Southern Neolithic route brought Megaliths from the Levant to Western Europe

Maciamo, this is not correct. Haplogroup T1a-M70 was NOT found in Pre-Pottery Neolithic Jordan but instead was found T1-PF5610 (xT1a1-Z526, T1a1a-CTS9163, T1a1a-CTS2607, T1a2-S11611, T1a2-Y6031, T1a2a1-P322, T1a3a-Y9189), the most probably subclade is T1b which is negative for M70. T1b is not linked to the T1a1 found in the Early Neolithic from the North European Plain.

The mutations defining T1a were not tested. AFAIK there is no SNP defining T1b. This clade was determined using STR variations only and is extremely rare. The PPNB sample in Jordan could have been T1a or T1b, or just T1*. In my opinion it doesn't matter much because statistically the chances of it being T1* or T1a are overwhelming. In any case, all T1 would have expanded from the same region. Most very ancient samples will turn out to be men who did not leave any descendants to this day and therefore belong to extinct clades, or just a clade with an asterisk (like T1*). The older the sample and the higher the statistical chance that an individual did not pass on his Y-DNA to posterity. That's why if you were to test 100 PPNB samples in Jordan (or anywhere else) I would bet that over half of them (perhaps more like 90% of them) would belong to extinct clades (i.e. a Y-DNA lineage not ancestral to anyone alive today). That's exactly what we see with Mesolithic Europeans or the Natufians (lots of extinct C1a2, F*, I*, CT, E1b1*). This is because of natural selection (men born with beneficial mutations in the coding region of the Y chromosome had increased fertility) and because in most human societies in history people with more wealth and power tended to have more children who reached adulthood.

All this to say that whether this sample was T1*, T1a*, T1a1* or whatever, there is a very high likelihood that that particular individual did not pass on his Y-DNA to modern T1a people. But someone else in his tribe, or the neighbouring tribe, would have.
 
If early megaliths were confined to Anatolia and the Levante I'd be inclined to agree. In Europe however there is a significant gap. The Sicilian megalith became submerged in uncal. 9350 ± 200 year B.P., Impressed Ware and agriculture arrive in 6000 B.C.E. . The Portuguese megalith is dated to uncal. 9097 ± 445 year B.P., while the first traces of agriculture appear in 5600 - 5000 B.C.E. .

Don't get to obsess with dates. As I explained above, they are approximate, and even very approximate for submerged stones with no organic material left nearby.

Additionally, when archaeologists notice migrations and advances of Neolithic cultures it is usually because a sizeable number of people moved and settled in a new region. But the truth is that humans have always had some avant-gardiste explorers. Imagine if no historical document existed to tell us that Christopher Columbus was the first European (well, Vikings excluded) to reach the American continent. If we only had archaeology to tell us when Europeans first colonised the Americas, what date would they come up with? Nobody would know where they first landed, and obviously that could have been anywhere in North, Central or South America. Our data would evolve with archaeological finds, which depend on luck and local budgets in different regions. There would be more archaeologist and more money available in the USA and more finds would emerge there first. So archaeologist might conclude at first that Europeans didn't settle in the Americas until the 17th century. Then more data would emerge from Central America that showed a slightly earlier colonisation. However, as they have to rely on carbon dating, they wouldn't be able to tell for sure within a few decades or even a century which settlement was the oldest. Furthermore, some early colonists would not have left much archaeological trace because they built wooden structure that have disappeared. Other sites might be under water if the sea level have increased even a bit. And that's for an event that happened only 500 years ago. Try 10,000 years and imagine how much more data is missing.

Back to the Early Neolithic, I can easily imagine a group of pre-pottery cattle herder following the Mediterranean coast from the Levant and ending up in Tunisia or Morocco within a few generations. The bulk of the Neolithic population would have remained in the Fertile Crescent. But there have always been explorers, or even people banished from their land for one reason or another. Chances are that these early explorers didn't leave any trace in the archaeological record, especially if they went along a coast that is now submerged. And the Earth was in full global warming at the time. So for all we know coastal North Africa could have been settled by Neolithic farmers before Europe. It's not just the submerged coastline that is problematic, but even more so the advance of the Sahara desert, which has now gobbled up all the Neolithic savanna until the sea in most of Egypt and Libya. It's nearly impossible to find traces of a Neolithic village buried under metres of sand when you don't know where to look for it. But there could be thousands of them.

What is certain is that R1b-V88 was found in Early Neolithic Spain, just as I had predicted years before the DNA test was done. That prediction was made based on the spread of cattle domestication from the Göbekli Tepe region as described above. I didn't think of the link with megaliths at the time.
 
