Genetic History of Anatolia during Holocene

[enter_tain]

Jovialis, you're conflating 40 different things there.

(1) Iron Age Spartans are Dorians who migrated from the north. These people were genetically originally closer to Illyrians. All Macedonians (archaic Dorians?) are identical to Illyrians so far.

(2) The whole point of that Greek paper was to show that Greeks had mercenaries. You had people from the Baltic, Northern Illyria and even the Caucauses. How are you using that as a representation for what Greeks were?

The people of Attic/Ionic Greece were Aegean people, very similar to Minoans and Anatolians.

 

[enter_tain]

I am NOT going to go down the rabbit hole once again with Northern Europeans determined to believe that steppe people were blonde and brought blondism to the west. Believe what you want.

However, it just isn't true.

The steppe people were NOT blonde. We've had study after study showing they were predominantly dark haired and eyed and not particularly light skinned either. Catacomb people, in particular, were darker than ANY modern Europeans, to quote the author of the study. Do we really have to keep posting the study to prove it, or the one which shows that regardless of where blonde hair can be found in isolated areas in the past, the blonde hair and fair skin carried and spread by ADMIXED people like Corded Ware can be found on the NEOLITHIC EUROPEAN part of the genome, and were obviously therefore picked up from people of cultures like Globulara Amphora.

Look the papers up and read them again, for God's sake.

This is just one of those wrong-headed ideas which Northern Europeans and even some Nordicists in Southern Europe refuse to let go, no matter what the science shows. So, as I said, believe what you want. It's irrelevant to me. This hobby is full of people who refuse to accept the science in the papers because it goes against long held beliefs.

Also, if the ancients were anything like their modern descendants in Southern Europe, the definition of "blonde" is different here than it is in the north. If you have light brown hair, you're a "bionda". The presence of platinum hair a la the Targaryens is unheard of once early childhood has passed.

The Yamnaya themselves were not light haired, but their derivates were clearly so starting with Corded Ware.

And as for "blonde" hair, most women just dye their hair anyhow. Natural platinum blonde hair is rare in adults. That "light brown" hair is matured blond hair.

 

[Jovialis]

Jovialis, you're conflating 40 different things there.

(1) Iron Age Spartans are Dorians who migrated from the north. These people were genetically originally closer to Illyrians. All Macedonians (archaic Dorians?) are identical to Illyrians so far.

(2) The whole point of that Greek paper was to show that Greeks had mercenaries. You had people from the Baltic, Northern Illyria and even the Caucauses. How are you using that as a representation for what Greeks were?

The people of Attic/Ionic Greece were Aegean people, very similar to Minoans and Anatolians.

1) What would it matter, the Myceneans are a 1:10 ratio of Yamnaya + Minoan. So it is not like they don't have "Northern" ancestry. The PCA shows all of the Ancient Greeks represented are similar to the LBA Mycenaeans, other than the Neolithic people.

2) There are NON-Mercenary Ancient Greeks with light features in the chart, you probably don't even have the information at hand to decern that.

 

[Angela]

The paper about Himera had the Himera 1 group modelled as 80% Greece_LBA and 20% Balkan_IA (or BA, I can't recall now), because I presume that "Greece_LBA" is the average of the various Mycenaean samples ranging from around 0% to around 20% (and in some a bit more) steppe, at around 10%; so in order to get from 10% to 18% steppe, the 20% Balkan is needed. This is the mathematical model, but I think that the historical happening that it suggests, that is a migration from the Balkan, is not very likely because there is no evidence of such a massive migration into Greece from outside, since the Dorian invasions (I believe they happened, but it is true that it is not a settled question and anyway they would have been "Intra-greek") started from north Greece and must have been at any rate archaeologically indistinguishable from other Greeks.
If that is the case, then it would mean that north Greece remained more Logkas-like ( supposing that Logkas-like people were the fist proto-greek speakers, which I think is very likely) whereas in south Greece they mingled to a great extent with the previous inhabitants, becoming Mycenaean-like, but such a scenario is very unlikely, verging on the impossible since Thracians further north were Mycenaean-like (though with a very tiny bit of more steppe ancestry), and the leaked PCA from the Biomuse project has samples from today Greek Macedonia and they look identical to other Greeks.
What it means, in my opinion, is that the genesis of the Mycenaean genetic profile happened in north Greece, when Logkas-like people mixed to a great extent with people that mustn't have been much different from the ones further south in Greece, and then such a people migrated further south largely displacing the people that kept living there, and it would explain why the people living in south Greece were virtually identical to those further north in Greece (and Mycenaean society and culture would develop in the Peloponnese, though their genetic profile in my scenario would have formed largely in north Greece).
As for the presence of Minoan-like people in Mycenaean nobles, I think that it is compatible with my scenario and what so far we know about indo-european practices: often the migrations of indo-european speakers brought about significant demographic turn overs, but we know that it is likely that they also incorporated some originally non IE individuals into their group, likely local nobles (also it would explain why there were other haplogroups apart from R1b linked to IE speakers).
In other words, Minoan-like individuals in the Mycenaean nobility are explained by the incorporation of previous noble families in the Mycenaean society, whereas most of the previous populace didn't have such luck and found themselves in a subordinate position ( Compared to the nordicist position, it would be a reversal of their expectations with some people with basically no steppe ancestry ruling over people with higher steppe ancestry at around 15-20%).
That is what I think in order to explain why very likely classical Greeks at himera need a 20% Balkan ancestry compared to Greece_LBA average, though, to be perfectly clear, it is natural to expect that the likely minor steppe gradient from north to south Greece was due to more ancestry in the south stemming from the previous inhabitants, but my scenario is to imagine why such difference was very minor; maybe I am wrong and central/north Greeks were significantly more steppe heavy, but it would be then hard to imagine how Thracians would end up being similar to Mycenaeans and southern Greeks.

