The Neolithic Transition in the Baltic Was Not Driven by Admixture with Early Europea

[Tomenable]

Latvian hunters with R1b are not autosomally pure WHG. They are EHG-WHG mixtures:

In keeping with their geographical origins,they are in an intermediate position between Western European hunter-gatherer samples (WHG; from Luxembourg, Hungary, Italy, France, and Switzerland) and Eastern European hunter-gatherer samples (EHG; from Russia).

 

[MarkoZ]

Latvian hunters with R1b are not autosomally pure WHG. They are EHG-WHG mixtures:

You might want to quote the full text and look at the admixture analysis. Those Mesolithic hunters are less 'EHG' shifted than the hunters from Scandinavia.

 

[Angela]

I just skimmed the admixture analysis - Latvia_LN1 (early Corded Ware) does have substantial farmer admixture. Which leaves me wondering why the authors would chose that headline.

My earlier assumption was based on the dates of Corded Ware in Finland and Latvia.

We already know that Corded Ware had EEF, and we know they also had CHG, so how precisely could these Latvian Late Neolithic/Corded Ware admixed people not have had "farmer" ancestry? The admixture analysis is just further confirmation of what we would assume to be the case, yes? That's why I asked if the samples were from a period from before the Corded Ware folks arrived. If that were the case then the claim would make sense, but not this way.

Well, I shouldn't say that until I carefully read the whole thing. Maybe there's something else in the paper that explains it. Or maybe they just mean it didn't arrive directly from Anatolia via Central Europe?

 

[Tomenable]

I still remember the "one cannot learn how to farm without having farmer admixture" fallacy:

(...) It is striking that we did not find evidence for early European or Anatolian farmer admixture in any of our Latvian Neolithic samples using both D statistics (Table 2) and ADMIXTURE (Figure 2A). This lack of admixture is also supported by the mitochondrial haplogroup of the Latvian Neolithic samples (all belong to U; Figure 1), which is prevalent in European hunter-gatherers [1, 35], including our Latvian Mesolithic samples, but not in early farmers. It is interesting that among the grave goods found in the burial of Latvia_LN1 was a chisel made from the bone of a domesticated goat or sheep [17, 21]. The presence of this tool made from a domesticate as well as dietary isotope data (δ15N and δ13C), which show greater reliance on terrestrial resources than in previous periods [17], is consistent with either the adoption of farming without early European farmer-related genetic admixture or the existence of trade networks with farming communities that were largely independent of genomic exchange. Although we find no genetic input from Anatolian or early European farmers in our time series, ADMIXTURE analysis of an Estonian Corded Ware sample [26] (Figure 2B) as suggested that this farmer genetic influence, which is present in contemporary Northern European populations (Figure S2), had arrived in the Baltic by at least the Bronze Age. (...)

I was insisting that cultural transition is possible without genetic admixture. So who was racist?

 

[bicicleur 2]

isn't R1b1b M335, a rare clade today a non existing in Europe ?
it is a very old clade, subclade of R1b1, TMRCA 18.8 ka

it confirms my theory of a homeland of R1a/R1b further east (Oxus & Jaxartes rivers) and split into 2 groups westbound, 1 north of the Caspian Sea into Europe and another south of the Caspian into Zagros/Transcaucasia/Eastern Anatolia

 

[arvistro]

On (somewhat) unrelated topic, we have went so far from XX century main theory that Narva were Finno-Ugric ancestors...

 

[Tomenable]

Those Mesolithic hunters are less 'EHG' shifted than the hunters from Scandinavia.

The hunters from Scandinavia are also EHG shifted. They were a mix of WHG and EHG.

There is even archaeological evidence of EHG migration from Russia to Scandinavia:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00293652.2013.770416?journalCode=sarc20&

"The First Eastern Migrations of People and Knowledge into Scandinavia:
Evidence from Studies of Mesolithic Technology, 9th-8th Millennium BC

Abstract:

In this paper a team of Scandinavian researchers identifies and describes a Mesolithic technological concept, referred to as ‘the conical core pressure blade’ concept, and investigates how this concept spread into Fennoscandia and across Scandinavia. Using lithic technological, contextual archaeological and radiocarbon analyses, it is demonstrated that this blade concept arrived with ‘post-Swiderian’ hunter-gatherer groups from the Russian plain into northern Fennoscandia and the eastern Baltic during the 9th millennium BC. From there it was spread by migrating people and/or as transmitted knowledge through culture contacts into interior central Sweden, Norway and down along the Norwegian coast. However it was also spread into southern Scandinavia, where it was formerly identified as the Maglemosian technogroup 3 (or the ‘Sværdborg phase’). In this paper it is argued that the identification and spread of the conical core pressure blade concept represents the first migration of people, technology and ideas into Scandinavia from the south-eastern Baltic region and the Russian plain."