Göbekli Tepe is dated to PPNA or earlier
Natufian PPNA didn't exist east of the Euphrates, Göbekli Tepe is 80 km east of the Euphrates as the crow flies

PPNA people grew pulses and cereals, and supplemented their diet by hunting gazelles, they didn't have domesticates
Goats/sheep were gradually domesticated in the eastern Taurus and Zagros - Hallan Cemi - Zawi Chemi - Ganj Dareh
oldest PPNB site is 10.7 ka Tell Aswad, another early PPNB site is Ain Ghazal
in PPNB gazelle is replaced by goat, it is hunter/herding people from Hallan Cemi who merged with Natufians in villages
mudbrick huts in PPNB are also different from brushwood huts in PPNA
in PPNB Ain Ghazal the DNA is much more differentiated than in the older Natufian site on Mt Carmel

NatufianIsraelRaqefet Cave, Mount Carmel [I0685 / Nat 4]M11840-9760 BCECT > genetiker CT(xJ1, J2a, J2b, T1, P)CTS9555, Y1580
Lazaridis 2016Natufian 83 % Natufi + 14 % EEF + 1 % Papua + 1 % CHG + 1 % (WHG/ Karitiana)I1685 Levant Natufian E1b1b-CTS10365 calls
NatufianIsraelRaqefet Cave, Mount Carmel [I1069 / Nat 5]M11840-9760 BCEE1b1 (xE1b1a1, E1b1b1b1)M5403+ (E), P179+ (E1b1), (Z1116-, CTS8649-)
Lazaridis 2016I1069 Levant Natufian E1b1b1-PF1871(xE1b1b1b1) calls
NatufianIsraelRaqefet Cave, Mount Carmel [I1690 / Nat 6]M11840-9760 BCECT > genetiker CT(xJ, L, R1a, V88, M269)Y1462, M5723, L977
Lazaridis 2016I1690 Levant Natufian E1b1b-CTS4345 calls
NatufianIsraelRaqefet Cave, Mount Carmel [I1072 / Nat 9]M11840-9760 BCEE1b1b1b2 Z830 (xE1b1b1b2a, E1b1b1b2b)CTS8182+, CTS11781+ (E1b1b1b2), (CTS1652-, CTS11051-, CTS11574-)N1b ?Lazaridis 2016
NatufianIsraelRaqefet Cave, Mount Carmel [I0861 / Nat 10]M11840-9760 BCEE1b1b1b2 Z830 (xE1b1b1b2a, E1b1b1b2b)L336+ (E1b1b), M5108+, CTS3637+, CTS7154+, PF1755+, L796+ (E1b1b1), CTS11781+ (E1b1b1b2), (L857-, Z865-)
Lazaridis 2016
NatufianIsraelRaqefet Cave, Mount Carmel [I0687 / Nat 13]F11520-11110 calBCE (11405±120 BP)


Lazaridis 2016









PPNBJordanAin Ghazal [I1414 / AG 84/1]M8300-7900 BCEE (xE2, E1a, E1b1a1a1c2c3b1, E1b1b1b1a1, E1b1b1b2b) > genetiker E-M215 (1) > M35 > Z827 > Z830 (1)P167+ (DE), CTS2893+ (E), (Z15455-, Z912-, CTS3507-, CTS11248- , Z16129-, Z16130-, CTS10196-, M293-, CTS11446- CTS11447-)
Lazaridis 2016Levant Neol 41 % Natufi + 52 % EEF + 1 % WHG + 2 % CHG + 1 % Eskimo + 1 % Papua + 1 % (S.Asia/ Karitiana) 3 x E1b1b + 2 x H2 + TI1414 Levant PPNB E1b1b1b2-CTS11781 calls
PPNBJordanAin Ghazal [I1416 / AG 84/3]M8300-7900 BCECTCTS7933, M5786
Lazaridis 2016I1416 Levant PPNB CT(xH, I, J, K) calls
PPNBJordanAin Ghazal [I1700 / AG 88_1]M8300-7900 BCECT > genetiker H2-P96 (2)M5603, M5624, CTS3460, M5822None givenLazaridis 2016I1700 Levant PPNC H2-P96 calls
PPNBJordanAin Ghazal [I1727 / AG 83_30]M8300-7900 BCECT (xE, G, J, LT, R, Q1a, Q1b)M5723+, CTS7922+, M5769+, M5822+, M5823+None givenLazaridis 2016I1727 Levant PPNB F(xG, J, LT, K2) calls
PPNBJordanAin Ghazal [I1415 / AG 84/2]M8197-7653 calBCEE1b1b1CTS2216+
Lazaridis 2016I1415 Levant PPNB E1b1b1b2a1-Y4974 calls
PPNBJordanAin Ghazal [I1710 / AG 83_6]M7733-7526 calBCE (8580±60 BP)E1b1b1 (xE1b1b1b1a1, E1b1b1a1b1, E1b1b1a1b2, E1b1b1b2a1c)M5041+ (CTS5819-, L618-, CTS5479-, V23-)T1a2Lazaridis 2016I1710 Levant PPNB E1b1b1a1-CTS675 calls
PPNBJordanAin Ghazal [I1707 / AG 83_5]M7722-7541 calBCE (8590±50 BP)T (xT1a1, T1a2a)PF7466+, CTS7263+, CTS10416+ (FGC3945.2- P322-)R0aLazaridis 2016I1707 Levant PPNB T1-PF5610(xT1a1, T1a2) calls
PPNBJordanAin Ghazal [I1704 / AG 89_1]F7446-7058 calBCE (8190±60 BP)

T1aLazaridis 2016
PPNBIsraelMotza [I0867 / Motz 1]M7300-6750 BCEH2M2713+, M2896+, M2936+, M2942+, M2992+, M3070+ (H), P96+ (H2). It was not derived for any downstream mutationsK1a4bLazaridis 2016
PPNBJordanAin Ghazal [I1679 / AG 037C]F6900-6800 BCE

