I read it and it says "In conclusion, the Near East is the most likely ancestral homeland of U7." This articel says nothing about Germany and north of Europe but it just mentions some rare subclades of U7 in Mediterranean and Southeast Europe. Logically in 500 BC, people with Haplogroup U7 in Europe could be from nowhere except Iran, look at the map of U7:
Yeah, but you are ignoring the abstract and the conclusions within as they pertain to the U7 in Near East and Europe:
Human mitochondrial DNA haplogroup U is among the initial maternal founders in Southwest Asia and Europe and one that best indicates matrilineal genetic continuity between late Pleistocene hunter-gatherer groups and present-day populations of Europe. While most haplogroup U subclades are older than 30 thousand years, the comparatively recent coalescence time of the extant variation of haplogroup U7 (~16–19 thousand years ago) suggests that its current distribution is the consequence of more recent dispersal events, despite its wide geographical range across Europe, the Near East and South Asia. Here we report 267 new U7 mitogenomes that – analysed alongside 100 published ones – enable us to discern at least two distinct temporal phases of dispersal, both of which most likely emanated from the Near East. The earlier one began prior to the Holocene (~11.5 thousand years ago) towards South Asia, while the later dispersal took place more recently towards Mediterranean Europe during the Neolithic (~8 thousand years ago).These findings imply that the carriers of haplogroup U7 spread to South Asia and Europe before the suggested Bronze Age expansion of Indo-European languages from the Pontic-Caspian Steppe region.
I will also quote:
In conclusion, the Near East is the most likely ancestral homeland of U7. Our analyses reveal two temporally and geographically distinct signals of U7 expansion that disseminated from this region. The first signal dates shortly after the LGM and this dispersal is responsible for the spread of U7 towards South and Central Asia prior to the Holocene, while the more recent expansion explains its spread in Mediterranean Europe most probably during the early Holocene. These dispersals of hg U7 towards South Asia and Europe preclude any major association of U7 with the putative Bronze Age expansion of the Indo-European language family to these regions.
Do you see what they are saying? They are saying that there are two distinct phases of dispersal, both of which come from the Near East, the earlier one headed toward South Asia 11.5kya and the second one dispersed into the Mediterranean area during the Neolithic 8000 years ago. This is all far older than Indo-Europeans and their migrations during the early stages of the Bronze Age and would seem to fit better with the spread of farming, and we know that farming likely spread out of the Near East. The study discusses these lineages in the context of the spread of farming.
I'm not saying that U7 didn't originate in the Near East, my point is that U7 originated and spread far earlier than Indo-European groups. This is why we must look to the Neolithic and try to understand the population movements and the events leading up to the Iron Age and beyond. You are also ignoring the fact that U7 is practically absent in Europe today, again phylogeny of these U7 haplogroups matter and this is what the study touched on. Besides the Iron Age samples you cite again are Iron Age Hallstatt, Hallstatt was not likely to be Germanic, now was it? How refined were the mtDNA haplogroup calls (was there enough quality genetic material left for in-depth haplogroup analysis) for these princely burials in the south of Germany? We see several Neolithic Farmer associated lineages (both Y-DNA and mtDNA) holding on in post-Bronze Age Europe, to conclude that U7 is a sign of migration from Indo-European speakers from Iran is not viable when the dispersals of U7
"preclude any major association of U7 with the putative Bronze Age expansion of the Indo-European language family".
Logically in 500 BC, people with Haplogroup U7 in Europe could be from nowhere except Iran
No, logically people in 500 BC with this haplogroup would more than likely descend from Neolithic Farmer populations, especially considering the data from this paper I've linked.
This is why you can't ignore everything before the Iron Age and how it pertains to the ethnogenesis of Germanic in Europe, because the culture most likely to be associated with proto-Germanic, Jastorf, shows a direct link to the Nordic Bronze Age. If we see (
refer to Eurogenes posts shared earlier by Northener) no major population change (admixture change) in Northern Europe from the Late Neolithic to the Bronze Age that is very telling that there was no Indo-European proto-Germanic migration from Iran, all signs point to proto-Germanic being a development out of Northern Europe.
I should add, the similarities we see in mythology between Indo-European people is simply that, similarities because they are rooted in a common Indo-European ancestral mythology. All Indo-European groups have similar mythos like Divine Twins or Horse Twins, Sky Gods, Storm Gods, etc.
