Preview: Upcoming Ancient Greek Transect (Mesolithic to Medieval) from Biomuse.

[torzio]

isn't the samples of Log 02 and Log 04 from coastal Greece Thessaly, between Katerini and Volos ?....................IIRC, they also originate from northern Asia Minor

[Dianatomia]

@Dianatomia, can you provide me with a link?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31cb-uAqZXk

[Dianatomia]

isn't the samples of Log 02 and Log 04 from coastal Greece Thessaly, between Katerini and Volos ?....................IIRC, they also originate from northern Asia Minor

No they are inland samples north of Trikala. The place is quite isolated from the coast. You would need to cross a mountain range to reach the Aegaen. Without a modern road system, it would take a Bronze Age traveler 3 days to reach the Sea.

[Dianatomia]

I believe the biggest contributors of E-V13 in Greece are the “Roman” citizens of Thrace, Macedonia, and Epirus (Vetus+Nova) + Albanians and Vlachs. Those people we later simply called Slavs/Bulgarians were initially mostly Vlachs under the influence of the Bulgarian Church and weren’t yet fully assimilated.

I doubt 6th-9th century actual Slavs (not Slavic subjects) carried that much E-V13. Even Medieval Serbia and Bosnia were flooded with Vlachs up to the 15-16th century.

We should take note that the Byzantine specimen predates the Crusades, the Albanian, Serbian and Ottoman rule of Epirus. And still overlaps with the modern Greeks of the region.
E-V13 decreases in Slavic as well as Vlach populations in comparison to Greeks and Albanians.

[Hawk]

We should take note that the Byzantine specimen predates the Crusades, the Albanian, Serbian and Ottoman rule of Epirus. And still overlaps with the modern Greeks of the region.
E-V13 decreases in Slavic as well as Vlach populations in comparison to Greeks and Albanians.

You mean there is a Byzantine specimen with E-V13?

[Ralphie Boy]

You mean there is a Byzantine specimen with E-V13?

Is this the Doliani result that clusters with modern Greeks (possibly Macedonians from Lazaridis Mycenaean study)? I don’t think the samples in this thread have uni-parental results, unless I missed something.

[Dianatomia]

You mean there is a Byzantine specimen with E-V13?

No, I don't know the haplogroup of Doliani. What I wrote about E-V13 was a sidenote. My point was that Doliani predates Albanian, Serbian and Ottoman rule in Epirus and this specimen STILL overlaps with North Greeks and Albanians. If this Byzantine individual overlaps with modern Greeks, then whoever brought E-V13 must have settled in the region before the 13th century A.D.. The Vlachs were there before the Doliani specimen, but on average they have lower levels of E-V13 than Greeks. So do the Slavonic people.

[ihype02]

No, I don't know the haplogroup of Doliani. What I wrote about E-V13 was a sidenote. My point was that Doliani predates Albanian, Serbian and Ottoman rule in Epirus and this specimen STILL overlaps with North Greeks and Albanians. If this Byzantine individual overlaps with modern Greeks, then whoever brought E-V13 must have settled in the region before the 12th century A.D.. The Vlachs were there before the Doliani specimen, but on average they have lower levels of E-V13 than Greeks. So do the Slavonic people.

Arvanite autosomal impact goes mostly undetected because Arvanites overlapped with most mainlanders. However Arvanite colonies probably gave it bust in Peloponnese making it look more "hardcore".The genetic ethnogenesis of Mainlanders was largely formed before Vlachs and Albanians settled there as there are regions with no historical Arvanite or Vlach population in mainland that plots like other mainlanders.Also some recent papers have really suprised us all. So ...

[bigsnake49]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31cb-uAqZXk

Thanks, I will watch it right now.

[Jovialis]

With so little steppe DNA, I think this lends some more weight to Anatolian_N bringing some light features, in addition to light skin.

From the new pre-print on Stone Age Eurasia.

Razib Khans opinion on this preprint:
https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2022/...-of-the-danes/

The comments are also interesting.

7 – They find that dark hair and skin in Europeans seems correlated with WHG ancestry. This seems to confirm that the WHG were indeed dark of hair and eye. They find that lighter skin/hair really seems to come with Anatolian farmers and Yamnaya. Not the hunter-gatherers. Though selection does start earlier. They assert this has something to do with UV/Vitamin D, but if that, why were the HG groups dark? (if blue-eyed in the case of WHG) I think the explanation is some interaction with the agro-pastoralist lifestyle.

Helps to explain fair features in the Ancient Greeks, like the blonde haired, blue-eyed Spartan.

