Was E-V13 a major lineage of Hallstatt Celts and Italics?

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The distribution and origins of E-V13 are one of the most perplexing of any haplogroups. Over the years people have hypothesised that it originated with ancient Greeks, Neolithic farmers, Balkans people, Steppe people, Romans, Celts, Indo-Europeans in general or whatever imaginable scenario.

What we know almost for sure at present is that E-V13 is too young to have spread around Europe during the Neolithic. Yfull.com estimates that it formed 7700 years ago, but that all present day carriers descend from a man who lived only 4900 years ago, during the Early Bronze Age. Additionally, 99% of E-V13 individuals are also positive for the CTS5856 (aka CTS1273 or CTS7237), whose last common ancestor goes back only 4200 years ago, when R1b tribes had already reached the British Isles.

Most of us got mislead by the presumed finding of an E-V13 sample in Early Neolithic Catalonia. But it turned out that that sample was not tested for SNPs and was only predicted to be E-V13 based on STR samples. It probably belonged to its parent clade, the much older E-L618 (12,300 years old according to Yfull.com).

Nowadays E-V13 is found throughout Europe, except among the Basques, central Sardinians (those without Roman ancestry, as Romans stuck to the coastal areas), the Bretons and Highland Scots, Icelanders, the Balts , the Finns (except some southern Finns with Swedish or Russian ancestry) and the Saami. In other words, populations mostly descended from Mesolithic and Neolithic Europeans lack it, as do insular Celts (Bretons originated in Roman Britain) with little continental ancestry.

Haplogroup-E-V13.gif



When seeing the map, many people focus on the high frequency of E-V13 in the southern Balkans. But that is another misleading element. The E-V13 around Kosovo and Albania has a very recent expansion time, dating to the Middle Ages. In Roman times, the frequency would probably have been more uniform across the Balkans.

I have explained in my history of E-V13 that this lineage became assimilated by the Indo-European Steppe invaders around the time of the Corded Ware expansion (R1a) and the expansion of R1b tribes to the Balkans and Danubian basin. From there, it would have spread back to Central Asia, Iran, the Caucasus and Mesopotamia with the Indo-Iranian expansion. I argued that the Mycenaeans, a Steppe people related to the Indo-Iranians, would have brought E-V13 to Greece around 1650 BCE.

The oldest clades of E-V13 are most common around Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland. I believe that E-V13 could have been a lineage of the Cucuteni-Trypillian people, which was assimilated by Yamna people just before their expansion westward. This would also have been the case of some G2a lineages (Z1816, L13 and L1264 subclades). Some of these lineages (both G2a and E-V13) remained in the Steppe and were taken east by the Proto-Indo-Iranians and to Greece by the Proto-Mycenaeans. Thousands of years of Steppe migrations would have brought more E-V13 from the Steppe to the Balkans.

E-V13 would have arrived in Central Europe by 2800 BCE. I believe that the absence of E-V13 among the Bretons and Highland Scots is due to the fact that early R1b tribes that propagated west during the Bell Beaker period were almost purely R1b, and those who colonised the British Isles appear to have been mostly R1b-L21. The ancient Beaker samples from Britain confirm that. So, originally the Irish and ancient Bretons would not have carried any E-V13. E-V13 would have come later to Britain and Ireland, with the Hallstatt and La Tène Celts, the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons.

Likewise, it is highly doubtful that there was any E-V13 in the Iberian and Italian peninsulas until the Late Bronze Age, as R1b tribes in the Beaker period had no E-V13, and later waves only came from 1500 BCE in Iberia and 1300 BCE in Italy.

E-V13 would have spread to Scandinavia with the Corded Ware culture and thus have been found among all Germanic people later on, if at relatively low frequency.

When R1b tribes settled in Central Europe, they progressively mixed with the Corded Ware people (R1a, G2a, E-V13) during the Unetice period. By the time of the Tumulus culture (1600 to 1200 BCE), J2b2-Z628 would have arrived from the Steppe to Central Europe (presence confirmed in Croatia c. 1700-1500 BCE) and would have joined the mix. R1b-U152 became the dominant lineage around the Alps in what would become the Urnfield and Hallstatt cultures (1300-500 BCE). I have long asserted that those Urnfield/Hallstatt, who also gave rise to the Italic tribes, belonged chiefly to R1b-U152 with substantial minorities of G2a (Z1816, L13 and L1264 subclades) and J2b2-L283 (Z628 clade).

