Latest Reich talk on ancient Dna

[CrazyDonkey]

There weren't waves of samples, only waves of people. How many samples have been published isn't particularly relevant.

13 people from the late third millennium BC hardly constitutes a wave either. Even the 40 people over the second millennium - many of them might simply have been offspring of the same few people - too few of them to have constituted a 'wave'. Ergo, as we decide we cannot term any of them waves, is it best to ignore them all as if they had never happened and conclude they must have left no genetic legacy whatosever?


My analysis suggests that the 40+ people from the second millennium BC (and presumably also the 13 from the late third millennium BC) were in any case partly descended from the same communities that spawned the three ATP samples. As I have previously indicated, much as it might be convenient to assume that the El Portalon people entirely disappeared into thin air without leaving a genetic trace and were replaced wholly by Yamnayans pouring in directly from Central Russia, the autosomal data simply does not support this assumption.

Whether less than a handful of samples (over a thousand years) represent a hidden population or, at most, a small number of isolated/local lineages remains to be seen. So far, other than methodologies and analyses others have claimed are nonstandard and faulty, there is little or no evidence for such a population. That doesn't mean the samples couldn't be the tips of the proverbial iceberg, or they could just be scraps of ice (noise, not data). Even if such a population existed (I've merely asked where and when), the question of where they came from (and how) remains unanswered. At most, you have an untested hypothesis.

13 samples over 400 years is a frequency (one every ~31 years) that is an order of magnitude greater than three over 1,000 years (one every 333 years). The first wave clearly represents a distinct, relatively unadmixed, incoming population/group, although one that looks to have settled down and assimilated. I'd argue that it need not have been numerous to have unseated the previous ruling elite, if that is what happened. The second wave, with much more numerous, but also more highly admixed, samples, could have been simply the expansion of the prior input(s), except for evidence of 1) increased fortifications (to protect against outsiders), 2) widespread site destruction/abandonment, and 100% y-dna replacement (among known samples). Contrarily, language replacement didn't always happen.

[Pip]

the interesting thing about L51 and its bros and uncles is the track left by this family in Europe, there are interesting percents all along the Mediterranean, the Z2103 just went northwards, from the Balkans.

Yes - or I would say northeastwards.

[Pip]

What data have you seen? Hovhannisyan et al 2014 shows M269 STR variance is highest in eastern Anatolia and lowest in eastern Europe.

Herrera et al. 2012 shows L23 STR variance is highest around Armenia and lowest in eastern Europe.


So if you have any actual data backing your story share it with us.

Average variance over a whole haplogroup is what has previously been described on this thread as "vulgar mathematics". It will simply show the lowest variance in areas where recent expansion has been greatest, rather than where diversity is greatest at the basal level. To measure diversity meaningfully, it has to be calculated at the level of the precise SNP.

I am also a bit suspicious as to why Steppe samples have been excluded from both studies.

This thread (about a talk mainly on Bronze Age Iberia) isn't really the place to dump a lot of data on the subject of early M269. Especially as I find that invariably when I post results, either (i) no one replies and the thread dies a death, or (ii) people become hostile and claim my methodology is flawed without providing any alternative method or any evidence to refute or refine my own results. When you ask me whether I have any 'actual' data, I'm afraid I can sense hostility before I even go to the bother of posting it.

[Pip]

Whether less than a handful of samples (over a thousand years) represent a hidden population or, at most, a small number of isolated/local lineages remains to be seen. So far, other than methodologies and analyses others have claimed are nonstandard and faulty, there is little or no evidence for such a population.

That doesn't mean the samples couldn't be the tips of the proverbial iceberg, or they could just be scraps of ice (noise, not data).

OK, so what do the supposedly standard methodologies conclude about the genetic legacy of the El Portalon population? Do they refute my results?
Have they been tested? If not, then clearly they won't find any evidence. You cannot see unless you look. Some find it more comforting not to open their eyes.

There's too much focus on semantics here. You don't want to refer to the incoming El Portalon people as a 'wave', you're reluctant to term them as a 'population', you don't want to acknowledge the information about them as 'data' (instead preferring to write it off as 'noise' and 'scraps'). Perhaps it would be better to follow the approach in the Reich study and imagine they had never existed?

13 samples over 400 years is a frequency (one every ~31 years) that is an order of magnitude greater than three over 1,000 years (one every 333 years).

There are 8 pre-Bronze Age samples from El Portalon - the first 2 (EHG-heavy) of which span an estimated period of 295 years. The newcomers clearly didn't die out without leaving any descendants, when their DNA was still thriving 295 years later.

