are ignored as not real M269. It's usually a symptom of denial.

If R1 was in the Northern Caucasus, why adamantly presume that no one bearing it could ever have crossed onto the other side of the mountains?

The reason why we should not assume that Q1a2 comes from Chalcolithic Armenia is simple - the phylogenic and STR variance data do not support it.
 
The argument 'it's not proper' is often used in genetics debate. Bell Beakers without Steppe DNA are written off as not proper Bell Beaker. M269 with few SNP reads are ignored as not real M269. It's usually a symptom of denial.

If R1 was in the Northern Caucasus, why adamantly presume that no one bearing it could ever have crossed onto the other side of the mountains?

The reason why we should not assume that Q1a2 comes from Chalcolithic Armenia is simple - the phylogenic and STR variance data do not support it.

Because,

1) How would R1b-Z2103 ( if it was born and came from South Caucasus ) and with a majority of Farmer mtdna, be that high in EHG ancestry?

2) R1 did cross Caucasus but in Chalcolithic-EBA transition when it became by founder effect and conquest one of the new lineage of late Kura-Araxes.

3) Q1a2 is absent of South Caucasus modern dna, why would STR variance change anything about the deduction of its origin not there.

4) While R1b-Z2103 had multiple founder effects in south caucasus for 5000 years, you are talking of denial, but this is a huge one. Absolutely all scientists using your hypothesis and statistics using modern dna were wrong for now.

Your same hypothesis made scientists be clear in 2011 that R1b-M269 came in europe with LBK. Your same hypothesis made scientists be clear that R1a-M417 had a diversification origin in Iran.

And as i said it, if M269, L23, Z2103 were south of the caucasus, it will show it at some point in a future study. Why trying to get a response only by modern dna conclusions?
 
This thread is about the modern distribution of R1b, not ancient DNA, much of which is the history of dead-end lineages with little or no relevance to our ancestry.

If Z2103 South of the Caucasus is due to recent founder effects, then there must have been lots of different founders whose ancestors branched apart thousands of years beforehand, and who then all coincidentally ended up in the same small place (Armenia), leaving no trace of anyone related to them in the Steppe where they supposedly originated.

M269 formed over several thousand years. There are probably remnants of thousands of M269 people dotted all over the place. Whether they will all be found, got tested, be successfully read for yDNA and their results published is another matter. The idea that early M269 people all stuck together in one specific location and mated with women with similar autosomal profiles is an illusion.

Of course, if a single early M269 sample is found on the Steppe, it will be a case of 'proof that M269 was a Steppe lineage'. If found elsewhere, it will be ignored as 'noise' or an 'outlier'.

You are starting to show impatience over the topic like " you want it to be south of the caucasus ". Bias can be hard times. If nobody would have ramble on the Hajji Firuz R1b-Z2103, we probably would have accepted the idea that this was the " ancestor of yamnaya guys " like Markod said impulsively and with joy at the preprint of the paper, wich also show'd his bias.

I dont believe to probabilities and statistics in ancient and modern dna. My point is, i believe prehistoric steppe Z2103 are older than any living Z2103. All modern southern caucasus Z2103 were born in south caucasus post-chalcolithic, mountaneous region are creating lots of founder effects very fast, as for very populous regions. India show the same kind of Z93 founder effects as Z2103 south of caucasus. Being an outlier depend on the ancestral component % according to the whole population analyzed, so it's not relevant with lineage.

Thing is, i think people are too focused on the Yamnaya Culture. We already see EHG in Areni individuals, Z2103 could have come as early as 4000 BC in south caucasus, totally unrelated with later IE migrations, or maybe related with a very early migration, but those guys did not came back into the steppe to found Yamnaya. If you insist in putting Yamnaya and PIE in the topic ( wich i dont say or even think you are doing ) it might sound like an ethnogenesis pride, such as some armenian and kurdish guys have in those topics and communities.

Let's focus on ancient dna, all questions will be answered at some point.
 
IE Anatolian speakers were not steppe related (autosomal), hence my best bet go for PF7562, which is an early bronze age split from its branch sister L23. The best place of this split is northern Caucasus.
My estimates suggest this is likely, although perhaps a little sooner.
 
Besides, Steppe Maykop had a much more "eastern" and quite probably Central Asian Steppe autosomal makeup, very distinct from that of "truly" Caucasian Maykop. I wouldn't analyze these two cultures and peoples together in terms of genetic origins and possibly even ethnic and linguistic identity.
I was just responding to the claim that there was no Maykop Z2103; but, yes, it's not especially relevant.
Having said that, specifically the Z2103 sample in Steppe Maykop is one that has the typical "true" Maykop admixture, with a substantial Anatolian component.
 
