10/25 R1b-V88 in ancient Sardinia

[IceMummy]

Hi guys,

exciting new evidence for the origin and spread of R1b-V88 (now mainly prevalent in Central Africa and different from the West European R1b-296), from the analysis of Sardinian aDNA. Cannot post the link but google for "Population history from the Neolithic to present on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia: An ancient DNA perspective", Marcus et. al).

They found 10/25 R1b-V88 in ancient Sardinians from the Neolithic (5th millenium BC) to the Nuragic (2nd millenium BCE), and that these Sardinians seem to trace back to western Mediterranean EEF.

Especially interesting is their Y supplement, they reanalyzed the aDNA of Europe so far for V88s (V2197 is the sub-clade that is found in Africa). Check out their map with ages and places of V88 finds so far - interesting stuff (cannot link as of now...)!

They discuss that V88 arose in the Balkans and somewhere near as early as 12k years ago (they find it to be pretty basal there), and then became associated with EEF spread into Western Mediterranean, and maybe made it to Africa via Green Sahara.

I hope these aDNA guys provide us some Green Sahara individuals in the future, that story is about to get interesting.

[bicicleur]

R1b-V88 and I2a-Z161 are the 2 Mesolithic Iron Gate clades, indeed since abt 12 ka
they met with farmers abt 8.2 ka, but remained HG for centuries
R1b-V88 expanded ca 7.5 ka with Cardial Ware to Sardegna and Iberia (7.3 ka Els Trocs) except for Y8447 who went into the Green Sahara
some I2a-Z161 followed the same track into neolithic Iberia

[bicicleur]

R1b-V88 and I2a-Z161 are the 2 Mesolithic Iron Gate clades, indeed since abt 12 ka
they met with farmers abt 8.2 ka, but remained HG for centuries
R1b-V88 expanded ca 7.5 ka with Cardial Ware to Sardegna and Iberia (7.3 ka Els Trocs) except for Y8447 who went into the Green Sahara
some I2a-Z161 followed the same track into neolithic Iberia

FYI, V2197 is under Y8451 in YFull :
https://www.yfull.com/tree/R-Y8451/

[O Neill]

Interesting that key places listed here of the levent to sardinia to spain betweeen 12 and 8 Ka,
Mirrors the movements of people who supposedly HG R did not reach for another 5500 years ?

I think this back up what i have suggested quite nicely that they had ships in the Mesolithic and that Hg R was apparently good mates with HG I.
They both arrived in the first wave and spread west to east with all there advanced technology.

See, the boat ride from the near east to britain is the starting point it all branches out from that trade route between 12 - 8 ka.
There a boat people folks :)

[Angela]

R1b-V88 and I2a-Z161 are the 2 Mesolithic Iron Gate clades, indeed since abt 12 ka
they met with farmers abt 8.2 ka, but remained HG for centuries
R1b-V88 expanded ca 7.5 ka with Cardial Ware to Sardegna and Iberia (7.3 ka Els Trocs) except for Y8447 who went into the Green Sahara
some I2a-Z161 followed the same track into neolithic Iberia

Amazing, that. I wonder which group went there and what route they took.

[IceMummy]

See, the boat ride from the near east to britain is the starting point it all branches out from that trade route between 12 - 8 ka.
There a boat people folks :)

These "boat folks" are probably the Cardial Ware cultures (see wikipedia), who expanded within few hundred years 5500 years BCE across the whole Western Mediterranean, origin not known for sure (but likely Balkans as these findings suggest and also archeology). Archeologists think that this rapid and coastal spread could have only be achieved by maritime routes. This branch of EEF likely also reached North Africa. The question is when and where it made it into the Sahara - still green at this time.

As usual: Need more ancient individuals

[markod]

If there was a migration from Europe, we'd find Megalithic haplogroups in Africa - but we don't.

The suggestion of Shriner (2018) of V88 in Chad and Sudan as recent (300-500 years ago) Baggara introgression seems more realistic.

A more interesting question would be how V88 expanded in West Asia.

[berun]

indeed there are, megaliths at least,

https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djebel_Gorra

[IceMummy]

If there was a migration from Europe, we'd find Megalithic haplogroups in Africa - but we don't.

The suggestion of Shriner (2018) of V88 in Chad and Sudan as recent (300-500 years ago) Baggara introgression seems more realistic.

A more interesting question would be how V88 expanded in West Asia.