None givenLazaridis 2016
PPNCJordanAin Ghazal [I1699 / AG 84_5]F6800-6700 BCE

R0a2Lazaridis 2016
PPNBSyriaTell Halula [H3]
6800-6000 BC

R0Fernández 2008; corrected byFernández 2014
PPNBSyriaTell Halula [H4]
6800-6000 BC

KFernández 2008; corrected byFernández 2014
PPNBSyriaTell Halula [H7]
6800-6000 BC

KFernández 2008; corrected byFernández 2014
PPNBSyriaTell Halula [H8]
6800-6000 BC

L3Fernández 2014
PPNBSyriaTell Halula [H25]
6800-6000 BC

KFernández 2014
PPNBSyriaTell Halula [H28]
6800-6000 BC

U*Fernández 2014
PPNBSyriaTell Halula [H49]
6800-6000 BC

HFernández 2008; corrected byFernández 2014
PPNBSyriaTell Halula [H53]
6800-6000 BC [I1101/M11-352a]

HVFernández 2008; corrected byFernández 2014
PPNBSyriaTell Halula [H68]
6800-6000 BC

HFernández 2008; corrected byFernández 2014
PPNBSyriaTell Halula [H70]
6800-6000 BC

N*Fernández 2014
Pre-pottery Neolithic BSyriaTell Ramad [R64-4II]
6000-5750 BC

R0Fernández 2014
Pre-pottery Neolithic BSyriaTell Ramad [T65-14]
6000-5750 BC

KFernández 2005;Fernández 2014
Pre-pottery Neolithic BSyriaTell Ramad [R65-C8-SEB]
6000-5750 BC

KFernández 2005;Fernández 2014
Pre-pottery Neolithic BSyriaTell Ramad [R65-1S]
6000-5750 BC

KFernández 2005;Fernández 2014
Pre-pottery Neolithic BSyriaTell Ramad [R69(2)]
6000-5750 BC

R0Fernández 2014


these are the Zagros goat herders - Ganj Dareh - they are R2 and reached the Indus Valley with goats


IranGanj Dareh [I1945 / GD 16]M8000-7700 BCEP1 (xQ, R1b1a2, R1a1a1b1a1b, R1a1a1b1a3a, R1a1a1b2a2a) > genetiker R2-M479 (2) > Y3399 (3) xY12100 (2- ;10,9ka ;10,9 ka)P282+ (F1237.1-, FGC4603-, CTS12478-, CTS11962-, L448-, Z2123-)J1c10Lazaridis 2016I1945 Iran Neolithic R2a-Y3399 calls

IranGanj Dareh [I1949 / GD 37]M8000-7700 BCECT > genetiker R2-M479 5 op 6M5593, PF228, M5624, PF342, Z17710, CTS2842, CTS5532, M5730, M5751, M5765, CTS11358.None givenLazaridis 2016I1949 Iran Neolithic pre-R2-M479 calls


9.8 ka first domesticated cereals arrived in this area

this is the population after 9.8 ka - G2b and G2a1

Kermanshah NeolithicIranWezmeh Cave (WC1)M7445-7082 BCG2brelated to 3 others >11 kaJ1d6http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/suppl/2016/07/13/science.aaf7943.DC1/Broushaki.SM.pdfWC1 Early Neolithic 7455–7082 G2b2a-Z8022 callshttps://www.yfull.com/tree/G-P287/

IranSeh Gabi [I1671 / SG2]M5837-5659 calBCE (6850±50 BP)G2a1 (xG2a1a)FGC666+, FGC587+, FGC7537+, FGC592+, FGC7533+, FGC593+, FGC594, FGC7536+, FGC600+, FGC602+, FGC606+, FGC607+, FGC610+, FGC617+, FGC618+, FGC7543+, FGC7547+, FGC631+, FGC7546+, FGC635+, FGC637+, FGC639+, FGC641+ ( FGC703-, FGC741-, FGC762-).K1a12aLazaridis 2016I1671 Iran Neolithic G2a1a-FGC602(xG2a1a1) calls
 
Don't get to obsess with dates. As I explained above, they are approximate, and even very approximate for submerged stones with no organic material left nearby.

Additionally, when archaeologists notice migrations and advances of Neolithic cultures it is usually because a sizeable number of people moved and settled in a new region. But the truth is that humans have always had some avant-gardiste explorers. Imagine if no historical document existed to tell us that Christopher Columbus was the first European (well, Vikings excluded) to reach the American continent. If we only had archaeology to tell us when Europeans first colonised the Americas, what date would they come up with? Nobody would know where they first landed, and obviously that could have been anywhere in North, Central or South America. Our data would evolve with archaeological finds, which depend on luck and local budgets in different regions. There would be more archaeologist and more money available in the USA and more finds would emerge there first. So archaeologist might conclude at first that Europeans didn't settle in the Americas until the 17th century. Then more data would emerge from Central America that showed a slightly earlier colonisation. However, as they have to rely on carbon dating, they wouldn't be able to tell for sure within a few decades or even a century which settlement was the oldest. Furthermore, some early colonists would not have left much archaeological trace because they built wooden structure that have disappeared. Other sites might be under water if the sea level have increased even a bit. And that's for an event that happened only 500 years ago. Try 10,000 years and imagine how much more data is missing.

