Copper & Bronze Age Steppe people (PIE) had mixed light and dark pigmentation

Just for clarification, as Nobody 1 pointed out, the light skin pigmentation snp for which Stuttgart (and Oetzi) tested positive and for which Loschbour and La Brana, and Malta, tested negative, and which has reached fixation in Europe, is SLC 24A5, not the SLC42A5 which was tested in this paper. SLC42A5 has not quite reached fixation, although it's close...97% in the last study I saw.

Also, neither SLC24A5 nor SLC42A5 have anything to do with fair skin in East Asians. They have totally different color draining snps.

This is the global distribution of SLC24A5:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Ala111Thr_allele_frequency_distribution0.png

This is the global distribution of many of these snps from the Norton et al 2007 paper; 374G is SLC42A5.
http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/24/3/710/F3.expansion.html

Global maps for the distribution of some of these eye color snps are here:
http://scienceblogs.com/gnxp/2009/07/20/japanese-are-brown-eyed-a-bit/

This is a well known table from Norton et al of some color draining snps in Hap Map populations, including TYR. Go to Supplementary Table 2.

That said, I don't see why the mechanism would have been any different, i.e. neolithic diet combined with selection in areas with less sunlight.

Anyway, as to these pigmentation snps, I never expected people with high ANE (Malta like) levels who came late to agriculture to be predominantly very light skinned. (If indeed we propose that ANE did arrive with the "Indo-Europeans"? After all, if it didn't come with them, with whom would it have arrived, and when? And the popular theory is still that the "Indo-Europeans" were Yamnaya people who came up the Danube, into Central Europe, and then spread out from there? )

So, what light pigmentation snps they would have picked up would have come from farmers.

In terms of the Eurogenes quote, maybe someone can help me out here, because it doesn't make much sense to me. Why would populations east of eastern Europe, which would presumably be more hunter-gatherer, more ANE, be lighter skinned? Also, I don't understand the reference to Kurgan peoples in southern Siberia. This table is from Jean Manco's Ancestral Journeys...the samples that carry light pigmentation genes are from 1800 B.C. Are there others of which I'm not aware?
http://www.ancestraljourneys.org/autosomaladna.shtml

Also, forgive me if I'm off base here, as this isn't a topic that I've spent much time on, but isn't the prevailing view among the hobbyists that Andronovo is a descendant culture of Yamnaya? That's certainly the point of view, or used to be, anyway, of the Eurogenes blogger. The Yamnaya samples in this current paper date to between 3000 to 2500 BC. So, wouldn't it make sense if Andronovo descends from Yamnaya, that people from the "lighter" of these two groups, the Yamnaya group, who moved east to Andronovo might, more than a thousand years later, due to selection, be 60% "light"?

I hate to cite Wiki, but I'm pressed for time:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karasuk_culture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andronovo_culture


As to why mtDNA V is proving scarce in ancient dna samples, I think that contrary to what was earlier believed, mtDNA V is relatively young, as per Behar et al.

It's interesting that mtDNA U4, which is such a northeastern European marker, is only present, and at high numbers, in the Catacombe culture, which is the "darker" of the two, at least going by these samples.
 
I thought that the selection for skin pigmentation to which the authors were referring had to do with selection for fitness among farming populations in low sunlight areas. If scientists are talking about other kinds of selection, they usally are specific about it. The correlation with solar radiation levels is quite extraordinary, I think.
pvgis_Europe-solar_opt_presentation_web.jpg


How blonde hair could be of benefit in terms of fitness I don't know. As to blue eyes, I don't know that I'm willing to accept the judgement of one paper that they might not have been of benefit in snow and ice conditions. After all, all of the WHGs so far have had them.

One thing I do know is that Mediterranean peoples didn't always find blue eyes attractive. Ancient amulets against the evil eye look like this:

1885.3.4.jpg


People still wear them.
evil_eye_pendant_ep1156_2.jpg
 
Just wondering what are the mutations associated with purple eyes
and dark purple pupils
 
Goga said:
Once again according to me you're misinterpreting some facts. Who's saying that those Bronze Age Steppe people were Proto-Indo-European at the first place and are not just Indo-Europized natives? If original R1b came from the Eastern Anatolia they could have Indo-Europized the natives of the Steppes. If that was the case you can also count on Y-DNA hg. J2a. Once again you're ignoring this haplogroup in your PIE story. According to me the Maykop folks Indo-Europized the Yamna folks and then all other Pontic-Caspian Steppes natives. It has been proven that the Maykop folks came from Northwest Iranian Plateau. So the ORIGINAL Maykop folks were according to me R1b & J2a. So, original PIE that Indo-Europized peoples of the Steppes belonged mostly to R1b & J2a! J2a was a very imporant haplogroup among the Maykop folks, maybe part of their elite!
Click to expand...

