The Genetic History of Northern Europe - Another Begemoth DNA study on Baltics

[Ukko]

If you think that's funny, you're mistaken.

If you think any of this pigmentation business is important, you're also mistaken about that.

A sense of pride in one's ancestors should come from an honest appraisal of their character and accomplishments, the things they've given to humanity. Of course, the first and most important source of pride should be what one has or will accomplish as a unique human being, and what kind of human being one will become.

You have problems with reading comprehension? I questioned the fixation on the the skin mutations on the debate running here when there are larger questions the papers raise.

Indo-European studies and discussions are full of similar shit that I used for making a joke, when talking about IE these theories are usually not humor..

I agree with you somewhat on the serious part but your views are typical of a modern humanist.
I have a different world view than you, I think it is also more popular than your ideological approach on "common humanity".

 

[Fire Haired14]

You have problems with reading comprehension? I questioned the fixation on the the skin mutations on the debate running here when there are larger questions the papers raise.

What fixation? I mentioned Lactose Tolerance and depigmentation became fixated in the Bronze age probably because of natural selection, then Tomenable and Markoz argued natural selection didn't cause it, then I a. The paper isn't a game changer, there isn't much to discuss. Narva and Kunda were basically WHG, Comb Ceramic was basically EHG, then Corded Ware and R1a-Z645 came, Bronze age Balts were a mixture of Corded Ware and Narva and some farmer stuff.

 

[Ukko]

What fixation? I mentioned Lactose Tolerance and depigmentation became fixated in the Bronze age probably because of natural selection, then Tomenable and Markoz argued natural selection didn't cause it, then I a. The paper isn't a game changer, there isn't much to discuss. Narva and Kunda were basically WHG, Comb Ceramic was basically EHG, then Corded Ware and R1a-Z645 came, Bronze age Balts were a mixture of Corded Ware and Narva and some farmer stuff.

Every mutation is part of natural selection, some get chosen, others dont, we can agree to agree.

My point was that Northern Europeans dont usually debate skin pigmentation as a primary point, we discuss who brought what in our largely shared culture that formed at this time.

 

[Angela]

You have problems with reading comprehension? I questioned the fixation on the the skin mutations on the debate running here when there are larger questions the papers raise.

Indo-European studies and discussions are full of similar shit that I used for making a joke, when talking about IE these theories are usually not humor..

I agree with you somewhat on the serious part but your views are typical of a modern humanist.
I have a different world view than you, I think it is also more popular than your ideological approach on "common humanity".

I'm proud of being a humanist, and there's nothing "modern" about it. You could say humanism as a philosophy has been around since the Renaissance, but I think it goes all the way back to ancient Greece. In a sense, you could say Christ was the first humanist, so being a Christian humanist makes complete sense, which is what I used to be...

If their accomplishments, what they've contributed to human knowledge and empowerment and enrichment is not what you're proud of about your ancestors, or their stirling and admirable characters, then what is it?

As for "pigmentation" discussions (or skull or nose or whatever), it seems to me that this is the preoccupation of I don't know how many internet sites, sites I don't frequent or join for that very reason. It also seems to me that this is behind a lot of the interest in "population genetics" in the amateur community, whether they admit it on more respectable sites or not. We certainly don't obsess about it here, certainly not if you're talking about Fire-Haired or me. In fact, other than as purely a matter of academic interest, the majority of the time that I have discussed it here has been to refute ridiculous claims by various "Nordicist" type posters very anxious to claim their descent from what they consider to be "fairer" groups, even if they're not always northern Europeans themselves. It seems to me you're making claims about us that anyone who has really spent much time here would know are incorrect.

Ukko:My point was that Northern Europeans dont usually debate skin pigmentation as a primary point, we discuss who brought what in our largely shared culture that formed at this time.