Back to the Early Neolithic, I can easily imagine a group of pre-pottery cattle herder following the Mediterranean coast from the Levant and ending up in Tunisia or Morocco within a few generations. The bulk of the Neolithic population would have remained in the Fertile Crescent. But there have always been explorers, or even people banished from their land for one reason or another. Chances are that these early explorers didn't leave any trace in the archaeological record, especially if they went along a coast that is now submerged. And the Earth was in full global warming at the time. So for all we know coastal North Africa could have been settled by Neolithic farmers before Europe. It's not just the submerged coastline that is problematic, but even more so the advance of the Sahara desert, which has now gobbled up all the Neolithic savanna until the sea in most of Egypt and Libya. It's nearly impossible to find traces of a Neolithic village buried under metres of sand when you don't know where to look for it. But there could be thousands of them.

What is certain is that R1b-V88 was found in Early Neolithic Spain, just as I had predicted years before the DNA test was done. That prediction was made based on the spread of cattle domestication from the Göbekli Tepe region as described above. I didn't think of the link with megaliths at the time.

I do not think that noticing a 1,500 year gap means that I'm obsessed with dates. To be honest, I can imagine all kinds of scenarios, but I don't think these are particularly helpful. Sacrificing these details for a beautiful narrative just seems like a bad idea considering the overall paucity of evidence.

Moreover, I don't think the Levant is a good place for the origin of Megalithism. The intrusive Natufian antagonizes the Upper Paleolithic Euro-Anatolian cultural complex associated with Megalithism in many ways (think, for example, the abundant Venus figurines ). It's also telling that Megalithism really takes off in Western Europe, where the latter could develop unperturbed by foreign influences.
 
I do not think that noticing a 1,500 year gap means that I'm obsessed with dates. To be honest, I can imagine all kinds of scenarios, but I don't think these are particularly helpful. Sacrificing these details for a beautiful narrative just seems like a bad idea considering the overall paucity of evidence.

What 1,500 years gap? There are megaliths in Israel, the Straight of Sicily and southern Portugal around 7,000 BCE, then other megaliths in southern Portugal around 6,000 BCE. During the 6th millennium BCE we see megalithic sites popping up in the Levant (Rujm el-Hiri in Israel), Egypt, Malta (Skorba temples), Portugal, Andalusia (La Almagra), Galicia, Corsica, as well as southern, central and western France (including Poitou and Brittany). What we see is a coherent complex of megalithic cultures spanning from Israel to Portugal and to Brittany, following maritime routes along the southern and western coasts of the Mediterranean and going up to the Atlantic coast of Europe. For example, the oldest megaliths in Brittany are dated to 4,800 BCE, but other were built again around 4,000 BCE, 3,300 BCE, 2,500 BCE and 2,000 BCE. Likewise in Malta there are megaliths from 4,800 BCE, 3,600 BCE and 3,200 BCE. In southern Spain, they are dated from 5,000 BCE, 4,000 BCE, 3,500 BCE and 3,000 BCE. Obviously these people weren't building megalithic monuments every century, as they tend to last, but you can see the same pattern back and forth between Israel and Portugal and between Spain and Brittany. There seems to have been a lot of movements in both directions. It was not a simple east-west migration but more likely a trade route that was used for several millennia.

Moreover, I don't think the Levant is a good place for the origin of Megalithism. The intrusive Natufian antagonizes the Upper Paleolithic Euro-Anatolian cultural complex associated with Megalithism in many ways (think, for example, the abundant Venus figurines ). It's also telling that Megalithism really takes off in Western Europe, where the latter could develop unperturbed by foreign influences.

I didn't suggest that Megalithism originated with the Natufians (CT, E1b1b) but with the R1b-V88 cattle herders who came from southeastern Turkey and northern Syria. I think at first it might have been only R1b-V88 herders who colonised North Africa. If there was another haplogroup it would have been T1a, but I associate it more with goat herders. Nowadays Sub-Saharan Africans tend to have only R1b-V88 (mostly Sahel, like the Hausa, Fulani, Kirdi and Berbers) or T1a (Horn of Africa), but not both together, which suggests separate migrations. The Horn of Africa also has a lot of E1b1b, but there is too little data now to estimate how much of it is Palaeolithic (old clades like M281, V6 and V92) vs Neolithic. Interestingly G2a is not found in Sub-Saharan Africa, but only in North Africa, meaning that there were at least three distinct colonising events from the Near East during the Neolithic.
 
