137 ancient human genomes from across the Eurasian steppes

bicicleur 2

Regular Member
Messages
6,367
Reaction score
1,401
Points
113
For thousands of years the Eurasian steppes have been a centre of human migrations and cultural change. Here we sequence the genomes of 137 ancient humans (about 1× average coverage), covering a period of 4,000 years, to understand the population history of the Eurasian steppes after the Bronze Age migrations. We find that the genetics of the Scythian groups that dominated the Eurasian steppes throughout the Iron Age were highly structured, with diverse origins comprising Late Bronze Age herders, European farmers and southern Siberian hunter-gatherers. Later, Scythians admixed with the eastern steppe nomads who formed the Xiongnu confederations, and moved westward in about the second or third century BC, forming the Hun traditions in the fourth–fifth century AD, and carrying with them plague that was basal to the Justinian plague. These nomads were further admixed with East Asian groups during several short-term khanates in the Medieval period. These historical events transformed the Eurasian steppes from being inhabited by Indo-European speakers of largely West Eurasian ancestry to the mostly Turkic-speaking groups of the present day, who are primarily of East Asian ancestry.

it's behind a paywall :

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0094-2
 
Another couple of studies on similar subject. This published today on Science from the same author of the previous one, Peter de Barros Damgaard


The first horse herders and the impact of early Bronze Age steppe expansions into Asia

Peter de Barros Damgaard,

Science 09 May 2018:
eaar7711
DOI: 10.1126/science.aar7711


"Abstract

The Yamnaya expansions from the western steppe into Europe and Asia during the Early Bronze Age (~3000 BCE) are believed to have brought with them Indo-European languages and possibly horse husbandry. We analyze 74 ancient whole-genome sequences from across Inner Asia and Anatolia and show that the Botai people associated with the earliest horse husbandry derived from a hunter-gatherer population deeply diverged from the Yamnaya. Our results also suggest distinct migrations bringing West Eurasian ancestry into South Asia before and after but not at the time of Yamnaya culture. We find no evidence of steppe ancestry in Bronze Age Anatolia from when Indo-European languages are attested there. Thus, in contrast to Europe, Early Bronze Age Yamnaya-related migrations had limited direct genetic impact in Asia."


http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2018/05/08/science.aar7711



And this published earlier on Science.

Ancient genomes revisit the ancestry of domestic and Przewalski’s horses

Charleen Gaunitz
Science 06 Apr 2018:
Vol. 360, Issue 6384, pp. 111-114
DOI: 10.1126/science.aao329

"Revisiting the origins of modern horses

The domestication of horses was very important in the history of humankind. However, the ancestry of modern horses and the location and timing of their emergence remain unclear. Gaunitz et al. generated 42 ancient-horse genomes. Their source samples included the Botai archaeological site in Central Asia, considered to include the earliest domesticated horses. Unexpectedly, Botai horses were the ancestors not of modern domestic horses, but rather of modern Przewalski's horses. Thus, in contrast to current thinking on horse domestication, modern horses may have been domesticated in other, more Western, centers of origin.


Abstract

The Eneolithic Botai culture of the Central Asian steppes provides the earliest archaeological evidence for horse husbandry, ~5500 years ago, but the exact nature of early horse domestication remains controversial. We generated 42 ancient-horse genomes, including 20 from Botai. Compared to 46 published ancient- and modern-horse genomes, our data indicate that Przewalski’s horses are the feral descendants of horses herded at Botai and not truly wild horses. All domestic horses dated from ~4000 years ago to present only show ~2.7% of Botai-related ancestry. This indicates that a massive genomic turnover underpins the expansion of the horse stock that gave rise to modern domesticates, which coincides with large-scale human population expansions during the Early Bronze Age"


http://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6384/111
 
Last edited:
Fascinating stuff.

Botai people were not Yamnaya like, and their horses had limited impact on modern domesticated horses. So, where were the ancestors of modern horses first domesticated, and by whom?

Also, still no "steppe" in Bronze Age Anatolia, and a different view of the impact of "steppe" peoples in India.