Well, that's good to know, so perhaps I misjudged your initial post. You could have, however, made that point clear to me in a less aggressive and, frankly, "crude" manner initially, as you did just now. Also, sorry, but the "joke" is still not at all funny to me. You have a perfect right to make it; I'm not "triggered" and shrinking into the fetal position here. I think the stuff going on in American Universities today is a disgrace. However, maybe if you just tried to put yourself in a woman's shoes for a minute, you'd see why it might not be funny to a woman.

 

[Ukko]

I'm proud of being a humanist, and there's nothing "modern" about it. You could say humanism as a philosophy has been around since the Renaissance, but I think it goes all the way back to ancient Greece. In a sense, you could say Christ was the first humanist, so being a Christian humanist makes complete sense, which is what I used to be...

If their accomplishments, what they've contributed to human knowledge and empowerment and enrichment is not what you're proud of about your ancestors, or their stirling and admirable characters, then what is it?

As for "pigmentation" discussions (or skull or nose or whatever), it seems to me that this is the preoccupation of I don't know how many internet sites, sites I don't frequent or join for that very reason. It also seems to me that this is behind a lot of the interest in "population genetics" in the amateur community, whether they admit it on more respectable sites or not. We certainly don't obsess about it here, certainly not if you're talking about Fire-Haired or me. In fact, other than as purely a matter of academic interest, the majority of the time that I have discussed it here has been to refute ridiculous claims by various "Nordicist" type posters very anxious to claim their descent from what they consider to be "fairer" groups, even if they're not always northern Europeans themselves. It seems to me you're making claims about us that anyone who has really spent much time here would know are incorrect.



Well, that's good to know, so perhaps I misjudged your initial post. You could have, however, made that point clear to me in a less aggressive and, frankly, "crude" manner initially, as you did just now. Also, sorry, but the "joke" is still not at all funny to me. You have a perfect right to make it; I'm not "triggered" and shrinking into the fetal position here. I think the stuff going on in American Universities today is a disgrace. However, maybe if you just tried to put yourself in a woman's shoes for a minute, you'd see why it might not be funny to a woman.

Americans and other colonials are often fixated on skin as they have little other connection to their ancestral lands, this might not be the case here and the discussion just drifted in to that.

The main point was the input of the Uralic in to European Russia, Baltics and Scandinavia.

Ancient Athens was predominantly composed of slaves, the "humanist" upper class had time to philosophize for this reason.
Christian faith was spread in Northern Europe by sword and mass murder, church did a good job in trying to wipe out the indigenous cultures of the region.

I sincerely apologize if I offended you, that was not the intention but to ridicule the die hard IE crowd that often dismisses the Uralic influence in Europe.

 

[holderlin]

Jesus
.
.
.
..
..

 

[holderlin]

@firehaired I wasn't saying that pigmentation genes are in the mtDNA. I was taking a guess at what you were getting at, which was that mtH women with fair features may have been the primary vehicle of LCT.

 

[Tomenable]

Comments on the origin of light skin pigmentation (from Anthrogenica):

http://www.anthrogenica.com/showthr...rom-the-Steppe&p=217541&viewfull=1#post217541

The presence of derived SLC45A2 allele in both European Mesolithic hunter-gatherers and Neolithic farmers makes one wonder where exactly the derived version of this allele originated? Did it originate at one point in the past among a certain population or did it come about a number of different times in different populations? Probably impossible to know at this point.

I would go with northern European Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. If it had come from the south we should seen some of the so called Basal in European Mesolithic hunter-gatherers.

Don't early Neolithic farmers from Greece also carry the derived allele at SLC45A2? They likely never had any contact with Eastern or Northern European Mesolithic hunter-gatherers.

They probably had since all of them - including the Anatolian ones - have some WHG related ancestry.

Another option is that light skin originated among the ANE (Afontova Gora).

Genetiker wrote that ANE samples from Afontova Gora carried derived alleles.

 

[Tomenable]

Americans and other colonials are often fixated on skin as they have little other connection to their ancestral lands.

Apart from their light skin, also the ability to drink milk reminds them of their ancestral lands.

Note that Baltic Corded Ware is the most lactose tolerant ancient population we know of so far.

Edit: Berun which is your source about that lactose tolerant ancient Basque population?