But as far as y-dna R1, i think it's almost clear that it came from eastern europe, even Narasimhan apparently had after few C14 fails to redate the Z2103 individual from Hajji Firuz something like MLBA. Everything tends to show that prior 3000 BC, there was no R1 south of caucasus, but that after, something triggered their movement.
It's not a matter of whether R1 per se came from Eastern Europe; I'm not disputing that. The question is where the most recent common ancestor of Z2103 lived.
Nothing can ever possibly show that there was no R1 South of the Caucasus, unless we have access to the remains of every man who has lived there prior to 3,000 BC. And you talk as if there were a block of R1 people who were all aware of each other's yDNA and made a point of sticking together as a unit without exception for tens of thousands of years, each of them avoiding ever straying South of the Caucasus. This is simplistic and misleading.
 
How would R1b-Z2103 ( if it was born and came from South Caucasus ) and with a majority of Farmer mtdna, be that high in EHG ancestry?
At the birth of Z2103 (which incidentally happened over a period of probably several hundred years), we have no way of knowing what mtDNA it had, nor whether it was high in EHG ancestry, nor whether some of its bearers had very different mtDNA and aDNA to each other. You are trying to compare yDNA in the 5th millennium BC with aDNA and mtDNA from 50 or more generations later when there is no evidential or logical basis for doing so.

Q1a2 is absent of South Caucasus modern dna, why would STR variance change anything about the deduction of its origin not there.
Because the greatest STR variances between Q1a2 samples of specific phylogeny consistently occur further North.

While R1b-Z2103 had multiple founder effects in south caucasus for 5000 years, you are talking of denial, but this is a huge one. Absolutely all scientists using your hypothesis and statistics using modern dna were wrong for now.
A very sweeping statement, and I very much doubt there is anything to prove that anyone was wrong. Besides which, much of the precise phylogeny and the volume of data has emerged only recently, so the estimates are going to be subject to frequent revision.

Your same hypothesis made scientists be clear in 2011 that R1b-M269 came in europe with LBK. Your same hypothesis made scientists be clear that R1a-M417 had a diversification origin in Iran.
You are too black and white. Nothing was 'clear' in 2011, neither is it that 'clear' now. And the whole concept that M269 'came' to Europe at any one specific time is misleading - there were probably bearers of various branches of M269 moving in and out of various parts of Europe at various times (some of which died out, some of which didn't).

Why trying to get a response only by modern dna conclusions?
Because, as things stand, modern data is far more reliable, far more precise, far more detailed, in far greater quantity, more universally published and its sampling is much more random.
 
You are starting to show impatience over the topic like " you want it to be south of the caucasus ". Bias can be hard times. If nobody would have ramble on the Hajji Firuz R1b-Z2103, we probably would have accepted the idea that this was the " ancestor of yamnaya guys " like Markod said impulsively and with joy at the preprint of the paper, wich also show'd his bias.
I'm not bothered where it is. I'm English, have no idea whether I am Z2103, have no reason to have any preference which side of the mountains it originated, and my estimates on this have changed over the past couple of years as new data has been published.

I dont believe to probabilities and statistics in ancient and modern dna. My point is, i believe prehistoric steppe Z2103 are older than any living Z2103. All modern southern caucasus Z2103 were born in south caucasus post-chalcolithic, mountaneous region are creating lots of founder effects very fast, as for very populous regions. India show the same kind of Z93 founder effects as Z2103 south of caucasus. Being an outlier depend on the ancestral component % according to the whole population analyzed, so it's not relevant with lineage.
I do believe in data and in statistics, and have no fixed faiths or beliefs that certain haplogroups originated anywhere in particular.

Let's focus on ancient dna, all questions will be answered at some point.
Why wait? I could be dead by the time they find anything useful, become bothered to analyse it, get the funding to analyse it, see whether they can read it and decide whether to publish it. It it passes through all these hoops and then does provide useful information, it will then probably be written off as a 'blip', 'noise', an 'outlier' or of insufficient quality to be worthy of consideration.
 
I'm not bothered where it is. I'm English, have no idea whether I am Z2103, have no reason to have any preference which side of the mountains it originated, and my estimates on this have changed over the past couple of years as new data has been published.


I do believe in data and in statistics, and have no fixed faiths or beliefs that certain haplogroups originated anywhere in particular.


Why wait? I could be dead by the time they find anything useful, become bothered to analyse it, get the funding to analyse it, see whether they can read it and decide whether to publish it. It it passes through all these hoops and then does provide useful information, it will then probably be written off as a 'blip', 'noise', an 'outlier' or of insufficient quality to be worthy of consideration.

Do what you do and what you want. I will just not follow the same path. The real importance is to know why we are, individualy doing it for.
 

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