'It has been proven that the Maykop folks came from Northwest Iranian Plateau.'
Where did you get this information? What proof do you have?
IMO the originals Pontic Steppe population was R1a and R1b came from the Northwest Iranian Plateau. The Maykop were mainly G2a and they came from the Balkans/Carpaths.
 
Angela said:
One thing I do know is that Mediterranean peoples didn't always find blue eyes attractive. Ancient amulets against the evil eye look like this:

1885.3.4.jpg


People still wear them.
evil_eye_pendant_ep1156_2.jpg
Click to expand...

it's not that they were afraid of the evil eye, the evil eye was protecting them and threatening their ennemies

trireme1.jpg
 
 
Aberdeen said:
Here's a link to an abstract of a paper suggesting that the move towards pale skin in Europeans during the last 5000 years is more a result of selection than migration.

www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/03/05/1316513111

I don't know how sound the conclusions are, or whether this paper illuminates the issue or whether it just confuses things. Here's a copy of the abstract.

"Pigmentation is a polygenic trait encompassing some of the most visible phenotypic variation observed in humans. Here we present direct estimates of selection acting on functional alleles in three key genes known to be involved in human pigmentation pathways—HERC2, SLC45A2, and TYR—using allele frequency estimates from Eneolithic, Bronze Age, and modern Eastern European samples and forward simulations. Neutrality was overwhelmingly rejected for all alleles studied, with point estimates of selection ranging from around 2–10% per generation. Our results provide direct evidence that strong selection favoring lighter skin, hair, and eye pigmentation has been operating in European populations over the last 5,000 y."
Click to expand...

But that's the same paper as I posted about in this thread...
 
Alan said:
Considering the exclusive high caste distribution of J2a in South Asia and it's general association (after R1 and R2) of it with Indo-Iranic folks, it probably was, together with J2b, part of the Indo European movement too.
Click to expand...

I very much doubt it. J2a could have been picked up by the Indo-Aryans in southern Central Asia (Bactria, Margiana) before entering the Indian subcontinent. But J2a isn't found at comparably high levels proportionally to R1a and R1b in North Asia or most of northern and western Europe. For example in Denmark, Sweden, Belarus and Russia there is only about 2.5% of J2 and half of it J2b2. In Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Iceland there is close to 0% of J2. I don't see how J2 could have been a significant lineage of the PIE Steppe people.
 
You're talking about the most peripheral parts of Europe where Indo-Europeans arrived pretty late and already evolved into somehow different people. The places you're talking about are NOT really traditional Kurgan areas, right!? Indo-Europeans migrated to the peripheral parts of Europe in STAGES. Before that they lived in Central Europe, where they gained more other haplogroups. In Ukraine and Northern Caucasus around the places where the Maykop culture and proto-Yamna was there's a lot J2a. Also J2a is arguably the most important haplogroup in the northern Middle East. It was part of all civilizations in that part of the world. If R1b is also from the Middle East how is it then possible that they haven't picked up the most important haplogroup on their way to the Maytkop/the Steppes? Not very logical and doesn't make any sense to me!
 
Goga said:
You're talking about the most peripheral parts of Europe where Indo-Europeans arrived pretty late and already evolved into somehow different people. The places you're talking about are NOT really traditional Kurgan areas, right!? Indo-Europeans migrated to the peripheral parts of Europe in STAGES. Before that they lived in Central Europe, where they gained more other haplogroups. In Ukraine and Northern Caucasus around the places where the Maykop culture and proto-Yamna was there's a lot J2a. Also J2a is arguably the most important haplogroup in the northern Middle East. It was part of all civilizations in that part of the world. If R1b is also from the Middle East how is it then possible that they haven't picked up the most important haplogroup on their way to the Maytkop/the Steppes? Not very logical and doesn't make any sense to me!
Click to expand...