[PaleoRevenge]

No, I don't know the haplogroup of Doliani. What I wrote about E-V13 was a sidenote. My point was that Doliani predates Albanian, Serbian and Ottoman rule in Epirus and this specimen STILL overlaps with North Greeks and Albanians. If this Byzantine individual overlaps with modern Greeks, then whoever brought E-V13 must have settled in the region before the 13th century A.D.. The Vlachs were there before the Doliani specimen, but on average they have lower levels of E-V13 than Greeks. So do the Slavonic people.

The Doliani is from the time of the Albanian migration and Serbian invasion (1300-1400). He cannot be Albanian because Zagori was a stronghold of the Greeks, part of the reason Ionnina did not fall, while the rest of Epirus was overrun. And the manner of his death, probably as a consequence of Albanian raids.

[enter_tain]

From the new pre-print on Stone Age Eurasia.



7 – They find that dark hair and skin in Europeans seems correlated with WHG ancestry. This seems to confirm that the WHG were indeed dark of hair and eye. They find that lighter skin/hair really seems to come with Anatolian farmers and Yamnaya. Not the hunter-gatherers. Though selection does start earlier. They assert this has something to do with UV/Vitamin D, but if that, why were the HG groups dark? (if blue-eyed in the case of WHG) I think the explanation is some interaction with the agro-pastoralist lifestyle.

Helps to explain fair features in the Ancient Greeks, like the blonde haired, blue-eyed Spartan.

I think pinning down these lighter features to just WHG/EEF/Steppe ratios is a waste of time tbh. I think they are more associated with more modern groups rather than ancient.

In modern Europe most of these features are strongly associated with Germanic-inhabited areas (especially blonde hair). Where Germanic people lived/mixed with is the highest occurence. Obviously, it's not just that, but anything more than 10-20% occurence, is probably linked to it.

[Ailchu]

From the new pre-print on Stone Age Eurasia.



7 – They find that dark hair and skin in Europeans seems correlated with WHG ancestry. This seems to confirm that the WHG were indeed dark of hair and eye. They find that lighter skin/hair really seems to come with Anatolian farmers and Yamnaya. Not the hunter-gatherers. Though selection does start earlier. They assert this has something to do with UV/Vitamin D, but if that, why were the HG groups dark? (if blue-eyed in the case of WHG) I think the explanation is some interaction with the agro-pastoralist lifestyle.

Helps to explain fair features in the Ancient Greeks, like the blonde haired, blue-eyed Spartan.

because HG's had more Vitamin D in their diet. i thought that was already a well known theory, strange that Razib Khan didn't hear that one before. there is no other place in the world where the climate is warm enough for agriculture in such high latitudes as we see it in europe.

[Doggerland]

because HG's had more Vitamin D in their diet. i thought that was already a well known theory, strange that Razib Khan didn't hear that one before. there is no other place in the world where the climate is warm enough for agriculture in such high latitudes as we see it in europe.

Malnutrition was a common problem in Mesolithic Europe. Many skeletons displayed signs of rickets(Lack of Vitamin D) like bone deformation.
Also Vitamin C deficiency was a common problem.
Vitamin D is rare in the most species of animals. The ones that have enough are European Eel, Sardines, Mackerel, Trout, Salmon, Herring, Mussels/Clams and related species. This may explain why there was so much aqua protein in the diet of many Mesolithic individuals. And don’t forget the shell middens everywhere in Europe.

You will find malnutrition in nearly all primitive living societies today. The people where not smart enough to understand nutrition and the science behind it. How could they?
And they also suffered from parasites, which made it harder to get nutrients.
They often did not know that some kinds of food like plants or raw eggs are blocking the body from absorbing specific nutrients and they suffered.

7 – They find that dark hair and skin in Europeans seems correlated with WHG ancestry. This seems to confirm that the WHG were indeed dark of hair and eye. They find that lighter skin/hair really seems to come with Anatolian farmers and Yamnaya. Not the hunter-gatherers. Though selection does start earlier.

Their claiming is simple not true. Light skin and hair causing alleles are found in Pitted Ware, Maglemose period samples, Azilians, Loschbour and also Mesolithic Italy. The samples with really dark skin comparable to Sub Sahran Africans and dark hair are for example Kostenki, Sunghir, some Baltic HGs, Ertebölle, Ust Ishim, Kostenki and Neanderthals/Denisvovans.

A species is in most cases co-evolving in the same region and unique traits will pop up in some individuals from time to time and will be selected positively, if they are advanced.
In all European populations from the Mesolithic till today, light hair, skin and eyes where positively selected. Regardless of EHG, WHG, CHG or ANF ancestry.
There are light skinned individuals from Cucuteni(Also blonde hair), Michelsberg, Funnel Beaker, Neolithic Ireland, but also very dark skinned ones from the western Linear Pottery and Stroke Ornament Pottery.