Ahm since only the Sardinian/Iberian V88-subbranch (V2197) is basal to the African V88, that kind of narrows down geographic path? In aDNA, V2197 is not found anywhere east of Sardinia as of now (Italian Cardial Ware is undersampled as of now though).

Since V2197 became rare in nowadays Sardinians (<5 %), and found nowhere else in Europe, it seems like it must have been an older gene flow. Check out https://genomebiology.biomedcentral....059-018-1393-5 for the clades.

[markod]

Ahm since only the Sardinian/Iberian V88-subbranch (V2197) is basal to the African V88, that kind of narrows down geographic path? In aDNA, V2197 is not found anywhere east of Sardinia as of now (Italian Cardial Ware is undersampled as of now though).

Since V2197 became rare in nowadays Sardinians (<5 %), and found nowhere else in Europe, it seems like it must have been an older gene flow. Check out https://genomebiology.biomedcentral....059-018-1393-5 for the clades.

There are plenty Arabs under V2197/Y8451. It doesn't occur in Sahel populations without recent Arabian ancestry.

[IceMummy]

There are plenty Arabs under V2197/Y8451. It doesn't occur in Sahel populations without recent Arabian ancestry.

But then the questions remain, how did V2197 get from the Western Mediterranean to Arabs, why is it at much higher frequency in C. Africa than Arabs (if it was recent gene flow drift seems implausible) and why are the inferred coalescence ages of the African V88 clades long before Arab expansions?

Green Sahara samples will hopefully show one day what's up

[Megalophias]

If there was a migration from Europe, we'd find Megalithic haplogroups in Africa - but we don't.

The suggestion of Shriner (2018) of V88 in Chad and Sudan as recent (300-500 years ago) Baggara introgression seems more realistic.

You think Arabs transmitting large amounts of diverse R1b-V88 to Central Africa at much higher proportions than J1 or other characteristic hgs is more realistic than a Neolithic founder effect?

[markod]

But then the questions remain, how did V2197 get from the Western Mediterranean to Arabs, why is it at much higher frequency in C. Africa than Arabs (if it was recent gene flow drift seems implausible) and why are the inferred coalescence ages of the African V88 clades long before Arab expansions?

Green Sahara samples will hopefully show one day what's up

V2197/Y8451 arose in the early Neolithic, so there's no real necessity to posit a complex migration.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but most Africans fall under Bronze Age V69 that they share with Arabs.

[ToBeOrNotToBe]

V2197/Y8451 arose in the early Neolithic, so there's no real necessity to posit a complex migration.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but most Africans fall under Bronze Age V69 that they share with Arabs.

It obviously isn't directly from Arabs, there would be way more Y DNA J.

[markod]

It obviously isn't directly from Arabs, there would be way more Y DNA J.

It depends on which Arabic population took control of the region. While they were probably not involved in the wider Arab expansions, there are for example the Jordan Valley Arabs who reportedly only have 9% J1 but 40% R1b. Baggara Arabs don't have that much J1 either to my knowledge, and instead have lots of T.
The issue of Y-DNA replacement in the Sahel js illustrated by Nilo-Saharan Daza who have 45% T, 35% R1b and 5% J with only very few SSA lineages.

I believe that Neolithic material around lake Chad (where we see the highest concentration of V88) only appears around 1500 BC. Purportedly Arabic speaking nomads later introduced iron around 500 BC. That doesn't leave much space for Mediterranean founders from the Middle Neolithic IMHO.

Chadic speakers seem to be autosomally similar to Nilo-Saharans, differentiated by gene flow from North Africans and Arabs reported in Shriner (2018) - the former I'd associate with the introduction of the Afro-Asiatic language and the latter with Y-DNA replacement. North-East African V88 appears to be basal to the SSA lineages, and I'm pretty confident the southern Levantine R1b will be found to be basal as well.

[IceMummy]

I believe that Neolithic material around lake Chad (where we see the highest concentration of V88) only appears around 1500 BC. .

Actually there is direct archeological evidence since 5th millennium BCE, including cattle and pottery - which would all line up with the Mediterranean EEF hypothesis for V88: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerian_culture

I hope they get aDNA from there eventually. Word is they are trying, but were not successful by now.

[bicicleur]

There are plenty Arabs under V2197/Y8451. It doesn't occur in Sahel populations without recent Arabian ancestry.

and what about the Hausa/Fulani tribes?