Why would you assume that incoming R1b Bell Beaker only mated with descendants of Iberian Neolthics, and somehow managed to distinguish people partly descended from the El Portalon newcomers and avoid mating with them?

And how do we know that this R1b Bell Beaker was not already partly admixed with El Portalon-like people (who shared M269 with it) before it arrived in Iberia?

[ToBeOrNotToBe]

Supposedly a lot of talk is going on about the original Iberian Bell Beakers not actually being true Bell Beakers at all, and that the package actually spread from East to West. Not sure how true that is as it would go against a lot of established thought, but it makes more sense to me than the current "pots not people" hypothesis.

According to Bernard:

"Well I am not sure that early Iberian Bell Beakers without steppe ancestry exist really. First, we have French and German Bell Beakers with early dates between 2800 and 2500 BC, second many Iberian Bell Beakers without steppe ancestry are said Bell Beaker only for their dating. They are not closely related to objects from the Bell Beaker package but only found in a collective grave with a few Bell beakers objects. I spoke with Lemercier in the beginning of January and he told me that for him many Iberian Bell Beakers from the Olalde paper are not real Bell Beakers."

This leaves two main possibilities: undiscovered L51 in the West Mediterranean where true BBs were pre-2800 BC if they existed at all, or BBs simply spread with Central European BB folk.

I think Jean Manco was correct all along with her stelae hypothesis (except in the association of these people to Yamnaya, as they fit Mikhaylovka I best).

[ToBeOrNotToBe]

The more I'm looking into all the main possibilities, the more I'm realising that Harvard and MP are either incompetent in their sampling or they just don't want to solve the mystery just yet. I'm betting for the latter.

[hrvclv]

When you ask me whether I have any 'actual' data, I'm afraid I can sense hostility before I even go to the bother of posting it.

No offence, Pip. But on this I would tend to agree with Saetrus.

You propose a number of hypotheses, and seem to feel quite confident in the results of your own computations.

If you have useful data, why not share them, or at least provide links?

If you have 'a method', could you please explain it out? We are amateurs, not specialists, and might not understand everything. But perhaps we might grasp at least the general idea and underlying logic.

It would greatly help us all understand, and accept.

[berun]

@tbontb, it's stepittis, they suffer a denial state, they need to link BB / R1b with IE, dates are not for that (oldest dates are in N Portugal at 2900 BC), and Iron Age R1b people was speaking no IE languages; it's quite funny to read about Basque women providing language to their IE husbands, or Iberian coming by boats. I'm waiting yet to hear about Atlanteans from the most desperate.

[Pip]

Supposedly a lot of talk is going on about the original Iberian Bell Beakers not actually being true Bell Beakers at all

This is just another attempt to deny evidence using semantics.

This leaves two main possibilities: undiscovered L51 in the West Mediterranean where true BBs were pre-2800 BC if they existed at all, or BBs simply spread with Central European BB folk.

Yes, both are possible. M269 (most likely L51) was already in a Northern Iberian pre-BB population circa 3,400 BC, so could have picked up BB there or been a part of the population that introduced it.

[Pip]

No offence, Pip. But on this I would tend to agree with Saetrus.

You propose a number of hypotheses, and seem to feel quite confident in the results of your own computations.

On some matters, I have confidence in the results, due to the quantity of relevant data. On other matters, I have little confidence, due to paucity of relevant data. On the two specific matters posted by Saetrus (M269 and L23 STR diversity), I have little confidence, as there are few samples available in their basal branches (at least, there were when I last looked). With downstream SNPs like L151 and certain basal branches of Z2103 the quantity of data permits significantly more confidence, pointing to France and Armenia respectively.

To simplify the method, if (i) there are two basal branches of a SNP (either two confirmed subclades or, in their absence, two clusters of samples set so as to maximise the inter-cluster STRs variance), and (ii) the maximum diversity within each branch (an iterative process) is sampled to a particular geographical area, then the most likely point of branching is determined as the area in which the areas of the two branches intersect, or if there is no intersection - the nearest possible point.

It is a long-winded, iterative process that often needs calculating a long way downstream, and working backwards.

It only yields a confident estimate if there are a lot of relevant samples and these samples all point in a similar direction.

[Pip]

it's quite funny to read about Basque women providing language to their IE husbands

Yes, but perhaps it's more credible to imagine Basque women providing language to the R1b sons of their IE 'husbands', especially if these husbands were absent for much of the time, perhaps engaging in warfare somewhere else.

I've posted previously about the difference in Basque autosomal DNA, suggesting that it fits with a substantially heavier proportion of El Portalon ancestry than other Spanish populations. As these populations were already close to Central European Bell Beaker, they might have assimilated with it more readily, and so CE BB might not have had such a need to impose their culture and language over it.