In my Genetic history of the Benelux & France, I also posited that the Hallstatt people would have also carried minorities of E-V13, I2a2b-L38 and I2c1, as well as possibly some Corded Ware R1a-M458 and locally assimilated Neolithic T1a. I now think that E-V13 may have been much more important, perhaps even the second main Hallstatt Celtic and Italic lineage after R1b-U152 and before G2a-Z1816.

A relatively high proportion of E-V13 among Hallstatt Celts and Italics would explain how E-V13 reached the frequencies observed today in Italy (about the same as in south Germany), at least in the northern half, as the southern E-V13 is presumably more of Greek origin (with nevertheless some Italic E-V13 lineages).

It especially explains the high percentage of E-V13 in western Iberia and along the Mediterranean coast of Spain. The Hallstatt Celts colonised especially the western half of Iberia. Then the Romans later established a lot of colonies along the Mediterranean coast of Spain and all over Andalusia. When we look at the map, that corresponds to these two combined regions. Lower frequencies of E-V13 are observed in other parts of Spain with a smaller number of colonies, and neither the Hallstatt Celts nor the Romans settled in or around the Basque country, where there is indeed no E-V13.

One surprising thing when seeing the map is the lower amount of E-V13 in France, as the French have Alpine Celtic, Roman and Germanic heritage, all people who possessed E-V13 lineages. Actually I am not sure about the frequency of E-V13 in France due to the little data available for E1b1b subclades, or in general the low availability of Y-DNA data from France. But the E1b1b map clearly shows an east to west gradient, which is expected if E-V13 spread from Central Europe westward.

dalmatia and italy where joined before the great flood circa 7000 years ago, if E-V13 was northern balkan or even around noricum it would have been present equally in these areas as it is in south balkans today......the likely scenario is what was written in the paper last year in that thessally, and cyprus played a major part
 
dalmatia and italy where joined before the great flood circa 7000 years ago, if E-V13 was northern balkan or even around noricum it would have been present equally in these areas as it is in south balkans today......the likely scenario is what was written in the paper last year in that thessally, and cyprus played a major part

Italian E-V13 clades are much younger than that. In fact they are usually not much older than 3000 years from what I have seen.

- Z19851 (eg Lombardy) : TMRCA 3400 ybp
- FGC11457 (eg Sicily) : TMRCA 3100 ybp
- PF6784 (eg Calabria) : TMRCA 3100 ybp
- FGC11450 (eg Sardinia) : TMRCA 3100 ybp
- Z25461 (eg Lombardy, Sardinia) : TMRCA 3000 ybp
- BY6162 : less than 3000 ybp (as parent clade is 3000 ybp)
- S2978 (eg Sardinia) : TMRCA 2600 ybp
- PH1173 (eg Sardinia) : TMRCA 1950 ybp
- BY6527 (eg Sicily, Calabria) : TMRCA 1550 ybp

Notice how, except for one slightly older sample from Lombardy, all ages are younger than the Italic migrations, which started 3200 years ago.
 
Thanks! I did not have that information. I was relying on the data from FTDNA and Yfull, but this is much better. However it is not complete. For example:

- L241 has a TMRCA of 3200 years but that clade is found from Ukraine to England. AFAIK only one of its subclades is Albanian and it is the PH2180 I mentioned above.

- Z38456 is listed above. Its TMRCA is not indicated on your chart, but it is 1650 ybp. BY20093 is not listed on Yfull, but as a side clade of Z38456 it might be a similar age.

- Z16988, FGC11450 and Z16661 are also a very widely distributed and have subclades of their own, so I expect that deeper clades specific to the Balkans will be much younger.


Trojet has more and knows them more in depth. I only have this image that he made. He is busy with work I'm sure he will visit when more free and fill in some gaps : D
 
I thought it was clear from my post above that E-V13 in Iran, Iraq and Gulf States was of Indo-Iranian origin. There is a substantial minority of typically Indo-Iranian R1a-Z93, and to a lower extent R1b-Z2103, in countries like the UAE and Qatar. E-V13 came with them.
YFull supports this, with a common Z2013 ancestor for an Italian and Saudi 3700 years ago. Similar story for Z93 3500 years ago. I'd like to see some solid ancient dna evidence however to settle the matter.
 
