The spread of 'Steppe' DNA and autosomal best-fit analysis

[ToBeOrNotToBe]

Oh yes it is. Shulaverian hypothesis, is born and raised in my mind, against all odds, and I took too much BS, offence and put down from too many people for, if it is proven right, me not getting the full load of credit.


If you go to my runmymouth blog (Kickedoutdogs) I started detailing the migration to the north caucasus after 4900bc in summer 2016 so not really recent. The same for the incoming population (forefathers of Shulaveri) from the Balkans after reading Conoly et al 2012 about incoming pastoral populations during 7 millenium BC as far into near east as Hogoshim in Israel. So, summer 2016 (and I figure that out earlier) is not "recent" by any stretch of the imagination. And earlier to all that, endless comments on Eurogenes, obviously.

Note: When, and its all about when, not where, do you "propose" that migration occur and in what archeological context?

True, my personal hypothesis is pre-6000 BCE in the Ukraine/Balkans (M269) to 5500-5000 BCE in Eastern Anatolia/Northern Mesopotamia (L23, perhaps via Ikiztepe?), followed by one branch moving into the Caucasus around 4500 BCE (Z2103) and another reaching Iberia by about 4000 BCE (L51). So you seem to propose an earlier migration unrelated to copper metallurgy (as Shulaveri had none).

 

[Pip]

Exactly. That is what is so upsetting about these studies! from M269 to P312 can be several things. however, one can infer that it can only be L51 (and L151) or on the other hand S21! what else???
And having that a high percentage of S21 in Portugal also does not add up!

Yes, perhaps S21/U106, perhaps Z2109, perhaps L277 or L584, perhaps PF7562, perhaps S1200, perhaps A8053, perhaps A8039, perhaps Z2118, perhaps something else. From what I can see on the large databases, there is at least some U106, some PF7562 and some from various types of Z2103. As Portugal is a fringe country, maybe the various R1b people from other parts of Europe simply retreated there until there was nowhere else to go when under pressure from the dominant lineages.

 

[Olympus Mons]

.... earlier migration unrelated to copper metallurgy (as Shulaveri had none).

Shulaveri had copper. Copper beads and copper awls. Oldest copper awl is from Arukhlo...

 

[ToBeOrNotToBe]

Shulaveri had copper. Copper beads and copper awls. Oldest copper awl is from Arukhlo...

As far as I know, Leyla Tepe marked the first appearance of metallurgy in the Caucasus (Wikipedia). I sure hope Shulaveri doesn't have legitimate evidence of copper smelting lol

EDIT: It seems like it is possible that metallurgy in the Caucasus was also present in Kultepe, and everything I'm seeing places Shulaveri firmly in the Neolithic (mainly obsidian industry with the very rare metal item, always from native metal). I don't want to get into a flame war over Shulaveri though, so I'll just say that the earliest evidence of copper smelting is in Vinca (as is known, at least - many speculate Anatolia had earlier copper smelting technology, but nobody has demonstrated this) and be done with it.

 

[Pip]

Tomorrow, I will run my RSDs and correlation coefficients on Bell Beaker autosomal data. Let's see if it fits Iberian DNA at all.

 

[ToBeOrNotToBe]

Tomorrow, I will run my RSDs and correlation coefficients on Bell Beaker autosomal data. Let's see if it fits Iberian DNA at all.

Could you analyse sample I1388 (the farmer L151 Beaker)?

 

[Olympus Mons]

As far as I know, Leyla Tepe marked the first appearance of metallurgy in the Caucasus (Wikipedia). I sure hope Shulaveri doesn't have legitimate evidence of copper smelting lol

EDIT: It seems like it is possible that metallurgy in the Caucasus was also present in Kultepe, and everything I'm seeing places Shulaveri firmly in the Neolithic (mainly obsidian industry with the very rare metal item, always from native metal). I don't want to get into a flame war over Shulaveri though, so I'll just say that the earliest evidence of copper smelting is in Vinca (as is known, at least - many speculate Anatolia had earlier copper smelting technology, but nobody has demonstrated this) and be done with it.

Shulaveri had copper. mainly copper beads all over and even in Aratashen that ended 5500bc had copper beads.
regarding smelting... the jury is still out i suppose.

 

[ToBeOrNotToBe]

Shulaveri had copper. mainly copper beads all over and even in Aratashen that ended 5500bc had copper beads.
regarding smelting... the jury is still out i suppose.

Well in any case Shulaveri isn't a metallurgical culture - but still, even with your maps (which are very clear), you still haven't said why you believe in Shulaveri over any other hypothesis. As I said, as Max Planck essentially fully agrees with you at least as far as the Urheimat, I'd like to know this why. What about Shulaveri jumped out at you, something must have besides having a cool name.

 

[etrusco]

Could you analyse sample I1388 (the farmer L151 Beaker)?

Why nobody is talking about this sample in other forums? The discovery of a R1b L51 without steppe is the biggest breaking news one could imagine regarding the issue of prehistoric Europe. Is it confirmed or not?