[hrvclv]

To simplify the method, if (i) there are two basal branches of a SNP (either two confirmed subclades or, in their absence, two clusters of samples set so as to maximise the inter-cluster STRs variance), and (ii) the maximum diversity within each branch (an iterative process) is sampled to a particular geographical area, then the most likely point of branching is determined as the area in which the areas of the two branches intersect, or if there is no intersection - the nearest possible point.

Makes sense (even to me!). Thanks for bothering to explain.

[Pip]

Makes sense (even to me!). Thanks for bothering to explain.

I find the results broadly match archaeological data, but sometimes help fill gaps in that data.

[halfalp]

Not to get overly religious, but mortal gods are not gods. They're just superheroes. Also I would be incredibly dubious about an R1b origin point in southern Poland, given the ancient preponderance of R1a and I2a in the region. However, this may explain the rapid expansion from a bottleneck of L51; my R1a Corded Ware ancestors pushed them out. Toughened them up. Turned them into the conquerors of the west they became.

I think it's gonna be very likely that L754 or at least P297 would come from at least part of Poland Late Swiderian and part of the Post-Swiderian Cultures. It's already established that Post-Swiderian Cultures are more Easternly shifted archeologically than Swiderian and we have datas from a PSC wich is Kunda Culture and already show some R1b's.

[markod]

Pip is unfortunately merely playing around with the supervised admixture runs done by Genetiker. It was explained to him by several people that this isn't a good approach.

[Pip]

Pip is unfortunately merely playing around with the supervised admixture runs done by Genetiker. It was explained to him by several people that this isn't a good approach.

People are very good at claiming what isn't a good approach. I note they are rather less good at making a positive contribution by providing any evidence to refute or refine my results using any other approaches.

The approach seems to work fine; its results appear entirely consistent with each other, with yDNA analysis and with archaeological evidence. I have also noted results from other approaches (using yDNA and mtDNA data), mostly ignored.

Let's see the genetic counter-evidence that other people might have:
1. Where is the evidence that the so-called 'Steppe' or 'Yamnayan' DNA in Bronze Age Iberia came from Yamnayans in the Steppe, rather than simply from Bell Beaker populations in neighbouring countries?
2. Where is the evidence that the EHG-heavy population found in 4th millennium BC El Portalon (and any populations connected to them) all died out without leaving a trace, rather than contributing to the Iberian autosomal mix?
3. Where is the evidence that the Iberian Chalcolithic El Portalon population containing R1b-M269 was unrelated to the Iberian Bronze Age population containing R1b-M269?

If there is any evidence, it would be interesting to see it.

[Pip]

I've just seen a published study pointing out the same thing https://www.pnas.org/content/112/38/11917 - "The El Portalón individuals showed the greatest genetic affinity to Basques". Perhaps as 'academics' have said it, it might now be worthy of consideration?

[CrazyDonkey]

OK, so what do the supposedly standard methodologies conclude about the genetic legacy of the El Portalon population? Do they refute my results?
Have they been tested? If not, then clearly they won't find any evidence. You cannot see unless you look. Some find it more comforting not to open their eyes.

There's too much focus on semantics here. You don't want to refer to the incoming El Portalon people as a 'wave', you're reluctant to term them as a 'population', you don't want to acknowledge the information about them as 'data' (instead preferring to write it off as 'noise' and 'scraps'). Perhaps it would be better to follow the approach in the Reich study and imagine they had never existed?


There are 8 pre-Bronze Age samples from El Portalon - the first 2 (EHG-heavy) of which span an estimated period of 295 years. The newcomers clearly didn't die out without leaving any descendants, when their DNA was still thriving 295 years later.

Why would you assume that incoming R1b Bell Beaker only mated with descendants of Iberian Neolthics, and somehow managed to distinguish people partly descended from the El Portalon newcomers and avoid mating with them?

And how do we know that this R1b Bell Beaker was not already partly admixed with El Portalon-like people (who shared M269 with it) before it arrived in Iberia?

Why be defensive? I've only said that others have claimed your methodology and analyses are flawed. They have. You bristled at them too, challenging them (like me) to prove you wrong. (One thing I've always enjoyed about Mallory is his willingness to openly acknowledge the weaknesses, or unanswered questions, in his own argument, bending over backwards, to show he's not stacking the deck - Mallory's critics are mostly mining Mallory.)

If there is a hidden early R1b population, it will show up as more samples become available. So far, it hasn't, it seems to me, but I'm not saying it won't, connecting the dots and bridging the gaps. I'm no expert, but am just trying to see through a glass darkly.