It could be significant for the discussion so I'm attaching the root of the E-V13 tree as it is composed based on the latest available data. The diversity of E-V13 per region should probably be discussed on the level on which are S3003, BY3880, Z16663, BY14151 and Y30976. In that sense Southern Germany indeed does have higher diversity than most of the other regions in Europe, but it is hard to attribute the expansion of E-V13 to Celts based on such argument. In my opinion E-V13 expanded in Europe at the time before the Celts come into play.


eYw4VBE.png
 
The Z38456 is a subcalde of Z17107. According to YSEQ: Z17107 TMRCA lived 2600 ybp, in the Iron Age. Thereafter the Z17107 divided into several subgroups, and only one of them is the Z38456 (although the most populous one) All of the known Z38456 members live in the Balkan (except the two swedish), but the other members of the Z17107 is completely missing from the Balkans. At this time we know (FtDNA): 2 Smith from the USA (irish or english), a russian the eastern coast of the Black Sea and two hungarian. And who are not the members of the CTS9320 group in the FTDNA:
Mineev from Russia
Gogua from Georgia
Senetar from US (ruthenian origin from old Hungary)
Pereira from Brasil (portugalian origin)
2 other unnamed ukrainian (from Dobromil and Lvov region)
Gyorffy from Hungary
Rakonjac from Bosnia (but he has cuman roots, not Balkanian origin)

So no one from the Z38456 parent group (Z17107) has a Balkanic origin. So I think, the Z17107 is formed more northward during the Iron Age (the pre-scythian or cimmerian period) and only one of these subgroups move to the Balkan (Z38456)
 
YFull supports this, with a common Z2013 ancestor for an Italian and Saudi 3700 years ago. Similar story for Z93 3500 years ago. I'd like to see some solid ancient dna evidence however to settle the matter.

Well, 3700 and 3500 years ago leaves us some 1,500-1,700 years or even longer to account for that common origin, a hell of a lot of time for any Y-DNA clade to travel both to Italy and to Saudi Arabia, especially if it had an expansion pattern similar to IE migrations/conquests (which by the Iron Age had reached both the Persian Gulf and Levant, and all of Western Europe, too). Those estimated dates for common ancestry refer much more clearly to a supposed Bronze Age expansion than an expansion during the height of slave trade in the Roman Empire, which was between 1,800-2,000 years ago.
 
YFull supports this, with a common Z2013 ancestor for an Italian and Saudi 3700 years ago. Similar story for Z93 3500 years ago. I'd like to see some solid ancient dna evidence however to settle the matter.

Not sure what you are talking about. There were not Italians, nor Romans, nor even Italics 3700 or 3500 years ago. There is hardly any R1a-Z93 in Italy. It's the Asian (Indo-Iranian) branch of R1a. The rare Z93 samples that may be found in Italy would have come from Phoenicians or Middle Eastern immigrants in Roman times (or later).
 
There's a lot of V13 in Saudi Arabia so it's a possibility that V13 are descendants of hundreds, possibly even thousands of Roman slaves that were brought in from Syria.

V13 does seem to trace back 5000 years, but so would R1b among US citizens, because R1b arrived in the US by the thousands, so there is no founder effect.

We'll need ancient DNA to figure this one out, but yfull.com shows an Irishman and Saudi who share a common ancestor 3000 years ago. Not exactly a smoking gun given the scarcity of samples, but it's something to keep an eye on.

the E-V13 expansion during bronze age and not Roman period has already been pointed out. Also there was no such thing as thousands of Slaves from Syria. What are termed 'Slaves' were more local and from surrounding lands. If anything Romans recruited many troops from todays E-V13 hotbeds in the balkans.
 
It could be significant for the discussion so I'm attaching the root of the E-V13 tree as it is composed based on the latest available data. The diversity of E-V13 per region should probably be discussed on the level on which are S3003, BY3880, Z16663, BY14151 and Y30976. In that sense Southern Germany indeed does have higher diversity than most of the other regions in Europe, but it is hard to attribute the expansion of E-V13 to Celts based on such argument. In my opinion E-V13 expanded in Europe at the time before the Celts come into play.