What 1,500 years gap? There are megaliths in Israel, the Straight of Sicily and southern Portugal around 7,000 BCE, then other megaliths in southern Portugal around 6,000 BCE. During the 6th millennium BCE we see megalithic sites popping up in the Levant (Rujm el-Hiri in Israel), Egypt, Malta (Skorba temples), Portugal, Andalusia (La Almagra), Galicia, Corsica, as well as southern, central and western France (including Poitou and Brittany). What we see is a coherent complex of megalithic cultures spanning from Israel to Portugal and to Brittany, following maritime routes along the southern and western coasts of the Mediterranean and going up to the Atlantic coast of Europe. For example, the oldest megaliths in Brittany are dated to 4,800 BCE, but other were built again around 4,000 BCE, 3,300 BCE, 2,500 BCE and 2,000 BCE. Likewise in Malta there are megaliths from 4,800 BCE, 3,600 BCE and 3,200 BCE. In southern Spain, they are dated from 5,000 BCE, 4,000 BCE, 3,500 BCE and 3,000 BCE. Obviously these people weren't building megalithic monuments every century, as they tend to last, but you can see the same pattern back and forth between Israel and Portugal and between Spain and Brittany. There seems to have been a lot of movements in both directions. It was not a simple east-west migration but more likely a trade route that was used for several millennia.

I didn't suggest that Megalithism originated with the Natufians (CT, E1b1b) but with the R1b-V88 cattle herders who came from southeastern Turkey and northern Syria. I think at first it might have been only R1b-V88 herders who colonised North Africa. If there was another haplogroup it would have been T1a, but I associate it more with goat herders. Nowadays Sub-Saharan Africans tend to have only R1b-V88 (mostly Sahel, like the Hausa, Fulani, Kirdi and Berbers) or T1a (Horn of Africa), but not both together, which suggests separate migrations. The Horn of Africa also has a lot of E1b1b, but there is too little data now to estimate how much of it is Palaeolithic (old clades like M281, V6 and V92) vs Neolithic. Interestingly G2a is not found in Sub-Saharan Africa, but only in North Africa, meaning that there were at least three distinct colonising events from the Near East during the Neolithic.

As I pointed out, there is a 1,500 year gap between the appearence of Megalithism and the arrival of the agricultural Neolithic in Western Europe. If there was a maritime excursion from the Levant to Europe in 7,000 B.C., I'm almost certain we'd see an early Neolithic revolution at these sites, considering that Europe was virgin territory for farmers. Instead, the spread of agriculture in Europe has a quite linear east-to-west trajectory starting in the Aegean, with an expected late arrival in far Western Europe.

The particular importance of the Levant in the development of Megalithism eludes me. The Rujm el-Hiri site in Israel, for example, is dated to the Bronze Age and post-dates the explosion of megalithic sites in Europe. Apart from Atlit Yam, Megalithism just looks like a more properly European phenomenon (well Europe plus Anatolia, but the distinction was likely to have been moot in the Mesolithic). With Atlit Yam submerged already in the pre-pottery Neolithic, there must have been an almost complete break from this tradition in the Levant for several millennia.
 
As I pointed out, there is a 1,500 year gap between the appearence of Megalithism and the arrival of the agricultural Neolithic in Western Europe. If there was a maritime excursion from the Levant to Europe in 7,000 B.C., I'm almost certain we'd see an early Neolithic revolution at these sites, considering that Europe was virgin territory for farmers. Instead, the spread of agriculture in Europe has a quite linear east-to-west trajectory starting in the Aegean, with an expected late arrival in far Western Europe.
Right and as genetics so far are telling us this are two separate routes the farming coming from Anatolia through the Balkans so far majority tested G2a,whereas E1b1b through north Africa-Iberia,the same route was probably for R1b-V88 too,we found them in Africa.They are missing from the Neolithic Balkans.
If they came the same route as the farmers did,we would have find their trace so far.
 
The mutations defining T1a were not tested. AFAIK there is no SNP defining T1b. This clade was determined using STR variations only and is extremely rare. The PPNB sample in Jordan could have been T1a or T1b, or just T1*. In my opinion it doesn't matter much because statistically the chances of it being T1* or T1a are overwhelming. In any case, all T1 would have expanded from the same region. Most very ancient samples will turn out to be men who did not leave any descendants to this day and therefore belong to extinct clades, or just a clade with an asterisk (like T1*). The older the sample and the higher the statistical chance that an individual did not pass on his Y-DNA to posterity. That's why if you were to test 100 PPNB samples in Jordan (or anywhere else) I would bet that over half of them (perhaps more like 90% of them) would belong to extinct clades (i.e. a Y-DNA lineage not ancestral to anyone alive today). That's exactly what we see with Mesolithic Europeans or the Natufians (lots of extinct C1a2, F*, I*, CT, E1b1*). This is because of natural selection (men born with beneficial mutations in the coding region of the Y chromosome had increased fertility) and because in most human societies in history people with more wealth and power tended to have more children who reached adulthood.

All this to say that whether this sample was T1*, T1a*, T1a1* or whatever, there is a very high likelihood that that particular individual did not pass on his Y-DNA to modern T1a people. But someone else in his tribe, or the neighbouring tribe, would have.

Maciamo, This is not just T1* but also negative for: T1a1-Z526, T1a1a-CTS9163, T1a1a-CTS2607, T1a2-S11611, T1a2-Y6031, T1a2a1-P322, T1a3a-Y9189. This mean that the sample can't belong to T1a1, T1a2 and T1a3a. So with our actual knowledge, only fit T1a3b, T1b and T1*.
T1a3b: Rarest than T1b, found only in Iraq and North European Plain.
T1b (T1*(xM70)): Found in 1-Macedonia, 2.1-Berbers from Sejnane 2.2-Syria, Druzes from Lebanon, Upper Egypt and Iberian Peninsula (admixed population from Colombia). Actually one sample tested for BigY and waiting for YFull results.
T1*: There is only found T1b, we have no knowledge of the existance of any other branch.