It's going to require careful reading, but promises to be very, very, interesting. Thank you, gentlemen.
 
Interesting,in my present opinion Huns were confederation of Finno-Ugric and Iranic Xionites.Like the later Avars also called Varchionites from the Ugric Uar tribe near Aral sea Kazakhstan and Xionites,thus the name Varchionites.Some of them will form also the related Hephthalite or Sveta Huna,white Huns in India.Turkic expansion happened after this,or maybe this "Huns" migrated from their pressure.I hope genetic can clarify this better.
 
74 Genomes From Inner Asian and Anatolia

OK so what's new?

I think the population movements on the steppe from the early bronze age through the middle ages was what everyone expected: Bronze age steppe mixing with Siberian and East Asian to form the Turkic groups that expanded beginning with the Hunnic migrations, which were later enveloped by Mongols. There are some interesting finer points, like pre- and post- Yamnaya steppe making contributions to South Asia, but not Yamnaya itself. And also the mechanism of admixture between Scythians and East Asians to form these Turkic tribes is really cool to see.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Why are these supplementary tables all on separate Excel files? C'mon people.
 
Their analysis showed a slow and steady west-to-east shift in the genetic makeup of the people who populated the Eurasian steppe—a massive expanse stretching from Hungary and Romania in the west to Mongolia and northeast China in the east.

According to the data, the steppe population changed "from being of mainly western Eurasian genetic ancestry to... east Asian genetic ancestry," said Eske Willerslev of the University of Copenhagen, who co-authored two of the studies.

"It's also changing the steppe in terms of being Indo-European speakers to becoming Turkish-speaking people."

The Indo-European language group gave rise to modern-day tongues such as English, French, German, Russian, Hindi, and Persian, while Turkish is part of the Turkic language group thought to have originated in east Asia, including Mongolia.

From about 800 to 200 BC, the Eurasian steppe was dominated by the Scythians, a group of Iranian-speaking mounted warriors, the researchers said.

These were thought to have originated from Bronze Age farmers of western "European" ancestry.

Yet today, "the people living in central Asia and western Asia are really of Asian descent," said Willerslev. "We wanted to understand how this happened."

The Scythians, they found, were "absorbed and replaced" by Huns spreading westward out of Mongolia, "killing all the people they met but also mixing with them".

We already knew all this from Y-DNA and mtDNA. As often these days ancient autosomal DNA only confirms what we had known for years in terms of how and when ancient people intermingled with one another. Reading Willerslev's interview it sounds to a lay audience (to whom this kind of summary is intended) that they are the ones who discovered that there was a shift in the Steppe population from a mainly Western Eurasian to a predominantly Eastern Eurasian one from 2500 BCE to 1500 CE. I had the same impression reading David Reich's book. He kept saying how he and his team's analysis of ancient DNA completely rewrote prehistory as nobody expected that:

- the Indo-European migrations came from the Steppe and replaced so many lineages across Europe (even though that was obvious through the replacement of Mesolithic and Neolithic Y-DNA lineages by R1b-L23 derived clades)

- a separate migration contributed Mongolian-like DNA to Na Dene speakers not found in most other Native Americans (even though it was clear that the Na-Dene carried a more recent Y-haplogroup C2b in addition to the pan-American Q1a).

- the Polynesian expansion spread quickly Austronasian lineages (Y-DNA O1) across the Pacific islands, but was followed by a more recent expansion of Papuan people to islands like the Fiji (even though every anthrpologist knew that Fijians were hybrid of Austronesians and Papuans and modern Y-DNA, mtDNA and autosomal DNA confirmed that this was the case without ancient DNA being needed).

And so on for almost every chapter...

I find it very intellectually dishonest for scientists to claim that they were the ones discovering something when all they did was corroborate what was already known from other studies in similar fields (modern DNA or ancient Y-DNA and mtDNA in this case) or other fields (archaeology, anthropology, linguistics). Science does not evolve in a vacuum. People influence each others' ideas all the time. It's not because they have access to the most advanced ancient DNA technology at the moment that their ideas are new or contradict the pre-existing paradigm.