I've said that three samples within a millennium doesn't look like a "wave" to me. That isn't "semantics", but the use of a common word with a common meaning. Appearances can sometimes be deceptive, however.

[Pip]

Why be defensive? I've only said that others have claimed your methodology and analyses are flawed. They have. You bristled at them too, challenging them (like me) to prove you wrong. (One thing I've always enjoyed about Mallory is his willingness to openly acknowledge the weaknesses, or unanswered questions, in his own argument, bending over backwards, to show he's not stacking the deck - Mallory's critics are mostly mining Mallory.)

I have no point to prove, no career to protect, no peers to impress and no agenda. I'm not challenging anyone to prove me wrong; I'm simply asking people to show me any other evidence they have that demonstrates anything different. And I'm still waiting.

In fact, there's nothing much for me to be wrong about - all I am doing is calculating simple statistics based on readily available data. If the data I am using is inaccurate, what does the data that is accurate show if this is something different?

If there is a hidden early R1b population, it will show up as more samples become available. So far, it hasn't, it seems to me, but I'm not saying it won't, connecting the dots and bridging the gaps.

I'm not saying that there was an early 'R1b population' at El Portalon; in fact, we know that it comprised a mixture of yDNA haplogroups, of which R1b was merely one.

This population isn't 'hidden' at all - it provides us with 8 published samples. And it doesn't look at like these people all died out without a trace, as other ATP samples dated hundreds of years later have similar autosomal profiles to the early R1b-M269 one, and it is confirmed in an academic study that these ATP people show affinity to modern day Basques.

I've said that three samples within a millennium doesn't look like a "wave" to me. That isn't "semantics", but the use of a common word with a common meaning. Appearances can sometimes be deceptive, however.

I'm not really bothered whether it is called a wave or a ripple; it reflects a migration of people about which we have data, and to ignore it is irrational.

The Basque-speaking population of Spain represents only about 1.5% of its inhabitants. This doesn't mean to say we should treat it as 'noise' and exclude it from any analysis.

[halfalp]

Guys, early EHG migrations could also be linked with I2a2, not necessarly R1b. When you have a cline who says that M269 came from Iberia and another says that it came from Northeast Syria and another says it came from Chalcolithic Balkans. You can then deduce something is wrong somewhere. Probably let's wait for samples.

[Pip]

The evidence that there were two migrations into Iberia of autosomally-related (mixed Anatolian/EHG) populations containing R1b-M269 (one 4th millennium BC, one 3rd millennium BC) might provide an answer to both language questions. The first group of immigrants seem to have had a higher Anatolian:EHG ratio, and so coalesced around an Anatolian language ancestral to Basque; the second group seem to have had a lower Anatolian:EHG ratio, and so coalesced around a steppic Indo-European language.

[Ckapec]

Every time I scroll I get Why not start with your first post today and become an active part of Eupedia today!. Annoying.

[berun]

vade retro clickbait bot!

seriously, whichever bot can make an account here?

[Pip]

Associations:
Basques - 41% aDNA best fit El Portalon, 70% R1b-DF27
Spain (other) - 28% aDNA best fit El Portalon, 40% R1b-DF27
W Europe (other) - <25% aDNA best fit El Portalon, <25% R1b-DF27

The strongly positive correlations between El Portalon, R1b-DF27 and Basque-speaking would suggest that the earliest steppic (El Portalon) newcomers were most likely ancestral to the DF27 lineages predominant in modern Spain and were the people that introduced to Spain the language that was ancestral to Basque.

This is consistent with yfull's age estimates, which have even the earliest El Portalon sample (of unknown R1b-M269) falling within its confidence interval for DF27's TMRCA.

It also provides an explanation for why later Iberian females were more heavily steppic than the R1b males - Iberian DF27 was bringing in females derived from its more heavily steppic R1b-P312 relatives to the North.

[epoch]

I've just seen a published study pointing out the same thing https://www.pnas.org/content/112/38/11917 - "The El Portalón individuals showed the greatest genetic affinity to Basques". Perhaps as 'academics' have said it, it might now be worthy of consideration?

Basques were closer to El Portalón individuals (or equally close for Gok2) compared with all other early farmers

Next time read the paper itself, not just the intro.

By the way, to refute your model, have a look at the Sup Info figure S10. In the Treemix there are three samples with elevated ANE levels: Motala12, Ajvide58 and off course Mal'ta, being the definition of ANE. None are picked to be the admixture in ATP2. ANE is *the* marker of steppe admixture and *the* major part of EHG. Yet still, Treemix prefers a Loschbour admixture into ATP2.