Leopoldo, I have to be honest and say I'm not following you here.

I'm perfectly willing to accept that I'm interpreting this incorrectly, but I took from the paper that only "some" of the Himera 1 group are part of the main genetic cluster, ie the group clustering with LBA Greece.
So, I don't see how the entire Himera 1 group can be used to represent Classical Era Greeks.


"Seven of the 16 soldiers of the 480 BCE battle (Sicily_Himera_480BCE_1) and all 5 of the soldiers of the 409 BCE battle (Sicily_Himera_409BCE) are part of this main genetic cluster. Using the qpWave/qpAdm framework, we can model each of the soldiers in these two groups as deriving their ancestry either 100% from a group related to Greece_LBA or from an admixture between a Sicilian LBA or IA source and an Aegean-related source in varying proportions (SI Appendix, Tables S16 and S17), suggesting that many soldiers (and all studied from the 409 BCE battle) were plausibly the descendants of the Greek colonizers of Sicily and that intermarriage between Greeks and Sicilian locals was practiced (63)"

So, I don't see how the entire Himera 1 group can be used to represent Classical Era Greeks who would have 25% steppe ancestry. If anything it would indicate that the Classical Era Greeks derived 100% of their ancestry from a group related to Greece LBA.

 

[Angela]

The Yamnaya themselves were not light haired, but their derivates were clearly so starting with Corded Ware.

And as for "blonde" hair, most women just dye their hair anyhow. Natural platinum blonde hair is rare in adults. That "light brown" hair is matured blond hair.

What do you know? You're right as far as the first bolded comment is concerned.

You're not correct as far as the second comment is concerned. Many people have hair which is very pale in childhood and then darkens to light brown. My father had hair like that.

However, in some cases, actual blonde hair continues into adulthood, even, in isolated circumstances, in Southern Europe, although perhaps not in Albania.

 

[Angela]

Jovialis, you're conflating 40 different things there.

(1) Iron Age Spartans are Dorians who migrated from the north. These people were genetically originally closer to Illyrians. All Macedonians (archaic Dorians?) are identical to Illyrians so far.

(2) The whole point of that Greek paper was to show that Greeks had mercenaries. You had people from the Baltic, Northern Illyria and even the Caucauses. How are you using that as a representation for what Greeks were?

The people of Attic/Ionic Greece were Aegean people, very similar to Minoans and Anatolians.

I think perhaps you should read more carefully. Get it now?

"Most Himerans associated with the battles can be found clustering on the PCA closely with individuals from the Greece_LBA, consistent with a major contribution of individuals of primarily Greek ancestry in the Himeran forces and substantial genetic continuity between the LBA period in Greece and fifth-century-BCE Greek colonies in Sicily. These soldiers with at least some Greek ancestry could have been inhabitants of the colony or supporting armies from other colonies, such as Syracuse."


As for Dorians, I'd love to see this "Dorian" genome you presumably have somewhere so we too can see what it's like.

 

[eupator]

Thrace is bordering Anatolia. There could have been constant migration from Anatolia into Thrace. Resulting to Mycenaean-like Thracians.

Yes, and Thracians were allies to Persians who also were present in both Thrace and Macedonia in a relative period (Macedonians were also allies to Persians against the southern Greek city states initially).

 

[enter_tain]

1) What would it matter, the Myceneans are a 1:10 ratio of Yamnaya + Minoan. So it is not like they don't have "Northern" ancestry. The PCA shows all of the Ancient Greeks represented are similar to the LBA Mycenaeans, other than the Neolithic people.