 

[Pip]

Could you analyse sample I1388 (the farmer L151 Beaker)?

I'm struggling to find the full data on it.

It is not alone as a Bell Beaker sample with no CHG - there are also Czech and German samples with this profile.

Its yDNA is identified simply as L151, for which yfull doesn't even give an age estimate. Given its STR diversity, I estimate L151 to be rather old - going back to at least 3,700 BC, perhaps even older. My autosomal analysis also estimates three early branches of Steppe-enhanced Bulgarian Chalcolithic DNA - proto-Corded Ware, proto-Bell Beaker and El Portalon-Vucedol. Perhaps I1388 descended paternally from the latter of these groups, and so was more heavily admixed with South West Europeans? If I've found the right one, it looks similar to Iberian Bell Beaker.

I will analyse Bell Beaker more generally. If it is anything like Corded Ware, it will show CHG with a high relative standard deviation, indicating that it was most likely a late addition to the autosomal mix with a patchy distribution. This is a vital point to consider if looking for the common origin of the population.

 

[berun]

Why they mate with everybody I dont know. Usually it means Males moving to new land.
Why they left I also dont know. But I do know that there was a "war" between 3300-2800BC in Iberia, because there is no other reason to build from the start those fortified settlements and invest for so long in reinforcing those walls. - So, anyone is looking for a culture or mitologie of male warriors with daggers , bows and arrows.... yes, Iberia (Portugal) where Bell beakers seem to have appear first and foremost, for sure is a darn good place!

The end of fortified settlements, ie people started to move again to open settlements, coincides with the start of the spread of bell beaker culture. Correlation is not causation - But is better than non correlation.

I would not say war but the product of a high increase in demographics, and the involved problems that it could carry. I think that R1b herders got into it when they found a maij failure. What is sure is that to defend or attack fortesses you need arrows.

 

[MOESAN]

Total exogamy over 5 generations would be extremely unlikely. This would mean all the female offspring in each generation being completely discarded by the men in favour of strangers. Surely the daughters resulting from admixture would themselves have children, spreading the DNA they inherited from their fathers. I cannot see the fathers' autosomal DNA dwindling to nothing in the communities that they joined.

Your caution was already contained in my proper post. So I agree! I gave only a maximum of possibe speed. It's sensible to think that when male prospectors or ver sacrum youths changed lands, the admixture was maximum in the first generation of colonisation or settlement, and decrease regularly after. That said, the very great mobility and apparent prestige of BB's could have maintained a certain speed in new admixtures.
That said, let's look at the huge geograhic spread and auDNA span of BB's: it's impressing.
&: the time span of BB's could be about 700 years, so between 21 and 25 generations without to take in account previous generations of admixture somewhere near their "source"...

 

[Pip]

Here are some relative standard deviations in the component volumes in German Bell Beaker samples:

EEF/Anatolian 0.23
EHG 0.23
WHG 0.35
CHG 0.53

Just as in German Corded Ware, CHG has a high RSD reading. Its levels are patchy - high in some samples, low in others. This indicates a component that is not thoroughly admixed, suggesting it likely that CHG (and the Steppe DNA that it makes up) were for the most part a late addition to the autosomal mixes of both populations.

The original core components of German Bell Beaker and Corded Ware appear to have been EHG and EEF, which are both far more stable across the range of samples.

Further North European BB and CW samples outside of Germany indicate the same thing - for instance, a Czech BB sample (I4893) and two Polish CW samples (RISE431 and RISE1) have high EHG levels but no CHG at all. It is curious that, despite these samples being located near to the Steppe and following Steppe-like cultures and despite two of them being identified as R1a-M417 and R1b, it appears they have no Steppe DNA ancestry whatsoever.

 

[hrvclv]

Your caution was already contained in my proper post. So I agree! I gave only a maximum of possibe speed. It's sensible to think that when male prospectors or ver sacrum youths changed lands, the admixture was maximum in the first generation of colonisation or settlement, and decrease regularly after. That said, the very great mobility and apparent prestige of BB's could have maintained a certain speed in new admixtures.
That said, let's look at the huge geograhic spread and auDNA span of BB's: it's impressing.
&: the time span of BB's could be about 700 years, so between 21 and 25 generations without to take in account previous generations of admixture somewhere near their "source"...

If each invader from the steppe marries an "official" wife from inside his own clan, and afterwards takes a few concubines, and his sons do the same, and the grandsons after them, etc... and if an archaeologist hits upon the son of a concubine, son to a concubine... and so on over five generations (100 to 120 years)... then you get what you are looking for : a steppe man's great-great-grandson whose ydna is steppe, and autosomal mix essentially ENF.

Which, of course, won't be true down the (even partly) endogamous lines. So autosomal vs ydna vastly depends on what sample you unearth.

Some of the females did follow, for sure. I am H1b - predominant in the Urals, according to Maciamo. My wife's mtdna is H6a1b2 - straight from the steppe (Maciamo again).