I think the researchers are often too lazy to use enough samples and search for the SNPs, which leads to this kind of claiming and then turn into stupid mass media articles, becoming folklore and fan-fiction:

https://i.redd.it/1wq6l7g39jg31.jpg

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/8e/b7/a6/8...a8a8ef8018.jpg

https://d.newsweek.com/en/full/682348/sunghir.png

Laboratory Mouse breeding is a roughly 300 years old business, mice have a fast life cycle and reproduce very fast. Mutations in the gene regions that are also very similar in humans have been often observed and they popped up in different labs and breeding sheds around the world. They are used as model organisms for human genetic diseases. There where also different mutations for the same trait like red hair or lighter coat color, forms of albinism, curly hair, silky hair etc. But this is only possible, because the laboratory mice have a very large population with many small inbreeding clusters. Some mutations are the result of a radioactive or chemical provocation.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/20/7c...d72f1d4fa0.jpg

Some of this mutations are a result of viral integration, viruses integrated their DNA in the mouse genome. The same happened in humans too. Viruses are also part of the human evolution.

Mouse example:

http://www.informatics.jax.org/allele/key/14

Maybe the emergence of some light hair, eye or skin alleles is linked to a specific virus common in Europe, who knows. I don’t know of any research was done about this possibility.

What I finally want to say: I don't believe that traits like blue eyes, blonde hair or light skin color, are the product of one of the fictional European races hobby anthropologists created based on ancestry markers. We had the discussion also in another thread about those traits. Allele values of modern populations on NCBI showed, that for example blonde hair in Scandinavians cannot be explained by only the Afontova Gora/Steppe variant, because too few people carry it. For Blonde hair you need at least 3 variants to be present.

Either you assume all populations contributed the different alleles, or the winning population/Superior Warriors later developed the alleles of the other populations themselves (which I think is unrealistic)

[Ailchu]

Malnutrition was a common problem in Mesolithic Europe. Many skeletons displayed signs of rickets(Lack of Vitamin D) like bone deformation.
Also Vitamin C deficiency was a common problem.
Vitamin D is rare in the most species of animals. The ones that have enough are European Eel, Sardines, Mackerel, Trout, Salmon, Herring, Mussels/Clams and related species. This may explain why there was so much aqua protein in the diet of many Mesolithic individuals. And don’t forget the shell middens everywhere in Europe.

there is also Vitamin D3 in other meat sources not just fish. it's a lot less than in certain fish but still a lot more than in plants. perhaps this also helped Hunter Gatherers to get enough VitaminD3. at least enough so that a slection for lighter skin wasn't really beneficial.

Maybe the emergence of some light hair, eye or skin alleles is linked to a specific virus common in Europe, who knows. I don’t know of any research was done about this possibility.

imo alleles for light hair, eye, skin have been present in most westeurasian populations for quite some time but they were only positively selected in HG's far in the north of europe like for example in SHG's and then afterwards because farming populations moved further north, which was only possible in europe because of the gulf stream, and in those farming populations the selection already started further south.


you can see that in modern westeurasian populations even in very sunny regions where most of the adults are dark haired, a lot of the children have lighter hair. the hair of the adults is also most of the time not real black but dark brown indicating that there are hair lightening alleles present.

[Constantine]

You know these guys seem to eat an extraordinary amount of meat and animal products, and a surprisingly low amount of fruits and vegetables.

I would guess that's a function of an economy based on herding--much like the more modern Mongolians. A mountainous country with relatively less area for large-scale agriculture in times when supply-chain infrastructure was more primitive. The Med was not always safe either. Pirates, etc. There must have been a greater concentration of people living in the hills.

[Philjames100]

Light skin and hair causing alleles are found in Pitted Ware, Maglemose period samples, Azilians, Loschbour and also Mesolithic Italy.

Do you have any more information on that?

[ihype02]

Eye-popping amount of J2a-L70 in Kalymnos. That haplogroup is in my bloodline, confirmed through a relative (sub-clade unknown, unfortunately).
The Roman Balkans study shows that much E-V13 was found in the Balkans, before the Slavs arrived. Certainly Slavs who incorporated local people could have helped spread some around. That study argues for rapid assimilation of Balkans locals with Slavs, who brought a new “Northeastern” ancestry signal, which is weaker in mainland Greece.

J2a-L790 seems to be an Ancient Greek line.

[Menachem]

From the new pre-print on Stone Age Eurasia.