As I said above, E-V13 came to Central Europe during the Corded Ware period, so indeed before the Celts. I explained last year that E-V13 was linked to the Corded Ware and Indo-Iranians. In this thread I am explaining how E-V13 was absorbed by Proto-Italo-Celtic R1b tribes around southern Germany and how it then became part of the Italic tribes and Hallstatt Celts, who re-exported that lineage to places like Iberia, France, Belgium, Britain and Ireland. What is going to be the hardest to sorting out the Germanic vs Celtic vs Italic branches of E-V13. Celtic and Italic have the same roots in Tumulus, Urnfield and Hallstatt, and the Germanic branches from the Corded Ware are also closely related. Continental Germanic branches in particular (Frankish, Anglo-Saxon, Lombard) are going to be hard to separate from Celtic ones as Celtic and Germanic tribes lived side by side in central Germany and Belgium.
 
Migration period is ignored when majority of roman citizens escaped huns by fleeing to European outskirts. Very rich findings of Vendel period support this. The poorer citizens could only flee to Alps and Balkan mountains. Dense provincies of Pannonia and Noricum became wilderness after Rome abandomed Limes with legions stationed in the cities.
Maciamo theory supports also placenames left by boii celts and greek words in Lithuanian language.
 
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Migration period is ignored when majority of roman citizens escaped huns by fleeing to European outskirts. Very rich findings of Vendel period support this. The poorer citizens could only flee to Alps and Balkan mountains. Dense provincies of Pannonia and Noricum became wilderness after Rome abandomed Limes with legions stationed in the cities.

It's very hard to estimate what percentage of the population fled, and how many of them returned after the Huns were defeated. After all, the Hunnic domination of Roman provinces like Pannonia and Noricum only last a few decades in the first half of the 5th century (until Attila's death in 453).

Maciamo theory supports also placenames left by boii celts and greek words in Lithuanian language.

Why is that?
 
Thanks! I did not have that information. I was relying on the data from FTDNA and Yfull, but this is much better. However it is not complete. For example:
- L241 has a TMRCA of 3200 years but that clade is found from Ukraine to England. AFAIK only one of its subclades is Albanian and it is the PH2180 I mentioned above.
- Z38456 is listed above. Its TMRCA is not indicated on your chart, but it is 1650 ybp. BY20093 is not listed on Yfull, but as a side clade of Z38456 it might be a similar age.
- Z16988, FGC11450 and Z16661 are also a very widely distributed and have subclades of their own, so I expect that deeper clades specific to the Balkans will be much younger.

Trojet has more and knows them more in depth. I only have this image that he made. He is busy with work I'm sure he will visit when more free and fill in some gaps : D

That phylogenetic tree was made last year when we didn't have many BigY results, such as the two L241>PH2180. It is simply meant to show what subclades of E-V13 Albanians belong to, and not necessarily the subclade diversity within Albanian samples. To be honest, Maciamo's observation is not far off in this regard, considering current state of knowledge. Those of us who are involved in Albanian Y-DNA research have had this observation for a while and before any BigY's, simply based on Y-STR calculations. That is, even though we have Albanians who belong to different subclades of E-V13 or any other haplogroup, the diversity within these subclades which are exclusive to Albanians doesn't seem to go beyond 2000 years. In fact, so far the only subclade that's exclusive to Albanians and goes beyond 2000 years is J2b2-Z1296>PH2967 or J-Y20899 at YFull.
The thing to keep in mind is that we're still extremely under-tested especially when it comes to NGS or BigY. The vast majority of higher resolution samples come from North Albania and Kosova, so I expect this to chance as more Albanians get tested in higher resolution tests. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing. IMO, it points to an isolated and homogeneous population that has expanded since Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages.
 
That phylogenetic tree was made last year when we didn't have many BigY results, such as the two L241>PH2180. It's simply meant to show what subclades of E-V13 Albanians belong to and not necessarily the subclade diversity within Albanian samples. To be honest, Maciamo's observation is not off in this regard. Those of us who are involved in Albanian Y-DNA research have had this observation for a while and before any BigY's, simply based on Y-STR calculations. That is, even though we have Albanians who belong to different subclades or E-V13 or any other haplogroup, the diversity within these subclades which are exclusive to Albanians doesn't go beyond 2000 years. In fact, so far the only subclade that's exclusive to Albanians and goes beyond 2000 years is J2b2-Z1296>PH2967 or J-Y20899 at YFull.
The thing to keep in mind is that we're still extremely under-tested especially when it comes to NGS or BigY. The vast majority of higher resolution samples come from North Albania and Kosova, so I expect this to chance as more Albanians get tested in higher resolution tests. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing. IMO, it points to an isolated and homogeneous population that has expanded since Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages.

Thanks Trojet!
 