2) There are NON-Mercenary Ancient Greeks with light features in the chart, you probably don't even have the information at hand to decern that.

Don't group all Hellenoid people under the same umbrella. It's like comparing northern Russians to Bulgarians. They're both Slavic, but you will see major differences in average phenotype.

Epirotes, Dorians, Macedonians and maybe Aeolians will look more Balkanic/Dinaric. Attic/Ionic Greeks will look Middle Eastern. These are ancient Macedonians.

Almost all of them have red or light brown hair.

 

[enter_tain]

However, in some cases, actual blonde hair continues into adulthood, even, in isolated circumstances, in Southern Europe, although perhaps not in Albania.

There's always examples of anything. The vast majority of blonde hair turns brown in adulthood. It doesn't matter where.

So it's not wrong to call even light brown hair "blond", because it's literally a mixture of blond pigments with black. It's just matured.

 

[Francesco]

Don't group all Hellenoid people under the same umbrella. It's like comparing northern Russians to Bulgarians. They're both Slavic, but you will see major differences in average phenotype.

Epirotes, Dorians, Macedonians and maybe Aeolians will look more Balkanic/Dinaric. Attic/Ionic Greeks will look Middle Eastern. These are ancient Macedonians.

Almost all of them have red or light brown hair.

The published sample of Bronze age and Iron Age Aegean population show some degree of variation, but there is litterally zero evidence of dorian and eolian greeks being differentiated, even from a phenotypical standpoint, from ionic and attic Greeks, or of the latter looking like middle easterns!

Nor I can understand how those specific mosaics, showing people with brown and blonde hair (wich were not so uncommon even in the aegean region, as others have already pointed out), should prove in any way some kind of difference between doric and ionic greeks.

I don't want to sound rude, but I just don't think, at least based on the evidences at our disposal, that one should expect huge differences between classical era greeks, let alone attic and ionian greeks looking like middle eastern.

 

[Pax Augusta]

Don't group all Hellenoid people under the same umbrella. It's like comparing northern Russians to Bulgarians. They're both Slavic, but you will see major differences in average phenotype.

Epirotes, Dorians, Macedonians and maybe Aeolians will look more Balkanic/Dinaric. Attic/Ionic Greeks will look Middle Eastern. These are ancient Macedonians.

Almost all of them have red or light brown hair.

With the advent of Hellenism, painting style and taste changed. Comparisons with earlier paintings cannot be made, precisely because they were based on different pictorial and artistic conceptions (for centuries before, a tendentially oriental taste had dominated, the influence of which came from the eastern Mediterranean). With Hellenism, new aesthetic canons were established. To read ethnic and anthropological references into these new aesthetic canons is a huge mistake, as it is in the previous ones.

 

[Pax Augusta]

Oh, so you are the expert, please do tell.

Avoid throwing the discussion onto a personal level, and lower these arrogant tones. Is that clear to you?

I have read enough books by scholars dealing with Herodotus, which was not even completely Greek, to know that what he writes about ethnicities reflects just the mentality of his time. Reading Herodotus' texts as if they were written today is quite a mistake.

 

[Anfänger]

I'm afraid I disagree with you on that Angela. Everything I wrote here is backed up by studies and by geneticists such as Reich, Hanel and Carlberg, Mathieson who suggest exactly what I wrote here Steppe folks brought genes that lighten the hair and skin to Europe. This has nothing to do with being Northern European or going by BELIEVE or wishful thinking. Anyway, I ask you politely to consider that I'm not making stuff up but going by genetic papers as I understand them. Here a quote from Hanel and Carlberg (2020) paper.





Besides, it doesn't really matter that Steppe people were not mostly blond they carried the genes for blondism and pale skin, and likely increased the frequency of blondism in Europeans. Anatolian farmers were also not particularly blond or pale and blue-eyed either.

You're probably talking about the KITLG-gene. Angela is right in saying that the Yamnaya people were dark haired and dark eyed but with relatively light skin. Some of the Yamnaya carried the KITLG-gene BUT that doesn't mean that they had blonde or light hair. If you read the original paper concerning the KITLG you'll see that the frequency of that gene in Europe is low, much lower than actual blonde hair.

See:



https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4704868/

It doesn't even reach 1/3 in Northern Europe. The truth is that you don't need the KITLG-gene to have actual blonde hair, there are much more genes involved for blonde hair. For example, you can have the KITLG-gene but dark hair in reality. Keep in mind the farmers of Central Europe were blonde and blue eyed while the steppe people were dark haired and dark eyed, so we do know where light features in Northern Europeans come from, it's no mystery anymore. Corded ware had some light haired individuals but corded ware is of course admixed with Central European farmers. Then there is selection in northern europe for light hair, blue eyes and light skin and by the Iron Age most Northern Europeans have a phenotype that is close to the modern phenotype.