Statistically the chances of it being T1b or T1* are higher.

All T1 would have expanded from the same region but this region is not where a PPNB sample have been found more than 15000 years after of T1-L206 first appeared. Natufians have 0% of T1, so the chances of coming from the north are higher.
 
I don't think it really matters as long as they are built by a settled community. Early farming was not a self-sufficient mode of subsistence. Almost all Early Neolithic farmers, even during the Linear Pottery culture in Central Europe 6000 years after the beginning of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent, complemented their diet by hunting and gathering. In a sense, we still do. There are still hunters, and many people go to the woods to collect mushrooms. In the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, when food couldn't be stored easily, hunting and gathering would have been about as important as farming.
Not necessarily. They could go hunting because of hunting instinct and not from real need. I have friends who still go hunting in 21 century, every time they can. They bring deer or wild boar and they eat the meat. Of course not from necessity. I have friends who go fishing, and I do it sometimes too, not from need for food, but from joy of the experience. We go pick mushrooms, again from joy doing it and taste for mushrooms alone, and not from need of extra nutrients. It can only be explained by h-g instinct still present in us. From efficiency point of view, all this time spend on walking and finding wild food, is more efficiently used when food is cultivated around the house, and animals tended close by.
Farming versus hunting is not about lifestyle, it is about survival of offspring.
Anyway my point is that, because they still hunted this doesn't mean that they didn't herd sheep, cows or pigs already. There many pig bones in Gobelki Tepe. How do we know they hunted them and not herded them? In this time period wild pig and domesticated one looked exactly the same and had same genome.
 
Maciamo, This is not just T1* but also negative for: T1a1-Z526, T1a1a-CTS9163, T1a1a-CTS2607, T1a2-S11611, T1a2-Y6031, T1a2a1-P322, T1a3a-Y9189. This mean that the sample can't belong to T1a1, T1a2 and T1a3a. So with our actual knowledge, only fit T1a3b, T1b and T1*.
T1a3b: Rarest than T1b, found only in Iraq and North European Plain.
T1b (T1*(xM70)): Found in 1-Macedonia, 2.1-Berbers from Sejnane 2.2-Syria, Druzes from Lebanon, Upper Egypt and Iberian Peninsula (admixed population from Colombia). Actually one sample tested for BigY and waiting for YFull results.
T1*: There is only found T1b, we have no knowledge of the existance of any other branch.

Statistically the chances of it being T1b or T1* are higher.

All T1 would have expanded from the same region but this region is not where a PPNB sample have been found more than 15000 years after of T1-L206 first appeared. Natufians have 0% of T1, so the chances of coming from the north are higher.

Why do you ignore T1a*? Surely if it can be T1a3b, it can also be T1a* and even T1a3*.
 
Not necessarily. They could go hunting because of hunting instinct and not from real need. I have friends who still go hunting in 21 century, every time they can. They bring deer or wild boar and they eat the meat. Of course not from necessity. I have friends who go fishing, and I do it sometimes too, not from need for food, but from joy of the experience. We go pick mushrooms, again from joy doing it and taste for mushrooms alone, and not from need of extra nutrients. It can only be explained by h-g instinct still present in us. From efficiency point of view, all this time spend on walking and finding wild food, is more efficiently used when food is cultivated around the house, and animals tended close by.

That just illustrates how strongly the hunting, fishing and gathering instincts are ingrained in our instincts.

Farming versus hunting is not about lifestyle, it is about survival of offspring.
Anyway my point is that, because they still hunted this doesn't mean that they didn't herd sheep, cows or pigs already. There many pig bones in Gobelki Tepe. How do we know they hunted them and not herded them? In this time period wild pig and domesticated one looked exactly the same and had same genome.

That's what I was trying to say. Any food production method is good for survival, and what we usually call farmers are people who can farm (at least a few crops) but can and do also gather, fish and hunt, and may keep domesticated animals.
 
As I pointed out, there is a 1,500 year gap between the appearence of Megalithism and the arrival of the agricultural Neolithic in Western Europe. If there was a maritime excursion from the Levant to Europe in 7,000 B.C., I'm almost certain we'd see an early Neolithic revolution at these sites, considering that Europe was virgin territory for farmers. Instead, the spread of agriculture in Europe has a quite linear east-to-west trajectory starting in the Aegean, with an expected late arrival in far Western Europe.

There could be hundreds of reasons why Levantine farmers didn't colonise Iberia from 7,000 BCE. At the time the Sahara was wet and green and could have been far more appealing, especially considering its vastness and direct connection with their ancestral Levant. There are almost certainly plenty of Neolithic sites lying deep under the Sahara desert now. Conditions in Iberia might not have been good a the time, perhaps due to the climate or because Mesolithic locals were too hostile. Why haven't the Vikings colonised North America after discovering it? They were the fiercest fighters in Europe at the time and surely it's not a bunch of thinly scattered Mesolithic Amerindians that would have deterred them. Were they just not interested? Was it too far from home? Not fertile enough? Did they have bad crops one year and decided to leave, never to return? It could have been any of those reasons for Neolithic farmers too.