As I said above, E-V13 came to Central Europe during the Corded Ware period, so indeed before the Celts. I explained last year that E-V13 was linked to the Corded Ware and Indo-Iranians. In this thread I am explaining how E-V13 was absorbed by Proto-Italo-Celtic R1b tribes around southern Germany and how it then became part of the Italic tribes and Hallstatt Celts, who re-exported that lineage to places like Iberia, France, Belgium, Britain and Ireland. What is going to be the hardest to sorting out the Germanic vs Celtic vs Italic branches of E-V13. Celtic and Italic have the same roots in Tumulus, Urnfield and Hallstatt, and the Germanic branches from the Corded Ware are also closely related. Continental Germanic branches in particular (Frankish, Anglo-Saxon, Lombard) are going to be hard to separate from Celtic ones as Celtic and Germanic tribes lived side by side in central Germany and Belgium.

Interesting....but still not clear how became major haplogroup in Peloponnesus.....


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In fact, so far the only subclade that's exclusive to Albanians and goes beyond 2000 years is J2b2-Z1296>PH2967 or J-Y20899 at YFull. IMO, it points to an isolated and homogeneous population that has expanded since Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages.

If we're trying to see where the subclades came from, shouldn't we be looking at regional rather than exclusively Albanian subclades? It's clear that cultural and linguistic identities have shifted continuously since Antiquity so subclades that are not ethnically homogenous today might have been in the past. I2a and some R1a groups heavily settled the region in the early Middle Ages, but the peoples high in I2a and R1a today also have R1b, J2 and E-V13. That means they were assimilated by the newcomers. Before those migrations though, they were most likely part of the native peoples. The point is that if there is a subclade of E-V13 that has a TMRCA of more than 2000 years, but is regionally spread today, the subclade was already there 2000 years ago.

IMO, it points to an isolated and homogeneous population that has expanded since Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages.

I think the fact that these "Albanian" subclades converge to about 4000 years, but they are generally only around 1000-2000 years old within themselves, suggests a common ancestry but also a serious population bottleneck that ended around the time these new subclades emerged. Either there was a population decrease, or most of the people who shared that ancestry were assimilated into other groups (or both).
 
If we're trying to see where the subclades came from, shouldn't we be looking at regional rather than exclusively Albanian subclades? It's clear that cultural and linguistic identities have shifted continuously since Antiquity so subclades that are not ethnically homogenous today might have been in the past. I2a and some R1a groups heavily settled the region in the early Middle Ages, but the peoples high in I2a and R1a today also have R1b, J2 and E-V13. That means they were assimilated by the newcomers. Before those migrations though, they were most likely part of the native peoples. The point is that if there is a subclade of E-V13 that has a TMRCA of more than 2000 years, but is regionally spread today, the subclade was already there 2000 years ago.
I think the fact that these "Albanian" subclades converge to about 4000 years, but they are generally only around 1000-2000 years old within themselves, suggests a common ancestry but also a serious population bottleneck that ended around the time these new subclades emerged. Either there was a population decrease, or most of the people who shared that ancestry were assimilated into other groups (or both).

Yes, I was taking into account regional diversity within these subclades. So the better wording should've been predominantly instead of exclusively Albanian. As I stated in the original post though, I expect this to change as more people get tested in higher resolution tests. Simply, the observation is based on available data. Also, keep in mind that I never said that these subclades all of a sudden just showed up in Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages ;)

Exactly, a bottleneck would be a reason why we get this phenomenon, which would lead to the things I mentioned..
 
Not sure what you are talking about. There were not Italians, nor Romans, nor even Italics 3700 or 3500 years ago. There is hardly any R1a-Z93 in Italy. It's the Asian (Indo-Iranian) branch of R1a. The rare Z93 samples that may be found in Italy would have come from Phoenicians or Middle Eastern immigrants in Roman times (or later).
Their common ancestor lived 3500 and 3700 years ago, of course using yfull dating, which is probably the most accurate estimate anyways.

Things will get interesting when yfull gets more samples, because the data then becomes like an hourglass, we'll be able to see clearly when a lineage left country A for B, and we can see when a lineage begins branching out in country B.

I've checked out the Hallstatt article on Wikipedia and it's very badly sourced. It's unclear to me what criteria are used for inclusion in the Hallstatt culture, and how these criteria are applied to create these maps. Slightly off-topic, but do any maps exist of all burial mounds, with information about type and age?
 
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