How are Russia and Belarus peripheral parts of the Steppe culture where PIE arrived very late ?
 
bicicleur said:
'It has been proven that the Maykop folks came from Northwest Iranian Plateau.'
Where did you get this information? What proof do you have?
IMO the originals Pontic Steppe population was R1a and R1b came from the Northwest Iranian Plateau. The Maykop were mainly G2a and they came from the Balkans/Carpaths.
Click to expand...

There was once a study which showed a link between Southwest of the Caspian and Maykop.
 
Maciamo said:
I very much doubt it. J2a could have been picked up by the Indo-Aryans in southern Central Asia (Bactria, Margiana) before entering the Indian subcontinent. But J2a isn't found at comparably high levels proportionally to R1a and R1b in North Asia or most of northern and western Europe. For example in Denmark, Sweden, Belarus and Russia there is only about 2.5% of J2 and half of it J2b2. In Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Iceland there is close to 0% of J2. I don't see how J2 could have been a significant lineage of the PIE Steppe people.
Click to expand...

Well for now there isn't any prove but I think there are in general only three real explanations for the spread of J2a.

1. either with Indo Europeans.
2. Or with late Bronze and Iron Age cultures. (Etruscans, Minoans etc.)
3. Or with both scenarios.
 
Alan said:
Exactly, As we know ANE was partly ancestral to Gedrosia-Caucasus/North Euro/Amerindian/ASI. So what if the ANE component among the Indo Europeans was more "Gedrosia_Caucasus like" (note the "like", because Caucasus_Gedrosia as component arose with farmer adfmixture) earlier and drifted through time into a "North European like" component.
Click to expand...

Whereas this drift was caused by WHG and probably again once more by ANE admixture (ANE-WHG is a spectrum). The onset of this admixture is evidenced by the significant percentage of mesolithic mtDNA lineages like U5a, U4 and even U5b. I think these IEans became quite similar to modern europeans over time.
 
bicicleur said:
it's not that they were afraid of the evil eye, the evil eye was protecting them and threatening their ennemies

View attachment 6288
Click to expand...

You have this the wrong way around. The whole point is that people are afraid of the effects of the evil eye, or of people who have the power of the evil eye more precisely, and so therefore they wear an amulet shaped and colored like it to ward off its evil...to stare back at it, sort of like a boomerang effect.

This is the Wiki article on it...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_eye#cite_note-1

"The evil eye is a malevolent look that many cultures believe able to cause injury or misfortune for the person at whom it is directed for reasons of envy or dislike. Talismans created to protect against the evil eye are also frequently called "evil eyes."

The talismans work through what is called sympathetic magic.

The "blue eye" is only one of the talismans against it...southern Italians still wear the "mano cornuto" for example, related to the hamsa hand.

As to the association of the evil eye with blue eyes...
Cora Lynn Daniels, The Encyclopedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences, page 1273:
"The evil eye is supposed to be caused by a certain potent liquid which is more common in blue eyes than in other eyes. It may be in the eye of a friend as well as an enemy, and may be cast unconsciously."

The world has changed...because of the media, because for the last couple of hundred years the dominant world powers have been light haired and eyed, and yet these beliefs do linger on. As a young girl, I was told by a very old Neapolitan woman to wear an amulet, especially if I was going to be around a lot of light eyed people. Ironically, she had aqua blue eyes herself.
grin.png


The all seeing eye is a different although related concept solely due, I think, to the fact that the eye was always associated with power.
 
I have looked through the sources again;

Loschbour [Mesolithic Hunter-Gatherer]: rs16891982 (C/C) dark-skin / rs1426654 (G/G) dark-skin
Stuttgart [Neolithic Farmer]: rs16891982 (C/C) dark-skin / rs1426654 (A/A) light-skin

Neither in Mesolithic nor in Neolithic Europe was rs16891982 tested to be G/G light-skin;
Only in the ancient (Yamna/Cat1) samples from the steppes there are 7 corpses with rs16891982 G/G; This could mean that neither the Mesolithic nor the Neolithic but indeed the Indo-Europeans spread the rs16891982 G/G light-skin mutation;With theNeolithic previously only introducing the rs1426654 A/A light-skin mutation (as attested with both Ötziand Stuttgart having it); Unfortunately the study does not also include results (prob. no testing) of the corpses for rs1426654; Maybe the corpses were also all rs1426654 A/A just like the Neolithic Europeans i.e. akin/identical to Neolithic folks;