Or maybe they did colonise southern Iberia from 7,000 BCE by we haven't uncovered or properly dated the sites yet. I haven't been able to find a lot of information about the dating of La Almagra Pottery. Why is that? Did archaeologists think it was too early to be credible and preferred to drop the dates rather than risk sounding ridiculous in they eyes of their colleagues? It wouldn't be a first. I am just getting started on the hypotheses that could explain it. I am not going to write an essay about it. Just use your imagination.

While we are on the subject, here is some information about La Almagra culture. They mention notably:

- "The Carbon 14 dates of the Andalusian sites, mostly caves, date back to the first half of the 6th millennium BCE, being therefore by far the oldest known Neolithic culture in Western Europe."

=>
It predates the Cardium Pottery in Iberia and nobody knows where they came from if not the Levant. That may be because earlier Neolithic cultures in North Africa are now lost under the Sahara.

- "Its origins are uncertain. Cereals and legumes found on the sites are of an evolved agricultural form, but there are no signs of domesticated animals other than pigs and rabbits, both impossible to differentiate from their wild relatives. There are also an abundance of olive seeds in their settlements, in what may be the earliest archaeological reference to its use and consumption, though it seems we are still talking about the wild variety of this tree."

=> If there is no sign of domesticated cattle, then La Almagra was probably not established by R1b-V88 people. Anyway, if R1b-V88 herders left the Levant before 6,000 BCE, they wouldn't have had any pottery, which makes it much harder to find traces of them. The Neolithic R1b-V88 from Iberia was actually found in the Catalan Pyrenees, a region with no connection to La Almagra. Yet it was already so much north during the La Almagra period, so it must have arrived earlier.

- "If the people of southwestern Iberia adopted Neolithic techniques c. 5000 BCE, a few generations later (c. 4800 BCE, according to Portugese archaeologists) they start producing funerary architecture: dolmens. The first dolmens already had corridors at the entrance, the simple dolmen (without corridor) being a later development. It is thought that the first of these tombs were from Alentejo (Portugal), and soon expanded to nearby areas. Yet its great expansion into other parts of Atlantic Europe would only happen one thousand years later."

=> Same question here. Why did they wait 1,000 years before expanding?- Additionally, La Almagra Pottery is unrelated to other types of Neolithic ceramics in Europe, but there was a similar kind of pottery in the Levant at the time.

With Atlit Yam submerged already in the pre-pottery Neolithic, there must have been an almost complete break from this tradition in the Levant for several millennia.

Or most Megaliths were destroyed or re-used for later constructions. Even the superb Colosseum in Rome was pillaged by locals for marble during the Middle Ages. Look at what is happening at Palmyra now, with those moronic ISIS fighter destroying their World Heritage sites. If people have no respect even for the most grandiose aspect of their own heritage, even in the 21st century, what prevented people in the last 10,000 years from re-using some rough monoliths?
 
Why do you ignore T1a*? Surely if it can be T1a3b, it can also be T1a* and even T1a3*.

Any T1* could be perfectly T1a* as well as T1a3b because of that I have not mentioned T1a*. Anyway, I believe that is very unlikely that a fourth brother lineage survived since 16000 ybp, even the three brothers known to have live descendants are miraculous. I think there is not too much haplogroups with 3 live brother branches dated of the same time.
 
Any T1* could be perfectly T1a* as well as T1a3b because of that I have not mentioned T1a*. Anyway, I believe that is very unlikely that a fourth brother lineage survived since 16000 ybp, even the three brothers known to have live descendants are miraculous. I think there is not too much haplogroups with 3 live brother branches dated of the same time.

And If we go to think on possible upstream branch between T1a and T1a1/T1a2/T1a3, we should wait for T1b results in Yfull and see the time margin between M70 and their three branches.
 
That just illustrates how strongly the hunting, fishing and gathering instincts are ingrained in our instincts.



That's what I was trying to say. Any food production method is good for survival, and what we usually call farmers are people who can farm (at least a few crops) but can and do also gather, fish and hunt, and may keep domesticated animals.
Yep, it is hard to erase 2 million years of being h-g in 10 k years of farming.
 
Right and as genetics so far are telling us this are two separate routes the farming coming from Anatolia through the Balkans so far majority tested G2a,whereas E1b1b through north Africa-Iberia,the same route was probably for R1b-V88 too,we found them in Africa.They are missing from the Neolithic Balkans.
If they came the same route as the farmers did,we would have find their trace so far.

So far as I'm aware, what genetics is showing us is that the Early Neolithic spread from the junction of Anatolia/northern Syria to the islands. At some point the stream bifurcated, with some continuing by sea in a series of hops to the western Mediterranean, and others continuing on into the Balkans and further. All the early farmer genomes, no matter the yDna, are, from autosomal analysis, extremely similar. The differences start to appear in Europe, depending on how much local h-g they absorbed, and of what sub-types.