A good summary about the KITLG-gene:
https://www.kqed.org/science/18076/...0yfIJA3DQKLYv6d8XfOtqqAdHM6T3MlTmbDsg1qn1cy-Q

 

[Jovialis]

Did you people know lions had blue hair in the late bronze age?

 

[Francesco]

Did you people know lions had blue hair in the late bronze age?

They probably mixed with slave levantine lions during the imperial era

 

[real expert]

@Angela

To avoid unnecessary arguing about things with you and misunderstanding, I'm pointing out these two papers that were dropped in Sept 2022. Btw, it seems to me that after plenty of tedious and irritating discussions with some members here, you've run out of patience.

Likewise, European hunter gatherers are genetically predicted to have dark skin pigmentation and dark brown hair 9,10,17,18,115–118, and indeed we see that the WHG, EHG and CHG components contributed to these phenotypes in present-day individuals whereas the Yamnaya and Anatolian farmer ancestry contributed to light brown/blonde hair pigmentation (Supplementary Note 2g). Interestingly, loci associated with overdispersed mood-related polygenic phenotypes recorded among the UK Biobank individuals (like increased anxiety, guilty feelings, and irritability) showed an overrepresentation of the Anatolian farmer ancestry component; and the WHG component showed a strikingly high contribution to traits related to diabetes. We also found that the ApoE4 effect allele (increased risk for Alzheimer's disease) is preferentially found on a WHG/EHG haplotypic background, suggesting it likely was brought to western Europe by early huntergatherers (Supplementary Note 2g). This is in line with the present-day European distribution of this allele, which is highest in north-eastern Europe, where the proportion of these ancestries are higher than in other regions of the continent 119.

pdf p. 13
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.09.22.509027v1.full.pdf+html

According to the authors of the paper "HG admixture facilitated natural selection in Neolithic Europeans.", not only ANF and Steppe ancestry but even the dark-skinned WHGs had alleles associated with lightening of European skin color.

We see significant evidence of correlation between trait scores and LAD in Skin Colour (p = 3e-4 161 ), consistent with 162 the adaptive admixture around SLC24A5. Indeed, this signal is solely driven by two 163 loci, with a HERC2 variant with a skew towards the Mesolithic (Z=1.7) also 164 contributing to a lighter level of skin pigmentation alongside SLC24A5. Without these 165 two loci, there is no significant evidence of polygenic selection (P = 0.58). We also 166 observe a weaker but significant correlation for hip size (Figure 3, Supplementary 167 Figure 7). 168 169 The Neolithic transition brought about drastic changes in demography, culture and 170 diet, as well exposure to novel pathogens and increased potential of zoonotic 171 disease. In admixed middle Neolithic individuals, we found excess Neolithic farmer 172 ancestry at the pigmentation locus SLC24A5 and excess Mesolithic hunter-gatherer 173 ancestry at the MHC immunity locus. Previous studies also found evidence of natural perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY 4.0 International license. preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.09.05.506481; this version posted September 6, 2022. The copyright holder for this 5 selection at SLC24A5 in European populations26,27 174 and showed that the allele was introduced into Europe in the Neolithic2,37,38 175 but our study now further demonstrates 176 that this resulted in a removal of hunter-gatherer ancestry across the wider locus. In 177 a similar but opposite process, the MHC locus has previously been demonstrated to have undergone selection in the ancestry of present-day Europe239 178 and specifically in Neolithic Europe18 179 . Here, we obtain further robust results for selection at the MHC 180 locus corrected for multiple testing, and demonstrate that this process specifically 181 increased hunter-gatherer ancestry at the locus. 182 183In contrast to SLC24A5, the second high-effect, 184 displays an excess of Mesolithic ancestry (+17.23%, |Z| = ~3.11). Together with the 185 third high-effect pigmentation variant at SLC45A2, which arrived in Europe via later 186 expansions from the steppe, selection on pigmentation in Europe thus targeted variants from each of the three major ancestral populations9 187 . This highlights the 188 prominent role of admixture in the evolution of skin pigmentation in Western Eurasia.....

..

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.09.05.506481v1.full.pdf+html
pdf p.5

 

[real expert]

You're probably talking about the KITLG-gene. Angela is right in saying that the Yamnaya people were dark haired and dark eyed but with relatively light skin. Some of the Yamnaya carried the KITLG-gene BUT that doesn't mean that they had blonde or light hair. If you read the original paper concerning the KITLG you'll see that the frequency of that gene in Europe is low, much lower than actual blonde hair.