It's a bit sad that these professional geneticists aren't making good use of ancient genomes. This study only seems to care about confirming the west to east shift in Steppe populations, a shift that we already knew about. What would have been more interesting is analysing the genomes of all these samples for disease risks, physical traits (height, pigmentation...), fitness, immunity and even genes associated with traits of character (e.g. DRD4 allele associated with novelty-seeking adventurousness, very interesting in the context of nomadic tribes and migrations). It's beyond me why they waste such opportunities. There are after all 75 co-authors to this paper and they get paid for it. It's not like they don't have the resources! We amateurs often do deeper analyses in our free time (in addition to full time jobs). It's also strange that they prefer to waste their time with outdated and pretty useless PCA analysis, Fst values and QpAdm modelling. In my opinion they are using these tools just because they exist and they are expected to use them to make their paper look more "scientific" (the false impression that adding some maths makes a paper more serious or more correct). I get that they were trained like this and cannot easily go against the system, but that's nevertheless a waste of time that would be better spent doing more interesting analyses to really recreate a sense of what historical people were like based on the traits that can be extrapolated from their genomes.
 
Last edited:
DA111 and DA112 are Hallstatt samples! That's gold. I would really like to see the autosomal analysis for these samples. Unfortunately they are not listed in their K7 admxitures.

It's disappointing that the Y-DNA resolution of most samples in this paper is so low. C'mon, why stop at R1 when it makes a huge difference to know if they are R1a or R1b!
 
DA111 and DA112 are Hallstatt samples! That's gold. I would really like to see the autosomal analysis for these samples. Unfortunately they are not listed in their K7 admxitures.

It's disappointing that the Y-DNA resolution of most samples in this paper is so low. C'mon, why stop at R1 when it makes a huge difference to know if they are R1a or R1b!

So, actually we have a Elite indivudal belonging to G2a2b2a1b-L497
And a ¿non-Elite? R1b individual as I understand from the data.
 
DA125, T1a3a1a1-Y13279, is the oldest or one of the two oldest samples 1738 yBP belonging to the Kang-Sogdians.

Kang-Sogdians belongs to T1a3a1a1-Y13279 (1 sample) + R1a-S23592 (2 samples)

ZhangQianTravel.jpg


Territory_of_the_Kangju_in_200_CE.jpg



T1a3a1a1-Y13279 is found in modern Kazakhstan (Predicted) and among Pathans (Predicted)as well as in Europe (Confirmed)and Irak (Confirmed).
 
DA111 and DA112 are Hallstatt samples! That's gold. I would really like to see the autosomal analysis for these samples. Unfortunately they are not listed in their K7 admxitures.

It's disappointing that the Y-DNA resolution of most samples in this paper is so low. C'mon, why stop at R1 when it makes a huge difference to know if they are R1a or R1b!

DA111's kit on Gedmatch is Z302274. DA112 hasn't been uploaded yet.

DA111111ERS2374359HallstattBylanyEurope2758R-P312R-P312H6a1aZ3022742,671,374,9612.659527949.67%


puntDNAL K12 Ancient Oracle results:

puntDNAL K12 Ancient Oracle

Kit Z302274

Admix Results (sorted):

#PopulationPercent
1Anatolian_NF41.3
2European_HG37.97
3Caucasus_HG20.35
4Sub-Saharan0.39

Single Population Sharing:

#Population (source)Distance
1Alberstedt_LN_I01189.11
2Halberstadt_LBA_I00999.45
3Unetice_EBA_I01179.58
4Nordic_LN_SG_RISE9710.56
5Bell_Beaker_Germany_I154912.87
6BenzigerodeHeimburg_LN_I005912.88
7Vatya_SG_RISE47913.15
8Hungary_BA_I150213.62
9Bell_Beaker_Czech_RISE56914.93
10BattleAxe_Sweden_SG_RISE9416.52
11Potapovka_I041917.12
12Srubnaya_I043018.51
13Corded_Ware_Estonia_RISE0018.91
14Srubnaya_I023221.3
15Corded_Ware_Germany_I010321.82
16Sintashta_MBA_RISE_38622.5
17Sintashta_MBA_RISE39523.14
18Corded_Ware_Germany_I010423.5
19Andronovo_SG_RISE50524.2
20Iberia_M_ I040628.06

