From my own data of WHGs like Loschbour, La Brana, Cheddar Man, Ranchot. But we only had Cheddar Man last time. Everybody can download the Data from European Nucleotide Archive.
Lets take a look at WHG trait SNP data merged from all WHG labled samples I have in my database:
Swede 82%
European 79%
Dravidian 76%
Basque 75%
Middle East 73% Northern South Asian 73%
Khanty 72%
Aboriginal Australian 68% Papuan 68%
Iberian 64%
East Asian 63%
Native American 62%
Bantu 60%
Bedouin 51%
The problem with ancient and modern DNA data is till today the often low quality of samples. Many of the datasets used for those expert or hobby analysis are not based on whole genome sequencing data. Many samples are lacking significant trait SNPs to determine their look for example too.
But whole genome sequencing is mostly not really the whole genome, often people find that in their whole genome sequencing data SNPs are missing.
The question is what data is used for an analysis, which algorithm.
I also read 5 years ago as I started with the hobby a critical book about population genomics and all the strange things that happened at the beginning of commercial analysis and wrong results that where brought to the customers. It was also a critical book about Haplogroups and the psychological effect they often have on people and their identity.
Multiple cases where demonstrated where DNA analysis created more uncertainty then before.
I am personally always septic about any big analysis and deep down I know that many things that we believe about this topic can be wrong. This is because the data we have is limited and the technology we are using is designed to get the results we are awaiting.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.11.439381v4.full
Just think about all the calculators on Gedmatch and what kind of strange different results they can create in terms of components of ancient populations. One calculator says that you are of over 40% WHG ancestry, the other one only 20%? Is this really realistic? I think not. It is only true in the sense of which samples where used and which algorithm and from what company you imported your data.
There will be also always questions that cannot be answered by population genetics, because of the “simple” nature of human genetics in general. And there is also a limit of time. It is unlikely that fossils 100.000 years old will have a large amount of intact DNA. So topics like out Of Africa or what was the real ancestor of modern humans will maybe never be answered and stay a field of discussion forever.
Fossils and skull metrics may be nice ideas, but they can also be totally wrong and lead to a false direction of interpretation, because all other data is missing.
The problem is that ancestry is for many people a fundamental term to their identity. For example Cheddar Man is a social nuke and created much controversy. There are different social movements that want to claim him to demonstrate a kind of ancestral right to live where he now lives.
Some weeks ago I was in a conversation with people and someone said that a politician that is against migration should note that Europe was dark skinned 8000 years ago. I told him that this is not true and that Scandinavian Hunter Gatherers also had alleles for light skin and blue eyes and that they where also present in Anatolian Farmers. The answer of this person was: “We should stop talking about history!”
People are using this data to create or heat up social conflicts and build expectations. But it is nothing new, it has also happened in the ancient past. May be there is no way to stop this. But in this conflict, the truth will die. Just for the benefit of one of the counter parties.
i'm not really convinced of your data to be honest. but if your data is true, you give distances for WHG and certain modern europeans that are even bigger than those between dravidians or aboriginal australians and WHG. so it is not really clear if those WHG's were looking that european even based on your data.
what are the %-values for modern populations if you use swedes or european as a target instead of WHG?
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