The Neolithic did indeed also spread west along the southern coast of the Med, but I'm unaware of any samples indicating that E-V13 took that route. Indeed, the immediate pre-cursor of E-V13, E-M78 according to some people, was found in a Cardial site in Europe, which is part of the westward movement of the Neolithic along the northern Mediterranean coast, nothing to do with North Africa. We then find E-M78 in Lengyel just north of the Balkans, along with J2, perhaps having arrived with a later stream of the Neolithic from the Near East. I don't see any difficulty with some R1b-V88 also being caught up in that stream, although time will tell. Ancient dna trumps everything.

As for hunting and gathering in Neolithic cultures, it's very much dependent on the region and time. Some Neolithic communities continued to hunt and gather to supplement their diets, while some did almost none* of it. A lot of factors seem to have been at play, including climate, landscape, crop failures, sociological and ritual developments etc. Perhaps, when farmers first arrived, and before farming was fully established, they may have needed more hunting to supplement their diets. There would also have been more game at that time. Once farming was well established, game would become more scarce. Or, on the other hand, it may be that the earliest farmers to arrive in Europe hunted less because domesticated crops and animals had a very strong ritual significance, and they hunted and fished only with the absorption of some local h-gs.

In that regard, in some areas they totally eschewed freshwater fish, which you would think would have been a primary resource when crops failed. In "A Mediterranean Village", John Robb opines that perhaps the eating of grain and domesticated animals had a religious connotation and wild game did not.* Given all we've read about Mesolithic peoples in Europe eating large quantities of fish, perhaps it was associated with them. In other areas, instead, including near the Iron Gates, where the farmers did apparently absorb some h-g's, they did consume fish.

*See:
https://books.google.com/books?id=0HeNr9h56uEC&q=fish#v=snippet&q=fish&f=false

On the other hand, the climate crisis at the end of the Neolithic in the Balkans means that, according to some scholars, some farming groups moved east and incorporated a lot more hunting into their subsistence strategies.

One size doesn't fit all.

(Oh, there apparently isn't very much difficulty at all in distinguishing domestic from wild pig.)

See:
https://www.academia.edu/4124374/An...y_Neolithic_of_the_Balkans_and_Central_Europe
View attachment 8392

https://www.academia.edu/203832/False_Dichotomies_Balkan_Neolithic_hunting_in_archaeological_context

So far as I know, no domesticated plant or animal remains have yet been found at Gobekli Tepe.
https://tepetelegrams.wordpress.com/2016/06/22/how-old-ist-it-dating-gobekli-tepe/

Ed. * above
 
That is what I've been told about my haplogroup E-M123* that it came from the Levant trough the med. road to Northwestern Iberia where its still present there. Seems plausible explanation that this movemnt of people was connected to this culture.
 
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So far as I'm aware, what genetics is showing us is that the Early Neolithic spread from the junction of Anatolia/northern Syria to the islands. At some point the stream bifurcated, with some continuing by sea in a series of hops to the western Mediterranean, and others continuing on into the Balkans and further. All the early farmer genomes, no matter the yDna, are, from autosomal analysis, extremely similar. The differences start to appear in Europe, depending on how much local h-g they absorbed, and of what sub-types.

The Neolithic did indeed also spread west along the southern coast of the Med, but I'm unaware of any samples indicating that E-V13 took that route. Indeed, the immediate pre-cursor of E-V13, E-M78 according to some people, was found in a Cardial site in Europe, which is part of the westward movement of the Neolithic along the northern Mediterranean coast, nothing to do with North Africa. We then find E-M78 in Lengyel just north of the Balkans, along with J2, perhaps having arrived with a later stream of the Neolithic from the Near East. I don't see any difficulty with some R1b-V88 also being caught up in that stream, although time will tell. Ancient dna trumps everything.
Without genetic finds i really found nothing conclusive that this haplogroups are responsible for Cardial culture and westward spread from northern Syria,i can choose any other haplogroup and say the same.I know that E1b1b was found in Iberia but not in Balkans and Lengyel is really north of Balkans and have nothing with Mediteranean coast or westward movement could as well be eastward in my opinion.
It has to do with north Africa because this haplogroup is most frequent there,also R1b-V88 is present in Africa.
 
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Without genetic finds i really found nothing conclusive that this haplogroups are responsible for Cardial culture and westward spread from northern Syria,i can choose any other haplogroup and say the same.I know that E1b1b was found in Iberia but not in Balkans and Lengyel is really north of Balkans and have nothing with Mediteranean coast or westward movement in my opinion.

Milan, I didn't say that this branch of "E" was "responsible" for Cardial, but, as a sample related to E-M13 was found in that Cardial site in Spain, the most parsimonious explanation is that it moved to western Europe along the northern Mediterranean with Cardial groups, which themselves came from the Near East. We have no similar proof that it moved along the southern Mediterranean coast and then into Spain. If you had a pre-E-V13 sample from North Africa, from a culture that shows movement into Spain, that would be a different thing.

As for Lengyel, it is an outgrowth of the Balkan cultures to its south, which themselves stem from the Near Eastern Neolithic, and would have reached the Lengyel area through the Balkans. Again, nothing to do with North Africa. It was accompanied by J2.
 
As far as I can recall, the earliest farming in the fertile Crescent was ~9000BC

R1-v88 passed by at the same time as farming began...........T1 passed by 4000 years before ..........clearly any marker/haplogroup earlier than 9000BC was a pure 100% hunter

As for herders, what use are they without farmers being around?
 

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