Mixed Mode Population Sharing:

#Primary Population (source)Secondary Population (source)Distance
188%Unetice_EBA_I0117+ 12%Anatolian Neolithic_I0745@ 2.25
287.9%Unetice_EBA_I0117+ 12.1%Anatolian Neolithic_I0746@ 2.29
388.3%Halberstadt_LBA_I0099+ 11.7%Anatolian Neolithic_I0745@ 2.6
488.2%Halberstadt_LBA_I0099+ 11.8%Anatolian Neolithic_I0746@ 2.68
575%Sintashta_MBA_RISE395+ 25%Anatolian Neolithic_I0745@ 3.83
674.8%Sintashta_MBA_RISE395+ 25.2%Anatolian Neolithic_I0746@ 3.92
784.8%Bell_Beaker_Germany_I1549+ 15.2%Anatolian Neolithic_I0745@ 3.92
878.7%Unetice_EBA_I0117+ 21.3%Iberia_EN_I0412@ 3.92
976.6%Srubnaya_I0232+ 23.4%Anatolian Neolithic_I0745@ 3.92
1078.8%Unetice_EBA_I0117+ 21.2%Remedello_BA_SG_RISE489@ 3.97
1176.4%Srubnaya_I0232+ 23.6%Anatolian Neolithic_I0746@ 4.01
1284.7%Bell_Beaker_Germany_I1549+ 15.3%Anatolian Neolithic_I0746@ 4.02
1379.2%Halberstadt_LBA_I0099+ 20.8%Remedello_BA_SG_RISE489@ 4.05
1476.8%Unetice_EBA_I0117+ 23.2%Iceman_MN_SG@ 4.06
1576.5%Unetice_EBA_I0117+ 23.5%Epserstedt_MN_I0172@ 4.07
1657.9%Sintashta_MBA_RISE_386+ 42.1%Iberia_Chalcolithic_I0300@ 4.07
1779.1%Halberstadt_LBA_I0099+ 20.9%Iberia_EN_I0412@ 4.09
1856.1%Sintashta_MBA_RISE_386+ 43.9%Epserstedt_MN_I0172@ 4.1
1976.9%Halberstadt_LBA_I0099+ 23.1%Epserstedt_MN_I0172@ 4.14
2059.5%Sintashta_MBA_RISE_386+ 40.5%Remedello_BA_SG_RISE489@ 4.14


puntDNAL K10 Ancient Oracle results:

puntDNAL K10 Ancient Oracle

Kit Z302274

Admix Results (sorted):

#PopulationPercent
1WHG48.56
2ENF29.24
3CHG22.2

Single Population Sharing:

#Population (source)Distance
1German_South3.37
2Utahn_white3.65
3English_South4.72
4Croatian5.27
5Irish5.61
6Czech5.62
7German_North6.25
8French6.36
9Scottish_West6.86
10Hungarian7.23
11Icelandic9.28
12Norwegian9.57
13Ukrainian11.06
14Spanish_Northeast13.02
15Bulgarian13.78
16Italian_North14.8
17Belarusian15.09
18Spanish_Southwest16.14
19Finnish17.87
20Basque_Spanish17.9

Mixed Mode Population Sharing:

#Primary Population (source)Secondary Population (source)Distance
183.9%Utahn_white+ 16.1%Basque_Spanish@ 1.28
284.9%German_North+ 15.1%Sardinian@ 1.44
368.1%German_North+ 31.9%Spanish_Northeast@ 1.53
459.8%French+ 40.2%Icelandic@ 1.62
561.7%Icelandic+ 38.3%Italian_North@ 1.65
677%Irish+ 23%Basque_Spanish@ 1.81
760.7%French+ 39.3%Norwegian@ 1.91
886.6%Czech+ 13.4%Sardinian@ 2.02
976.5%French+ 23.5%Lithuanian@ 2.04
1075.1%German_North+ 24.9%Basque_Spanish@ 2.07
1173.1%German_North+ 26.9%Spanish_Southwest@ 2.09
1269.2%Icelandic+ 30.8%Tuscan@ 2.11
1371.2%Czech+ 28.8%Spanish_Northeast@ 2.17
1452.1%French+ 47.9%Scottish_West@ 2.18
1584%Scottish_West+ 16%Sardinian@ 2.24
1670.5%Icelandic+ 29.5%Italian_South@ 2.25
1778.2%German_South+ 21.8%Icelandic@ 2.26
1861.1%Norwegian+ 38.9%Italian_North@ 2.28
1975.7%Czech+ 24.3%Spanish_Southwest@ 2.28
2081.2%English_South+ 18.8%Basque_Spanish@ 2.32


HarappaWorld Oracle results:

23 April 2013 - Oracle reference population percentages revised.

Kit Z302274

Admix Results (sorted):

#PopulationPercent
1NE-Euro47.54
2Mediterranean39.85
3Caucasian7.22
4Baloch3.92
5SW-Asian0.8
6W-African0.66

Single Population Sharing:

#Population (source)Distance
1french (hgdp)7.6
2utahn-white (1000genomes)9.61
3british (1000genomes)9.88
4utahn-white (hapmap)11.18
5n-european (xing)11.28
6orcadian (hgdp)12.34
7spaniard (behar)15.77
8spaniard (1000genomes)16.46
9hungarian (behar)16.49
10slovenian (xing)17.75
11spain-basc (henn2012)21.42
12italian (hgdp)21.98
13basque (hgdp)22.92
14ukranian (yunusbayev)23.9
15romanian-a (behar)25.34
16belorussian (behar)27.24
17bulgarian (yunusbayev)27.31
18tuscan (hapmap)29.56
19russian (behar)29.6
20mordovian (yunusbayev)29.62

Mixed Mode Population Sharing:

#Primary Population (source)Secondary Population (source)Distance
156.5%basque (hgdp)+ 43.5%russian (behar)@ 3.21
254.4%basque (hgdp)+ 45.6%belorussian (behar)@ 3.43
358.2%spain-basc (henn2012)+ 41.8%russian (behar)@ 3.68
456.1%spain-basc (henn2012)+ 43.9%belorussian (behar)@ 3.79
551.1%basque (hgdp)+ 48.9%ukranian (yunusbayev)@ 3.99
652.8%spain-basc (henn2012)+ 47.2%ukranian (yunusbayev)@ 4.45
768.9%n-european (xing)+ 31.1%basque (hgdp)@ 5.04
867.5%n-european (xing)+ 32.5%spain-basc (henn2012)@ 5.23
956.8%slovenian (xing)+ 43.2%basque (hgdp)@ 5.47
1060.4%spain-basc (henn2012)+ 39.6%lithuanian (behar)@ 5.53
1158.6%basque (hgdp)+ 41.4%lithuanian (behar)@ 5.56
1280.3%utahn-white (hapmap)+ 19.7%sardinian (hgdp)@ 5.61
1355.1%slovenian (xing)+ 44.9%spain-basc (henn2012)@ 5.78
1480.3%n-european (xing)+ 19.7%sardinian (hgdp)@ 5.85
1583.8%utahn-white (1000genomes)+ 16.2%sardinian (hgdp)@ 5.88
1683.2%british (1000genomes)+ 16.8%sardinian (hgdp)@ 5.89
1770%utahn-white (hapmap)+ 30%basque (hgdp)@ 5.92
1856.7%basque (hgdp)+ 43.3%mordovian (yunusbayev)@ 5.93
1968.6%utahn-white (hapmap)+ 31.4%spain-basc (henn2012)@ 6.03
2074.9%utahn-white (1000genomes)+ 25.1%basque (hgdp)@ 6.11
 
Thanks, Pax! That's all I needed!

So Hallstatt Celts are most similar to modern South Germans, French and South English (and presumably also Belgians who plot right in the middle of these three populations but aren't listed).