 

[Ukko]

Apart from their light skin, also the ability to drink milk reminds them of their ancestral lands.

Note that Baltic Corded Ware is the most lactose tolerant ancient population we know of so far.

Edit: Berun which is your source about that lactose tolerant ancient Basque population?

Btw, Finns are the most lactose tolerant today, based on a study I can try to google if interested?

 

[MarkoZ]

Let's stick to the data:

(a) phenotypic distriubtion of lactase persistence, (b) distriubtion of the T−13910 allele:

Source: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/366/1566/863D

Skeletal evidence of actual milk consumption from the Bronze Age onwards:

Source: http://www.nature.com/articles/srep07104


Lactase persistence in Neolithic Iberia, via Dienekes: http://dienekes.blogspot.de/2012/01/lactase-persistence-in-neolithic-iberia.html

. In this study, we have investigated lactase persistence of 26 out of 46 individuals from Late Neolithic through analysis of ancient South-West European DNA samples, obtained from two burials in the Basque Country originating from 5000 to 4500 YBP. This investigation revealed that these populations had an average frequency of lactase persistence of 27%, much lower than in the modern Basque population, which is compatible with the concept that Neolithic and post-Neolithic evolutionary pressures by cattle domestication and consumption of dairy products led to high lactase persistence in Southern European populations. Given the heterogeneity in the frequency of the lactase persistence allele in ancient Europe, we suggest that in Southern Europe the selective advantage of lactose assimilation in adulthood most likely took place from standing population variation, after cattle domestication, at a post-Neolithic time when fresh milk consumption was already fully adopted as a consequence of a cultural influence.

 

[Expredel]

I sincerely apologize if I offended you, that was not the intention but to ridicule the die hard IE crowd that often dismisses the Uralic influence in Europe.

Some people may simply lack mutations responsible for a sense of humor.

I think it's obvious that many populations contributed positive mutations to the European gene pool, including Uralics.

 

[Angela]

Some people may simply lack mutations responsible for a sense of humor.

I think it's obvious that many populations contributed positive mutations to the European gene pool, including Uralics.

And some for civility and good manners.

Of course, the context from which this unknown person posting anonymously on an internet genetics site was operating should have been known to me. After all, it's unheard of for racist, misogynist men to post on such sites. (Joke, get it?)

Why don't you take a page from Ukko's book and learn some manners. That goes for Holderlin too. No more profanity either. I've had enough of it. This isn't the corner bar.

Let me tell you, buddy, I could make some "jokes" with men as the subject which wouldn't sit very well with you either. It's been my experience that it's a very deflating experience for them. A lot of men can dish it out but they absolutely can't take it.

Now get back to facts, and by facts I don't mean some of the usual contests men so love to engage in of the my group's better than yours variety.

@Ukko,
Not American colonial as you can see.

 

[Angela]

Let's stick to the data:

(a) phenotypic distriubtion of lactase persistence, (b) distriubtion of the T−13910 allele:

Source: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/366/1566/863D

Skeletal evidence of actual milk consumption from the Bronze Age onwards:

Source: http://www.nature.com/articles/srep07104


Lactase persistence in Neolithic Iberia, via Dienekes: http://dienekes.blogspot.de/2012/01/lactase-persistence-in-neolithic-iberia.html

Thanks for getting us back to facts, Marko.

There's a paper tracking the T-13910 allele to central Europe, but it was a while ago so I don't know if it's still valid.

Anyway, there certainly seems to have been another cluster of it in ancient samples, this time in southwestern Europe.

We still don't have the really comprehensive study of it in Europe that would probably clarify things.

Just for completeness given the maps, according to this paper there is some T-13910 in Africa, but there are also other alleles which confer lactase persistence. Selection for it seems to be present in widely scattered herding cultures.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4700599/

See also:
http://www.cell.com/AJHG/abstract/S0002-9297(14)00067-6

"“We were able to infer an East African origin for the C-14010 variant, a NE [Northeast] African origin for the G-13907 variant, and a Middle Eastern origin of the G-13915 variant,” wrote Penn’s Alessia Ranciaro in an e-mail to The Scientist. “We demonstrate that analysis of the geographic distribution of the LP variants are highly informative for reconstructing historic migration events and to trace the history of pastoralism in Africa.”