7 – They find that dark hair and skin in Europeans seems correlated with WHG ancestry. This seems to confirm that the WHG were indeed dark of hair and eye. They find that lighter skin/hair really seems to come with Anatolian farmers and Yamnaya. Not the hunter-gatherers. Though selection does start earlier. They assert this has something to do with UV/Vitamin D, but if that, why were the HG groups dark? (if blue-eyed in the case of WHG) I think the explanation is some interaction with the agro-pastoralist lifestyle.

Helps to explain fair features in the Ancient Greeks, like the blonde haired, blue-eyed Spartan.

Why would the Spartans be more light pigmented than other Greeks? It seems very clear to me that even as the Steppe component was “diluted” so-to-speak, there was continued selection for eg blondism alleles at a disproportionate rate amongst the elites (these elites being of the lineage going back to less “diluted” proto-Greeks etcetera). When there would be disruption to this caste-like phenomenon typical of Indo-Europeans, these selective alleles of blondism that have progenerated would be mixed into the wider gene pool which, of course, was by and large brunette. The Spartans were more blonde because they were of a stock which maintained this caste-like system more strongly.

[Menachem]

As for the Anatolian blondism, I think that’s a separate issue. The fact that there was substructure within the ancient Greeks and the nature of it shows the blondism was not derived directly from this source. I would imagine the Anatolian blondism is because they were the first farmers, before Levantine and Iranian farmers by probably several thousand years. Not only this but they appear to have been more strictly agricultural as opposed to say Levantines who maintained their hunting tradition more prominently. And then from this the need for Vitamin D leads to selection for depigmentation.

[Menachem]

Why would the Spartans be more light pigmented than other Greeks? It seems very clear to me that even as the Steppe component was “diluted” so-to-speak, there was continued selection for eg blondism alleles at a disproportionate rate amongst the elites (these elites being of the lineage going back to less “diluted” proto-Greeks etcetera). When there would be disruption to this caste-like phenomenon typical of Indo-Europeans, these selective alleles of blondism that have progenerated would be mixed into the wider gene pool which, of course, was by and large brunette. The Spartans were more blonde because they were of a stock which maintained this caste-like system more strongly.

Anyway that’s how you get blonde Iron Age Greeks with mostly Mediterranean genetics.

[Jovialis]

Why would the Spartans be more light pigmented than other Greeks? It seems very clear to me that even as the Steppe component was “diluted” so-to-speak, there was continued selection for eg blondism alleles at a disproportionate rate amongst the elites (these elites being of the lineage going back to less “diluted” proto-Greeks etcetera). When there would be disruption to this caste-like phenomenon typical of Indo-Europeans, these selective alleles of blondism that have progenerated would be mixed into the wider gene pool which, of course, was by and large brunette. The Spartans were more blonde because they were of a stock which maintained this caste-like system more strongly.

I didn't imply other Greeks were different from Spartans. I was just referring to the specific Spartan sample that has those features.

[MOESAN]

Have we sufficient samples of sufficient size with sufficient alleles to discuss so seriously of pigmentation of anient pop's? I think: no, todate.

[Dorian9]

Why would the Spartans be more light pigmented than other Greeks? It seems very clear to me that even as the Steppe component was “diluted” so-to-speak, there was continued selection for eg blondism alleles at a disproportionate rate amongst the elites (these elites being of the lineage going back to less “diluted” proto-Greeks etcetera). When there would be disruption to this caste-like phenomenon typical of Indo-Europeans, these selective alleles of blondism that have progenerated would be mixed into the wider gene pool which, of course, was by and large brunette. The Spartans were more blonde because they were of a stock which maintained this caste-like system more strongly.

Why would they "select" for something that IEs themselves didn't massively select?as far as I know they weren't some kind of modern-N. European like pop phenotypically..
There's no need for selection ,from the point that a supposedly very light looking or light-allele carrying population mixes with a non-light one the first "exports" light alleles to the new genepool and through mostly recombination the light traits reappears here and there ,the autosomal ratios don't matter..given a large sample size only how many carry these alleles matters which can also give a rough estimate of how many have the traits expressed too.And the smaller the founding/starting population is and the more endogamous it is,the easier it is for the alleles frequency to be increased so the more that will have them expressed as well.
They can come from the farmer side as much as they can from the steppe component or both.Remember ,back then the population sizes and the mating choices were different.

[Angela]

Have we sufficient samples of sufficient size with sufficient alleles to discuss so seriously of pigmentation of anient pop's? I think: no, todate.

If you're talking about EEF type samples and steppe samples, yes, we do, imo. We have dozens and dozens, and the patterns are clear.

Autosomal dna is not like ydna. You don't need thousands and thousands of samples to see the patterns.