The list of haplogroups from GEDMatch is great. I wonder why the authors of the paper didn't bother to list the deep clades in the supplementary information. That's not professional at all on their part.
 
A few things of note from the GEDMatch list:

- Two Alanic samples from the Caucasus belonged to Q1a2-YP4000 (now found in Siberia, Poland and Chechnya), Q1a2-L330 (Mongolic/Turkic branch found among the Kazakhs) and R1a-Z93 (S23592, now found among the Poles, Chechens, Bashkirs, Tatars, Kazakhs, Altaians). Previous Alanic samples from the North Caucasus belonged to G2a (probably local Caucasian) and R1a-Z93.

- The Alanic Q1a2-YP4000 is a direct descendant of the Q1a2-YP4004 found in the Bronze Age Glazkov culture in the Baikal region. This clade is also found among modern Tatars. The other Q1a2-L330 was also found in that culture as its YP1102 subclade (found among modern Kazakhs). Hence the Alans were of partial Hunnic descent, despite being an Iranian tribe.

- Sarmatian Huns had R1a-Z93 and Q1a2-YP771 (now found in Slavic Russians and Hungarians).

- Tian Shan Huns carried Q1a1-L715 (now found in the North Caucasus (Kabardins), Poland and Hungary) and Q1b2-YP755 (now found in Pakistan and NW India), but also N1c, R1a-Z93 (YP1456, now found among the Bashkirs, Kyrgyzs and Altaians) and oddly also a number of Middle Easter lineages such as E-V22 (Central Europe, Arabian peninsula, Azerbaijan and NE China near Korea) and L1a1 (Y31213, found in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia)

- Tian Shan Saka predating the Tian Shan Huns already carried R1a-Z93 (Z2125), Q1a2-L330 (the same as in Bronze Age Baikal and in the Caucasian Alans) and J2a1-Y13534 (found in the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and Western Europe).

- Tagar Scythians possessed R1a-Z93 (Z2125) and Q1a2-L933 lineages. The latter is now found in Kerala (southern tip of India!), Yemen, Georgia, Turkey, Czechia and Britain! Apart from the slightly older Indian sample, all have a TMRCA between 5000 and 6000 years, so probably of Steppic origin. It's amazing how far the Scythians migrated and, above all, how wide their geographic reach was, leaving descendants from southern India to Britain and from Siberia to Yemen. And that's just for Siberian Scythians! (as Q1a2 wasn't found in Central Saka or European Scythians).

- Central Scythians (Saka) belonged to R1a-Z93 (YP1456), Q1b2-YP4500 (same as in Tian Shan Huns) and E-M123 (Y31991, now found in Poland, Bulgaria, Lebanon and Qatar)

- The four XiongNu samples only carried O3 and Palaeolithic branches of R1b (not of Indo-European origin).


Overall the two dominant lineages of the Scythians, Huns and Alans appear to have been Q1a and R1a-Z93. These are the only two haplogroups that constantly show up in every culture from every region and period. There is also surprisingly little difference between the Scythians and the Huns. On the other hand, the XiongNu and Mongols carried completely different haplogroups (C2b, O3 and R1b-L278), which means that the Huns were in fact not of XiongNu/Mongol descent as most people thought, but of almost purely (Altaian) Scythian descent.

What is amazing is that almost all the branches of Y-haplogroup Q1a, except the Amerindian, Scandinavian and Levantine/Jewish ones, have been found among the Huns. I was therefore right in my assumption made about 7-8 years ago that the Huns (and explained in my haplogroup Q page) were the ones who spread most of the Q1a1 and Q1a2 lineages.
 
A few things of note from the GEDMatch list:

- Two Alanic samples from the Caucasus belonged to Q1a2-YP4000 (now found in Siberia, Poland and Chechnya), Q1a2-L330 (Mongolic/Turkic branch found among the Kazakhs) and R1a-Z93 (S23592, now found among the Poles, Chechens, Bashkirs, Tatars, Kazakhs, Altaians). Previous Alanic samples from the North Caucasus belonged to G2a (probably local Caucasian) and R1a-Z93.