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

Also this:

"MA1 shares more alleles with Motala12 (SHG) than with Loschbour, and Motala12 fits as a mixture of 81% WHG and 19% ANE."

 

[bicicleur 2]

this study makes the scenario of herders in the forest/steppe area or even further north being the origin of corded ware and potapovka/sintashta more likely

 

[Tomenable]

Latvian Corded Ware lacks Anatolian Farmer admixture, unlike German Corded Ware:

The LN Latvian apparently is from Corded Ware culture, so its lack of Anatolian Farmer makes it an outlier compared to usual CW.

 

[MarkoZ]

We already know that Corded Ware had EEF, and we know they also had CHG, so how precisely could these Latvian Late Neolithic/Corded Ware admixed people not have had "farmer" ancestry? The admixture analysis is just further confirmation of what we would assume to be the case, yes? That's why I asked if the samples were from a period from before the Corded Ware folks arrived. If that were the case then the claim would make sense, but not this way.

Well, I shouldn't say that until I carefully read the whole thing. Maybe there's something else in the paper that explains it. Or maybe they just mean it didn't arrive directly from Anatolia via Central Europe?

I thought that Latvia didn't 'arrive' in Corded Ware, because Latvian Corded Ware yields older dates than Central European Corded Ware. Latvia would have been the starting point of the Corded Ware expansion. See, for example: https://www.researchgate.net/public...and_early_husbandry_in_the_East_Baltic_region

I got excited because of the headline, but the actual data says that the 'autonomous transition' hypothesis is falsified beyond all reasonable doubt.

Edit: Though it's possible that the farming in early Corded Ware was more CHG than Anatolian Farmer mediated - look at those substantial CHG components in both early Corded Ware and the Karelian hunters.

 

[Angela]

I still remember the "one cannot learn how to farm without having farmer admixture" fallacy:

I was insisting that cultural transition is possible without genetic admixture. So who was racist?

I don't know if it is possible or not (perhaps possible but difficult), but what I do know is that you haven't carefully read or analyzed this paper.


Please look at posts number 11, 14, and 20 before you make any more ill-judged statements. Please also look at the responses to your statements about V-88 and whether this sample is significantly EHG.

Do you want us to give an award for the number of incorrect statements in one thread?

 

[halfalp]

Post-swiderians are more likely correlate with R1a ( maybe I* ) and U4, this R1b, is what i have in mind about a long time, an origin in the Solutrean Phenomenon ( Post-Swiderian and Solutrean are found very similar ), this is exacly what i was talking last few times, about genetic take too much often, now everybody thinks R1b originate in Anatolia or Iran... The fact is R1 haplogroups are very dispersed, because they have been very mobile.

 

[Tomenable]

http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fullte...9822(16)31542-1

The two earliest samples in our Baltic time series, Latvia_HG1 (8,417–8,199 cal BP), associated with the Kunda culture, and Latvia_HG2 (7,791–7,586 cal BP), associated with the Narva culture, derive from the Late Mesolithic period [17, 21].

A third sample, Latvia_HG3 (7,252–6,802 cal BP), dates to the Late Mesolithic/Early Neolithic period, with the burial showing no major departures from the preceding Mesolithic traditions [21].

http://www.cell.com/cms/attachment/2082666...883532/mmc1.pdf

First R1b:

Latvia_HG2: Burial 93. Adult male. Buried in extended supine position with head facing southwest. Grave
goods included 23 teeth pendants, one beaver bone and three bird bones. Ochre layer surrounded the skeleton.
14C date: Hela-1212, 6840 ±55 BP (7,791-7,586 cal BP).

Second R1b:

Latvia_HG3: Burial 121. Adult. Described as female based on morphology but genetically determined to be
male. Buried in extended supine position with head facing south. Animal teeth pendants were scattered around
the burial as well as on the breast, shoulders and along the legs. Grave goods included a perforated animal
phalange, two bird bones, a stone object (possibly representing an animal) and a flint chip.
14C date: Ua-19883, 6145 ±80 BP (7,252-6,802 cal BP).

 

[Angela]

I thought that Latvia didn't 'arrive' in Corded Ware, because Latvian Corded Ware yields older dates than Central European Corded Ware. Latvia would have been the starting point of the Corded Ware expansion. See, for example: https://www.researchgate.net/public...and_early_husbandry_in_the_East_Baltic_region

I got excited because of the headline, but the actual data says that the 'autonomous transition' hypothesis is falsified beyond all reasonable doubt.