"“If you think about the frequency of a particular allele, it’s very tempting to assume that the place where that allele is found most frequently is the place where it originated. But the problem is that you don’t really know where the ancestors of those people who are living there now were living then,” she said. “One of the issues [that] is particularly relevant to pastoralist people is that they might move around a lot, they migrate.”
http://www.the-scientist.com/?artic...tle/Origins-of-Lactase-Persistence-in-Africa/

 

[Fire Haired14]

Btw, Finns are the most lactose tolerant today, based on a study I can try to google if interested?

Let's forget about language. Genetically Finns and Estoias are Northern European with tint of Siberian. So of course they have the same mutations which natural selection favored.

 

[ThirdTerm]

Here we investigate the frequency of an allele (-13910*T) associated with lactase persistence in a Neolithic Scandinavian population. From the 14 individuals originally examined, 10 yielded reliable results. We find that the T allele frequency was very low (5%) in this Middle Neolithic hunter-gatherer population, and that the frequency is dramatically different from the extant Swedish population (74%).

Figure 3

Only one of the ten PWC individuals showed a presence of the T allele, a heterozygote, and the allele frequency for the T allele is 0.05 (1/20, with the exact 95% CI values 0.001265089 to 0.2487328, Figure 3). The T allele frequency in the PWC population differs significantly from the T allele frequency in the contemporary Swedish population (n = 97, Fisher's Exact test, p < 0.0001), where the frequency of the T allele is 0.74 (144/194, with the exact 95% CI values 0.6747198 to 0.8022533, Figure 3).

Lactose tolerance spread among Europeans thanks to the Yamnaya migration from southern Russia. A previous study by Malmström et al. (2010) found that 95% of European hunter-gatherers in Sweden lacked an allele (-13910*T) associated with lactase persistence. Lactose tolerance was still rare among Europeans and Asians at the end of the Bronze Age.

Do you have a source for the bolded statement, Third Term? So far as I know Yamnaya didn't have LP to any appreciable degree.

See:
Allentoft et al: https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/publication/7486934

Iain Mathiesen et al: http://genetics.med.harvard.edu/reichlab/Reich_Lab/Datasets_files/nature16152.pdf

There is a Bell Beaker individual in central Europe who carried it, but it's very unclear from whom it can be sourced.

Regardless, there was very little of it even by the end of the Bronze Age, so very late selection indeed.

The source is "Population genomics of Bronze Age Eurasia" by Allentoft et al. (2015). Co-author Martin Sikora said: 'Previously the common belief was that lactose tolerance developed in the Balkans or in the Middle East in connection with the introduction of farming during the Stone Age. But now we can see that even late in the Bronze Age the mutation that gives rise to the tolerance is rare in Europe. We think that it may have been introduced into Europe with the Yamnaya herders from Caucasus but that the selection that has made most Europeans lactose tolerant has happened at a much later time.'

The results for rs4988235, which is associated with lactose tolerance, were surprising. Although tolerance is high in present-day northern Europeans, we find it at most at low frequency in the Bronze Age (10% in Bronze Age Europeans; Fig. 4), indicating a more recent onset of positive selection than previously estimated34. To further investigate its distribution, we imputed all SNPs in a 2 megabase (Mb) region around rs4988235 in all ancient individuals using the 1000 Genomes phase 3 data set as a reference panel, as previously described12. Our results confirm a low frequency of rs4988235 in Europeans, with a derived allele frequency of 5% in the combined Bronze Age Europeans (genotype probability.0.85) (Fig. 4b). Among Bronze Age Europeans, the highest tolerance frequency was found in Corded Ware and the closely-related Scandinavian Bronze Age cultures (Extended Data Fig. 7). Interestingly, the Bronze Age steppe cultures showed the highest derived allele frequency, in particular the Yamnaya (Extended Data Fig. 7), indicating a possible steppe origin of lactose tolerance.

