kingjohn
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The PCA shows that Sidon_BA clusters with three individuals from Early Bronze Age Jordan (Jordan_BA) found in a cave above the Neolithic site of ‘Ain Ghazal and probably associated with an Early Bronze Age village close to the site
Lazaridis et al.13 reported that Jordan_BA can be modelled as mixture of Neolithic Levant (Levant_N) and Chalcolithic Iran (Iran_ChL). We computed the statistic f4(Levant_N, Sidon_BA; Ancient Eurasian, Chimpanzee) and found populations from the Caucasus and Iran shared more alleles with Sidon_BA than with Neolithic Levant (Figure 2A). We then used qpAdm8 (with parameter allsnps: YES) to test if Sidon_BA can be modelled as mixture of Levant_N and any other ancient population in the dataset and found good support for the model of Sidon_BA being a mixture of Levant_N (48.4± 4.2%) and Iran_ChL (51.6± 4.2%) (Figure 2B; Table S3).
We compiled frequencies of Y-chromosomal haplogroups in this geographical area and their changes over time in a dataset of ancient and modern Levantine populations (Figure S10), and note, similarly to Lazaridis et al.,13 that haplogroup J was absent in all Natufian and Neolithic Levant male individuals examined thus far, but emerged during the Bronze Age in Lebanon and Jordan along with ancestry related to Iran.
The most significant result was for mixture of Levant_N and Iran_ChL (p=0.013) around 181 ± 54 generations ago, or ~5,000 ± 1,500 ya assuming a generation time of 28 years (Figure S11A). This admixture time, based entirely on genetic data, fits the known ages of the samples based on archaeological data since it falls between the dates of Sidon_BA (3,650-3,750 ya) and Iran_ChL (6,500-5,500 ya). The admixture time also overlaps with the rise and fall of the Akkadian Empire which controlled the region from Iran to the Levant between ~4.4 and 4.2 kya. The Akkadian collapse is argued to have been the result of a widespread aridification event around 4,200 ya, possibly caused by a volcanic eruption.42; 43 Archaeological evidence in this period documents large-scale influxes of refugees from Northern Mesopotamia towards the south, where cities and villages became overpopulated.44
We found that the Lebanese can be best modelled as Sidon_BA 93±1.6% and a Steppe Bronze Age population 7±1.6% (Figure 3C; Table S6).
We found support (p=0.00017) for a mixture between Sidon_BA and Steppe_EMBA which has occurred around 2,950±790 ya (Figure S11B). It is important to note here that Bronze Age Steppe populations used in the model need not be the actual ancestral mixing populations, and the admixture could have involved a population which was itself admixed with a Steppe-like ancestry population. The time period of this mixture overlaps with the decline of the Egyptian empire and its domination over the Levant, leading some of the coastal cities to thrive, including Sidon and Tyre, which established at this time a successful maritime trade network throughout the Mediterranean. The decline in Egypt’s power was also followed by a succession of conquests of the region by distant populations such as the Assyrians, Persians, and Macedonians, any or all of whom could have carried the Steppe-like ancestry observed here in the Levant after the Bronze Age.
CHG is 28% EHG/WHG? I didn't realize they were partially derived from European hunter gatherers, that's news to me at least.
Just forgetting Pelesht/Philistines conquering Canaanite cities by 1000 BC, or how the Sea Peoples ravaged Ugarit tells the level of the paper.
This is a result of the authors' quite baffling attempt to backwards-model CHG in apAdm using Mesolithic and Neolithic populations.
That said I do think Kotias-Satsurbalia might have some kind of WHG-like ancestry, perhaps associated with Y-DNA J.
That is not so for all, per example Ahiwa with Achaeans. I don't have the ref with me but Sea Peoples in Levant were IE (the same name of Goliath is).We actually don't know nothing about Sea Peoples and where they came from. Those Canaanite can't even be a proxy for ancient Phoenicians if they mixed or if they were Sea Peoples.
It's half Levant Neolithic, half Iran Chalcolithic, not half Iran Neolithic.
This makes the genesis of Semitic a bit confusing, imo. The "J -58"and the J2b1?definitely came with Iran Chalcolithic, but this mass movement of a perhaps mostly male group adopted the language of E bearing Natufian women? This happened with such a male dominant pastoral culture?
Thank you for responding MarkoZ!
I guess since I was the first to respond I should've summarized the paper so then we could start discussing questions.
What about the second question though? Do you have any idea as to why in figure 4a it shows Iron Age Levantines receiving 7 percent Steppe ancestry when before it says the Lebanese have 11-22 percent Steppe ancestry that Bronze Age Levantines did not have? When you look at figure 3a you can also see the blue component missing from Sidon and the Bronze age Levantines, but present in the Lebanese in what appears to be closer to 11-22 percent than 7 percent.
It's the supervised ADMIXTURE run in Figure 3 that they base their 11-22% estimate on. The problem with supervised runs is that the authors have to make a guess regarding the fixed ancestries of their model, meaning that there are implicit assumptions about which populations expanded and which populations were on the receiving end of hypothetical admixture events.
In this case I think the authors made a bad choice using the Neolithic Iranian samples as an outgroup due to their exaggerated Basal Eurasian affinity (almost on par with present day East Africans and much more than modern Iranians in any case). Due to its diverged nature an excess of Basal Eurasian ancestry (the most divergent ancestral component in Eurasia) cannot be assigned to the outgroups that carry none (WHG) or relatively little (EHG) of it. Conversely, the ADMIXTURE run in the paper interprets diminished Basal Eurasian ancestry with respect to Iran_ Neo as an excess of EHG ancestry, which is merely the next best thing and unlikely to represent actual admixture.
If modern Lebanese actually had anything close to 22% EHG ancestry they would probably plot with present Northern Europeans, which we know isn't the case.
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