Prehistoric migrations shaped Corsican Y-chromosome

It would be interesting to know at least the autosomal make up of:

The Mesolithic "Dame de Bonifacio"
A Neolithic Corsican farmer
A Bronze age Torrean

Utilizzando Tapatalk
 
It would be interesting to know at least the autosomal make up of:

The Mesolithic "Dame de Bonifacio"
A Neolithic Corsican farmer
A Bronze age Torrean

Utilizzando Tapatalk

Indeed. Ancient samples are available. If that's beyond their capabilities (although you would think that Underhill and King could get access to a good ancient dna lab), then at least do a modern autosomal analysis and comparison. It's actually shameful that they would turn out a paper like this.

At least, if you're going to do only a yDna analysis, resolve the damn samples as much as possible.

I really don't like to attribute base motives to scholars, but papers like this make you wonder.
 
When are people going to stop placing so much emphasis on modern distributions of yDna to elucidate ancient migrations and to determine overall similarity between peoples? Doing that led people to believe for years that downstream R1b originated in western Europe, and that the first farmers to reach Europe were J2a.

Just wait for the ancient dna to determine ancient migrations, and for overall similarity do a sophisticated autosomal analysis.

Some other things to consider about Provence in relationship to all of this is the fact that both Corsica and Sardinia may have been settled initially from that area. The other is that Provence was heavily settled by the Romans, hence the name "Provence" or "Our Province". What I'd really like to see is an autosomal comparison of Provencals and the people of western Liguria right over the border. That's one of the reasons, apart from the Ligurian migrations to Corsica, that I don't understand why Ligurians weren't included in the analysis.

J2 was found in LBK, but seems absent thus far in Mediterranean spread which was apparently first. J2 is one of those haplogroups that is very diverse in very small, distantly related clusters and doesn't appear to be spread in a star pattern (the major evidence against it being a PIE marker IMHO)
 
Pausanias uses that term for a population distinct than those he calls Iberians, those he calls Hellenes, those he calls Carthaginians and those he calls Trojans etc. (he says though that Carthaginians used Iberian and 'Libyan' mercenaries, that's probably the reason we shouldn't expect significant Phoenician proper admixture in Sardinia)

Well, I don't associate R1b with proto-Indo-Europeans. For example, concerning Torrean civilization I would consider a scenario where the natives (pre-BA menhir builders) were R1b-U106 and the intrusive element belonged to G-L91, for example. (The reality would have been certainly more complex, that means possibly more haplogroups involved at least)


That study says


So, they cite Haak, Lazaridis etc to support that 'R1a and R1b diversification began relatively recently' but, really, I am not sure if "TMRCA estimations are concordant with such expansion in Corsica." This is not how I see it but I can be wrong. I may have understood something wrong. I don't know.


image

Well of course R1b were the Indo-European speakers, but the R1a ones are likely the ones to actually spread to India.
The dates in the study refer to the age of the branch, not the age in Corsica. A very subtle but large difference. The Corsica data appears to mostly be downstream of L51+, including a very large chunk of P312*(many are DF27 north-south haplotype) that is not even mentioned as important for some reason. U152 is the lion in the room as can be expected.

The P312*aligns with southern France, and U152 may have arrived from Italy based on distribution, but who really knows the reality, or the impact various migrations have had on the island. It seems vastly different from Sardinia.
 
J2 was found in LBK, but seems absent thus far in Mediterranean spread which was apparently first. J2 is one of those haplogroups that is very diverse in very small, distantly related clusters and doesn't appear to be spread in a star pattern (the major evidence against it being a PIE marker IMHO)

you also have found in LBK sites are 1 x H ydna and 2 x T1a ydna and others , so it is not odd.
The most likely scenario is most ydna haplogroups reached the atlantic ocean way way before neolithic times and some returned and headed back towards the east , the only odd marker is R1a which was very scarce in western europe until the bronze age
 
Sile, beside some old Y-C and Upper Paleo and Mesolothic Y-I2(a), we have to date very few if any other Y-haplo around Atlantic before the Neolithic, this one providing a lot of Y-G2a; or I missed something?
 
We have NO ancient Corsicans DNA if I don't mistake. Concerning Y-R1b-S116/P312 maybe they were not all of them IE's? I doubt but who knows? But concerning Y-R1b-U106 I dont believe they came before Bronze, and I think rather they came very later in Corsica; it's true I' ve no proof, as others here. Concerning Y-R1b-U152, its presence in Corsica could be linked in my mind to Ligurians, before the Romans who surely send some of them; it deserves a subclades analysis. Concerning guessings about population density, I recall that the prominence of a male haplo is not a very good tool to measure it, as the founder effects and sexe unbalanced matings are in concurrence.
 