See:

View attachment 13634

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4704868/

It doesn't even reach 1/3 in Northern Europe. The truth is that you don't need the KITLG-gene to have actual blonde hair, there are much more genes involved for blonde hair. For example, you can have the KITLG-gene but dark hair in reality. Keep in mind the farmers of Central Europe were blonde and blue eyed while the steppe people were dark haired and dark eyed, so we do know where light features in Northern Europeans come from, it's no mystery anymore. Corded ware had some light haired individuals but corded ware is of course admixed with Central European farmers. Then there is selection in northern europe for light hair, blue eyes and light skin and by the Iron Age most Northern Europeans have a phenotype that is close to the modern phenotype.

A good summary about the KITLG-gene:
https://www.kqed.org/science/18076/...0yfIJA3DQKLYv6d8XfOtqqAdHM6T3MlTmbDsg1qn1cy-Q

You probably missed my other comment, I didn't argue that the Yamanya folks were all blondies with blue eyes. Here's the thing, not me but the authors of different papers clearly state that Steppe people introduced the blond hair genes to Europeans. Thus, not only Early European Farmers, namely the Funnelbeaker and Globular Amphora people were responsible for blond hair but Steppe populations, too.

Anyway, the researchers from the Hanel &Carlberg paper also pointed out "that the massive spread of Yamnaya pastoralists likely caused the rapid selective sweep in European populations towards light skin and hair."

 

[Anfänger]

You probably missed my other comment, I didn't argue that the Yamanya folks were all blondies with blue eyes. Here's the thing, not me but the authors of different papers clearly state that Steppe people introduced the blond hair genes to Europeans. Thus, not only Early European Farmers, namely the Funnelbeaker and Globular Amphora people were responsible for blond hair but Steppe populations, too.
Anyway, the researchers from the Hanel &Carlberg paper also pointed out "that the massive spread of Yamnaya pastoralists likely caused the rapid selective sweep in European populations towards light skin and hair."

My main argument was that there is MORE than one gene responsible for blonde hair. The KITLG-gene is just one of them. Some steppe people carried that gene but these individuals didn’t have blonde hair but dark hair because like I already said there are more genes involved for light hair. You just have to look at the frequency of that gene in Europe to see that it is impossible that steppe people brought blonde hair to Europe.

The Hanel&Carlberg study isn’t flawless. IMO, they overestimated the role of the steppe people for hair lighting. It‘s pretty obvious now, that steppe people brought only one of the genes responsible for blonde hair and that they themselves were dark haired.

 

[real expert]

As for Achilles being blonde. Obvisouly I didn't mean Swedish blonde. But rather a rate of blondism which can be described as brown haired by many Europeans today. Enough difference compared to the majority of Mycenaean Greeks for Homer to distinguish him in such a way.

Well, in Homeros' Iliad, Achilles’ hair is twice described by the adjective ξανθός / xanthos. The definition of the word ξᾰνθός • (xanthós) m (feminine ξᾰνθή, neuter ξᾰνθόν); first/second declension 1. yellow (of various shades), golden 2. fair, blond, flaxen, tawny, a golden-red fawn (of hair).

In Hyginus' Fabulae it is said that Achilles' mother sent him to the island of Scyros, to hide him from the Achaeans who seeked his help in the Trojan war that was about to start. He disguised him as girl named Pyrrha (Πύρρα). This name also indicates that Achilles was blond or somewhat red-haired, since pyrrhos (πυρρός) means "flame-coloured" or "yellowish-red". Moreover, in Greco-Roman mosaics, he was depicted with reddish to red-blond hair.

On Reddit, Quora and other forums people argue that "xanthos" in the Ancient Greek context means any hair color lighter than jet black or dark brown, thus not really blond. I've never bought that argument since in some cases xanthos very likely meant exactly that- blond or reddish blond. The Ancient Greeks however made clear that they are rather swarthy folks who had some fair people among them.

From a historical standpoint casting an Anglo-American, such as Brad Pitt, to portray the Greek hero Achilles isn't accurate. But I must admit that when it comes to the visual aspect Brad Pitt was the PERFECT Achilles. And although Pitt wasn't a perfect choice ethnically speaking, hiring him was not that bad either. Bottom line, Brad Pitt is closer to what Achilles would've looked like in the imagination of the Ancient Greeks than let's say BBC Achilles David Gyasi.

 

[Jovialis]

They probably mixed with slave levantine lions during the imperial era

We need to check the Jewish lion y-DNA to confirm.