- The Alanic Q1a2-YP4000 is a direct descendant of the Q1a2-YP4004 found in the Bronze Age Glazkov culture in the Baikal region. This clade is also found among modern Tatars. The other Q1a2-L330 was also found in that culture as its YP1102 subclade (found among modern Kazakhs). Hence the Alans were of partial Hunnic descent, despite being an Iranian tribe.

- Sarmatian Huns had R1a-Z93 and Q1a2-YP771 (now found in Slavic Russians and Hungarians).

- Tian Shan Huns carried Q1a1-L715 (now found in the North Caucasus (Kabardins), Poland and Hungary) and Q1b2-YP755 (now found in Pakistan and NW India), but also N1c, R1a-Z93 (YP1456, now found among the Bashkirs, Kyrgyzs and Altaians) and oddly also a number of Middle Easter lineages such as E-V22 (Central Europe, Arabian peninsula, Azerbaijan and NE China near Korea) and L1a1 (Y31213, found in Lebanon and Saudi Arabia)

- Tian Shan Saka predating the Tian Shan Huns already carried R1a-Z93 (Z2125), Q1a2-L330 (the same as in Bronze Age Baikal and in the Caucasian Alans) and J2a1-Y13534 (found in the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and Western Europe).

- Tagar Scythians possessed R1a-Z93 (Z2125) and Q1a2-L933 lineages. The latter is now found in Kerala (southern tip of India!), Yemen, Georgia, Turkey, Czechia and Britain! Apart from the slightly older Indian sample, all have a TMRCA between 5000 and 6000 years, so probably of Steppic origin. It's amazing how far the Scythians migrated and, above all, how wide their geographic reach was, leaving descendants from southern India to Britain and from Siberia to Yemen. And that's just for Siberian Scythians! (as Q1a2 wasn't found in Central Saka or European Scythians).

- Central Scythians (Saka) belonged to R1a-Z93 (YP1456), Q1b2-YP4500 (same as in Tian Shan Huns) and E-M123 (Y31991, now found in Poland, Bulgaria, Lebanon and Qatar)

- The four XiongNu samples only carried O3 and Palaeolithic branches of R1b (not of Indo-European origin).


Overall the two dominant lineages of the Scythians, Huns and Alans appear to have been Q1a and R1a-Z93. These are the only two haplogroups that constantly show up in every culture from every region and period. There is also surprisingly little difference between the Scythians and the Huns. On the other hand, the XiongNu and Mongols carried completely different haplogroups (C2b, O3 and R1b-L278), which means that the Huns were in fact not of XiongNu/Mongol descent as most people thought, but of almost purely (Altaian) Scythian descent.

What is amazing is that almost all the branches of Y-haplogroup Q1a, except the Amerindian, Scandinavian and Levantine/Jewish ones, have been found among the Huns. I was therefore right in my assumption made about 7-8 years ago that the Huns (and explained in my haplogroup Q page) were the ones who spread most of the Q1a1 and Q1a2 lineages.
Huns most probably do not descent from the Xiongnu,which are Turkic or Mongolic most likely,as i mentioned Huns were rather a confederation of Iranic Xionites and Finno-Ugric peoples,like the Avar "Varchionites" later were confederation of Uar (Finno-Ugric) and Xionites (Chionites) that's why were labeled Varchionites by ancient authors,known as Sveta Huna in India.Even Procopius connects European Huns with Huns that conquered northern India.
 
Ancient Eurasian Steppe selected Y and mtDNA haplogroups and Gedmatch IDs
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Rja6ZyjQrz3UK7_HTagkzczoOFjwcXOGdNOm9FC3Rik/edit#gid=0

There is an I2c2 in the list, DA31, he is not from the Steppe but from the Caucasus !!! Lchashen Metsamor culture, I2c2 today is predominantly Caucasian and Aegean.

And the Y-full age estimates have changed !! the subclade used to date from 4000 ybp, but now its 3300 ybp, DA31 is actually 3200 years old, maybe that's my ancestor :)

Information on Lchashen Metsamor culture.
 
Last edited:

This thread has been viewed 39538 times.

Back
Top