Excellent example, Pax. With the benefit of hindsight, those conclusions are almost laughable. It would be very ironic indeed if the Etruscans do carry G2a dna, but it's the kind that came from Central Europe or conversely the kind that's been in Europe since the Neolithic. That's why I hope that the Reich Lab take a really wide spread number of samples for their paper on Italy, both geographically and chronologically.

Given how wrong he was, you would think he would have learned his lesson, but apparently not.

Honestly, I don't even know if I'll continue reading this paper. In this day and age this ridiculously low level of resolution on the y makes any conclusions extremely suspect.


I hasten to add I have absolutely no problem with there having been a migration from Asia Minor to Central Italy in the first millennium BC. If it happened, it's basically the same ancestry as would have come in the Bronze Age, so ultimately it doesn't matter.

It's important to get our facts straight, however, and in this case that requires lots of dna from the Etruscans and early Romans in comparison to prior populations.

I'm also beyond tired of pointing out that whatever gene flow occurred hit all of southeastern Europe as well as Italy, and all the way to Spain and Portugal, even if it's possible it occurred at slightly different times.

Very good observation. Look at this:
This study included 321 samples typed for 92 Y-SNP

How laughable. How much did they spend on this testing? A test from Ancestry.com has 1,681 Y-SNPs and would have given autosomal info. 23andMe would have been even better because of mtDNA.
 
Sile, beside some old Y-C and Upper Paleo and Mesolothic Y-I2(a), we have to date very few if any other Y-haplo around Atlantic before the Neolithic, this one providing a lot of Y-G2a; or I missed something?
We need to stop thinking of an east to west only migration like in the USA and their "oregon trail" scenarios .........the paper's STR's are in Error , the SNP are accurate, the dates on Corsica are accurate. In reference to G2a-L497 .....I linked the paper which refers to a tyrolese origin.....we also have a high % of R-U106 in Austria .......
 
Their conclusion is that modern Corsicans are direct descendants of ancient Corsicans, more or less..i don't know why they didn't test at least 2 or 3 ancient individuals, how much does it cost?

Maybe this study just wants to prove that Corsicans aren't related to Italians? A bit agenda-driven?


South Corsicans seems different to Gallurese Sardinians regarding Y DNA frequencies. No idea how much "steppe admixture" South Corsicans have, Gallurese are 9% circa steppe plus some WHG and the rest the usual EEF


Sardinians range from 0% steppe ancestry to 9%, but the Sardinian average seems closer to 2-4% of steppe. I think Corsicans have more steppe ancestry than Sardinians.


Chiang 2016

AiRhklC.jpg



Compare Sardinians with other Europeans and Italians.

French have 37.6% of steppe ancestry, Spanish_North has 32.6%, Tuscans have 27.2%, Bergamo has 25%, Spanish have 22.3%, Greeks have 20%, Albanians have 18.5%, Sardinians have 7.1%, Sicilians have 5.9%.

LBK_EN (Early Neolithic) has already 10/20% of WHG.

Haak 2015

8febCZs.jpg




LBK_EN with some WHG (blue)


KNlJVjn.jpg
KNlJVjn.jpg
 
Last edited:
Maybe this study just want to prove that Corsicans aren't related to Italians? A bit agenda-driven?





Sardinians range from 0% steppe ancestry to 9%, but the Sardinian average seems closer to 2-4% of steppe. I think Corsicans have more steppe ancestry than Sardinians.


Chiang 2016

AiRhklC.jpg



Compare Sardinians with other Europeans and Italians.

French have 37.6% of steppe ancestry, Spanish_North has 32.6%, Tuscans have 27.2%, Bergamo has 25%, Spanish have 22.3%, Greeks have 20%, Albanians have 18.5%, Sardinians have 7.1%, Sicilians have 5.9%.

LBK_EN (Early Neolithic) has already 10/20% of WHG.

Haak 2015

8febCZs.jpg




LBK_EN with some WHG (blue)


KNlJVjn.jpg
KNlJVjn.jpg

Good points. The inland areas have "total, real" WHG which is pretty high, given that LBK_EN already have 10-20% WHG, and then there's more, but steppe is extremely low. The coasts have less WHG and more steppe.
 

This thread has been viewed 25349 times.

Back
Top