It's a great paper, very extensive. Most of the results are what I expected.
- BMAC was a mixture of J2a (main haplogroup), G2a, L1a, Q1b and R2a, just as I had predicted.
- R1b went south from the Caspian Steppe across Central Asia and settled in Turan/BMAC. Nowadays R1b is far higher than Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and northern Afghanistan (Hazaras).
- R1a-Z93 went south from southern Siberia along the Tianshan to reach Pakistan and India. Once again that is expected as the R1a-Z93 concentration today are much higher along the Tianshan (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, eastern Afghanistan). What I don't understand is why this paper insists on separating the admixture of those R1a-Z93 people and calling them 'West Siberian HG related' when they in fact originated in the northern forest-steppe of Europe (around Belarus and northern Ukraine).
Here are a few things no one could expect:
- E1b1a1a1c2b1 (aka Z6005) in Mesolithic Iran (12,000 to 8,000 BCE), a Sub-Saharan African clade now found mostly in the far western end of Africa (Gambia, Sierra Leone). Hunter-gatherers did travel a long way... Y-Full says that its parent clade CTS6649 formed 9600 ybp and has a TMRCA of only 6700 ybp, so that is a gross underestimation as it had time to travel over 7000 km and be in Iran about 12,000 years ago.
- E1b1a1a1c2c3c, another SSA lineage, and plenty of Y-DNA A, BT and CT in the BMAC during the Bronze Age. The A, BT and CT could be early Homo sapiens lineages that died out, but why again West African Y-DNA in Central Asia?
- Surprisingly lots of (Levantine?) E1b1b1b2 with also some A0, CT, DE and E in Early Iron Age northern Pakistan. Was there a massive Natufian migration to the region in the Early Neolithic? Or is that more Paleolithic or Mesolithic African hunter-gatherers?
- I2a2a2a in Neolithic Turkmenistan (5000-2000 BCE). Is that an offshoot of a Neolithic culture of Old Europe, a Mesolithic European tribe that ended up in Central Asia, or an early Steppe invader?
- As mentioned before, Mal'ta can't be R1b1a1a2 and it's extremely suspicious to find a Nordic Bronze Age clade of R1b-U106 (S21728, downstream of Z9) in Iron Age Pakistan. Either it's a typo or that sample was contaminated.