[bicicleur]

Amazing, that. I wonder which group went there and what route they took.

very little is known

I would guess south along the Nile till 1st/2nd cataract and then west through the Green Sahara to Lake Chad which expanded to 400.000 km² then.
The northern part of the 'Green Sahara' was not as green as the southern part.

[Megalophias]

The Dead Sea sample in Jordan, from Flore et al 2005, was only 45 samples. And they had 31% E-M34 too. I'd guess it's R1b-FGC20973, which contains the Jewish R1b-V88 branch, but who knows.

I haven't seen any good Central African Arab samples. Trombetta has n=6. Bonnie Schrack provided STR prediction data from Northern Cameroon:
Arabs (n=181) - 17% A3b2, 4% probably B, 8% E1b1a, 14% other E, 22% J, 32% R1b, and 3% possibly T.
For comparison Kanuri (n=55) had 7% J and 47% R1b; Toupouri (n=40) had no J and 63% R1b; and Kotoko (n=356) had 3% J and 48% R1b.

The Arabs are broadly similar to other groups but distinguished, not surprisingly, by a much higher frequency of J.

Further west, Sudanese Arabs (n=102) from Hassan et al (2008) had 45% J(xJ2) and 17% R1b.

I don't know that Northeast African R1b-V88 is basal to Sub-Saharan, though it is quite diverse in Egypt. The most basal member of R1b-Y8447 on the YFull tree is from Benin.

[bicicleur]

FGC20973 is Jewish?
ok, that explains a lot
it is the only subclade of Y8451 outside northern africa or arabia
this is definitely the Green Sahara subclade, with TMRCA 7.4 ka
and all other V88 sublcades are Cardial Ware

[markod]

Actually there is direct archeological evidence since 5th millennium BCE, including cattle and pottery - which would all line up with the Mediterranean EEF hypothesis for V88: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenerian_culture

I hope they get aDNA from there eventually. Word is they are trying, but were not successful by now.

There's a complete absence of material until the middle of the second millennium BC, when the Gajiganna Neolithic appears. These people as you would expect are extremely tall and have West Arican/Nilotic morphologies. They settled the region, so for V88 to be local they need to have had it already, otherwise it's an Iron Age to Medieval introgression. I strongly doubt they did, because there's no discernible correlation between haplogroups and language. An Ojibwe dynamic between Neolithic population and an invading Iron Age one seems more likely.

V69 implies that there must have been a post-Neolithic movement. Africa-> Arabia or Arabia -> Africa.

[Megalophias]

So is it Shriner's Arabs 300 years ago or an Iron Age population 2500 years ago? Why on earth shouldn't Gajiganna people have had R1b-V88 brought across the Green Sahara?

[Govan]

What is Gajigana?.
I have two hypothesis for RV88.
Scenario 1 : EEF people in the Maghreb received two Afro-Asiatic languages (Berber AND Chadic).
Those North African Chadic speakers carrying a good chunk of RV88 and moved down the Green Sahara.
Scenario 2 : Proto-Chadic received RV88 from an Eastern migration i.e Neoltihic Levant.
I am so uneasy with that Arab theory. Arabs without any J1 input? Freaky weird. It's a 3rd scenario but uneasy really.

[markod]

So is it Shriner's Arabs 300 years ago or an Iron Age population 2500 years ago? Why on earth shouldn't Gajiganna people have had R1b-V88 brought across the Green Sahara?

I don't know. I suppose the dynamic would have been the same. There's also the weird case of the NS Daza with 45% T and litttle J1. What's the explanation for this if not late introgression? Admittedly the pattern is weird, and late introgression requires strong founder effects.

Afaik there's no V88 in NS groups that were not heavily influenced by Arabs (in Nubians the J1/R1b ratio is what you'd expect from Arabic influence) outside of the region. So I'm inclined to believe V88 introgression post-dates the expansion. Songhai are both genetically and linguistically close to the Saharians - no or little R1b.

[Megalophias]

If Nilo-Saharan is a real family at all it's surely much older than the arrival of R1b-V88, whether that was Neolithic or later. Arab influence covers an enormous area, it's bound to overlap with all kinds of stuff. Where Arabs came we do see obviously Arab Y haplogroups.

What kind of T do the Toubou have? It may well be a recent founder effect, but then we expect it to be one branch which has become very common, not a high frequency of many branches dating back 5000 years.