 

[MOESAN]

We are almost sure Steppes males send their Steppes females with them what did not prevent them from taking extra ethny new females on the road; but BB is specific in this way that some of them seem in some places moving very quickly and far in small groups, maybe providing more extra admixtures.
ATW it's of some worth recall the BB's stettlements are more known for their sepultures that for their buildings : maybe not without importance? the variety in sepulture habits have also some meaning?

 

[MOESAN]

Here are some relative standard deviations in the component volumes in German Bell Beaker samples:

EEF/Anatolian 0.23
EHG 0.23
WHG 0.35
CHG 0.53

Just as in German Corded Ware, CHG has a high RSD reading. Its levels are patchy - high in some samples, low in others. This indicates a component that is not thoroughly admixed, suggesting it likely that CHG (and the Steppe DNA that it makes up) were for the most part a late addition to the autosomal mixes of both populations.

The original core components of German Bell Beaker and Corded Ware appear to have been EHG and EEF, which are both far more stable across the range of samples.

Further North European BB and CW samples outside of Germany indicate the same thing - for instance, a Czech BB sample (I4893) and two Polish CW samples (RISE431 and RISE1) have high EHG levels but no CHG at all. It is curious that, despite these samples being located near to the Steppe and following Steppe-like cultures and despite two of them being identified as R1a-M417 and R1b, it appears they have no Steppe DNA ancestry whatsoever.

I was not aware of this. Seems interesting. To be checked.

 

[Pip]

If each invader from the steppe marries an "official" wife from inside his own clan, and afterwards takes a few concubines, and his sons do the same, and the grandsons after them, etc... and if an archaeologist hits upon the son of a concubine, son to a concubine... and so on over five generations (100 to 120 years)... then you get what you are looking for : a steppe man's great-great-grandson whose ydna is steppe, and autosomal mix essentially ENF.
Which, of course, won't be true down the (even partly) endogamous lines. So autosomal vs ydna vastly depends on what sample you unearth.
Some of the females did follow, for sure. I am H1b - predominant in the Urals, according to Maciamo. My wife's mtdna is H6a1b2 - straight from the steppe (Maciamo again).

Yes, it's feasible, although in practice I doubt it worked like that:
1. The sons of the official wives would most likely have been the leaders, and the ones to have more children and to venture further.
2. The sons of the concubines would have taken women from among daughters of the concubines, preserving the Steppe component.
3. Women probably generally did accompany or follow, otherwise left without men their own communities would have perished.
4. If the sons of the initial bearers of Steppe lineages had all ventured elsewhere and the Steppe DNA in their communities had diminished and perished, it is likely that many of the Steppe cultural practices would also have ended up marginalised and would have perished with it.

From what I can see of the data, Steppe autosomal and mitochondrial DNA was generally preserved in its new locations, together with Steppe culture, and the extent of exogamy has probably been exaggerated.

 

[Pip]

Relative standard deviations give a clear indication of how the German Bell Beaker and Corded Ware populations developed:

The most stable mix, and therefore most likely the oldest in formation, is EEF/Anatolian with EHG in Bell Beaker, each with a SD of 0.23.
Then WHG joined Bell Beaker and EHG Corded Ware admixed with EEF at roughly the same time (SDs of 0.35 and 0.36 respectively).
Then CHG joined Bell Beaker (SD 0.53).
Then CHG joined Corded Ware (0.61).
Then WHG joined Corded Ware (0.8), probably substantially in or near Germany itself during the Corded Ware era, as the WHG component in Corded Ware samples varies so widely one from another.

To find the areas and precursor cultures where these populations began forming, it is useful to examine the component proportions that have stabilised to an equilibrium, and see where these mixes existed previously.

From what I can see of the data, the first time we really find the original mix of EEF with EHG is in mid 5th millennium BC Bulgaria, which most likely included R1b pre-Bell Beaker. It looks like R1a pre-Corded Ware then joined the mix, before retreating back North Eastwards. What is known as Steppe DNA (including CHG) then only had a marginal impact some time later, most likely around 3,000 BC, shortly before the Corded Ware expansion.

 

[CrazyDonkey]

I'm sorry to be so trivial but a male biased colonisation in foreign lands with total exogamy give only 3,125% remaining from original auDNA after 5 generations, as a mean. It's an example, surely the total exogamy did not occur at every generation but it shows how quick the changes can go.
What I see when looking at PCA's is the BB's were spred very broadly between Iberia, C-S-E Europe and N-E Europe of today, so Chalco-Bronze of Iberia, Bronze of Balkans and CWC and all the between pops, roughly said.
An interesting topic about diverse BB's pops is on Eurogenes blog, I think.

I suspect that the "Bell Beaker phenomenon" was a religious one, a mystery cult, carried forth by missionary "priests" who neither married nor bred, an initiation and conversion, in other words, rather than a migration that settled down and interbred.

 

[Cpluskx]

Why nobody is talking about this sample in other forums? The discovery of a R1b L51 without steppe is the biggest breaking news one could imagine regarding the issue of prehistoric Europe. Is it confirmed or not?

Probably an inaccurate modeling?