 

[berun]

Apart from their light skin, also the ability to drink milk reminds them of their ancestral lands.

Note that Baltic Corded Ware is the most lactose tolerant ancient population we know of so far.

Edit: Berun which is your source about that lactose tolerant ancient Basque population?

Samples are older than the Bell Beakers in the area:

In this study, we have investigated lactase persistence of 26 out of 46 individuals from Late
Neolithic through analysis of ancient South-West European DNA samples, obtained from two burials in the Basque Country
originating from 5000 to 4500 YBP. This investigation revealed that these populations had an average frequency of lactase
persistence of 27%, much lower than in the modern Basque population, which is compatible with the concept that Neolithic
and post-Neolithic evolutionary pressures by cattle domestication and consumption of dairy products led to high lactase
persistence in Southern European populations. Given the heterogeneity in the frequency of the lactase persistence allele in
ancient Europe, we suggest that in Southern Europe the selective advantage of lactose assimilation in adulthood most likely took
place from standing population variation, after cattle domestication, at a post-Neolithic time when fresh milk consumption was
already fully adopted as a consequence of a cultural influence.

from "Low prevalence of lactase persistence in Neolithic South-West Europe"

 

[Angela]

Lactose tolerance spread among Europeans thanks to the Yamnaya migration from southern Russia. A previous study by Malmström et al. (2010) found that 95% of European hunter-gatherers in Sweden lacked an allele (-13910*T) associated with lactase persistence. Lactose tolerance was still rare among Europeans and Asians at the end of the Bronze Age.

Do you have a source for the bolded statement, Third Term? So far as I know Yamnaya didn't have LP to any appreciable degree.

See:
Allentoft et al: https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/publication/7486934

Iain Mathiesen et al: http://genetics.med.harvard.edu/reichlab/Reich_Lab/Datasets_files/nature16152.pdf

There is a Bell Beaker individual in central Europe who carried it, but it's very unclear from whom it can be sourced.

Regardless, there was very little of it even by the end of the Bronze Age, so very late selection indeed.

 

[MarkoZ]

Just for completeness given the maps, according to this paper there is some T-13910 in Africa, but there are also other alleles which confer lactase persistence. Selection for it seems to be present in widely scattered herding cultures.

Yes, interestingly Central Africa is the place where all four as yet identified alleles coding for lactase persistence converge, suggesting that milk consumption was supremely important for survival in this biome. However, it doesn't look like there was a huge founder effect like in Arabia and Northern Europe - another reason to believe that North European frequencies aren't the result of in situ selection.

There's a paper tracking the T-13910 allele to central Europe, but it was a while ago so I don't know if it's still valid.

I think the general consensus up until a few years ago was that T-13910 surged with the LBK migration to Central Europe from the Balkans. The ultimate origin is a bit more complex, as becomes obvious when you compare the Sahel desert haplotype to its European counterpart. Overall, the African haplotypes look like they are closer to the ancestral haplotype - in fact it actually appears that the European haplotypes are under the African ones. See the upper left branch in this tree:

A detailed breakdown of the haplotype background associated with the LCT regions of various populations - with some singificant limitations due to the choice of sampled populations (no Anatolians, Balkanics) - can be found here, confirming the derived nature of European LCT: http://www.cell.com/cms/attachment/594489/4599871/mmc1.pdf

My interpretation (don't take it too literally) is that the first haplotypes that have T-13910 are found in Africa, closely followed by Central Asians. With a general Neolithic age associated with T-13910, it makes you wonder how it got into Europe.

 

[bicicleur 2]

Looking at the maps, I'd say lactose persistence spread into Africa when first herders arrived there during or right after the 8.2 ka climate event.
These herders were mainly Natufians who had left their farms during the drought and adopted herding.
Later farmers came to Africa as well.

But if so, lactose persistence would have been there since 8 ka.
My first guess is probably not correct.