Edit: Though it's possible that the farming in early Corded Ware was more CHG than Anatolian Farmer mediated - look at those substantial CHG components in both early Corded Ware and the Karelian hunters.

Well, sometimes headlines are very misleading. It's happened to everybody. The bolded statement couldn't be any clearer, however, and it would completely contradict the implication of the headline. I guarantee you, however, that some people will continue to repeat it.

As for "farmer" ancestry in Corded Ware, I think some of it is indeed mediated by a "CHG" component. We can see, if I remember correctly, the increases in it in the early Yamnaya samples as time went on, and moving from south to north. It probably spread north into the later "Corded" areas from there. If Corded Ware moved from more northern areas into Central Europe I can see how central European Corded Ware would have more of the Anatolian mediated variety.

@Bicicleur, so, we're still back where we started in terms of the major distributions of R1a and R1b, yes?

I've been saying for I don't know how long that Corded Ware was Indo-Europeanized, not Indo-European. Nothing has yet changed my mind.

 

[Tomenable]

I don't know if it is possible or not (perhaps possible but difficult)

Seriously?

Iranian, Levantine and Anatolian farmers were all genetically distinct from each other.

Now you have the 4th group - Latvian farmers - also genetically distinct from the rest.

How much more evidence do you need?

Maybe they learned from each other, but they did not mix with each other too much.

 

[Angela]

Seriously?

Iranian, Levantine and Anatolian farmers were all genetically distinct from each other.

Now you have the 4th group - Latvian farmers - also genetically distinct from the rest.

How much more evidence do you need?

Maybe they learned from each other, but they did not mix with each other too much.

I am not going to get into another endless discussion about this. It took thousands of years for those people to become farmers. It was the same in China and the New World. They didn't become farmers overnight. Plus, the ones in the Near East, Anatolian and Iranian Neolithic both, shared a large Basal Eurasian component, and Anatolian Neolithic can be modeled as part Levant Neolithic, part Iranian Neolithic, and part something WHG like. Have you forgotten?

However, this is another off-topic digression from the topic of this discussion. What we are discussing here is whether northeast European mesolithic populations adopted agriculture autonomously, or before any evidence of admixture with farming people. The answer from the data of the paper itself seems to say no, as you would know if you were reading any one else's posts and not just spilling out unconsidered post after post of your own. Oh, and read the paper carefully, as I am trying to do.

Let's get back on track.

 

[MarkoZ]

Interestingly, the admixture analysis at K = 20 also makes a steppic origin of Corded Ware exceedingly unlikely. The muddled minor shades present in the Eneolithic and EBA steppe that probably represent a type of Siberian ancestry are completely absent in Latvian Corded Ware. Instead, Latvian Corded Ware looks like the coalescence of CHG (which constitutes the main component), WHG and an unidentified component that peaks in modern Basques.

 

[arvistro]

I guess headline at the end of day is correct. Those were CHG not Anatolians that brought agriculture (pastoralist) to Baltics.

However modern Balts do have Anatolian genes, even higher than somewhat later Estonian CW, so there is still some story untold.

 

[Angela]

Interestingly, the admixture analysis at K = 20 also makes a steppic origin of Corded Ware exceedingly unlikely. The muddled minor shades present in the Eneolithic and EBA steppe that probably represent a type of Siberian ancestry are completely absent in Latvian Corded Ware. Instead, Latvian Corded Ware looks like the coalescence of CHG (which constitutes the main component), WHG and an unidentified component that peaks in modern Basques.

I have to look at this again and think about it some more. The authors say there was admixture between mainly WHG like people and a "steppic" element, yes?. However, isn't "steppic" element commonly understood to be part EHG/part CHG, perhaps on a level like 60/40?

Does that five with what the Admixture graph is showing?

 

[bicicleur 2]

We already know that Corded Ware had EEF, and we know they also had CHG, so how precisely could these Latvian Late Neolithic/Corded Ware admixed people not have had "farmer" ancestry? The admixture analysis is just further confirmation of what we would assume to be the case, yes? That's why I asked if the samples were from a period from before the Corded Ware folks arrived. If that were the case then the claim would make sense, but not this way.

Well, I shouldn't say that until I carefully read the whole thing. Maybe there's something else in the paper that explains it. Or maybe they just mean it didn't arrive directly from Anatolia via Central Europe?

I have to read it further, Angela, but for now the title seems correct to me.
If what Markoz says is rigth about CW originating in the Baltic, there is no EEF admixture.
But EEF itself becomes a very misleading term now.