What i want to say is that what is known is that;
Mesolithic rs16891982 (C/C) / rs1426654 (G/G)
Neolithic rs16891982 (C/C) / rs1426654 (A/A)
Steppes (Indo-European) rs16891982 (G/G) ~40% of cases / rs1426654 not tested (my guess A/A)
Steppes (Indo-European) rs16891982 (C/C-C/G) ~60% of cases / rs1426654 not tested (my guess A/A)
 
Maciamo said:
How are Russia and Belarus peripheral parts of the Steppe culture where PIE arrived very late ?
Click to expand...
Actually the history is teaching us that pre-Slavic people were very late Indo-Europized in Northeastern Europe...
 
Nobody1 said:
I have looked through the sources again;

Loschbour [Mesolithic Hunter-Gatherer]: rs16891982 (C/C) dark-skin / rs1426654 (G/G) dark-skin
Stuttgart [Neolithic Farmer]: rs16891982 (C/C) dark-skin / rs1426654 (A/A) light-skin

Neither in Mesolithic nor in Neolithic Europe was rs16891982 tested to be G/G light-skin;
Only in the ancient (Yamna/Cat1) samples from the steppes there are 7 corpses with rs16891982 G/G; This could mean that neither the Mesolithic nor the Neolithic but indeed the Indo-Europeans spread the rs16891982 G/G light-skin mutation;With theNeolithic previously only introducing the rs1426654 A/A light-skin mutation (as attested with both Ötziand Stuttgart having it); Unfortunately the study does not also include results (prob. no testing) of the corpses for rs1426654; Maybe the corpses were also all rs1426654 A/A just like the Neolithic Europeans i.e. akin/identical to Neolithic folks;

What i want to say is that what is known is that;
Mesolithic rs16891982 (C/C) / rs1426654 (G/G)
Neolithic rs16891982 (C/C) / rs1426654 (A/A)
Steppes (Indo-European) rs16891982 (G/G) ~40% of cases / rs1426654 not tested (my guess A/A)
Steppes (Indo-European) rs16891982 (C/C-C/G) ~60% of cases / rs1426654 not tested (my guess A/A)
Click to expand...

I would agree that they were probably AA for rs1426654. (Why on earth didn't they test for it?)

The question remains...how did the steppe peoples get the rs16891982 "G" mutation, or more precisely, from whom and when? I don't see anything that would suggest the mechanism was different, and so it must have entered the steppe with agriculturalists. From Maykop? From the Balkan "Old Europeans"?

The only way we'll know is from ancient DNA samples from those areas.
 
Angela said:
From the Balkan "Old Europeans"?

The only way we'll know is from ancient DNA samples from those areas.
Click to expand...
Could be from Balkans but maybe also from the Neolithic Agriculturalists of Anatolia (they're closer to the Caucasus).
 
The main point of the Wilde paper argues for "rapid selection" of these complexion genes. (Which follows on the heels of a paper batting down the 'rapid selection' of lactase persistance rates in modern Europeans)

Of course, this rapid selection simply doesn't jive with the historical record and mathematically doens't work.

Whether it's artistic depictions of the Tassili Ladies, Thracians, Gutians, Tocharians...Or actual bodies of "Ginger" Naqada II, Scytho-Tocharians, Ramses II, Steppe Scythians and Bog People of the Chalcolithic/Bronze Age...

It is very clear that fixation, as mentioned above, was already present in a donor population at least 5000 years ago. As one example, the Tassili ladies (2900 B.C.) aren't one white woman and four brown ladies. They are quite clearly uniformly lucoderm and generally rufous. Same true for the Tarim Mummies. Same true for the bog bodies who are mostly red heads.

So rather than beginning with an arbitrary starting point from which rapid selection started and trying to crunch numbers to make selection work, that starting point couldn't happen at any point since at least the mid-Neolithic since certain populations are already bleach white by the Chalcolithic (Tassili ladies again).

If Chalcolithic Steppe people were significantly darker and brown eyed than the modern inhabitants, then maybe that should be a hint!

In other words, the Pontic Steppe was colonized by people who already, uniformly had these traits.
 
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